Urban Chickens Build - 6

The final installment, the completion of the Chicken Cube, with ramp, some final security measures, ecoroof, and rain chain downspout. The ecoroof plants were leftovers from the Ecoroof Vendor Fair and had a diverse variety of sedums along with some native and other perennials, grasses, and herbs.



The front side, with all the hardware cloth installed and the new ramp.



And the back side, planted and rain chain installed.



A closeup of the ecoroof, newly planted.



The roof plantings include (amongst some others):

:: Sedum oreganum
:: Sedum spathifolium 'Purpureum'
:: Sedum spathifolium 'Cape Blanco'
:: Sedum album 'Coral Carpet'
:: Oreganum
:: Sedum rupestre 'Angelina'
:: Dianthus
:: Festuca glauca 'Elijah's Blue'
:: Allium
:: Lewisia columbiana

We threw in some Ajuga and a few other perennial groundcovers up there to see how they'd do, and expect to try a few others as the initial mix sorts itself out.



And the patient residents waiting to move in. We did have a scare with one of the little ones getting pounced on by the dog after jumping the fence of our temporary run... all the chicks are doing well - and have now christened the interior with their own style. Welcome Katherine, Billy, Dinah, and Abby.


:: (c) all images copyright Jason King

Urban Chickens Build - 5

Sort of a conceptual jump cut in the process, as two weekends of rain hampered plans to make progress on the Chicken Cube... but a big push this weekend (and a loaner of the wonderful compound miter saw that I am now officially) has yielded a vision close to complete. Not too many pics of the steps, as it was a race to finish. Here's the result, sans a few final touch-ups and details. And alas, it is chicken ready.





The cedar siding is beautiful - and it's now official that I am not allowed near a can of stain ever again. We're going to finish the bottom screening and plant the ecoroof this weekend, as well as installing the gutter and final hardware... Then we look for some (hopefully affulent and homeless) fowl to occupy this unit, because unless anyone knows of a certain breed that lays golden eggs, the payback time for this return-on-investment with current egg prices - 42 years. :)

Local Flavor: OSC Revealed

Last week I posted about this local project, and the process in general. The end of the Phase I feasibility study for the Oregon Sustainability Center revealed a very integrated and transparent process culminating in a potential example of cutting edge Veg.itecture in Portland - albeit in need of some visual refinement. I usually turn to my favorite local, Brian Libby, and his great blog Portland Architecture, for the latest insight.


:: image via Portland Architecture

His initial thoughts: "Pictured above is a rendering of the Sustainability Center as it might look once constructed. It would be unfair to judge a building so innovative and so green on its exterior aesthetics. At the same time, it is written in the summary, "The Living Building Challenge is unique, among programs that encourage and evaluate accomplishments in sustainable design, in that it mandates beauty as well as aggressive goals for energy, water and waste systems." It certainly seems like the team has met the aggressive goals. Have they met the beauty mandate? That's a harder goal because it's of course in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I am not crazy about the look of the roof. But of course the design could continue to evolve."

The executive summary has been published, and Libby mentions some highlights here. Now to see if Portland can actually make this thing a reality.

Local Flavor: Oregon Sustainability Center

Based in Portland, Oregon I sometimes forget the fact that what we consider everyday is often innovative in the larger global scale. My blog reaches beyond to interject many global ideas into our local work, but also to place what we are doing within a larger ecological design concept. One project worth noting is the current work being completed for the Oregon Sustainability Center, which aims to be the pinnacle of green architecture and a catalyst for sustainable planning and business locally.

:: image via Oregon Sustainability Center

The design team consists of uber-green local developer Gerding-Edlen, along with a interesting dual team approach using local firms GBD Architects and SERA Architects along with a cadre of local consultants rounding out the team. A quick glance at the blog offers some views of the current state of the project: "Yet its early designs, each a unique exploration into the extremes of form and function, reveal that by working within parameters that maximize highly efficient harvesting and use of energy and water, a living building on an urban scale can, in fact, be possible."




:: images via Oregon Sustainability Center


:: image via Portland Architecture

There are definitely inspirations of Ken Yeang's bioclimatic skyscrapers here in the early renderings for sure, a combination of the verdant and functional that provides functional and aesthetic form to the building - essential in a Living Building proposal on this scale. While the process has yielded some of the expected cliche ridden text about the guiding principles such as 'Integrate natural systems to benefit all species' and 'Make less do more' in easy to digest nuggest that have pretty much made a career for Bill McDonough, this is pretty much inevitable, especially for a project aiming for such a high level of transparency. The designers want to present a vision but not paint anyone in a corner at this point, so broad principles that can be interpreted widely are usually the product. It's interesting to see the sketchy process of a building and site, versus the more dressed up and refined presentation graphics that typically emerge after weeks of work.

:: images via Portland Architecture

Read also the coverage from the great local resource Portland Architecture, on the OSC status. If successful it will become a model for sustainable development that will showcase Portland's potential for innovation. It will be interesting to follow the progress to see if budgets and creativity will ... and see if they can pull it off. I'll post on it periodically as it comes together.

Urban Chickens Build - 4

For the newly dubbed 'Chicken Cube', it's ecoroof time (at least the structural components sans plants and soil). Here's a quick summary of Sunday's flurry of activities:


:: 3/4" plywood frame + cedar siderails


:: fitting the metal soil retention edging


:: some counterflashing with pond liner


:: dry-fitting the liner on edges


:: mechanically fastening on outside edging


:: finishing the box with cedar


:: after some fine-tuning - a perfect fit


:: still need to trim the fabric a bit , but close to done




:: roofline from opposite side


:: and some finish work on some doors - windows to come

Next weekend looks like planting, siding, windows and paint/stain - with an aim of chicken habitable by end of weekend/next week. Stay tuned. Read here for the previous posts on coop building, including design, week 1, week 2, and week 3 builds...

