Sustainable Site Planning Archives | Green Built Alliance

Rob Motley: Slope Hope: Building A Green Home on a Unique Site

Slope Hope: Building A Green Home on a Unique Site Rob Motley When I first met Kate Zubko and Jeff Konz at their property on Elk Mountain Scenic Highway two summers ago for an initial site visit, I left the meeting with two distinct impressions: that Kate and Jeff...

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Planting for Future Generations: A Journey Toward Bioregional Food Resilience

Planting for Future Generations: A Journey Toward Bioregional Food Resilience Danu Macon For millennia, the land we know as Western North Carolina has nourished and provided a home for thousands of species of animals, plants and fungi. The web of life here in these mountains contains a grand diversity...

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Is Wastewater Really a Waste? Ecological Solutions for Treating Wastewater

Is Wastewater Really a Waste? Ecological Solutions for Treating Wastewater Laura Ruby Water is one of our most precious resources. It makes up more than half of the human body, 77 percent of our brains, and covers nearly 70 percent of our earth. Yet, less than 1 percent of...

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Midwifing Sustainability: Building and Selling Permaculture Incubators

Midwifing Sustainability: Building and Selling Permaculture Incubators Dan Clere How can a home be regenerative? What is it regenerating? And for whom? These questions are great fodder for coffee conversation, and as green builders, we often take the basics for granted. We want our homes to be durable and...

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Amplifying Agrihoods: The Benefits of Neighborhoods Built Around Working Farms

Amplifying Agrihoods: The Benefits of Neighborhoods Built Around Working Farms Allison Smith Sometimes new problems call for old solutions. That’s the best lesson to be taken from the recent rise of housing developments built around working farms, also known as agrihoods. Created to foster a sense of community and...

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Bridging Sustainable and Social Gaps: Earth Care, Fair Share and People Care at Echo Hills Cottages

Bridging Sustainable and Social Gaps: Earth Care, Fair Share and People Care at Echo Hills Cottages Garret K. Woodward When Ron Czecholinski and his wife moved to Asheville in 2010, he had one goal in mind: to create a sustainable development that truly focused on the meaning of the...

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Darren Henegar: Enough Water for Everyone

Enough Water for Everyone: A Water Supply Case Study in Swannanoa Darren Henegar Here in the U.S., we have long been fortunate to have access to some of the safest drinking water in the world available just by turning on the tap. However, continued population growth and economic development...

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Tom Owens: Certifying it Twice

Certifying it Twice: High-Performance Home Receives ENERGY STAR® 3 and Green Built Homes Certifications Tom Owens Clients came to us a few years ago in search of someone who could both design and build a home that would be environmentally friendly, energy efficient and structurally durable. They had a...

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Jason Martini: Dome Dreaming

Dome Dreaming: Local Monolithic Dome Serves as New Model of Stewardship and Harmony Jason Martini We are living in such a time where old systems are collapsing and failing, and it’s time to create new models that will support our future generations to survive and thrive. There are so...

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Leigha Dickens: Being a Better Corporation

The Journey to Being a Better Corporation By Leigha Dickens “We envision a global community that uses business as a force for good.” That is the opening line of the B Corporation declaration, a document that business leaders sign as part of a final step to transfer their company’s...

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