Greening Green

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"Jeff Gallo of Minneapolis is trying to build a green house. The zoning bylaws were no help, but after a quick redesign by John Dwyer of Shelter Architecture he is on his way and intermittently blogs it for our viewing pleasure."1 It's great to see they are taking the time to blog about the adventure they have embarked on; it allows the public a little porthole into the trials and tribulations of building a green home and also how satisfying it can be when construction is complete. It's great documentation as well as an educational tool. I wish someone blogged about the construction of my apartment complex, tho I don't know that SOM had computers in 1956...Anyways John and Jeff posted an image of there on-site dumpster which was impressively bare, as seen here.

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Looking at this picture, all I could think of was, those truss ends look really cool, I bet somehow they could still be used. So I designed a shelving unit out of the materials I counted in the image:

12 Truss ends
1 sheet 3/4" plywood (guessing)

Marker Sketch

3D Sketch

Elevation + Objects

Some might say it's nit picky to say even the smallest scraps should be used, but imagine if your site didn't even need a construction dumpster. No truck to bring it in, no truck to take it out, virtually no waste to the landfill. That would be pretty amazing. That aside, what makes this idea green?:

a. 1 left shelving unit that has to be made out of raw materials then shipped to the site (carbon footprint + deforestation, etc.)

b. less materials headed for landfills.

What makes this idea

No discredit to John and Jeff's efforts by any means, their building is Platinum baby! Keep up the great work guys. LEED Certified doesn't mean anything these days, but this, Platinum, is the real deal.

1 Quote from Treehugger

2 Image from 5ive