Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Paint. Flooring. Household cleaners. Even cabinetry and countertops. We have learned how a lot of the things in your home can be made greener and more environmentally friendly. In this edition of Your Home we explore a few burgeoning developments in the green industry. First, we start with where you spend a good chunk of your night.

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Karen Totino, Green Conscience Owner said, We have a great selection of organic beds that are made from organic latex, cotton and wool. The difference is the natural materials but also that they are not treated with any chemicals.

If you're in the market for a new place to lay your head at night and want to do your small part for the environment, you can invest in green bedding and still get a mattress that is comfortable for you.

It's built with three layers and each layer can be soft, medium or firm so it is fully customizable and it also can be split on each side so each person can customize their bed.

While you may not have thought about using green and organic materials for your bedding, but you may have thought of re-doing your walls in a greener way. Well, here is a new product called clay plaster.

Totino said, It's a beautiful wall finish. A lot of people are struck by the aesthetic, the texture, but it's actually doing something for you while it is on the wall. It's absorbing moisture, it is constantly interacting with the environment, buffering the humidity. By stabilizing the humidity, we improve our indoor air quality, we're controlling mold and mildew.

Besides coming in a variety of colors, the clay plaster can also be uninstalled and easily fixed.

Most other plasters like lime plasters or gypsum plasters are very difficult to repair once you have a crack or is damaged. This is very simple to repair and very easy to clean, said Totino.

As with any home improvement product, you'll want to do your research to see what the best choice for your home is. For more information about green products, visit http://www.green-conscience.com, americanclay.com, and http://www.savvyrest.com.

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Your Home: Organic, green bedrooms

Alexandra Palace

Kate Ferguson, Reporter Sunday, March 25, 2012 7:00 AM

Renowned architects behind the Seattle Aquarium have been drafted in to undertake regeneration work at Alexandra Palace.

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Designers at Terry Farrell & Partners will draw up new blueprints for the future use of the Grade II listed building.

Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Alexandra Park and Palace charitable trust, said the overall look and fabric of the iconic building will remain the same, but its internal design will change in order to bring neglected areas back into use.

He said: We wanted somebody who could think big, and could look outwards from the palace.

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International architects to oversee Alexandra Palace’s regeneration

THE government has said that it will disclose the names of blacklisted architects and quantity surveyors within and outside the country so that they don't get jobs in Tanzania or elsewhere in the world.

Works Minister Dr John Magufuli said on Friday that individual experts and companies that have made offending mistakes in some projects in Tanzania will not be spared in other countries especially those in the East African Community (EAC).

Magufuli vowed to disclose the names of individuals and companies which have been stripped off their membership with Architecture and Quantity Surveyor Registration Board (AQSRB) to his counterparts in the EAC. The minister made the announcement yesterday in Morogoro when inaugurating the new AQSRB Board of Directors.

The board included the Chairman, Dr Ambwene Mwakyusa. Members are Dr Geraldine Kikwasi, Dr Ramadhan Mlinga, Ewald Mroso, Elius Mwakalinga, Ludigija Bulamile, William Ngowi, Albina Burra, Anael Sawe, Adrian John and Julius Mallaba. Mr Magufuli also addressed a seminar for Architects and Quantity Surveyors where he said: "If they (architects and surveyors) can't do their job properly and follow the rules and regulations, it is better they go fishing."

Magufuli ordered AQSRB to regularly publish the list of individuals and companies whose membership has been revoked and hand the list to him for disclosure. According to the AQSRB Registrar, Jehad Abdalah Jehad, a total of 59 experts and 21 companies have been blacklisted since the board started in 1998 for failure to adhere to the board's code of ethics and regulations.

In order to tackle the problem of substandard work on projects implemented by Local Government Authorities, the minister said the government will soon dispatch experts to inspects their work and take action. He said that architects, quantity surveyors, contractors and engineers will be sent to district councils and ministries in order to ascertain the quality and value for money for construction of roads, bridges and buildings.

"We will take stern measures against those who will be involved in construction of substandard structures. If we fire 10 District Executive Directors, this will send signals to others who misuse public funds," the minister said. Magufuli said, however, that this will be possible only if the experts will cooperate with the government in disclosing culprits. He said money for the audit was available.

