Today is green project day at the DJC because there’s just so much to report. It’s also Earth Day and I meant to write a post about the silly earth themed product advertisements I got in my inbox, but that will just have to wait until later, while we get to what you really love…. projects!

In fact there’s so much to cover, it will be written in two posts: this one and another following it.

First we’ve got the winning project called Eco-Laboratory from the Cascadia Region Emerging Green Builder program’s Natural Talent Design Competition. The competition was open to students or anyone in their job less than five years. This year, it asked entrants to design a living building (for more on that, click here).

The winning entry was a team from Seattle’s Weber Thompson. Team members were Brian Geller, Myer Harrell, Chris Dukehart and Dan Albert. The entry, which is purely theoretical and will not be built (at least in the near future), was sited next to the 7,200-square-foot p-patch in Belltown at the corner of Elliott Avenue and Vine St.

The team used what was already on site, from the garden, to a high homeless population, to an active community, to inspire the design of the building. Judges liked that and thought it truly incorporated the idea behind a living building.

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Dear reader, it is time to put your analytical (or more likely guessing) powers to the test: what exactly is it you see in the photo to the left?

If you said a mini-mansion, most likely inhabited by a couple or prim family of four, you are dead wrong. Instead, it’s a model of dense urban living that houses ten people in eight bedrooms.

This is where I stayed last week while attending Cascadia’s Living Future Conference in Vancouver, B.C. It’s a charming space that a developer bought, renovated and began renting out to young professionals and students in January.

It’s bright, daylit, airy and dense. It’s clean and well lit and is filled with amicable students and young professionals, including my sister. It’s within walking distance from a number of shops, bars and restaurants in a trendy family neighborhood. It’s a street away from a bus line and only a couple of the house’s inhabitants even have cars.

My only question? Why doesn’t this happen more.

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I must say, I have never been to a presentation where the first thing the speaker does is take his shirt off. I know I shouldn’t focus on this, but it’s true and definitely leaves an impression, especially when that speaker is Sim Van der Ryn, a leading pioneer in ecological design. 

Ryn took his shirt, a very nice red checked dress one, off to don the new t-shirt of the Living Future Conference, here in Vancouver, B.C. The shirt is charcoal and has a simple message on its front that says ‘living.’ 

Jason McLennan, CEO of Cascadia, introduced Ryn as the “father and grandfather of the green design movement.” To learn about the many things Ryn has done in his career, press here.

Ryn spoke about beauty, inspiration and design. Being a conference largely focused on sustainability, you’d expect him to address that topic. He did at the end of his talk in a way that might have shocked some in the audience as he announced that he did not like the term one bit.

“It’s there, we’re going to keep using it, but I don’t like it,” he said. “Part of it is wound up in the metrics… the reality is we don’t have the metrics to measure this stuff.”

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The first full day of Living Future is done and Paul Hawken’s vision of the future (see last post for that) has definitely permeated the conference. It seems everybody, in sessions or personal encounters, is repeating the main message: things are changing quick, we need to help facilitate that and we need to be prepared for a new world. I’m also meeting a lot more people from outside the Cascadia bioregion than I do at these events… people from California, Wisconsin. Interesting.

The conference itself seems very local. It’s exponentially less frenetic than Greenbuild and less straight-laced than Globe: people are having a good time batting around ideas here. (Though the scenary certainly helps. The Westin Bayshore is on a beautiful, open, sunshine-laden, waterside site).

Depending on the session, people also aren’t sugar coating their messages. Earlier today for example, Tracy Bowen of the Alice Ferguson Foundation in Maryland (doing the project discussed below) said she was surprised by how even the greenest people and teams in the construction industry aren’t integrated enough in their building work. “I think it’s really limited,” she said. “It’s boxy, it’s very linear. It’s just shocking to me.” (More on this topic later.)

Bowen spoke during a session on living buildings and the precautionary principal, featuring Sandy Wiggins of Consillance LLC in Philadelphia and immediate past chair of the USGBC. Wiggins spoke about the project, a future living building the foundation’s Maryland farm. He spoke like a virtual poet using phrases like “colorful cacophany of spring” and “children weaned on asphalt and blight.” Do phrases like this help draw you in or turn you off?

