Posts Tagged ‘los angeles’

Solar Compactors Hit City Parks

Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

solar waste can

Even from our home perch here in San Francisco, we have to sometimes reach out for props to our So Cal brethren. In this case, some of us carpooled down to LA for the Thanksgiving weekend and even managed to avoid any real traffic jams.

Even more amazing, a couple of us spotted this solar compactor in Mar Vista park. This Big Belly in Mar Vista park represents only one of a growing trend where cities use these Solar-powered trash compactors to cut costs and emissions in 53 city parks. The solar compactors wirelessly monitor when they need to be emptied. They’re high-efficiency and low-maintenance which fits in with the mantra of so many cities (like LA).

We’re only surprised not to have spied these solar compactors in San Francisco. LA jumping ahead of San Francisco in the sustainability race? Hardly, but maybe LA will surprise the nation with a 405 full of fully electric cars soon.

Fifth Green and Gorgeous Gala San Francisco Style

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Sometimes San Francisco feels a little Los Angeles or New York especially considering the tall, smartly dressed model-esque crowd that packed the W hotel for the 5th annual Gorgeous & Green fashion show. New York and LA may have a slender leg up on SF as far as model runway shows but SF keeps the other cities and a well dressed arms length with the overall greenness of the event.

Upon entering the festivities, my friend and I couldn’t help but notice the tall talent circulating through the upstairs rooms. Some huddled around the bars sipping organic vodka, beer and wine drinks while others just strolled along looking fab. We took a prime spot with cocktails in hand right next to the living wall. We don’t know how many others noticed the Design Ecology produced wall but we did breathe deeper standing next to it.

The festivities mostly surrounded the fashion. Later in the evening, we joined the crowd around the catwalk for the show itself. The eco-chic fashion lineup offered up an interesting array of attractive models modeling everything from underwear to bizarre dresses. The combination of DJ Donavan beats, green vibe and model attitude got most of the crowd in a buzz. We had one quibble with the actual show as we would have liked to know what each piece represented in terms of “eco” or “sustainability”. It would have been nice to know what made that skimpy underwear so sustainable.

Besides the actual threads, the event brought like-minded people from all professions together to raise awareness (and money) for Global Green.  We attempted to talk with a few people about fashion but as we aren’t fashionistas that didn’t go so well. We did chitchat with several big hitters in the business world and left feeling impressed that events like this (even if we don’t buy $500 green underwear) will only continue to bring awareness to solid sustainable causes.

Green Thinking Builds 500 Days of Summer

Friday, July 17th, 2009

The new flick 500 Days of Summer, which generated much buzz as the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, rolls out in limited release today. Lot’s of people are talking about it as a romantic comedy meets Momento which in film terms means that those with ADD or short attention spans might be confused by this rambunctious romantic romp. But for us, the buzz doesn’t just lie in the zigzagging sex talk but rather in the architecture talk. Even more specifically in the Green architecture talk. (more…)

Who Cares About the Environment?

Thursday, September 7th, 2006

Who cares about the environment (besides Gore)?Even if you haven’t seen Al Gore’s docu pic “An Inconvenient Truth” it doesn’t take a rocket scientist or in this case a meteorologist to know that something’s screwy with the environment and the weather. Anyone who spent any time in San Francisco this past summer can tell you why. We actually had warm (sometimes in the 90s), sunny days during July and August. This isn’t LA or NYC. Normally the only ones wearing shorts during the summer are tourists. And you feel bad watching them shiver as they wait for the cable cars. Even the Sunset District, known for anything but sun, had less than its normal share of fog. We just can’t have this much heat and sun in San Fran. It just ain’t right.

What would we do with the wonderfully droll quote wrongly attributed to Mark Twain, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”?

Anyone out there care that Homes account for about 18% of the greenhouse gases emitted here in the USA? It’s going to get worse unless we make it better. Or as Sarah Connor put it in Terminator 2: Judgment Day: “Anyone not wearing two million SPF sunblock is gonna have a really bad day!”