SF's Greenest Architects

KMD architects states that 90% of their projects are green (and almost entirely by clients' requests now, so the firm is spending less time selling the concept and more time executing it). They're not just pushing the commercial and residential curve in their office-headquarters town of San Francisco, but across Europe and in Mexico too. Their work is beyond compare and deserves more than a blog note, but their site conveys it much better than we can.

SF Environment Green Building Projects List

It's not entirely up-to-date, and doesn't include the new multifamily projects like Arterra (which many consider green or light green by relative standards), but SF Environment maintains a list of green projects in the city, as well as a (mostly) local green resource guide and an event listing for the EcoCenter (11 Grove Street, right across from the south entrance to the Main Library. Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.).

Philadelphia Freedom

Philadelphia continues its progressive makeover by reviving the restaurant scene, courting gay and lesbian travelers, and entertaining re-used rubber and tires in sidewalk construction.

Slightly-Green Sale: 1401 Eddy Street #3

This 23-year old 1BR/1BA condo near Fillmore has a solar-powered hot water system and, at a sales price of $385,700 for its 588 square feet, went a nice 3.3% under asking in September 2006. And that, friends, is the cheapest home with some sort of green-ish attribute that closed recently in SF.

EcoSmart Fires

Featured above: "Vision"(left) and "Cube"(right). Freestanding modules that use flueless burners and EcoSmart fuel. At $4,000-ish for the fireplaces themselves, and about $15 per use, they meet the good ole joke that "green" means money. Still, we have to applaud where this is going... there's not a stove with a deserted-ski-lodge-look in the bunch.

IceStone - a Granite Alternative

Every builder who isn't looking to build green seems incredulous when we say we think granite's on its way out, all sustainability talk aside.

We haven't worked with IceStone yet in one of our projects, but have heard it doesn't stain the way the first line of products did, because the company has added more glass to the recycled glass/cement ratio and has come close to perfecting the sealing process, which is technically all they'd have to do to nearly stop staining. Cost-wise it's still 1 to 1.2 times the cost of a good granite countertop.

Scratch-resistant and precast, but customization is available: Showroom locator.

LEED, TOD, and L.A. Too

Kudos to The South Group of Los Angeles for not only developing to LEED certification standards in a prohibitively expensive construction market, but for its attempts to create a "neighborhood" with its three residential towers Elleven, Luma, and Evo. Not exactly mud huts, the residences won't meet die-hard green building fans' standards, but in a market like L.A. one could argue that there may not be 800 buyers who mandate "pure" green building and are also willing to live in, and pay $750,000 for, a (luxurious) box in the sky.

The projects' sales offices are located at 707 Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles.