Infill Philadelphia: Soak it Up!

“It’s about the water… but it’s not only about the water.”

In the aftermath of events like Hurricane Sandy, the public is more conscious of the devastating effects that stormwater can have on our communities.  But to paraphrase one of the presenters at the Infill Philadelphia:  Soak It Up! stormwater design competition last week:  stormwater is a problem; rainwater is an opportunity.

The nine finalists illustrated a number of innovative and elegant solutions that turn the problem of urban stormwater into an opportunity.  By integrating stormwater control infrastructure into the existing community fabric of three disparate settings – industrial, commercial, and neighborhood – these talented designers showed the way for others to follow as Philadelphia makes the transition from a city with a stormwater problem to a green city with clean waters.

The Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City, Clean Waters 25-year plan for a sustainable future includes streets, schools, parks, parking, and much more than just the water. 

Visit this website to read the plan:  http://www.phillywatersheds.org/what_were_doing/documents_and_data/cso_long_term_control_plan   

And watch the video channel here:  http://vimeo.com/channels/greencity

As a member of the awards jury, I was impressed by the designers' creativity in incorporating unique site elements into their designs.  For example, one team built trellis supports with the metal mesh produced by the owner of the industrial warehouse.

Congratulations to the winners:

Industrial: Warehouse Watershed | Leveraging Water + Plants in Zero Lot Sites

Roofmeadow, In Posse, m2 Architecture, Meliora Environmental Design, SED Design, Sere Ltd

Commercial: Retail Retrofit| Stormwater reStore

Urban Engineers, Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects, Spiezle Architectural Group

Neighborhood: Greening the Grid | Meeting Green

OLIN, Gilmore & Associates, International Consultants, MM Partners, Penn Praxis, SMP Architects

Want to see the winning presentations in person?  You’re in luck:  they will be presenting again at the Academy of Natural Sciences on March 21^st.  Click here for details.

Event partners and sponsors included CH2M Hill, City of Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, Community Design Collaborative, EPA Region 3, McCormick & Taylor, Michael Baker Corporation, Philadelphia Water Department, and Urban Engineers.

Squirrels for supper

I ate a squirrel once.  While it's nothing to brag about in my West Virginia hometown, eating wild animals will win you an eco-foodie audience in a major metropolitan area.


Just this week, City Paper posted an article about cooking and eating squirrel [Give Squirrel a Whirl], with links to a brown gravy recipe that'll make your mouth water.

Then there's the Girl Hunter book a friend gave me last Christmas, which weaves recipes for wild delicacies like boar and pheasant in between adventure stories of hunting them.  Many of these recipes call for gourmet or game ingredients that haven't yet arrived at the Baltimore food markets I frequent, but my trusty old Simply In Season cookbook recommends easily-found staples to concoct probably the Best Marinade Recipe Ever - designed for grilling venison, or just about anything, for that matter.

But I digress.

In case you need more environmental or health reasons to try squirrel, here are a few from Michelle's article:

• As a food source, squirrels are a locavore’s dream: abundant, sustainable, free-range
• Squirrel meat is high in omega-3 essential fatty acids
• 80% of squirrels don't make it to their first birthday... i.e. something is going to eat a squirrel so it might as well be us!

While some say a squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit - I say it's what's for dinner.

January in the garden

Winter in Maryland is a good time to get your hardscaping done:  last year it was the retaining wall.  This year it was a new path and a trashcan pad.

Jerome the Gnome for scale.

What's even better than recycling? This.

Are you upgrading your iGadget this holiday season?  You can sell the old one on one of these websites:  it's greener than recycling it AND you get money!

http://www.gazelle.com/

http://glyde.com/

But even before that, try to fix it:

http://www.ifixit.com/

I bought one of these iFixit kits to fix my old classic iPod when it died last year.  The kit included all the tools and YouTube video instructions for deconstructing it and replacing the battery… very easy to follow, but alas, my iPod was really most sincerely dead.  Perhaps others will fare better - maybe your iThing is only mostly dead?  At any rate, the iFixit kit cost me less than $20, but the enginerdy joy of taking something apart and putting it back together, combined with the glee I experienced from the idea of sticking it to the purveyors of planned obsolescence?  Priceless.

Photo credit:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes 

Electricity strikes back!

The American Automobile Association (AAA) magazine ran an article with this title recently, and suggested that the American car buyer's mantra should be "It's the gas prices, stupid!" No doubt this year's high gas prices have caused many American drivers to rethink their vehicle choice, and auto manufacturers are responding to the shift. One data source shows that the price point of $3.75/gallon caused purchases to shift almost 32% away from SUVs and almost 35% into more fuel-efficient vehicles. Electric vehicles (EVs) may be coming to a dealer near you sooner than you think!
 
Updated Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards first passed in 1975 are now pushing for double the current fuel efficiency in passenger cars by 2025: that means average MPG should rise to 54.5 in just over a decade, which is a huge change considering slow development to date.
 
Did you know that many of the first American-made cars were electric? In 1900, 28% of vehicles on the road were powered by electricity. To illustrate how slowly EV technology has improved: consider that early models covered up to 60-75 miles per charge - ever heard of Milburn Electric cars from the 1920s or Commuta-cars from the 1970s? - and the current Nissan Leaf only covers 100 miles per charge.
 
