Sustainable Design Blog

Must have construction material made from recyclables


(The Wellness Center incorporates recycled construction materials - See the project by Carlson Studio Architecture)

 

WHY Recycled Products in Construction

Whether or not you believe that Climate Change is man-made, you cannot deny that the problems associated with trash, specifically plastic, are not caused by Mother Nature.

In an article by Laura Parker in the National Geographic, published Feb 13, 2015, she notes that 8 million tons are dumped into the ocean every year.  This is the equivalent of filling 5 grocery bags with trash and lining them up on EVERY foot of coastline in the entire world! 

As of the year 2014, this was estimated to be a total of 245,000 tons floating in the ocean (source: National Geographic). That doesn’t even account for what is sitting in landfills, lining the side of our highways and roads, or what has been ground up into microplastic and sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

That's a lot of plastic, and quite the mountain of a problem to solve. 

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Green Building Renewal: A Historic Building is Reborn

In my previous blog, I talked about the background, details, and return on investment that Carlson Studio Architecture realized when we purchased our office building in 2007 and built out a LEED-CI Silver Certified project, which was the third LEED-CI project ever certified in Florida at that time. I was happy to share the detailed information about this green building accomplishment.

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Local AIA chapter features CSA's Sun N Fun project at annual meeting

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to tour Sarasota’s newest LEED Gold building, Sun N Fun’s Lifestyle Wellness Center. This year the Gulfcoast AIA will be hosting free tours of the project at their annual meeting. Also in attendance will be members of the Green Drinks networking group, USGBC, CSI, and GBCX members. All are welcome to attend and enjoy cocktails & hor d’oeuvres on the pool deck.

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City of Sarasota's Palm Avenue Garage Wins Award from ENR Southeast

After extensive review, the judges for ENR Southeast's annual "Best Projects" competition met Sept. 8 and determined this year's winners. The judges chose 35 winners from a group of more than 100 entries from the states of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. They picked a top winner in each category, along with "Award of Merit" winners in many of the categories. The Palm Avenue Garage earned and "Award of Merit" in the transportaion catagory.

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