Building

Rebuilding the Environment by Building with Wood

Evan 74 Comments
Figure 1. View of wood-frame wall (Delbert, n.d.)

Figure 1. View of wood-frame wall (Delbert, n.d.)

Ryan DeDonato, BCT; Kayla Baker, NRC; Clayton Sibley, BCT

From the street, homes across the United States appear aesthetically diverse. Some homes are one-story while others are two-stories. Certain homes display an old-world colonial style while others are modernistic. However, if you stripped these homes of their facades every home would be grouped into three different categories: wood framed homes, steel framed homes, and concrete homes. Why are houses built of different materials? The two fundamental reasons that determine the building material of a home are tradition and geography.

Continue Reading →

Urban Green Roof Agriculture

Evan 18 Comments

Amanda Nee, Dylan Bachand, Matt Dibara

You are standing on the streets of New York City. You look up, following the trail of light leading to the sun, currently eclipsed by the innumerous skyscrapers housing business people, families, politicians, performers, doctors, and everyone in between. Everything around you from the people to the structures is a result of maximizing potential. This is the appeal of the city. If there is space, a builder will build, and in that new building will be a new business with employees thinking up new ideas, and those new ideas will drive the developing world. But if the central dogma of urban development is in taking advantage of every inch, it is ironic that the greatest percentage of our cities’ area is not utilized at all.  Gazing up at these buildings, one can easily overlook the rooftops. Currently in New York City, 1200 acres of this rooftop area has shown potential beyond its primary shelter allocation and legislation has been passed to implement the transition (Department of City Planning, 2013). The Big Apple is home to most walks of life, but it is now time to welcome back farmers. Food will be grown on the roof. Green roofs, the practice of adding vegetation to the tops of buildings, is now widely discussed and progressively accepted. These green roofs replace the green space eliminated as cities grow and develop. With our planet reaching capacity, green roofs have the potential for our cities to once again grow and develop, this time, in a greener direction.

Continue Reading →