Development in the field slowed when gasoline-powered engines dominated the market, but . The hybrid gas-electric Toyota Prius is increasingly popular, and a plug-in hybrid model has joined the growing family. Tiny Daimler Smart Cars have gone electric too. More and more automakers are jumping into the market.
 

 
Watch for these new EVs on a road near you:
 
2011 Alfa Romeo Giulietta, with up to 70mpg thanks to a turbocharger by Honeywell
 
CODA EV with a 100,000-mile battery guarantee, 150-mile range, $30k pricetag after incentives
 
Renault Fluence first production vehicle to use battery-swapping infrastructure

Post-hurricane cleanup info

Thinking of those impacted by Hurricane Sandy:  find helpful EPA and FEMA info here.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has created a webpage for updates and information about FEMA's work with communities impacted by Hurricane Sandy.  On this site you will find news releases, answers to frequently-asked questions about post-flooding cleanup issues, and contact information for your state emergency office.

A few general tips:
-Bring drinking water to a rolling boil for one minute to kill water-borne bacterial pathogens
-Remove and discard anything that has been wet for more than 24-48 hours to avoid mold issues

Read more about mold, disaster debris, and how flooding could affect your household well or septic system on EPA's website here: http://www.epa.gov/sandy/frequentquestions.html 

Visit the main hurricane response website here:  http://www.epa.gov/sandy/

Residents of certain counties in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York can register for assistance on the USA.gov website here:
http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Weather/Hurricane/sandy.shtml

Best butternut squash soup

Yes, I know it was 80 degrees today, which hardly constitutes soup weather... but this squash had been sitting around for over a week, just waiting to become soup.  And what a soup it was!  So when this Indian summer finally turns to winter, give this one a go.

This recipe is quick, simple, and delicious, and even more so if you bake the squash with maple syrup before adding it to the soup like I did.

Enjoy!

Butternut Squash Soup
Total time:  30 minutes
Serves 4
Freezable

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
kosher salt and pepper
2 medium carrots, chopped
1/2 medium butternut squash (about 1.5lb), cut into 1/4" pieces
6 cups water or chicken broth (I used 4 cups chicken broth and got a nice thick consistency)
2 sprigs fresh rosemary

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Add onion, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, and cook, covered, for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add carrots and squash and cook, covered, for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add liquid and rosemary and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer about 12 to 15 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.

Remove and discard rosemary.  Puree the soup and serve with good bread.

Book: How to Read Bridges

Looking for a holiday gift for that special engineer in your life?  Check out this book.

How to Read Bridges: A Crash Course In Engineering and Architecture was recently reviewed in Structure magazine, and sounds like a worthy addition to bookshelves of engineers, educators, and bridge aficionados alike.  It covers bridge materials, types, uses, and the famous engineers (Roebling, Maillart, Calatrava, Eiffel...) who have designed them.  Also included are case studies of various bridge types such as beam, arch, truss, opening & moving, cantilever, suspension, and cable-stayed.  A combination of historic photographs and sketches, as well as an engineering terminology glossary and recommended book/website list add to the mix.

While looking for this book on Amazon, my search also turned up How to Read Buildings: A Crash Course in Architectural Styles.  In case you have a special architect in your life too...

USGBC v. AHBC: a hazy future for LEED?

Modern Steel Construction magazine ran an article this month entitled "Green Mudslinging" describing the tensions between US Green Building Council (USGBC) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC).  The ACC is driving the American High-Performance Buildings Coalition (AHBC), which represents building product manufacturers, many of whom are being edged out of the green building game by LEED's discouragement of certain chemicals' use in building materials.

The issue is this:  should green building rating systems be determined by the green community or by building product manufacturers?

AHBC includes US Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, American Architectural Manufacturers Association, Southern Forest Products Association, and many chemical / plastic / vinyl groups.  Their strategy appears to be to pressure the General Services Administration (USGBC's largest client) to drop LEED on the basis that it was not developed in accordance with an ANSI-based consensus process.

The article's author (a Vice President of the American Institute of Steel Construction, which publishes this magazine) suggests that the steel industry has decreased its environmental footprint by 60% while increasing its market share by 10 points by focusing on a triple bottom line approach similar to the one espoused by the USGBC.  He makes a good case for collaboration and consensus between all members of the building construction community, suggesting that since LEED is not going to go away, the rating system would be strengthened - not diminished - by adopting a consensus ANSI process.

May all involved heed this voice of reason!

@ModernSteel

An ode to eggplant

The end of summer brings tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant... and sometimes all at the same time!  Tonight I cooked up the very last zucchini and picked a few of the tomatoes brave enough to survive the increasingly chilly nights.  But most importantly:  the eggplants are getting their second wind.  Here are my latest favorite eggplant recipes, starting with the amazing pasta concoction Ansu posted this week...

Best eggplant sauce to hit pasta.  Ever.  And this blogger's writeup is really entertaining, too.
http://www.thewednesdaychef.com/the_wednesday_chef/2010/06/francis-lams-letmyeggplantgo-free-spaghetti.html

A delicious garlicky Melitzanosalata.  Thanks Julie and Laura!
http://salmonandsouvlaki.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/my-new-favorite-way-to-eat-eggplant/

My old standby ratatouille recipe from Simply in Season is tasty, but only earns an honorable mention next to these beauties.