July

8

ADPSR Building Ecology Series:

Zero Net Energy Buildings: The Race to Meet AB 32 Building Efficiency Goals

Wednesday, July 8, 2009   
6:00 PM Reception; 6:30 PM Presentation

Free

UC Berkeley Extension, 95 Third Street, Room 104, San Francisco 
(between Montgomery and Powell Street BART)

This event is free, but pre-registration is recommended at:
http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/cat/course2046.html

PDF versions of the presentations are now available, right click and hit "Save As".

     Multi-family homes:  The Race to Net Zero, by Sophia Hartkopf, Heschong Mahone Group

     Commercial Buildings:  Thinking Outside the Checklist, by Amit Khanna, Arup

     Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects:  Toward Zero Energy Architecture, by Bill Leddy, LMS

California State Assembly Bill AB 32's regulatory requirements as defined by the California Air Resources Board's recently released Scoping Plan stipulates that new residential buildings reach zero net energy by 2020, and commercial buildings by 2030, meeting the goals of Ed Mazria's 2030 Challenge. (California, however, does not require zero use of fossil fuels.) In contrast to zero net energy for new buildings, how ambitious are the goals for building retrofits? Now that California's energy efficiency standards exceed most states, how do we compare to Europe and Japan where the regulatory framework has generally been more stringent? These questions and many more will be explored in this session to track progress in the building sector to meet and or exceed California's Global Warming Solutions Act. 

Speaker Biographies

Sophia Hartkopf is an Associate Manager at the Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. and has worked extensively on the implementation of HMG's third-party multifamily energy efficiency incentive program, titled: California Multifamily New Homes (CMFNH). She managed many of the marketing and outreach activities including: coordinating, attending, and presenting at conferences and other events.  Ms. Hartkopf also has experience coordinating with other groups working on residential programs including the LEED for Homes program, Build it Green's GreenPoint Rated, the New Solar Homes Partnership, and Enterprise Green Communities. 

Amit Khanna is a LEED accredited professional with Arup Associates.  His projects include the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building at Stanford University, which sets a benchmark in cutting-edge university and research facilities.  Representing Stanford's new interdisciplinary initiative for the integrated study of energy and natural systems made it imperative that the building itself be a model of sustainability and energy efficiency.

William Leddy is a founding partner of Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects, and has been involved in issues of sustainable design since 1983.  LMS has been awarded numerous awards, and their Thoreau Center in The Presidio, the California College of the Arts, and the Nueva School Hillside Learning Complex have been designated by the AIA as "Top Ten Green Projects" in the United States.

June

15

ADPSR Lecture Series:

Creating Your Own Cohousing Community

Free

Monday, June 15, 2009   
6:00 PM Reception; 6:30 PM Presentation
UC Berkeley Extension, 95 Third Street, Room 104, San Francisco (between Montgomery and Powell Street BART)
This event is free, but pre-registration is recommended at http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/gogreen/

Thanks to the founders of the cohousing movement in Denmark and the United States, there is no better time than now to create healthy sustainable communities in a setting of your own choosing. This session will explore the tools you need to select a development method and group decision-making process to begin shaping your own eco-development project around a framework of common values. We will look at the complexities of land acquisition and the entitlement process as well as a method for controlling costs as you push for the most ecologically advanced, architecturally distinctive neighborhood design.

Cohousing communities are well known for High levels of sustainable, energy and water efficient construction in concert with extensive shared common space that conventional condominiums cannot offer.
However the other well known attribute is the time consuming, consensus driven decision making process, that has caused many a cohousing project to ground to a halt because of cost overruns and poor interpersonal dynamics. In step the cohousing coaches, Raines Cohen and Betsy Morris.

Together, they share over a quarter century supporting communities and a decade in the cohousing movement. They not only help organized cohousing groups achieve their community dreams, but bring along the expertise, tools, training, and coaching to help deliver projects that are not only financially successful, but thrive in terms of their interpersonal community zeitgeist.

Free!
http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/gogreen/

May

12

ADPSR Lecture Series:

Adapting to Sea Level Rise - The Next 300 Years

Adapting to Sea Level Rise - The Next 300 Years
May 12, 2009   6:00 PM Reception; 6:30 PM Presentation 
UC Berkeley Extension, 95 Third Street, Room 104

Free Event/ Online Registration
http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/gogreen/ click on the May 12 event.

Evidence of sea level rise is lapping up all around us. Beach nourishment projects that drain municipal coffers. Island nations that are sounding the alarm. The San Francisco Bay Estuary which has 1000 miles of coastline stretching into the Sacramento Valley has over 100 billion dollars of infrastructure at risk, according to a recent study by the Pacific Institute.

