GREENSAW Blog

Thursday, June 3, 2010

LEED's Lamentable Lacunae

In his New York Times Op-ed piece “Don’t LEED Us Astray” (10 May 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/opinion/20Appelbaum.html) Alec Appelbaum addresses an essential problem of the LEED rating system: it measures the possibility of a building performing in a sustainable manner, instead of the building’s actual performance. This is a valid and understandable complaint. However, there exists an additional lack in the LEED rating system that is much more grave: its myopic focus on new build construction.

On the one hand, the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a standard developed by the United States Green Building Council – note the word “building.” Based on a system started in the United Kingdom called BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method), LEED came into existence in 1998. Today, LEED is the nation’s most recognized rating system for environmental standards.

As Mr. Appelbaum notes, for better or worse, LEED has become the torchbearer for sustainable building. Structures such as 1 Bryant Park aspire to LEED’s highest rating: platinum. While it is unrealistic to believe that all new building will come to a halt, LEED needs to award substantially more points for the reuse of existing building stock, and employment of reclaimed materials in construction.

As it stands now, LEED awards one point – as much as you would get for screwing in a bike rack in front of the building – for using an existing structure. This boggles the mind. I could build a zero energy thermodynamically perfect house, and I’d still be in the red when it came to expenditure of fossil fuels because of the energy it took to create this structure in the first place. Constructing a LEED platinum building uses considerably more fossil fuels than a typical renovation of an existing structure.

Factors that contribute to this are: transportation of waste material; landfill or incinerator use; oil burned to remove structure; residual planetary impact of the waste as it biodegrades. My company, for example, refuses to take on new build jobs, including additions. Instead, we believe in innovative design solutions, and a re-envisioning of space in order to meet a client’s goals for their space.

Recently, we have been in the process of building a LEED Platinum home and commercial space in Philadelpia’s Fishtown area. As it stands, the property is a 6500 square foot shell. However, the brick walls are in fine shape, and most of the joists will continue to do work for years down the line. The previous general contractor on the job refused the job, because he said the building should just be ripped down.

We approach it differently. Our first step in deconstruction will be to salvage all the flooring and set aside the re-usable material for re-use in the finished building. The other material we will re-mill for use elsewhere. The remainder of the deconstruction material will be sorted and portioned out for re-use, with the goal being 100% recycling. Not unlike the goal of the Native Americans to use every part of the animal, instead of just the meat.

In addition, over 90% of our framing material will be coming from struck movie sets in the Philadelphia area. Instead of dumping the used TJIs and dimensional lumber, we have arranged to purchase and clean up the lumber for re-use. All our kitchen and bathroom cabinetry will be fashioned from local reclaimed material – milled up joists, staves from old water towers, siding from local barns.

With these moves, we have taken care of most of the framing, the cabinetry, and a large chunk of the floors – the remainder will be reclaimed from elsewhere. How much does LEED award us? Half a point for each section. We end up with a point and a half – again, half a point more for what we would get with a bike rack out front.

As we speak, in Las Vegas and California, a mini-building boom occurs. Despite extensive tracts of unused and empty housing surrounding cities, builders continue to build new. This is the most egregious example of America’s need to build, build, build. In the same way we are addicted to oil, we are also addicted to creation of new buildings.

LEED needs to present a counterpoint, and award points for it. I would like to take this opportunity to present one: SlowBuild. We have been following the tenets of this philosophy since the inception of our company. Energy and thought are expended on figuring out how best to incorporate existing building stock and material into a finished project. The act of creation engages the design mind, reclaimed material, and the environment. Sustainability, job creation, and a consciousness of the physical surrounding in which the building stands are central goals.

The United States Green Building Council has a great weight on its shoulders. Other rating systems – the Living Building Council, Passive House, Green Globes – carry little weight with the public, or anyone else. While Mr. Applebaum points out a central problem on the energy front, we need to take a step back and look at the larger picture. LEED should be considerably more aggressive in rewarding builders for a thoughtful and considered approach, using existing building stock and reclaimed material at every possible turn.

Labels: Architectural salvage, green builders, Green building, Greensaw, LEED, New York Times, reclaim, recycle

posted by Brendan Jones @ 6:19 AM 4 comments

Thursday, May 27, 2010

SlowBuild: The Intimate Connections Between Paintball, SEPTA, & Architectural Salvage

"Straight up the gut."

So said the expert paintballer as he refilled his hopper. As we prepared to go into battle, these were his words of wisdom on how to win the field.

