Featured Properties
Tualatin Crawfish Festival
Looking for something to do this weekend? Check out the annual Tualatin Crawfish Festival! The festival is organized by the Tualatin Chamber of Commerce and they’re celebrating their 60th year.
The festival starts on Friday at 6pm and admission is free. On Saturday the festivities start at 7:30am and ends at 7:00pm. Admission that day is only $4 for adults, $2 for seniors and kids under 2 are free. Lots of food, arts & crafts and music to check out!
Get all the details on the festival at their official website: www.tualatincrawfishfestival.com
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Living Building Challenge – Opportunity for Innovation & New Way to Measure Success
I recently read an article in the Sustainable Business Oregon section of the Portland Business Journal about a community center in North Portland being built under the Living Building Challenge guidelines. I was instantly intrigued. I hopped on the web and began learning more about the Living Building Challenge – and what a challenge it is! Upon a cursory review of the Challenge standard’s outline, its about 50 pages, I noticed that they have seven categories or as they refer to them, “Petals.” These include: site, water, energy, health, materials, equity, and beauty. Within the Petals there are 20 imperatives. For instance, projects may only be built on greyfields or brownfields (previously developed sites without negative environmental impacts on sensitive habitats), contribute to a pedestrian-friendly community, must be net zero water facilities, 100% of the energy needs have to be provided by an on-site renewable energy source, high air quality standards must be met and its design should incorporate natural elements. Its a pretty tough challenge – so tough in fact that the Portland Business Journal reports that only four buildings are currently in the process of becoming Living Building certified.
One element that I found very exciting about the Challenge was the materials imperatives. There is a “Red List” of materials that cannot be used in the project – including things like asbestos, lead, petrochemicals and other materials known to be harmful to humans and the environment. But what was more intriguing was the limitations on products and services being obtained locally and regionally. I find it very exciting that a local person or business will be sourced to find a solution to issues in construction of this community center which would perhaps lead to innovation in building standards and materials everywhere. What a wonderful opportunity for local businesses to take advantage of this Challenge and showcase their ideas and products. As stated on the International Living Building Institute’s website, “Despite the rigor encapsulated in the Living Building Challenge, project teams are confident that the theoretical requirements are solvable. However, there are both perceived and real limitations to success. The ILBI is dedicated to providing cutting edge research and practical tools to support the creation of Living Buildings and to shed some light on these influencing factors.”
Mark Nye from Nye Architecture in Northwest Portland is tasked with transforming the abandoned gas station at the corner of Albina and Ainsworth into a small, non-profit community center – the June Key Delta House – which will be a showcase for the highest standards in green building.
To me the concept of attaining Living Building certification marks a turning point in our culture’s measurement of successful development and renovation – no longer is success simply measured on function, pleasing form and did the project fall within the budget but did it also meet standards that will minimize the impact on the environment and truly enhance the livability of the community.
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Grants Awarded to Washington County Cultural Organizations
The Washington County Cultural Coalition recently awarded approximately $47,000 to 25 different art, heritage and cultural organizations in Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood, Hillsboro and Beaverton, for projects beginning in July 2010 through June 2011. The Times reported that 10 of the grants were to first-time recipients. The grants are $1,000 to $2,000 and can sometimes be thought of as ”seed” money. Receiving a grant can allow a small organization to add programming or events that will attract larger donors, publicity and additional grants.
The Washington County Cultural Coalition is purposed with distributing funds from the Oregon Cultural Trust, which was created by civic, business and cultural leaders to preserve and strengthen all aspects of Oregon’s culture. The Oregon Cultural Trust has a goal of creating a sustainable $200 million permanent endowment for culture in the last 10 years Oregonians have contributed $17 million towards the Trust.
Congrats to our own town of Sherwood – three organizations, the Sherwood Public Library, the Sherwood Foundation for the Arts and the Sherwood Historical Society all received grants from the Washington County Cultural Coalition.
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Deconstruction As Law
A construction/recycling trend called deconstruction – not the literary term – is continuing to grow and could have a significant impact on remodelers and builders as sustainable building practices make gains in the priority of considering community development and building projects. As early as 1999 the EPA defined deconstruction as “the process of selectively and systematically disassembling buildings that would otherwise be demolished to generate a supply of materials suitable for reuse in the construction or rehabilitation of other structures.” Portland, as in all things green, has been on the cutting edge of this trend. The Rebuilding Center has been offering deconstruction services for more than 10 years and was used as a model for recycling building materials in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The grassroots effort to reuse building materials is morphing from a social conscious act into law through the evolution of city development and building code. Locally, the City of Lake Oswego recently required that a building that was on the historic registry but had fallen into a state of disrepair be deconstructed. The owners of the property wanted to tear the building down and use the site to construct a new building and because it was on the historic registry the city was able to determine the fate of the building. They allowed the building to be taken down but required deconstruction rather than demolition. The city is currently undergoing an audit on their development code and planners are considering options for incorporating sustainability into their guidelines. City officials recognize that environmentally sound practices have to be balanced with economic impacts of a building project but cite Boulder, Colorado as an example of how sustainable practices can be encouraged. Boulder requires builders to document how they will handle the waste from their projects – not necessarily requiring deconstruction or similar practices. Look for the City of Portland and the surrounding suburbs to follow Lake Oswego’s lead in incorporating sustainable practices in their development code.