Urban Chickens Build - 3

A crappy weather weekend, but some major progress today...

:: the roof framing goes in

:: the front plate is where the removable ecoroof will attach

:: plywood goes on (window to the right, egg hatch capture door to the left) - giant shrubbery attacking the roof is from my overzealous pruning of the lilac

:: the entire side wall has a hinged opening for cleaning/access


:: ready for ecoroof, windows, doors & siding

Yard Sharing

An article in today's Oregonian has a bevy of local resources for one of the cooler trends of the urban agricultural movement, garden sharing, "... a trend that appears to be spreading roots across the metro area as apartment dwellers and landowners, strangers and neighbors unite to grow their food at a time when seed sales are up and the economy down. Here's how it works: Everyone contributes what they can, whether it's land or labor, money or skill, and everyone shares in the bounty."


:: image via OregonLive

The resources are amazing, including some of the following for those to check out locally or emulate in other places:

:: Portland Yard Sharing
:: The Dirt
:: City Garden Farms
:: Portland Fruit Tree Project
:: VeggieTrader
:: Portland Area CSA Coalition
:: Portland Community Gardens

One resource absent from this list was featured previously on L+U, Your Backyard Farmer, which uses land and provides gardening services of local lands in a similar fashion, for those who have space and want some bounty. Another national network mentioned is Hyperlocavore, a network for Yard Sharing around the country.

Good stuff... anyone know of some other local resources, give a shout.

Biophilic v. Technophilic Solutions

As part of an ongoing mapping project of green building and sites being conducted through a group of local architectural and environmental groups, a small side-committee of Oregon ASLA members is looking at dissecting the idea of sustainable sites. To this end, we are using the Sustainable Sites Initiative (as well as some other systems) as guidelines to provide a metric for which sites get on the map. More on that project soon as it fleshes out, but a recent discussion uncovered an interesting conceptual polarity of biophilic solutions vs. technophilic solutions in our quest for sustainability (thanks Anneliese for describing this idea in these great terms, it definitely stuck with me).


:: Victoria amazonicus - image via PlantWerkz

This distinction is particularly important, both in how we approach problems and how we think about the solutions. Are these simply machinic analogs using the operations that nature provides us frame in our human ingeniuity? Or, are they more natural biomimicry-based evolutions of thought that utilizes natures innate processes to achieve our ends in a simpler and cheaper way. Are we thinking of function without consequences, are are we looking at things holistically in terms of both their contribution to humanity, and their ecological value as well?


:: Stagnant canal - image via Vulgare


:: Duckweed, bad... for biofuel, good? - image via Treehugger


:: Machinic system of the 'Floating Garden' - image via The Design Blog

The bigger question is how to we look beyond the function, to include something that include cultural, habitat, and other multi-functional landscape benefits - a range of ecosystem services. One recent post by Pruned (with a fancy new look) featuring the excellent Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC - which features one of the best integrated design solutions between building and site that offers biophilic and educational benefits - along with just enough technology to make it work. It's a living & functioning landscape that doesn't forget that it's a landscape and not a machine. Read the entire case study at Pruned, it's a great summation of a great project.


:: image via Pruned

Trevi sums up the project in typically hyper-efficient prose: "At Sidwell, we get a hint of an alternative system for stormwater management: hyperlocal, lo-fi, modular (i.e., implementations at multiple sites would be needed to bring about an appreciable effect on urban hydrology), soft and comparatively cheap."

Another recent post from Pruned (along with a shout-out to my new Veg.itecture blog) connected to the blog 'Water in the Sustainable Environment' by one of the Sidwell consultants, Natural Systems International.




:: images via Pruned

This project reminded me of one of the great presenters at the Soak It Up conference last April, Dave Maciolek, Principal Engineer from Worrell Water Technologies - who does great work in the biophilic amenity of living machines. A recent project on Treehugger featured another of their great project. Some info: "In the EcoCentre, home to the Romano Law Group which calls its green office space the Living Building, the “aquatecture” uses environmental features like an 8,000 gallon cistern to collect rainwater on a green roof and 150-square-foot fountain in the lobby that’s a “turbo-charged” wastewater treatment system, transforming grey water and saving the structure 200,000 gallons of water annually."


:: image via Treehugger

Another resource that I heard about recently was Whole Water Systems, a company working with 'decentralized, sustainable water treatment' and bridging the bio- and techno- with living systems as well. Here's a link to one of their recent presentations at the Living Futures 'un'conference here in Portland showing off some of their work in the field. I'm just starting the visuals and hope to be working with them on a project that should be emerging soon, so more to come on this.

Urban Chickens Build - 2

A summation of days 2 & 3 of the experiment in urban chickens... with the final form framed out and the interior in place, ready for roof framing and plywood, and eventually ecoroof and siding. Should be habitable by this weekend...


:: 2 walls down...


:: and 3...


:: and four...


:: framing the interior


:: exterior view of laying boxes for easy access to eggs


:: ...and the interior with safety rail and access step

The form has also given the structure a suitable name, now known as the 'Chicken Cube' (trademark pending... :). Fitting, no?




:: the sun, and the chicken cube emerges