The audit, according to Magufuli, will also identify personnel used in the projects so that he can make sure that only registered surveyors and architects get jobs in the councils' projects. The minister also advised the experts to come together and apply for jobs in the government because it's only through collaborations they can win big jobs in the country.

According to Mr Jehad, the board has inspected 7,023 projects since 1998 and will continue to do so. He said that currently there are 327 architects and 193 quantity surveyors. There are 177 architecture companies and 82 quantity surveying companies.

Jehad said that financial constraints were restraining his board from fulfilling budgetary obligations.

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Tanzania: Blacklisted Architects to Be Made Public

INDIANAPOLIS -

It's construction season at the Indianapolis Zoo and the downtown attraction is undergoing major changes.

Construction is nearly complete on the entrance of the zoo. For the past few months, workers added a new ticket counter, an expanded gift shop - which opened Saturday - and a new entrance. The additions are to help facilitate the growing number of visitors to one of the city's more popular attractions.

"The zoo was built for a million people. Our baseline now is 1,100,000," said Tim Savona, vice president of operations.

"Normally, you park way over there. This thing's all crowded," said visitor Samantha Bellows.

One of the first things you noticed as you walk into the zoo is express ticketing, where you can buy tickets with a credit card and avoid lines at the ticket booth.

"With the retail space, we added about 30 percent more inside," Savona said.

While the zoo usually adds a new exhibit each year, like the "in your face" tiger space that opened last season, it's the first time since the zoo relocated to the White River State Park they've done any renovation to the entrance.

While the construction was scheduled during down time, the unseasonable temperatures are bringing more visitors than usual who don't seem to mind the mess.

"We didn't have any problem getting here," a visitor said.

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Indianapolis Zoo finishing up major construction projects

NEW BRUNSWICK New Brunswick will get yet another high-rise building, with the city last week approving construction of a 16-story commercial and residential complex across from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital on Somerset Street.

Boraie Development will replace eight homes the company owns with the high-rise, which will include 8,800 square of retail space, 247 parking spaces on four floors and 12 floors of apartments with 238 units.

The city planning board granted three variances for the 159-foot-tall building, 9 feet above zoning limits, which will be situated on a 110-foot-wide lot, 40 feet less than the zoning requires.

The building also will a 7-foot-wide side yard, 3 feet less than required.

From its address at 135 Somerset St., the project will extend back one block to Condict Street.

Planning board members granted the variances and site plan approvals in a four-hour meeting this month that drew an audience of about 25 people, said Glenn Patterson, city director of planning and development.

"Its across the street from the hospital and medical school training facility, a block and half from the train station, a couple blocks from Rutgers University and from the new supermarket," Patterson said.

The building will also be about a block from the Gateway Center on Easton Avenue, with retail business, 40,000 square feet of office space and 42 condominiums and 150 apartments, including 30 affordable-housing units.

The project additionally is about a half-mile from Boraies 25-story mixed-use tower at 1 Spring St., which was built in 2006 and houses retail and condominiums.

For the Somerset Street building, the developer is eligible for urban transit tax credits from the state Economic Development Authority.

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16-story complex to rise above New Brunswick

It's still unclear whether the Visalia City Council will approve a controversial proposal to designate farmland at Caldwell and Highway 99 for retail development.

The city's proposed long-term growth plan, good until 2030, would let the property be annexed and developed when the city gets larger or a specialty retailer such as Ikea comes knocking. The council has to vote on it.

At a joint session last week of the City Council and Planning Commission, Mooney Boulevard property owners argued against the designation, saying that premature development would deflate the economic power of the city's commercial strip.

Two council members -- Bob Link and Greg Collins -- staked out opposite positions.

Link, a downtown business owner, said he favors the designation because the city will grow. Downtown survived despite competition from Mooney Boulevard, he said.

Collins, an independent planning consultant, said that "not being on 99 is what distinguishes us from other communities," so the city should butt out.

Their fellow council members stopped short of saying how they would vote.

Council Member Warren Gubler said the current plan is too vague about the timing and type of retail development. But, he said, "it's an area we need to plan for eventually."

