Tag: green building

  • Thursday, January 25, 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm – BE+ Annual General Meeting

    It’s that time of the year again when we all come together to celebrate the members, volunteers, and successes that make our BE+ community amazing! We’re ringing in the new year with board elections and an award ceremony for our members. The Annual General Meeting is when we conclude the 2024 Board of Directors elections. The Built Environment Plus community drives sustainable and regenerative design, construction, and operation of the built environment. The Annual Meeting will be held January 25 at 5 pm at Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress Street. Sign up HERE.

    Built Environment Plus, formerly known as the USGBC Massachusetts Chapter, is a membership-based community advocating for green buildings at the state and local level. Built Environment Plus provides green building education, networking, advocacy, and leadership opportunities for the sustainable building practitioner community and beyond. Our events and programming are supported and enhanced by the volunteer efforts of our community members.

    Over 600 people participate as members & active volunteers, and over 15,000 people subscribe to our various communication lists. Through our many committees, we address all aspects of the greening of the real estate sector: planning, design & engineering, construction, management & operation, and beyond. We help all practitioners by promoting market transformation.

    Outcomes of our activities are better buildings and corresponding environmental and social benefits. We know buildings are better when they are certified through the LEED system, the WELL system, and when they achieve the Living Building Challenge and associated petal challenges. Utilization of the EPA’s Energy Star system and other similar tools combine to improve building operations and management. Using various components of the broad matrix of building assessment processes lead to reduced energy use and corresponding greenhouse gas reductions, reduced water consumption, reduced toxicity, and improved indoor environments for occupants.

    These environmental and social benefits are shared by many of our peer organizations, professional associations, and municipal and state jurisdictions, leading to sustainability for our communities.

    Directions:  The Fort Point Room is located on the 2nd floor of 290 Congress Street

    New Members: We encourage you to sign up early to ensure you can cast your vote in the board election! USGBC National Firm member employees, Government or Non-Profit employees, Emerging Professionals, and Students should sign up for membership here for discounted rates.

  • Tuesday, October 12, 1:00 – 6:15 pm, and Wednesday, October 13, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm – Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts Tri-Refresher

    Come to Ashfield, Massachusetts Tuesday, October 12 and Wednesday, October 13 for a two day intensive course in the foothills of the Berkshires.  This course of study will explore Beaver Lodge, a residence designed by Marie Stella, who spoke to The Garden Club of the Back Bay in March, 2010.  This handsome laboratory setting will offer information on the promotion of sustainability, innovative use of native plant materials, construction of rain gardens, green roofs, and vegetated walls.  Rainwater harvesting and organic vegetable gardening will also be featured.  A “petting zoo” of green materials will help familiarize you with the latest products available.  Enjoy locavore gourmet meals and learn about Slow Food.  Beaver Lodge is Platinum LEED certified, the highest level of achievement designated by the US Green Building Council in Washington, DC, and the only such home in western Massachusetts.  Cost per person for the two day Tri-Refresher Workshop (Landscape Design, Gardening Studies School, and Environmental Studies) is $200 for eight hours of instruction.  Room and Board: Per night including breakfast (12 persons can be accommodated dormitory style at Beaver Lodge), $75.  Tuesday dinner and Wednesday lunch – organic local produce and products: $75.  Note: One group can stay overnight Tuesday and the other on Wednesday.  Total immersion is an integral part of the Beaver Lodge experience.  A list of items to bring will be mailed to participants, as well as directions.  To register, or for a copy of the complete schedule, contact Marie Stella, 719 Barnes Road, Shelburne Falls, MA by emailing marie@mariestellabeaverlodge.com.  You may also check her website at www.mariestellabeaverlodge.com.

  • Monday, March 22, 11:00 am – Going Green: Constructing an Environmentally Engineered Home and Landscape

    The Garden Club of the Back Bay’s March meeting will take place Monday, March 22, at 11:00 am in the 4th floor Seminar Room in Michael VanVolkenberg’s LuLu Wang Campus Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts.  Marie Stella will present an illustrated lecture entitled “Going Green: Constructing an Environmentally Engineered Home and Landscape”, co-sponsored with The Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture, the Arnold Arboretum and the New England Wild Flower Society.

    The Renaissance ideal of the harmony of art and technology drives the design of systems for Marie’s new teaching site and landscape laboratory “Beaver Lodge.”  The objectives address environmental awareness, low energy consumption, the promotion of sustainability and innovative uses of plant material.  An ecological approach is outlined in the use of rain gardens, buffer zones, vegetated roof, and green architecture.  She will highlight the integrated process of building an energy efficient, sustainable house and seamlessly blending it into a responsibly managed landscape.  She questions how we can reduce energy consumption, conserve resources and intelligently choose healthy green materials.  Is the art and technology of our own Shangri-La within reach?

    Marie Stella, MA, MS, is a landscape historian and designer with Graduate Certificates in Landscape Design and Landscape Design History from Radcliffe College, Harvard University. Her firm, Kirin Farm Design specializes in environmental landscapes and in initiatives to foster the preservation of open space. She lectures frequently and leads local and foreign Garden History Tours. Marie teaches in the graduate program at The Landscape Institute, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and currently is an adjunct faculty instructor in landscape design at The New York Botanical Garden, and Tower Hill Botanical Garden. Her ongoing design projects include a 3/4 acre environmental New York City Park, “El Jardin del Paraiso,” a Teaching Herb Garden at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Wellesley, MA (see below), and a master plan study for the new regional headquarters of the American Red Cross, Worcester, MA. She is a Gold Medal winner at the New England Flower Show, and has exhibited at The Urban Center, New York City, and the National Conference of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

    This lecture is free to Garden Club of the Back Bay members, $15 for members of the New England Wild Flower Society, the Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture, and the Arnold Arboretum.  $18 general public admission.  For more information, log on to www.newfs.org.

    http://www.neuhsa.org/HerbGardenBench1_op_480x600.jpg