Sustainability

Sustainability

THANKS TO ALL THE VOLUNTEERS AT THE SPE EARTH DAY EVENT!

May 1, 2013 in Events, News, Pro Bono Publica, Sustainability by Stefan Hampden | No comments

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We had a fantastic turn out for the Sand Point Elementary Earth-day work party this past weekend. A special thanks to Loren Yaguchi and all the folks from Abbott Construction’s special projects group for donating materials, shop time, and a whole lot of can do to make the benches we designed become a fantastic kit of parts for the community to assemble!

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30 new stacking benches for the outdoor classroom fully assembled – a testament to the prep of the folks a Abbott Construction and all the volunteers who turned out to work on our local public school!

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Thank you to Carter Capps, pitcher for the Seattle Mariners and Taylor Graham, defender for the Sounders FC for signing autographs and helping with our projects!

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Richard Swann author of “Our School Garden” putting the newly assembled benches for the outdoor classroom to good use!

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ANDERSON RESIDENCE – GREEN HOME TOUR April 27th

April 1, 2013 in Architecture, CAST Projects, Events, Sustainability by Tim Hammer | 1 comment

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Mark your calendars! The Andersons Residence, a 4 star Built Green home, will be open to the public for touring as part of Northwest Eco Building Guild Green Home Tour on April 27th.

The Anderson residence is a Built Green renovation, addition and transformation of an existing single family home. The plan opened, simplified and streamlined the existing first floor in addition to adding a new second story to provide much needed space for a growing family.

BEFORE-AFTER

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LICHTENSTEIN STUDIO NEARING COMPLETION!

February 28, 2013 in Architecture, Backyard Cottages, CAST Projects, Sustainability by Tim Hammer | No comments

After a long and steady labor of love, the Lichtenstein studio is finally nearing completion!

Hereis a view of the loft looking toward a study nook:

BACKYARD COTTAGE LOFT

The bathroom will feature a Japanese garden adjacent to the soaking tub:

backyard cottage soaking tub

A compact and efficient kitchen tucks in under the ladder to the loft:

backyard cottage kitchen

Rainier Beach Urban Farm–Community Meeting

July 23, 2012 in Architecture, CAST Projects, Design Links, Events, Living Building Challenge, Sustainability by Matt Hutchins | No comments

If you are interested in urban agriculture and would like to share your ideas to shape the Rainier Beach Urban Farm, please join us Saturday, July 28th from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm for an open event to discuss the project!  Stay for the community picnic or just get your hands dirty during the drop-in work party every Saturday from 10 am to 3 pm.

 

Rainier Beach Urban Farm

June 11, 2012 in Architecture, CAST Projects, Design Links, Events, News, Sustainability by Matt Hutchins | No comments

In collaboration with Seattle Tilth, the Friends of R.B.U.F.W., and the Berger Partnership, CAST will be designing an urban farm in Seattle.  The site is a former municipal nursery in Rainier Beach–10 acres of mostly wetland with some hoop houses at the north end.  We’ll be undertaking the challenge to not only make a model for urban agriculture, we’ll also be greatly increasing the ecological function of the wetlands.

This project is in one of the most diverse zip codes in the nation, and we’ll be involving the community to shape the design, as well as creating facilities for small scale commercial farmers, entrepreneurs, and other programs such as Seattle Youth Garden Works.  The hope is to make a community hub centered on growing and sharing food.

The first community design meeting is June 19th on site (time TBD).  Please come and share your vision with us!

Urban Intervention at the Seattle Center– a vision for the next fifty years

March 9, 2012 in Architecture, CAST Projects, Design Links, Living Building Challenge, News, Sustainability by Matt Hutchins | No comments

seattle center green at dusk--entry for Urban Intervention competition

In collaboration with the Berger Partnership ,Via Architecture, and Rushing, we put together a competition proposal for the replacement of Memorial Stadium and a new vision for the Center as a whole.

The design is an organic and topographic intervention that flows through the Center and surrounding neighborhoods, creating new connections, opportunities for new programs, and experiences at the Center. It creates a dense, flexible fabric stitched together with multi-modal transit to bring in new audiences, local/daily users, and new amenities for regional visitors.

'Center Grown'--a proposal for Seattle Center's Urban Intervention Competition

Some of the important features:

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Seattle Center Urban Intervention competition-sneak peak

February 27, 2012 in Architecture, CAST Projects, Living Building Challenge, News, Sustainability by Matt Hutchins | No comments

Seattle Center Urban Intervention

Soon we’ll be able to post our design concept for the revitalization of the Seattle Center, as part of the Urban Intervention competition, but here is a little sneak peak:

Urban Intervention design sketch--early design collage

Once they announce the finalists, we’ll be able to release the full content of our proposal, as well and give full credit to all the great collaborators we worked with.

 

Urban Olympic reboot

November 11, 2011 in Architecture, CAST Projects, Passive House, Sustainability by Matt Hutchins | No comments

Street view

We’ve been investigating what the Urban Olympic project would look like as an 27 unit apartment building.  One potentially excited twist on the building is that we have split the bulk into two volumes with a 18′ wide courtyard atrium.  The atrium and circulation are exterior, so we can apply another 2000 S.F.for an extra 3 units and still come in under the FAR limit.

We also did a first run at some energy modeling, using Archicad’s EcoDesigner program, and feel that given the bulk it would be fairly straight forward to achieve the Passive House standard, but the return on investment is better if we design to the envelop to Washington State Energy Code, add solar hot water, switch the lighting to LEDs, and add an ERV.

 

Future Shack 2011

September 20, 2011 in CAST Projects, Design Links, Events, News, Passive House, Sustainability by Matt Hutchins | No comments

Join us tonight at Future Shack 2011 for another evening of great dialogue about houses.  Last year I participated in the ‘Speed-Date‘—seven minutes to lay out the project and have a design brainstorm, then on to the next architect.  It was a blast, and this year Tim will be sitting in for me.

After Speed Date Design, there will be a presentation of innovative ideas in housing.

Our entry, Urban Olympic, is a nine unit townhouse complex designed to use 90% less energy that typical code compliance housing.  See our entries over the last few years : 2011, 2009

It is at Fisher Pavillion in the Seattle Center, starting at 5 pm.

Ryan and Alicia’s Passive Solar Remodel Construction Blog

March 21, 2011 in CAST Projects, Sustainability by Matt Hutchins | No comments

One of our clients is documenting the process of transforming their bungalow with passive solar addition  (Design brief here) with a image laden blog.

Check it out!

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