The Whole HOG: December 2012

Water-centric Green Design News

We’d like to begin with a gift for you this New Year’s Eve. It doesn’t directly relate to rainwater harvesting, but it is a conduit to things that sustain us, such as creativity, inspiration, and LEGO metaphors! Here’s what Maria Poporova has to say about her web site, Brain Pickings,

“In order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these ideas and build new ideas — like LEGOs. The more of these building blocks we have, and the more diverse their shapes and colors, the more interesting our creations will become.

Brain Pickings is your LEGO treasure chest, full of pieces…that enrich your mental pool of resources and empower you to combine them into original concepts that are stronger, smarter, richer, deeper and more impactful.”

Check out her musical side project Literary Jukebox, too! As for water-centric green news, read on for an affordable housing development in New York City leading the green way, and a stormwater public education campaign in Pittsburgh promoting water conservation. Don’t miss our comparison/contrast between two prefab homes with radically different notions of how to collect rainwater. In our B.U.G Design section, we share a bit of Christmas whimsy discovered via Krulwich Wonders.

December 2012: The Face of Rainwater Harvesting at Via Verde

Affordable Housing Development in New York City Installs Five HOG Tanks

New York City is leading the green way with affordable housing that emphasizes healthy living and sustainable, beautiful architecture. Rainwater HOG is delighted to be included as the face of rainwater harvesting for the residents of Via Verde.

Giovanni Diaz, project manager from Lee Weintraub Landscape Architecture, calls the five Rainwater HOG tanks installed on the fifth floor of the much-lauded Via Verde, a new affordable housing development in the South Bronx, alternately a “showcase” or a “celebration” of rainwater collection – one of the green tenets for the building.

“Via Verde’s dual emphasis on resident health and architectural sustainability expands the concept of “green” building,” writes Karen Kubey in a thorough and informative piece for Domus.

Her report encapsulates high profile praise for Via Verde:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the South Bronx project “one the most environmentally advanced affordable housing developments in the nation,” while architectural critic Michael Kimmelman made Via Verde the subject of his front-page, New York Times debut last September, writing that the development “makes as good an argument as any new building in the city for the cultural and civic value of architecture.”

Installed on the fifth floor roof, our modular water catchment system provides a visible, accessible water collection point for building residents who will use the rainwater to grow their community garden plots, located on the same level.

“We wanted an accessible water source that was sustainable – which means rainwater,” explains Diaz.

HOGs provide the visible component to a larger concrete water collection system housed underground that holds enough water to fully irrigate the 20 floors, 10 rooftops, and the courtyard level of the Via Verde building.

“Rising south-to-north from three-story townhouses to a 20-story tower, Via Verde wraps around the edges of its narrow, triangular site, forming an intimate courtyard and maximizing sun exposure,” writes Kubey. The name Via Verde, or the green way, references the distinctive forty thousand square feet of terraced green roof that incorporates, among other features, an orchard, a fitness area, and a community garden.