Council Member Steve Nelsen said if the city does nothing, the county could say yes to development -- it's outside city limits -- and the city will have missed out on major sales tax revenues.

Mayor Amy Shuklian said she wants to make a decision that won't keep her up at night.

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Lew Griswold: Visalia considers turning farmland into retail space

by Michelle Ye Hee Lee - Mar. 24, 2012 10:46 PM The Republic | azcentral.com

It was a summer afternoon in 2010 when Randie Wareham looked up at Schultz Peak from her home near the base of the mountain where a fire that torched more than 15,000 acres had recently been extinguished.

What she saw struck her with terror: an avalanche of mud flowing down the mountainside north of Flagstaff. As it rumbled into her neighborhood, it brought with it a destructive stew of ash, tree stumps, wood chunks, fences -- anything that stood in its way. Then, a flash flood wiped away everything in her home except a few photo frames placed on the highest shelves.

Wareham and her family survived the flood that decimated their home. But they never moved back. And with fire season drawing near, she can't help but think about the unwitting risks Arizonans face in areas where the potential for catastrophic fire and subsequent flooding are a constant source of danger.

"We're going to be OK, we're going to move on," said Wareham, whose family recently moved into a Flagstaff rental home. "But we just think about our friends and their children. We just want them to be safe. ... I think about them all the time, especially when the season comes and it starts flooding again."

The past two fire seasons devastated parts of the state after low humidity and heavy winds created tinderbox conditions that fanned flames through Arizona's forests and wildlands, some bordering sizable communities.

Last year alone, more than 20,000 residents were displaced as homes, cabins and businesses were evacuated in the paths of five separate fires of more than 10,000 acres apiece. Among the most damaging in the past two years were:

Last year's record-setting Wallow Fire, the state's largest ever on record, which burned 538,049 acres near Springerville and Eagar in eastern Arizona. To stabilize the burn area, a massive reforestation and rehabilitation process costing $29 million took place after the fire and through last fall, said Pamela Baltimore, public-affairs officer for Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.

A second monster blaze in 2011, the Horseshoe Two Fire, was the state's fourth-largest ever, burning 222,954 acres near the New Mexico border in southeastern Arizona. About 5,000 acres have been reseeded, many areas have been mulched, and officials continue to rebuild about 350 miles of burned fences, said Ruben Morales, fire-management officer at the Douglas Ranger District.

The Monument Fire scorched 30,526 acres south of Sierra Vista, consuming 57 homes before its containment. Mulching and aerial seeding was completed on the most severely burned 1,502 acres within two months of the fire being extinguished, said Marylee Peterson, Coronado National Forest information officer. The goal: to prevent flooding and dangerous erosion along the eastern flanks of the Huachuca Mountains.

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Arizona forest-restoration afoot after tough 2 years

Bethe Rykaczewski of Franklin Park says she likes the heavy siding she and her husband, Dave, put on their house because it is going to need some work.

But not in the negative sense, she says.

"Vinyl siding people will tell you about how you never have to do anything with it," she says. "But that is what I like about this: You can change it."

She is talking about fiber-cement siding, a mix of sand, cement and cellulose that is used to create a heavy, wood-like siding made in panels and shingle pattens in soft colors. But those colors easily can be changed with primer and paint, different from many other sidings.

Fiber-cement siding is finding popularity with "educated" consumers -- not because of house-smarts, but because they do a great deal of research on the product.

Brian Murphy, owner of EZ Home Exteriors in North Versailles, does 95 percent of his work selling vinyl product, he says. But he finds customers looking into fiber-cement siding are "educated" because of the research they do.

That research can be a hassle, jokes Paul Valint, owner of Unique Building Solutions in Harrison City, Westmoreland County. He talks of dealing with would-be clients who spend months, sometimes years studying the product, even though they already have decided on it.

Jim Spade of Ross says he probably presented that image when he was researching fiber-cement siding for his house. One dealer was less than enthusiastic about dealing with him.

"I guess they get tired of people who think they know it all," he says. "I might think I do, but I know I don't."

