• Green Building Assistance & LEED® Credit Potential.
• Base material contains 50%+ recycled content. LEED® MR Credit 4.
• Several paint options with SRI value greater than 29. LEED® SS Credit 7.
• All products are 100% recyclable to assist in waste stream diversion. LEED® MR Credit 2.
• Manufactured in the Pacific Northwest by a local workforce.

On the North Clad website they’ve got some good pictures to get a feel for the scale and to get some creative juices flowing.  I may just rip the brick off my house to put up their rain screen.

Recycled Materials: This is a roof you can feel good about. Around 56% of the materials come from recycled content. Every ton of steel that is recycled saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal, and 120 pounds of limestone. Steel made from recycled materials uses as little as 26% of the energy required to make steel from raw materials.

There are tax credits that you can qualify for, their metal roof has a 50 year warranty, it’s made of 24-gauge steel and when its life on earth is over- you can recycle it.  I’m sold.  The only problem is ponying up for the initial cost, but because they last so long it does pay for itself.

photo via trendir.com

Tonight my family and I went to my sister’s house to have an outdoor fire.  We’re trying to take advantage of the last days of summer here, but it got me thinking about outdoor fireplaces.  I thought this one won the prize.  I’m not sure if the chairs that are covered in moss are making me like it so much, but I present it to you: the Pharos Outdoor by Harrie Leenders.

photos via inhabitat.com

My wife and I have been staring at this treehouse for about 20 minutes now.  We found some blog that had tons of entries on treehouses, and this one was the most captivating to us.  Yellow Pages is actually behind the edifice, but it’s far far away in New Zealand- and it’s booked for decades to come.  I guess pictures will have to do for now.

Tonight my wife and I just blew off our daughter’s bedtime and hauled all four of us to my brother-in-law’s friend’s house to watch “So You Think You Can Dance.”  It was the season’s performance finale, and you can imagine our delight and anticipation.  Unfortunately, all 8 of us that were watching agreed that it was weak.  This comes from some VERY loyal sytycd fans.  One of the choreographers was wearing headphones around her neck??  Country dancing somehow made the cuts??  The Paso doble AGAIN????  “Nasty” by Janet Jackson??  So many questions.  The event was held in the Kodak Theatre and I thought that maybe would be the redeeming moment for the night.  Though the interior looks very nice, and it seemed to be a great place to hold the event, the exterior looks like the Cheesecake Factory restaurant building in Midvale.  So the night was pretty much a total bust and the girls didn’t get to sleep until way after bedtime.

I’ve been looking for a fabulous shop or website that offers a great selection of architecture books, but I keep going back to Amazon.com.  For example, they have 101 listed books on Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe.  I wish I could find some little store that could compete, but Amazon is quite amazing.  Another example: 489 books on Canadian Architeture.  I’d like to read those.  I worked for an architect who had a lot of books in a lobby, and I wanted to find a book on Richard Meier that he had… easy to find and at an unbeatable price.  So here’s to you Amazon- and your honestly, delightful selection of books on “architecture.”

photo via www.radius-design-shop.de

I’m a sucker for fireplaces.  Sometimes the materials, the clean geometry, and the glass of a typical “modern” home can make it a little cold.  The fireplace seems to be a good place to make a “modern” home have a warmer, cozier side.  How about Radius Design’s take on the fireplace??  I’m loving it.  I like that it challenges the traditional meaning of the fireplace, but still looks great and serves the same purpose.  It’s fueled by bio-ethanol so no need to fret the fumes or smoke.