Pushing the Green Building Boundaries

Boulder, Colorado is especially beautiful this time of year and one of the best ways to enjoy it is on a Saturday morning down at the Farmer's Market. After my usual cuppa yummy Conscious Coffees java, I wandered over to the Boulder Green Building Guild Product & Service Fair that was being held in the adjacent park. It seems as though they have been holding this event for a few years now and it offers the general public a chance to take a look a local green building businesses as well as to ask questions of seasoned veterans.

Boulder considers itself to be a sort of center of innovation and progressiveness when it comes to environmental issues and green building. So, it is always interesting to see what types of options the industry is offering folks each year. What are the trends and where is the focus? My opinion is that the answer is not much of a truly innovative or paradigm challenging set of solutions!! Now, I certainly understand that not everyone is a proponent of nor a potential client for natural building, but it seems to me that the green building concept is lacking in low impact and truly sustainable building concepts and materials.

It was a great pleasure to turn the corner and encounter a couple of guys with whom I could have a truly interesting and valuable conversation! Ryan Chivers and Phil Metzler are the craftsmen behind Artesano, a locally based traditional plaster company. Artesano specializes in using natural materials such as earth, lime, gypsum, and clay to fashion gorgeous sinks, showers, countertops, floors, fireplaces, etc. that can fit into virtually any type of home. These functional works of art are truly a sight to behold. Having a natural building background myself, I was quite pleased to see Artesano putting themselves and their work out on display. To me, they are part of the paradigm shift in green building that must be adopted in order to really integrate sustainability.

What do you think about the state of green building? Have you thought about the life cycle of the materials used in homes built today as well as in the solar technologies that are gaining favor? Has or will your opinion change now that the Gulf of Mexico is being destroyed by our insatiable thirst for oil? Why can't we make sensible decisions regarding our use of resources? Let me know!!