News: Noteworthy
Seattle Launches Priority Green Expedited Permitting
11.04.2010 Noteworthy
Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development has launched Priority Green Expedited, a permitting incentive that puts green projects in the permitting fast-lane. From their November 3rd press release:
Seattle is now providing incentives accessible to any applicant designing a green project.
“We are fortunate that the Seattle community has a strong culture of sustainability. Our Priority Green permit incentive program is designed to make green building standard practice and accessible to all our applicants so that we can work together to build a sustainable future.” Diane Sugimura, Director of Seattle Department of Planning and Development
DPD’s Priority Green program began with a goal of facilitating very innovative projects showcasing emerging sustainable design. The program has evolved with input from stakeholders, most notably the Green Building Task force. The task force recommended an expedited permitting program and technical support for code challenges. These recommendations have been realized with Priority Green Expedited focusing on typical green building projects and the Innovation Advisory Committee focusing on emerging technologies.
Priority Green Expedited has been expanded to include multifamily and commercial projects in addition to single family and townhome projects that began in October 2009. DPD will continue to incentivize innovative and Living Building projects meeting Architecture 2030 through Priority Green Facilitation.
“Priority Green is a fantastic way to encourage green building in Seattle. The inventive programs meet the city’s environmental goals while leveraging existing city services. Expedited permit review saves time and money while promoting healthier, more sustainable residential and commercial building practices.” Richard Franko, Mithun, Green Building Task Force Member.
For more information visit www.seattle.gov/dpd/prioritygreen.
Hope House Video - Aging in Community
11.02.2010 Mithun, Project Updates, Noteworthy
This video showcases Hope Meadows, an intergenerational community in which seniors support families as they adopt and raise children from the foster care system.
National Building Museum Launches Intelligent Cities Initiative
10.29.2010 Noteworthy
Bert Gregory, FAIA serves on the National Building Museum’s Intelligent Cities Advisory Committee and is excited to share National Building Museum’s launch of the Intelligent Cities Initiative.
The scale and complexity of neighborhoods, towns, and cities are unprecedented — and so are our tools for understanding them. Funded by The Rockefeller Foundation, and supported by TIME and IBM, the Intelligent Cities Initiative explores the intersection of information technology and urban design to uncover connections between how we shape our urban environment today and the impact of our choices tomorrow.
The initiative will include a series of polls developed to gain a better understanding of the ways in which people select and interact with their homes, neighborhoods, and cities. The first topic, The Home is now available on the Intelligent Cities polling site.
Landscape Architecture Foundation Launches Landscape Performance Series
10.22.2010 Mithun, In The News, Noteworthy
The Landscape Architecture Foundation has launched a new program, the Landscape Performance Series. Mithun worked with the LAF to format the program and has a strong representation of projects as case study briefs including Taylor 28, High Point, Zoomazium and Epler Hall. Read more about the LPS at ALSA.org:
Most people now know about “building performance,” but few outside the profession fully appreciate “landscape performance” and the contribution landscape solutions make to sustainability. To help address this gap in the marketplace, the Landscape Architecture Foundation has launched a new program, the Landscape Performance Series.
The LPS is an online interactive set of resources to show value and provide tools for designers, agencies, and advocates to document benefits and make the case for sustainable landscapes.
Mithun’s Band The Mediocres Going International?
04.30.2010 Mithun, Noteworthy
OLÁ AQUI É RON DOS MEDIOCRES E VOCÊ OUVE ROCK HISTÓRIA NA CRUZEIRO FM. [translates to: "hi, here is Ron The Mediocres and you are hearing Rock Historia on Cruzeiro FM"]
Mithun’s in-house band, The Mediocres, isn’t exactly a house hold name in the rock-n-roll world, but international exposure might not be that far away. Ron van der Veen, drummer and manager for the band, received an email last month from a radio disc jockey in Sorocaba, Brazil, requesting an interview. Ary Andrade is the producer and DJ of a popular radio show on Cruzeiro.FM called "Rock Historia". Transcript follows.
Threshold mentioned in The Stranger
04.30.2010 Noteworthy, Threshold
Artist Ellen Ziegler’s current exhibit at Mithun’s Seattle office was noticed recently by The Stranger.
Ellen Ziegler’s ambitious drawing series evokes the visual and auditory hallucinations that occur during the period between waking and sleeping, known as the “hypnopompic state”.
Drawings are made on asphalt roofing paper (tar paper) with metallic pigments and other media. The smell of tar evokes for Ziegler the primeval ooze of the La Brea Tar Pits in her native Los Angeles, where dinosaur bones continue to be excavated. This underground source of fossils, fuel and prehistory is analogous to the upwelling of images from the unconscious mind.
Great Green Places Video Collection
01.05.2010 Noteworthy
The National Building Museum recently posted a video series called A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Green Public Spaces on their website and at its conclusion invited the public at large to respond with videos of their own by posting to the Vimeo group Your Great Green Places.
What makes great public spaces work? And what makes some public spaces “greener” than others? The National Building Museum’s Great Green Places video series looks at the specific elements that make certain public spaces so successful.
There are 11 videos as of this writing, including Mithun’s Taylor 28 project video. Check them out!