Imagine, if you will, a utopia smack in the heart of downtown Dallas. In this green, sustainable building of tomorrow, you might roll out of bed, take a shower and find your runoff water feeding vegetation growing on the roof and walls, upon which you’ll feast later that night. Or maybe you’ll move downtown and become a cattle rancher several stories above the concrete jungle. Or perhaps you’ll grab a bite in the slow-food café downstairs after knocking off your shift working the counter in the holistic pharmacy next door.

Solar panels heat and light your home, and the high-tech and the natural mesh seamlessly in aLogan’s-Run-to-a-kibbutz kind of way. It’s a place so inviting, so self-contained that there’s really not much reason to ever leave home.

The possibilities, say the three architectural firms competing to design this future world, are endless—so much so they can’t really pin down what life in their buildings would be like, which is precisely what makes it so hard to believe one will ever exist. But if local affordable housing advocates Brent Brown and John Greenan have their way—and they insist they will—this world of tomorrow might be a lot closer than you think.

Click here to read the entire article on the Dallas Observer’s website.

With less than 2 weeks before the big event, Gavin Newsom sat down with West Coast Green Founder and President Christi Graham last week to chat. His excitement was apparent about the fast-approaching event and its importance to San Francisco and beyond. Watch

to learn why he values West Coast Green so deeply and why he thinks you should be there. Thank you, Mayor Newsom, for your commitment to building a new green economy!

As part of a planned rehabilitation of Pier 2, Fort Mason Center plans to adopt LEED Silver standards and install a large-scale solar array, which will provide for 80% of the Center’s total energy consumption. To celebrate their commitment and to contribute to Fort Mason Center’s sustainable future, West Coast Green is convening a Design Slam which will offer a medium for the development of a solar conversion plan by the leading solar engineers in the Bay Area.

[read more]

Green Building for Dummies author Eric Corey Freed stopped by the Comcast Studios in San Francisco to talk about green building, home building materials, the role of architects and how it all comes together at West Coast Green – the nation’s largest residential green building conference.

Journalists interested in attending West Coast Green should contact us early this year: the number of full conference press passes will be limited.

Full passes for the media are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Contact Ian Bryan or Christina Lor more more information. Or, go ahead and register at www.westcoastgreen.com.

Here’s the video:

Our friends at West Coast Green were mentioned in  the Archinnovations Magazine on Saturday.  West Coast Green is co-sponsoring the competition “Lifecycle Building Challenge 3″.  The competition aims to attract built and un-built projects that save resources and cut costs and green house emissions.

To read the full Archinnovative article click here.

Green-Buildings.Com, the green building and education service, reviewed Re: Vision Dallas’ ECOBlOCK entry from the firm ODA in New York City.  Inspired by the basic elements of wind, water, earth and sun, ECOBLOCK focuses on the aspect of creating a community.  ODA did not win the competition, but they submitted a very interesting concept that merits further investigation.

To read the full article click here.

Never let it be said that we here at Sensible City don’t have a broad range of diverse interests.  So much to report on this week, its hard to narrow down what we liked the most.  The following are links of news, articles, events that popped up on our radar.

The Governator believes California is drastically underestimating the potential of education technology.   Makes us want to put Kindergarten Cop on our Netflix queue . (AP)

Mark Wanczak of Konstructr explores the meaning of the word “green” in marketing (Konstructr)

California leading state when it comes to green jobs. (LA Times)

Ferrari revs up the green movement. (Cars and SUVs)

Even with Forbes reporting investors pulling out of the “Green Economy” green jobs are on the rise. (NY Times)

]]> http://www2.sensiblecity.com/2009/06/sensible-citys-weekly-radar/feed/ 0 http://www2.sensiblecity.com/2009/06/re-vision-dallas-is-social-media-dynamite/ http://www2.sensiblecity.com/2009/06/re-vision-dallas-is-social-media-dynamite/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:21:58 +0000 derekgordon http://www2.sensiblecity.com/?p=1342

Over the last few weeks Sensible City has been putting Re: Vision Dallas and Urban Revision in the ears, eyes and minds of the most popular and influential blogs, media portals and news services.  A big idea loves hard work and together we’ve helped spread the world for Urban Revision online. The following is a list of some of our favorite hits.  Stay tuned as we aren’t done yet.

Inhabitat takes a closer look at honorable mention receiver The Co-Op 

Konstructr’s Vik Duggal interviews John Greenan 

Cameron Sinclair of Huffington Post discusses the greening of George Bush’s backyard  

Treehugger’s Jesse Fox discusses the Re: Vision Dallas winners 

Cliff Kuang and Fast Company explore the 3 ideas behind the winning entries  

Dwell gives you their take on the winners

The gospel continues to spread:

Build Baby Build

NBC Dallas Fort Worth Slide Show   

Sustainable Cities Collective

Archicentral:

Texas Sustainability 

Sky Studios

Solve Climate

Landscape Urbanism

Otto

Larry James’ Urban Daily

Larry James’ Everyday Citizen

LEED Loop

Creative Loafing Sarasota

Architecture Competitions

Green Building and Enviro Trends 

Jetson Green  

In the run up to last week’s Green Cities Florida Conference in Orlando, Eric Corey Freed, urban sustainability activist and principal of organicARCHITECT, was interviewed on WELE-AM’s Wake Up Daytona. 

As a speaker at the conference, Freed will share best practices from our Re:Vision Dallas project and draw from the most advanced research in Green Building to offer up a roadmap of the next 50 years for our buildings. 

Here, Freed talks with Doug Kosarek about his work and the significance of greener buildings.