Net Zero

SEPTEMBER 2018 – Welcome back everyone, hope your month has been a productive and satisfying one! Happily it has been as such for me, continuing the trend from August, I’ve spent an abundance of extra hours in the office at work. Where does that leave creative projects? They are moving forward, if even at a bit of a snail’s pace at times, haha. Been taking more notes for the new book that I’m working on, which I’m getting pretty psyched about as the pieces for the plot take shape. I like to have an outline and create bios for my characters and then put the plot events in motion and see how the characters will ‘react’. With this book, I know more the direction I want the story to go, versus who the characters are. Which is opposite of my past two books, where I have the characters more or less figured out first and then let the adventure unfold from there. Curious to see how this approach will affect the finished piece and process.

I’ve also continued to research building techniques, architecture, and net zero energy buildings. Was able to get my hands on some case studies for green buildings from both the academic sphere and residential projects. Which are really cool to read through, as you can see the decisions made by the design team and then the results of how successful they were at their energy reduction goals. I want to design buildings and use materials to create eco-friendly buildings, in both the short-term and long-term, in that they will be structures that can last one hundred plus years, but also not be cost prohibitive. Simple right? Haha. I think it is achievable within certain parameters, although there is always trade-offs to be made.

In preparation of delving further into the design world, I have cleaned up my home office and workstation. Curious what it looks like these days? Here is a glimpse into my current rig and desk. Did give up the large desk I used to have for drafting while moving, but at some point I’ll get a new one that is more spacious and comfortable for extended drawing, sketching, and making 2D designs. But a lot of the work I’ll be doing in the short-term is all on the computer and modeling out the designs. There is also additional energy modeling software to use for passive house design that I will be running at my workstation here.

I talked to an architect and he said that I should focus on materials and design factors for what is available locally (from building material supply to even the focus on the local trades). I agree with him from a sustainability standpoint (though that wasn’t his angle, he was suggesting it towards getting the best result from leveraging local expertise), though I would like to push the region towards more sustainable design and marrying time-tested aesthetics with modern building methodology and building science. As I think there is room for both on the same job site.

These are all fertile territory for rich exploration of ideas and concepts, and I’ve really savored the process. Outside of working all the time I did finish reading the third book in the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn, ‘The Last Command’. Such a fun selection of books to read, makes me lament the loss of the expanded universe as far as being considered canon, but so it goes in life sometimes. I have since picked up a massive work of door-stopper fiction that I’ll make sure I touch on next time! Appreciate you stopping by to check in, feel free to leave a comment to say hello, thanks!

~ CS