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Paul Hawken spoke last night at Living Future in Vancouver. He covered a wealth of topics from the future of buildings (self sustaining) to the purpose of nonprofits (to join together) to cities being the best birth control available. He also said he reeallly likes engineers.

But at its core, Hawken’s talk offered a central warning for those in the green building movement: get ready because things are going to change so quickly it will shock the world.

Hawken said we’re heading for a world where the price of everything will keep rising in a seemingly endless cycle. To get at oil and natural minerals, drills will dig deeper, which will use more energy, which will spread to cost hikes in basically everything including food. He calls it the “red queen dilemma.” It’s this price rise, he said, that will be the catalyst for the world changing the way it does things.

“I believe we have shifted from one regime to another. One that subsidized us and our lifestyle… to one that is going to radically change our relations to ourselves, sustainability, mini-mansions….”

That change will put designers, architects and developers that are already at the forefront of green building through practices like the living building (in its base definition a building that is self sustaining) in the spotlight, as all the world turns to them for advice and leadership.

But before you, green building professional, throw your hat in the air at all the new business you will retain, Hawken’s next sentence offered a warning. “I just want to caution you. I think your star may rise faster than you’d want it to… I’m not saying this to flatter you. I’m saying this to warn you.”

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Here I am at the Living Future Conference in Vancouver, B.C., straining my ears to hear all the cutting edge green building news you might be interested in.

Tonight, I heard Paul Hawken, guru of the green movement, speak about a number of things including the future of design, cities, people and the world. Aren’t you sad you missed it? If so, fear not, I’ll update you on his talk tomorrow morning. But now I need to plan my attack for the massive conference schedule that really goes into effect tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. Stay tuned for updates!

In the last year, I have attended both Globe2008, presented by the Globe Foundation, and Greenbuild, presented by the U.S. Green Building Council. Though both are international events billed as convergent conferences for business and sustainability, I have to say if there’s anyone keeping score, Globe is clearly the winner.

Point 1 - Media Room. As a member of the media it makes sense that I start in the obvious spot. Greenbuild had a small media room with three outlet connections and free WiFi. Globe had a spacious media room with multiple computers, outlets, Internet connections, refreshments and paid WiFi. I’ll take computers over free Internet any day.

Point 2 - Crowds. Both conferences featured long lines for registration, but only Greenbuild kept audience members waiting for hours in theirs. The Starbucks line in Chicago also took 30 minutes to get through, if you were lucky. The Starbucks line at Globe took 2 minutes. Greenbuild fed attendees lunch, which at times, took around an hour to serve. Globe made attendees buy their own, but took no time. Greenbuild was also so crowded at times, it was overpowering, though that energy did make certain events highly charged.

Point 3 - Attitude. In my November article here I report on a number of audience concerns including Greenbuild’s being too touchy-feely and commercialized. I heard none of this at Globe. Instead, I heard a business-focused way of addressing problems like planning for a different future, and keeping a business or government viable in a changing market. In short, Greenbuild celebrated success, Globe looked at what needs to be fixed.

Point 4 - Star headliners.The USGBC wins this one easily, with Bill Clinton and Paul Hawken as headlining acts. Globe had Gordon Campbell, the premier of British Columbia; Prince Philippe of Belgium; and a number of international ministers.

Like all events, there are some extenuating circumstances. Greenbuild was originally supposed to be in Los Angles and was switched a year before the date, to Chicago. I’m also guessing Greenbuild had a larger attendance, as it had 23,000 people and Globe won’t yet release attendance numbers. A Globe representative did confirm its attendence was well over 10,000. Globe also is a biennial conference, giving planners more time to nail down the details, while Greenbuild is every year.

Nevertheless, there are some lessons there on how to best manage a conference. Even self proscribed climate change skeptic Peter Foster of Ontario’s the Financial Post said it was well organized.

The interesting question will be to see how Living Future, the local Cascadia chapter of the USGBC’s annual conference, fares in Vancouver in a month. If it’s anything like last year’s inaugural conference, it will be less frenetic than Greenbuild and a bit more free than Globe. For that, we’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll cross my fingers if you do…..