The company played last Friday at Skirmish USA, America's largest and most notorious paintball course. Castles, Alamo-styled forts, Old Western ghost towns, demilitarized zones -- myriad options for blowing each other away with pellets the size of gum balls that traveled at 200 feet a second, and often broke skin (Photo to the side, with names appointed by Niko).

Looking at an aerial map of Philadelphia SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) routes, or even better driving or biking each morning beside their buses, it becomes apparent that "straight up the gut" constitutes the organization's own philosophy. Philadelphia, its streets laid out by William Penn in a simple grid easy enough for drunk colonists to negotiate (unlike Washington D.C., laid out by the consistently drunk French Major Charles Pierre L'enfant, and completely unnavigable) is ideally situated for executing what seems to be the operating principal of SEPTA: get to end of town to the other as fast as possible. Buses barrel down Second, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth, Lombard, Walnut, Chestnut, etc., moving like motorized battering rams, shredding quarter panels, exploding mirrors, the bike racks on the front of the buses functioning more as truck grills to keep off the errant bikers andoccasional pedestrian. Safest way to avoid the capriciousness of SEPTA is just to ride the damn thing.

I've made a practice of driving to work along Second Street, ordering the dog in the back cab, and picking up passengers. I grant you, there is significant confusion when I lean out the window and make the proposition. While it makes perfect sense -- I'm headed across the city, and have four empty seats -- people, understandably, are wary. It's usually a crowd of three or four, and half will flat-out ignore me. But one rider will throw up his or her hands and say the hell with it, I'll take that ride. Others usually follow, especially when it's raining.

In place of Straight up the gut, the Art of Waiting. Some people do it so gracefully, as if they were born to lean against that brick wall and stare off at a distant gnome. Others can't seem to get comfortable in their own skin, checking and rechecking their black brick of a phone, looking unsure about their socks, the particular contents of the Starbucks cup in their hand.

Of the fifteen or twenty rounds of paintball we played, "Straight up the gut" worked a few times. We split into teams of 8 -- most of us Greensaw folks, a couple others from North Jersey sprinkled about, and one or two self-proclaimed "experts" -- and wrapped blue or red tape around our biceps. On the Alamo course we the Blue Team arranged a sort of blitzkreig, swooping around from either side on of their fort, pinning them down. Reed got a straight shot at four backs, defending against a flank attack.

But for the most part, I would argue the Art of Waiting took the day. In one battle in particular. This one played out in a variation of how I imagine Sherwood Forest, scattered with boulders emerging from the brush like bony knobs on a horse's foreleg, oak and maple trees generously spaced, strategically situated mounds of deadwood scattered among the brush.

The referees placed a flag in the center of the course. The object, they explained, would be to secure the flag, and take it to the opposing team's orange pole. Not unlike recovering a fumble and running it into the opposite endzone.

Well, we decided to take the expert's advide and go straight up the gut. Samir would make a sprint for the flag. Once he secured it, he would fall back, and we would create a horseshoe around him, and shove it down their throats, easily walking the flag across the course.

To move faster, we suggested Samir relinquish his weapon. With understandable reluctance he gave me his gun. The ref counted down, and at the word Go Samir transformed into an Avatar, leaping over deadfalls, balancing one-footed on the crests of boulders, changing direction on a dime, like a running back on a dream run. He snatched the yellow kerchief from the pole, and fell back to us. We encircled him. He found me as I was laying down steady fire to secure our position.

He asked for his gun back. Dear Reader, I am generally a good person. But I so much enjoyed playing Rambo, I did not give it back.

"It'll be cool, I'll cover you man," was the wartime justification I gave.

With a good-humored shrug off went Samir, only to get lit up Platoon-style behind a tangle of branches a couple seconds later. I felt a brief tinge of guilt before taking a couple in the chest from god knows where.

As it happened, the Red Team had taken the tact opposite of straight up the gut. They had decided to wait in the brush, and pick us off as we traveled, like hardwired king salmon, upstream. Anchored by Jason, Heath and Niko, nestled into natural bunkers, they blasted us one by one as we advanced with the flag. Finally, they gathered the yellow kerchief, and walked it across the field, unopposed.

And so it goes, I would argue, with architectural salvage. We are upon the point of completing the most magnificent armoire in the history of the company at the house of Judy Wicks (pictured above, sans center sink, which is to come).

Originally culled from the stocks at Architectural Antiques (www.architecturalantiques.com), the armoire required an enormous amount of waiting in order to complete. Waiting for the correct router bit to imitate the original pediments, waiting patiently with our handcarving knives and Arkansas soapstone for sharpening to get the floret exactly right.

