When: Saturday, May 21, 2011
Where: 15 Court Street (formerly Heart & Soul Fitness)
Cost: FREE

Schedule of Events

9:30 a.m. Will Schweinle
Restoring and working with woodworking planes. A demonstration of the restoration process, and a chance to test-drive some of Will's hot rods.

10:30 a.m. Steve Howe, Jim Wilson, & John Erikson
Inspecting historic houses. A discussion of tactics, techniques, problems, and possibilities.

Noon Lunch. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch? Also, John Grayson will be restoring a vintage light fixture before our very eyes.

1:00 p.m. Tom Thaden
A walking tour of the USD campus. You think you know those buildings?

2:00 p.m. Jim Wilson
Downtown masonry tour. Architecture is all around us, but better appreciated with some expert insight.

The oldest running auto dealership in Los Angeles recently announced plans to become California's first dealer to reach a Zero Net Energy status. For its 90th anniversary, Felix Chevrolet is getting its own tune-up with a servicing by Alpine Green Solutions, which scrutinized the facility with an energy audit. The iconic vintage sign may be a historic-cultural monument that can't be touched but just like its cartoon cat namesake: "whenever he gets in a fix/ he reaches into his bag of tricks," there's a batch of simple and complex ways to improve the energy efficiency of the site and make it more sustainable.

Read the rest of the article at TreeHugger.com

Escalators can be a tricky topic. On the one hand, they're huge energy sucks when no one is using them and they're endlessly looping without a passenger, or when stairs are a perfectly useful option. On the other hand, escalators are a big resource in places like airports or for those of us who aren't able to get up a flight of stairs, so it's not like we could or would want to get rid of them. The solution seems to be escalators that run only when needed - and that solution can save a ton of electricity.

Read the rest of the article at TreeHugger.com

There has been much hype in the media and buzz in urban planning circles about right-sizing but to see the term explicitly defined is a rarity. Popularly, the term is used to refer to the process of bringing a city’s infrastructure and housing stock in line with current needs and declining population trends. It is largely hailed, by the multitude of politicians, government officials and business owners who invoke its rhetorical power, as a rational response to the productive collapse of the Middle-American city. Right-sizing, we are told, represents an effort to impose order on what appears to be a largely chaotic process. Right-sizing also involves a determination of what’s valuable and what has the greatest potential to rise from the ashes, once economic conditions have stabilized. Preservation professionals may play an increasingly important role in this aspect of right-sizing and planning.

Read the rest of the article at PreservationNation.com

After sitting abandoned for more than three decades, the historic village of Frick's Lock in East Coventry Township, Pa., soon will show signs of life. Last month, Exelon Nuclear, the current owners of the empty village, signed an agreement with the township to stabilize, rehabilitate, and protect several of Chester County's oldest buildings.

Founded more than 250 years ago, Frick's Lock was a key stop along the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Schuylkill Canal. Most of the village's 10 existing buildings were built c. 1825, and one—built c.1757—predates the canal. Frick's Lock was a functioning village until the early 1980s, when Limerick Nuclear Power Plant moved in just across the river.

Read the rest of the article at PreservationNation.com

Can a place that houses equipment to work the land be kind to its surroundings as well? De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop provides a simple, low-tech approach. Although they met as graduate students at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Roberto de Leon, AIA, and Ross Primmer, AIA, decided to practice in Louisville, Ky. Inevitably, the barn typology of the region has influenced the work of De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop, including its design for the Mason Lane Farm Operations Facility. This facility, which provides space for servicing and storing farm equipment, as well as seasonal storage for grain and hay, is a contradiction in the countryside: agricultural structures that house equipment used to work prime farmland but that also have a reduced environmental impact.

Read the rest of the article at Eco-Structure.com

In Oregon’s Willamette Valley, The Allison Inn & Spa aims to cultivate the well-being of its guests and its land. Just outside Portland, Ore., the highway spills between rounded hillsides of vineyards and farms that until recently were rife with visitors and low on lodging. Roots run deep herenot only in terms of grapes, orchards, and generations of other agriculture, but also in pride for stewardship of the land. When Joan Austin, owner of the Allison Inn & Spa, decided to build an 85-room hotel, spa, event facility, and restaurant in the small suburb of Newberg, she brought environmental and contextual sensitivity to the table. Delivering a consummate guest experience remained a vital priority, however, and the resulting combination allows visitors to relax in luxury while treading lightly on the earth.

Read the rest of the article at Eco-Structure.com

Canadians helped invent a house so efficient you could heat it with a hair dryer. Then we forgot about it. First of three parts.

The home of the future was built 34 years ago in Regina. It was called the Saskatchewan Conservation House. It used less than a fifth of the energy consumed by comparable homes. More than 30,000 people came to see it. But Canadian homebuilders ignored the ideas it offered, and the Canadian public forgot about it.

The world would have forgotten the Saskatchewan house, too, were it not for a quirky German physicist interested in energy-saving buildings. After studying the Saskatchewan house and a handful of similar buildings, Dr. Wolfgang Feist wrote a mathematically precise - and elegantly simple - criterion for designing buildings that require less than a tenth of the energy of average buildings. He called it the Passivhaus standard.

Read the rest of the article at theTyee.ca.

Faced with a U.S. phaseout of incandescent light bulbs starting next year, some consumers are taking pre-emptive steps: They're stockpiling the bulbs.

Under a 2007 energy law, manufacturers must start phasing out incandescent bulbs in favor of more-efficient bulbs such as compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs.

While CFLs use at least 75% less energy, some consumers complain the lighting is dimmer, doesn't look as warm and doesn't come on right away. Some also worry about the disposal requirements because of the bulbs' tiny mercury content.

The American Lighting Association's Larry Lauck hasn't seen "statistical signs" of stockpiling but has heard anecdotal reports.

Read the rest of the article at USAtoday.com.