mariemont's legacy

Mariemont Inn

Mariemont, Ohio is one of those rare communities where design played a critical role in its creation. Many architects were invited by Mariemont's founder to help create the urban landscape as well as many of the individual homes and civic buildings in the area. It reminds me a great deal of Bronxville, New York. And even more of a British town or neighbourhood.

green education?

Image courtesy of Brian Kusler via Flickr 

Frustrated, a prominent mechanical engineer told me his version of a story about a project for which he designed cutting edge HVAC equipment. The client did not know how to program the technology to harvest any energy-saving benefits until this engineer personally drove to the site, personally fixed some of the equipment, and then set up a new computer monitoring program for them so that they could run their mechanical systems efficiently and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in operating costs.

geothermal receives a bad report

Image courtesy of Green Air, Inc. via Flickr

At one time if you had asked me what green building technologies do I recommend, I would have put geothermal heating and cooling systems on the top of the list... especially for buildings in Ohio. The system does work and does provide significant energy savings after all. In order for me to fully buy into a building technology such as geothermal, I would have to believe that this would be a great idea for all buildings. As such, I can no longer endorse geothermal.