Green Elevations Returns!

It's been a long while since anything was posted here on Green Elevations, those that have noticed, thanks for sticking with me and being patient. Last fall I bought a house in the Regis neighborhood of Denver and things in my life underwent a change, I'll call it "overwhelmed with home ownership for the first time". I found myself busy with many projects around the house and less time on the computer, good and bad for me. I was also developing a new strategy to cope with the economic crisis that was crashing in on the world and personally I had to refocus my efforts a little. One of the things I've started to pursue during the break was the field of home energy rating and since it fits with the ideals of green architecture, readers to the blog will find more articles related to home energy efficiency and building performance. I have a backlog of articles that I need to write up and those will be appearing postdated on the blog over the next several weeks hopefully with important new information as well.

Denver Architecture Firm of the Week 7/21/08 - EVstudio

Last week I sat down with Sean O'Hara, principle architect in the Denver office of EVstudio and we discussed his firm and it's commitment to sustainable design. I was also very interested in the EVstudio Blog that Sean started back in May. It has extensive information about the process of architecture and it is growing into an invaluable resource for architects and clients that are interested in hiring an architect. I highly recommend a visit and look forward to seeing the future progress of EVstudio. The following is a summary of the firm supplied by Sean O'Hara.

EVstudio is an architecture and planning firm with offices in Evergreen and Denver, Colorado. EVstudio was recognized with the People's Choice Award at the 2008 AIA Colorado Young Architect's Awards Gala. The firm was established in 2006 and has quickly grown to seven staff with a variety of backgrounds and interests. In that time the firm's work includes custom residential, multi family, commercial office buildings, master planning, mixed use, retail, educational and hospitality. EVstudio's projects are designed with sustainability in mind whether or not they are pursuing a green rating. The firm plans to continue to grow as a collection of offices so that it can provide a future for ambitious architects and allow both clients and staff to minimize their driving distances.

The image above is Evergreen Terraces, a project that we anticipate will be LEED Silver. It is an office building that combines a mountain vernacular with an urban sensibility. It bring under building parking and elevator service to the first Class A office building in downtown Evergreen. On of the most interesting things is that the building was not originally planned with LEED in mind. The owner decided that a LEED rating could be a selling point for the tenants and asked about it after the building was already dried in. Thanks to EVstudio's general philosophy of designing sustainable buildings they were able to make a few minor tweaks and have the points necessary for an anticipated LEED Silver rating.

In addition to great architecture, EVstudio works to give back to the community. EVstudio's staff has organized the EverGreenDrinks events and the Natural Talent Design Competition in Colorado. The firm has donated time to the Montessori School of Evergreen and Mercy Housing Colorado. Staff members are also active in the American Institute of Architects, The Congress for the New Urbanism, the Evergreen Chamber of Commerce, the Stapleton Citizen's Advisory Board and have participated in many juries at the University of Colorado.

New Poll - What Industry Are You In?

To get a better idea of our readership, I've added a poll to the right. What kind of industry do you work for? Suggest other industries in the comments to this post please. Thanks for visiting Green Elevations.

Stumbling on the Web

About a week ago, after reading several blog articles about social bookmarking, I was looking at my Sitemeter referral stats and noticed a StumbleUpon entry, I had seen and read about StumbleUpon but hadn't subscribed to the service, I added one of my pages of recent importance as a favorite and now I've seen an increase in traffic to my blog. I've also been updating elements and the design of this blog and hope to add more social bookmarking links to my posts. So now I just need to recover from my Memorial Day weekend camping/birthday/engagement trip :) and start the posts flowing again.

I've also recently been added to the blogrolls at Best Green Blogs (Editor's Choice), DenverInfill.com, I Can't Keep Up, Everything We Know About Denver, and The Egotist.

Thanks for the support and feedback!