Blog on EcoCenter Living Systems

Friend! I am so excited about the work happening at the EcoCenter. Its a dream come true! Our living roof, constructed wetlands, rainwater tanks are all coming on line in the next fifty days!

You can go to our living systems blog at: http://heronshead.blogspot.com/ to find out more about our work--

Or, you can visit us at the center!

More to come!

Laurie

LEJ and Habitat Gardens Teams up for the Living Roof!

NEWS RELEASE

San Francisco, CA, February 28, 2010 -- Habitat Gardens, a leading native
landscape and living architecture firm, today announced it has been awarded a
contract to design and install the living roof at The EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park in San Francisco, a 23-acre wetland park in Bayview Hunters Point.

The EcoCenter, a project of Literacy for Environmental Justice, is an environmental education center to educate the general public about renewable energy, pollution and greenhouse reduction, wastewater treatment, “green” building materials, and the green economy. The EcoCenter project is being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009.

“We are delighted to be working with Habitat Gardens on the EcoCenter’s green roof and have the project benefit from the firm’s deep experience and enthusiasm for living architecture,” said EcoCenter Project Manager Laurie Schoeman. “After a competitive review of capabilities and proposals, it was clear that the team at Habitat Gardens were the best qualified for the job.”

“The EcoCenter is a one-of-a kind, groundbreaking project with which we are proud to be associated. It will leverage all that we have learned in the last 10 years pioneering the field of living architecture and green roofs. The work will illustrate to all those who visit the center the beauty of green roofs as well as their effectiveness at temperature, sound and light control,” said Casey Lyon, Founder of Habitat Gardens.

The EcoCenter is located at Cargo Way and Jennings Street at the Port of San Francisco’s Heron’s Head Park (Pier 98). The center will provide space to upwards of 100 students in both an indoor and adjacent outdoor classroom space with the goal of providing a hands-on example of low impact development with an emphasis on environmental justice, reflecting its location in one of the most historically polluted communities in the region. The EcoCenter project is a partnership between the non-profit organization Literacy for Environmental Justice, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Department of the Environment, and the State Coastal Conservancy.

Habitat Gardens offers native landscape and living architecture services for LEED certification on commercial and residential buildings. Throughout the last ten years Habitat Gardens’ team of certified green roof and living wall professionals has worked on over 40 green roofs throughout California. The firm was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Monterey, California. To learn more about Habitat Gardens, visit www.habitatgarden.com

For further information Habitat Gardens: Casey Lyon (831) 238-0038; casey@habitatgarden.com or Awie Smit (415) 298-3536; awie@habitatgarden.com
For further information Literacy for Environmental Justice: Laurie Schoeman (415) 694-1555; lcprojectmanager@lejyouth.org

LED's Light up the Ecocenter

Friends: I spent a good part of the day with a Chris de Monterey, the chief architect behind the modern, but ancient, Camera Obscura. Chris and I selected a package of LED lights to illuminate the EcoCenter.

We have made a decision, rather than go with standard compact flourescents, to outfit the entire building with super efficient lED lights. This will help increase electrical efficiency at the center so as to not overload our stand alone solar array.

LED lighting has been around since the 1960s, but is just now beginning to appear in the residential market for space lighting. The LED is based on the semiconductor diode. When a diode is forward biased (switched on), electrons are able to recombine with holes within the device, releasing energy in the form of photons. Basically, LEDs are just tiny light bulbs that fit easily into an electrical circuit. But unlike ordinary incandescent bulbs, they don't have a filament that will burn out, and they don't get especially hot. They are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, and they last just as long as a standard transistor. This effect is called electroluminescence and the color of the light (corresponding to the energy of the photon) is determined by the energy gap of the semiconductor.

LEDs present many advantages over incandescent light sources including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, improved robustness, smaller size, faster switching, and greater durability and reliability. LEDs have several advantages over conventional incandescent lamps. For one thing, they don't have a filament that will burn out, so they last much longer. Additionally, their small plastic bulb makes them a lot more durable. They also fit more easily into modern electronic circuits.

But the main advantage is efficiency. In conventional incandescent bulbs, the light-production process involves generating a lot of heat (the filament must be warmed). This is completely wasted energy, unless you're using the lamp as a heater, because a huge portion of the available electricity isn't going toward producing visible light. LEDs generate very little heat, relatively speaking. A much higher percentage of the electrical power is going directly to generating light, which cuts down on the electricity demands considerably.

EcoCenter Dripfield Fence is up! Thank you Rebuilding Together!

We had another great day today with Rebuilding Together. Rebuilding Together brought ten amazing volunteers down today to finish working on our fence. We finished up the wiring of our dripfield fence and it looks wonderful! I think we are modeling an amazing water reclamation site at the EcoCenter. The fence will act as a barrier for dogs and other little critters wandering around. We are getting ready to cue up our waste treatment system in less than two months. Thank you Orlanda and Joan for everything you have done for us!

EcoCenter Bids out Vegetative Roof!

Hi all:

I am pleased to announce a new opportunity! As many of you know we recieved funding fromm the California Regional Quality Control Board via the EPA for installation of our Low Impact Development [LID] systems which include our: Vegetative Roof, our Constructed Wetlands Treatment System, our Permeable Patheways, landscaping with natives, signage, and our dripfield. We have now issued a request for proposal [RFP] for the work!

I am so thankful that we have this resource because since the project has been so delayed over the years, it was incumbent on our team to find the financial resources which would allow us to implement all of our goals and to at last realize our vision of our Living Roof! Ironically, last year at this time we were knee deep in a deep state budget freeze and didn't see any end in sight. This year we are actually creating more green jobs than ever imagined with this new resource!

This opportunity will afford our community the ability to fully realize our dream of having all of the integrated systems in place for our Spring Opening and to create some real green jobs!

I look foreward to hearing back from various contractors and interested parties over the course of the next three weeks. All of the information for the RFP is located on the front page of our website: www.lejyouth.org.

Stay in touch!

Laurie

Bay Nature Covers the EcoCenter

Great New Year Article on the Ecocenter!

Bay Nature Covers the EcoCenter

Great New Year Article on the Ecocenter!