Did your mother ever tell you to “Turn off those lights if your not using them? You’re wasting Electricity.” Or have you ever played with the light switch to create your own disco club? Hey, it was the seventies… and we didn’t have a dico ball. Well now, those words come back to haunt me like some kind of cursed tiki. Along with age comes wisdom that mother was right. I’m trying to attone for those old sins and here’s one way, share it with all of you.

I first learned about this while reading the latest issue of Wired. Are you aware of the amount of energy you are using right now? Now, not calories–energy that your home or office is consuming, in real time, can be calculated with a product from Lucid Design Group. It’s called the Building Dashboard™. Once sensors are placed in the building, you can see the data in a very simple to understand widget that sits on your computer’s desktop.

Below are some friends and alumni of the 1993 Roger Williams University School of Architecture last July… at Solarfest in Tinmouth, Vermont. It was a weekend of camping and networking for some, and we had a mini reunion of sorts. This is a great place to see some cool alternative energy technologies at the grass-roots of the environmental movement, with some very informative workshops on topics spanning: grid-tied solar for the home, wind power coorperatives, and demonstrations on cobb construction techniques. I even learned a bit about beekeeping. The food and music was outstanding as well.

Stay tuned, as I’m working on a tutorial for a future post to create solar studies in ADT and Revit…

Perfect for those hot days when you want to take the laptop outside (or leave it behind) along with a nice cold lemonade. I know, it’s totally off topic, but here’s one way to make your lawn into a chair – really. Well it is 3D, right? We’ll file this away as ‘green’ with the assumption that you’ll keep the shears handy. Don’t foget to build in a cup holder.