This evening is the 4th Wednesday Design Dialogue at the AIA Central Valley Chapter Office at 1400 S Street in Midtown Sacramento.  This evening a group of architects and landscape architects from LPAS will be sharing their experiences from working on the new Cal Lottery building, and specifically the green roof.  This case study will provide the basis for a broader discussion on the potential value of and/or challenges for implementing green roofs in the Central Valley.

Green roofs and living walls have the potential to be far more than simply an attractive feature of a building.  When properly integrated into the overall design they offer potential benefits for stormwater management, reductions in cooling loads for internally dominated buildings, additional recreation/amenity space, and even secondary productive uses.

For a primer of green roofs, check out the American Society of Landscape Architects Green Roof website.  Come out this evening to the 4th Wednesday Design Dialogue and join in what should be a very interesting discussion.

Posted today on Inhabitat: Super Futuristic Noain City Hall is a Plant-Covered Building That Boasts Passive Energy Saving Systems | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

Deciduous vines are trained on a metal exoskeleton around the building, providing shading and passive cooling while allowing a varying amount of light to reach the core depending on time of year.  This is an impressive example of utilizing landscape elements as an integrated part of the building structure and energy systems.  It reminds me of some of the points Matt Piner of Pinerworks Architecture made at a past 4th Wednesday Design Dialogue, where he talked about integrating a ‘skin’ for buildings that could change with the seasons.

As an added bonus it looks cool.  Using the lower weight ratio of the vines/metal screen Zon-e Arquitectos was able to form an amorphous outer shell that pleasantly hides the simple rectangular box forms of the basic structure.  Check out the article and let me know what you think.

Sacramento Press / Launch 2011: see video here.

For those of you who won’t be able to make it out for the Launch 2011 event, Sacramento Press has just announced they will be posting a live video stream of the event starting at 5pm tomorrow evening.  Check out the link above for the post.

Seriously though- find a sitter, throw on something casual/chic and check it out.  The event runs from 5pm to 1am at the Greens Hotel in Del Paso Heights.  The hotel is one block from the Arden Way & Del Paso Blvd light rail stop (Sac RT Blue Line) so you can forget parking and just have a good time.  For a tasty alternative, shuttles will be running to/from Hot Italian in Midtown.

See you there.  🙂

Last night at the City of Sacramento Design Commission the infill project at 24/T Streets in Midtown Sacramento took a significant step forward as the Commission forwarded advisory conditions and a recommendation for approval to the Planning Commission.  The project has been through an extensive public review process, resulting in a 5-unit apartment project in a craftsman style.  Mark Groen, Senior Architect with Vrilakas Architects is lead architect on the project.

Several neighbors who had been actively involved in the review process came to express support for the project and for the efforts of the applicant, neighbors and City staff in reaching an agreement that would allow the project to move forward.  The next step for the project is to gain approval by the Planning Commission on Thursday, July 28th.

During the hearing the applicant requested a number of modifications to the proposed conditions for the project, in order to limit potential problems on the alley and to have the option to use newly available window technology that is high-quality and energy efficient.  Commissioner Todd Rudd, who holds the contractor/builder position on the 7-member profession-based commission, was instrumental in helping to clarify the details of the applicant’s requests and allow the Commission to approve the two requested items.

Below are elevations for the project, pulled from the meeting Agenda.  The full agenda and recording of the meeting can be found here.

Launch 2011 is on this Saturday evening up at the Greens Hotel in North Sacramento!  Looking forward to a great evening of design across media, swimming through a crowd of stylish folks from Sacramento and beyond.  This is gonna be good folks…

Doors open at 5pm, tickets are available online, and shuttles are available from Hot Italian in Midtown.

In case you missed it, here’s a link to the Inhabitat article on the opening of section 2 of Highline Park.  This park is a stunningly effective adaptive re-use of formerly defunct infrastructure to create valuable public space, in this case an elevated rail line running for several miles through Manhattan.

A walk through the treetops