It is the process of SlowBuild: careful, considered movements, in reaction to something done before. Human energy - mindpower, problem-solving, manual dexterity - is expended on material that would otherwise have been incinerated, made to disappear. Instead of shooting across the city, instead of running over all competition with overpowering Tippman paintball guns, we practice the art of waiting. We do not expend fossil fuels while waiting. Rather we practice our chops, or converse on the subject of the intricacies of the job at hand. How can we make this happen? A lot less burning through material, a lot more thought.

And let me be clear here: when we move, when we start shooting, when we start cutting wood, we take no prisoners. We don't need to - careful consideration of the work at hand, multiple iterations of design, checking in constantly with clients - obviate any second thoughts. In fact, we can't afford to. The sublime paradox of salvage is that we give it a second chance, but it doesn't return the favor; if we miss a cut, ain't no going down to the Depot to pick up a replacement.

In a word, straight up the gut doesn't work if the opposition has a gut to go by, a gut they trust -- and a gut that has done a certain amount of sit-ups.

We still have years, miles to go before our education is anywhere near to complete. And yet we know - instinctively - that SlowBuild, and more particularly, building with what already exists, constitutes the future. It is just a matter of time before SEPTA, other contractors, paintball experts, and the rest of the world catches on.

Labels: Architectural salvage, green builders, Green building, Greensaw, Paintball, Philadelphia Carpenters, reclaim, recycle, SEPTA, SlowBuild

posted by Brendan Jones @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Monday, May 17, 2010

What's All This Green-Tech Hype?

“I know very few environmentalists whose heads aren’t firmly up their ass.” So says Saul Griffith, the subject of the New Yorker article “The Inventor’s Dilemma” (17 May 2010).

Griffith, perhaps one of the foremost green-minded inventors to have sprung from the prodigious loins of M.I.T., has forsaken inventing new technology. Instead, he tinkers with what already exists. This is a concerted step away from what he labels the “green-tech hype,” and a step toward making do with what we have.

I won’t spend any more time dealing with his epiphanic moment – the New Yorker does that well enough. But I would like to touch on a few key points he raises, and examine how they dovetail into our own philosophy of building.

“We’ve been working on energy, as a society, for a few thousand years, and especially for the last two hundred years, so we’ve already turned over most of the stones,” Griffith says. This revolution of thought came after brainstorming floating wind turbines, solar-powered highways, spoke-mounted L.E.D. lights for bicycles, and a machine to made eyeglass lenses cheaply. His basic point is that we ignore, at our peril, the consummation of natural resources and the greenhouse gases created in the process of building.

Instead, Griffith has made a study of Portugal, where houses have thick walls and small windows. I would imagine he would interest himself in a French farmhouse, called a mas, a one-story masonry building oriented to the south, built into a hillside to catch the low-lying winter sun, while avoiding the high sun come the vicious Provençal summer.

As a model for his new thought he looks to the power supply for a telephone from the 1920s. Almost a century old, it still works as it first did, generating enough electricity to throw someone across the room. Ostensibly, it will continue to work for the next five hundred years.

Cell phones, on the other hand, become useless after a finite number of charging cycles. Automobiles, kitchen appliances, computers – they are not built to last. We must figure out exactly what we have at our fingertips, and reclaim it for a current use.

Griffith speaks of his ability to build a “thermodynamically amazing…zero energy” structure. But, he points out, the energy it takes to build this structure would derive from fossil fuels. Even his idea of solar-powered highways, he believes, would not be a “green” move, due to the amount of fossil fuels needed for its construction.

It is from this platform that he addresses the work of Al Gore, who he dubbed the “No. 1 environmental hypocrite.” Gore flies constantly, justifying his carbon footprint by pointing to his effort to spread the word on global warming. Griffith responds, “I don’t think we can buy the argument anymore that you get special dispensation just because what you’re doing is worthwhile.”

It’s a difficult and complicated argument. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s as simple as Griffith calculates. On his website, www.wattzon.com, one can create a pie chart that shows the energy consumed in all aspects of life – driving, flying, and eating. The program calculates this number down to the watt. Griffith’s goal is to live at 2,500 watts. He’s currently at about 8,000.

Griffith’s realization boils down is this: we cannot invent our way out of this problem. Sure, it’s sexier to think we can “discover” a new avenue that will suddenly cut a swath through issues of heating and cooling, the desire to travel, to eat what we want when we want. We are a country built on Benjamin Franklin’s belief that “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Send the kite up to the skies in a thunderstorm, and see what happens….

