We were in France on vacation this year, and I was interested to see a growing deep green orientation there.  In the past, it has always felt like France was lagging behind Germany, Sweden, and the UK in addressing climate change on the ground.  I could feel a difference this year though – in the street art, growing bio street markets, and green initiatives. 

In Paris, a year long planning process resulted last year in “le Grand Paris“, sponsored by President Sarkozy as a way to reshape the capitol to have a smaller footprint in the coming centuries.  Several new deep green skyscrapers, such as Hypergreen, have been proposed in the last several years.  Just in the last two years, Paris has started a dedicated effort to promote bicycling, and there was a new bike rental program called Velib which was used by lots of folks, including commuters – in a short amount of time it has become a great success. 

zHome at Hypergreen display, Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine

Out in the countryside, PV panels were showing up on roofs.  Folks said the big controversy was the local planning authorities were concerned about the aesthetic integration of the panels on the historic tile roofs.   All in all, really positive signs – you could feel the change in the air.

PV installers' van

7-26-2010 from zHome.

Ground source well pipe thermal fusing underway

Here is a link for directions.  We are in east of the High Street/Highlands Drive intersection on High Street – look for the group on the sidewalk.

For those of you coming from downtown Seattle, the site is only 200 feet from the Issaquah Highlands Park and Ride, which is served by Metro Route 218 and Sound Transit Route 554 (the 554 only has a return bus to Seattle).

We’ve been having a great turnout of 20-30 folks to the classes, so please come and join in the fun!

Tubes!

The tubes are conduit runs through the foundation.  This is a photo of the concrete forms.  Concrete will be poured into the forms to create the foundation walls.  The tubes provide a chase for things to be run up into the unit – wires, pipes, etc.

Seems like a lot of tubes, right?  We have a lot going on in these units – regular stuff like water pipes and electricity, but in our case ground source piping, extra wires for the solar panels…and who knows what else?  So we have a lot of tubes.

Nick Nied of Ichijo USA and Clint Hamilton of Howland Homes

This is Nick Nied of Ichijo USA, and Clint Hamilton of Howland Homes.  These are our joint venture partners building the project.  Nick is project manager for construction, and Clint is the site superintendant.  I will do more extensive profiles on both of them in the future.

This is a FREE event but a $5.00 donation is suggested. Beer, wine and light appetizers will be served.

Dennis Rominger, Puget Sound Energy

Dennis Rominger is Puget Sound Energy’s representative on zHome.  He’s been heavily involved in the project for years now, and has been a very important person in its life.  Right now Dennis is taking the lead on college and youth zHome education and has been doing a terrific job.  He recently did a class for Shoreline Community College’s zero energy class and it was great to hear another perspective on our design process and the importance of the project.

Dennis is a great guy, and a ton of fun to work with.  He is a very hard worker and a project manager par excellence.  He is very passionate about energy efficiency and getting real change on the ground.  There are a lot of dreamers involved in zHome, and even though Dennis dreams with the best of us, he is also pragmatic and always thinking about getting the job actually done.  We are very lucky to have him involved in the project!