Valint and Legacy Remodeling in Dormont are the only two certified Western Pennsylvania installers of fiber-cement paneling made by its largest manufacturer, James Hardie Building Products of California. That means any job they do is audited by Hardie inspectors, which then validates its 30-year warranty. Vinyl often comes with a 15-year warranty, but generally lasts longer.

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Fiber-cement siding seen as better house option

If you've been glaring at your home's outdated kitchen or bathroom for years, you may have a very clear idea of what you want from a remodeling project. You may think you have no use for an architect.

Perhaps, but architects - at their best - can do far more than produce slick drawings that eliminate what we don't like about an existing space.

MORE THAN EXPENSIVE DRAWINGS

Remodeling is often driven mainly by what a homeowner doesn't like in an existing room, rather than a whole new approach to make that space all it could be. So, all those homeowners may get is an improved version of the old room, with new surfaces and appliances and minus the mistakes and eyesores.

And if that's all you want, a qualified remodeling contractor should do just fine, as long as it's safe and legal.

But an architect, if asked, should give you some choices about what can be done beyond erasing the old design's flaws, said architect Bob Lanning . "Sometimes I prefer to give multiple approaches, drawings. There are always multiple ways to approach a problem," said Lanning.

That's where an architect's vision, the ability to imagine what can be done to reconfigure or optimize that space comes in.

THE VISION THING

A good example of the benefit of veteran Tucson architect Leo Katz's ability to imagine what could be was his approach to a recent kitchen remodeling in a Midtown home. Asked to overhaul the 1940s-era home's narrow galley-style kitchen, he went far beyond new appliances, upgraded cabinets, countertops and better lighting - but not far beyond the budget. He recommended taking out the wall between the old kitchen and living room, something the homeowners hadn't considered. The result: An open, modern kitchen that, for the roughly $2,000 additional cost to take out the wall, not only opened up the kitchen as a welcoming space, but had the effect of creating an entirely new living room as well. The new continuous space seemed far larger than the combined square footage of the two formerly separate areas.

Architect Chris Evans calls this the "holistic approach" to design work, and said an architect should ask questions, as well as pose solutions to problems with the client's space. "Sometimes I don't think the clients see the whole picture. You're doing a renovation on part of a house, or an addition, but how does it work with the rest of the house? What are you after?"

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Preventing remodel remorse

By Jacob Barker

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Three years after abandoning their former office at 3500 Buttonwood Drive, Putnam's Interiors owners Herman "Ed" Rohlfing and Thomas Detert have sued the building's contractors for faulty construction that they say made them and some of their employees sick.

E&N Holdings, Putnam's Interiors Inc., Rohlfing and Detert filed suit in December against Little Dixie Construction, Timberlake Engineering and Star Heating and Air Conditioning Co., seeking $1.078 million in losses plus damages for personal injuries.

The suit alleges "numerous defects and deficiencies in construction as well as substandard workmanship." As a result, Putnam's was forced to sell its inventory in a "fire sale," lost the building to foreclosure and had to pay deficiencies on loans from Boone County National Bank and the Small Business Administration, its suit says.

The defendants, all local companies, have denied the allegations in court filings. Little Dixie's attorney, Glen Ehrhardt, said in an interview that the building is occupied and the new owners have not reported any issues. "We don't believe there's any merit to the lawsuit. ... We look forward to the opportunity to present this case to a jury going forward," he said.

The other defendants' attorneys did not return calls for comment. Rohlfing and Detert declined to be interviewed, referring questions to their lawyer, Steve Ruprecht of Kansas City.

In 2006, Putnam's, formerly known as Pavilion Inc., moved into its $2.7 million building. In November 2008, the company hastily left. A December 2008 letter from the partners' former attorney Tom Rost referenced in the suit details their complaints with the structure and the damage they say it caused their business.

"The structural issues doom this building for my clients' purposes as it is simply not possible to go back and create a structurally sound building that has not had components subjected to abnormal fatigue," Rost wrote.

The letter accuses Little Dixie of discovering an underground water source below where the foundation was to be poured but not alerting the owners to the potential issue. As a result, cracks formed in columns, doors became unusable as the structure shifted and water penetrated the building, the letter says.

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Putnam’s owners sue contractors over former building