garden, giant vine edition

The fence that closes off the back yard gave us an opportunity to plant some vines, of which the most spectacular is the Dutchman's Pipe, or aristolochia, that we planted just beside the side porch, facing the park. There are about 500 species of aristolochia, and we're not quite sure which one this is. The flowers are enormous (well over a foot long), smell intensely like lemon-flavored hard candy, and start out as gigantic hollow buds that resemble partially inflated balloons.

The thing has grown incredibly fast...

spreading the word, video-embedded edition

This is a copy of the story NBC6 ran about our house as part of their Earth Week coverage. Our one complaint: the story credits David exclusively, when the project was a close collaboration between the two of us. Otherwise, great editing and camerawork, and much thanks to Danielle Alvarez for organizing the story and Carlos Ruiz for organizing the tour of green homes!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

spreading the word, continued

Here is a brief text we put together for today's First Miami Tour of Green Houses, organized by Carlos Ruiz and sponsored by AIA Miami and the Miami Association of Realtors:

Our home approaches sustainability as a set of social and ecological concerns. Social sustainability describes the way our house helps foster a sense of community from the scale of family to the scale of the neighborhood. Ecological sustainability describes the range of approaches we use to positively impact the natural environment at the local, regional and global scales.

spreading the word

This morning, our local NBC affiliate began running a story about sustainable building practices as part of their Earth Day coverage of environmental issues. The story might include footage of tin box shot Thursday by a reporter/cameraman - and FIU grad - named Joe. The story is also meant to publicize tomorrow's tour of five area homes chosen for their sustainability, in which we are really honored to participate. Both the tour and the TV appearance were organized by Carlos Ruiz, a local architect and realtor who is building the first two spec green homes in Dade County.

bidding tin box adieu

After eight great months at tin box, it's time to move on. With the South Florida real estate market picking up, our strategically located lot has garnered a lot of interest, and, finally, we have accepted a generous offer from a neighbor and Burger King franchisee who is going to build a new BK in South Miami. While this will necessitate the demolition of our house, we are excited by the opportunity to bring high quality, affordable food to the neighborhood. Burger King uses only the freshest ingredients in their award-winning food products. And, quite honestly, this whole "sustainability" fad has really played itself out, hasn't it? We'll soon start blogging about our next project, a seven-bedroom Mediterranean Revival home in a lovely gated community.