Recycled Glass Counter for our Commercial Lobby Desk
The Thinkspace main lobby desk has been built and installed. In addition to having a professional appearance we wanted our lobby to make a statement about sustainability. To gather ideas, we went to Ecohaus and looked at different types of materials and decided we wanted to showcase beautiful sustainable materials. We used a gorgeous Vetrazzo […]
“Green” Commercial Eco-Carpet
For our commercial tenant improvement project we chose to go with a “green” carpet. The critical things to look for when picking a commercial grade environmentally sustainable carpet is 1) what is the carpet top made of; 2) what is the backing material made of; 3) what type of adhesives will be used. Carpet Top: […]
Green Festival Seattle 2008
This weekend Seattle is hosting Green Festival 2008 at the Washington State Convention Center. According to the Seattle-PI, at least 20,000 and up to 30,000 people will attend this event this weekend. I took my family to the event on Saturday . The weather outside was about 80 degrees and it was probably the best […]
Why is indoor air quality in offices important?
We have put a lot of focus on air quality for our executive office suites build-out. Early on in our design process we decided to use either a low or no-VOC paint. Yes, it’s good for the environment (reduces smog and ozone pollution) but even more important it is good for your health. “VOCs” are […]
Thinkspace’s Goal is Innovation in Design for Recycling
Tenant improvements can require a new company moving into an existing building to create a lot of demolition debris. In order to build out our Thinkspace executive office suites, 5.79 tons or 11,580 pounds of demolition debris was removed. The number of tons could have been much greater, but one of our goals was to […]
Earth Hour – Businesses raising awareness for energy conservation
I think businesses like Google are doing an excellent job in raising awareness for energy conservation. The Google home page is “blacked out” as they have “turned out the lights” as symbol to raise awareness for Earth Hour 2008. It’s quite striking to see the normally white background on the Google home page suddenly go […]
Buildings represent the greatest opportunity for considerable reductions in CO2 emissions.
On March 13th, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) issued a report stating “buildings represent the greatest opportunity for considerable reductions in CO2 emissions”. “Every year, buildings in North America cause more than 2,200 megatons of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere, about 35 percent of the continent’s total CO2 emissions. In the United […]
It Pays to be Green – Conservation Grant Awarded to Thinkspace
Puget Sound Energy (PSE) has awarded a $13,000 conservation grant to Thinkspace for energy efficient lighting retrofits. Thinkspace’s plan calls for a reduction in energy consumption by approximately 21,106 KWH. Annual energy cost savings are estimated to be a little over two-thousand dollars per year. Our discussions with PSE have been on-going for three months. It […]
Furniture made from soft drink cans
We have selected furniture for the Thinkspace office and the one piece that I’m most excited about is the Phillippe Starck designed Emeco stool. We have purchased these in bar stool height (14″ W x 14″ D x 30″) for the cyber cafe. The stool is produced in the United States and is environmentally friendly. […]
Freecycle or Craigslist – Keeping stuff out of landfills
I have five office chairs and a desk which a previous tenant had left behind when they moved out. I knew that these items need to be given away so I decided I would give “freecycle” a try and see how it compares to Craigslist. I’ve used Craigslist a lot in the past, as I tend to […]