Yet proposed new development at the water's edge, seems to be proceeding apace. The Lennar's Bayview-Hunters Point Development, recently approved by voters, will amass .2 billion of new infrastructure at the water's edge, including 10,000 residential units, two million square feet of commercial space, as well as sport and performance arenas. Protecting this development and all the existing infrastructure around the bay is projected to cost 14 billion dollars in sea walls and levees needed to hold back 5 to 6 feet of projected sea level rise by the end of the century.
Put on your long range glasses. This session will look into the crystal ball of the Bay Area's future. Would it be possible to build a tidal barrier at the Golden Gate? Gondalas up Market Street?  What are your visionary proposals? The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) is sponsoring a competition, called Rising Tides, due at the end of June. See details below.
Speakers:

Will Travis, Executive Director
San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission

Kathleen Schaefer
Region IX, FEMA Regional Engineer, and Map Specialist

April

15

ADPSR Lecture Series:

Bay Area Livable Streets: Taking on the Legacy of Auto-Centric Townscapes

Free

Bay Area Livable Streets: Taking on the Legacy of Auto-Centric Townscapes
April 15, 2009   6:00 PM Reception; 6:30 PM Presentation
UC Berkeley Extension
425 Market Street, 8th Floor
This is a free event

The French architect, Le Corbusier in his 1929 manifesto, The City of Tomorrow, stated that, "The Street is a traffic machine....a sort of factory for producing speed." For those who live and work South of Market in San Francisco one can experience the future writ large in a grid of one way streets designed for maximum speed traffic at the expense of pedestrians and bicyclists who dare to navigate this road interface.

ADPSR/ UC Berkeley Extension invites you to join a panel discussion on a different kind of future, where street life and interactivity flourish within a sped down space time continuum. We will be touching on the City of San Francisco's Better Streets Plan, and one of the first "shared streets" concepts being rolled out on the west coast for the Fisherman's Wharf area. In addition we will have a chance to view the Upper Market Street Plan, designed by Berkeley based, bike/ ped planners and urban designers, MIG. The San Francisco Bike Coalition will speak about the SF Bike Plan moving forward after the injunction, and Ron Bishop, architect and urban designer will speak about bike and street improvements moving forward in the East Bay.

ADPSR Lecture Series
Green Jobs, Part II: 
Residential Water Efficiency Retrofits

6:00 PM Reception
6:30 PM Presentation

UC Berkeley Extension - Downtown Center
425 Market Street, 8th Floor
San Francisco, CA
(1 block west of Embarcadero BART Station)

California is in the middle of a three year water crisis. What better time than now to focus green infrastructure spending on retrofitting residential communities for water efficiency.

Come and hear about today's most cost effective water strategies and how they could be deployed in concert with green jobs programs in the East Bay and San Francisco.

PDF versions of the presentations are now available, right click and hit "Save As".

     Steve Lehtonen, Managing Director, Green Plumbers USA 
     Gary Klein, Managing Partner, Affiliated International Management LLC
          Water-Energy-Carbon 2009-03-11.pdf
          California Energy-Related Economic Recovery 2009-03-11.pdf
     Josiah Cain, Landscape Architect and Chief Design Officer, Design Ecology

March

22

Berkeley EcoHouse Tour

Sunday, March 22, 2009
10am and at 1pm

Cost: $15 general, $10 EC members, no one turned away for lack of funds.

see left

Tour the Ecology Center’s environmentally friendly demonstration site. Learn about a broad-spectrum of simple improvements that can be made to green an urban home. The tour includes: Berkeley’s first city-permitted wetland / greywater system, solar panels, on-demand water heater, water saving fixtures, natural and recycled building materials, water catchment strategies, ducks in the city, a living roof garden, organic permaculture gardening, native drought tolerant plants, mushroom cultivation, and more. Note: The interior of the home is not included on the tour. MUST call to register by 3/20/09 for either the 10am or the 1pm tour.  Please specify when registering if ASL interpretation is requested, (at least 10 working days in advance).

Pre-registration is required
Cost: $15 general, $10 EC members, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Info: 510-548-2220 x242, ecohouse@ecologycenter.org, http://ecologycenter.org/

Water Conservation Showcase

2009 Water Conservation Showcase
March 24, 2009
10:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Pacific Energy Center
851 Howard Street, San Francisco

Note:  this is the description of the 2008 Showcase for reference only, we will update when available or check http://www.pge.com/pec/water/.

Many experts believe that water will overtake energy as the resource of greatest concern to Californians in the coming years. We live in a state with a growing population, limited water reserves and unpredictable rainfall. Water use also has significant energy implications. The California State Water Project that is responsible for moving water from sources to customers is the single largest user of energy in the state. Additional energy is required to heat, cool, pump and treat water. Reducing water use through conservation can extend our limited supply of this resource and produce significant electricity and natural gas savings.

Our annual Water Showcase provides information on water-conserving strategies for building designers, managers and operators through presentations and tabletop displays. This event is organized by Northern California Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, East Bay Municipal Utility District, and the PG&E Pacific Energy Center.

Companies and non-profits can showcase their water-related products and services as exhibitors at this year's Water Conservation Showcase. Exhibitors will be provided a table and exhibit space at the showcase in exchange for a donation to the Northern California Chapter of the US Green Building Council. Use this exhibitor registration form.