As a company, we are currently finishing a job at the house of Judy Wicks, founder of the White Dog Café, and the Sustainable Business Network. Wicks has been trailblazer here in Philadelphia, and the world, for local, sustainable practice. We follow in the large footprints she has left.

To build her kitchen, we used the rafters that were deconstructed from her third floor. The cherry countertop comes from a tree in Lancaster that was downed in a lightning storm. The armoire we built for her bedroom is reclaimed from an estate, the material on her deck comes from a New York City water tower, the cedar in the lockers in her yard from a barn in Lancaster.
We are completing a job for the Whitesell’s on Fifth and Spruce in Society Hill. Oak flooring was removed, exposing the original yellow pine beneath. We will use the oak flooring – almost an inch thick – to construct their third floor bathroom.

A LEED Platinum job in Northern Liberties is also getting under way. We will use reclaimed material for the flooring, kitchens, bathrooms, trim, and framing – we get our framing material from struck movie sets.

In my mind, this is what Griffith is talking about: instead of thinking that someone will create a skeleton key to unlock the answer to all our problems, just be a little bit smarter about the materials you work with. Find innovative ways to re-use what already exists, or take a look back to the old-timers to get a sense of how they wrapped their heads around problems of energy.

The answer here lies not only in reclaiming and recycling building material. It also concerns the buildings strategies employed to get you to a finished structure. I’m thinking here of Passive House technology.

Tim McDonald, President and CEO of Onion Flats (www.onionflats.com), is a huge proponent of Passive House, a concept that promotes carbon-neutrality by using passive solar gain and an aggressively sealed and thought-through house. This is directly in line with what we are doing at Greensaw: don’t depend on technology, but rather look to the cards we’re dealt already. The wind blows here, the sun shines here, and it rains every so often. How do we make this work without hugely complicated machinery?

The United States Green Building Council, inventors of LEED, is not especially helpful on this. We can score points in LEED for Homes if we use reclaimed tropical wood, but not local reclaimed wood. Why is this? All our framing material comes from Resource Exchange (www.resourceexchange.org) here in Philadelphia. Resource Exchange is non-profit, re-use company who salvages movie set materials that typically ends up in a dumpster. It is possible that we will score an “innovation” point for this in the LEED charette, but it won’t be a whole lot more.

In addition, you only get one lonely point for building using an existing structure. This strikes me as absurd. The amount of fossil fuel not to mention landfill space that it takes to demo a building and build new should hugely influence the final LEED score.

Now it is one thing for a literature major like me to spout on about reclaimed material, the great stories behind architectural salvage, how much more beautiful it is than new wood and so forth and so on. But when a lifelong inventor and recipient of the 500k MacArthur “genius grant” starts saying that this invention thing ain’t going so hot, maybe we should start figuring out better ways to reclaim and recycle what we already have – well, I, for one, am all ears.

Labels: Architectural salvage, green builders, Green building, Greensaw, reclaim, recycle

posted by Brendan Jones @ 10:38 AM 0 comments

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Portrait of a Squirrel as a Young Man

It was during a thunderstorm atop scaffolding that we stumbled upon Cornice, the endangered Del Ray Squirrel.

The day previous, while using hammers and crowbars to deconstruct water and termite-damaged corbels, brackets, and fascia from a house on Prince Street, in historic downtown Alexandria Virginia, we heard a shuffling. As Jay pried off a return, a full-sized squirrel exploded out, balanced briefly on his arm, jumped to the scaffolding, and scampered down the side of the building. This, we decided, was a sad but necessary consequence of replacing an entire cornice on a house that dated from the 19th century.

The following day, dressed in foul weather gear, while replacing rotted out framing, a splinter of wood fell on the yellow grating of the scaffolding platform. Just before sweeping it away onto the waiting canvas forty feet below, the splinter moved. On closer inspection, it revealed a dun-colored belly, tiny whiskers, and two slits where eyes should be. It looked, with its little arms, like a ginger root.

Niko picked up the creature. We crowded around. After considering the events of the previous day, we decided that we had on, or rather in our hands, a baby squirrel.

Descending the scaffolding with one arm, Niko got the little guy, small enough to fit in a closed palm, to ground level and out of the rain. Hammers were put away and IPhones came out. We searched "Emergency care for a baby squirrel." Advice came pouring back. The consensus seemed to be that we would need, then and there, a baby dropper, filled with baby formula heated to room temperature.

Back at the apartment where we were staying, Jason put the formula on the stove, Niko held the little guy, and Dave and I looked on. Dave, bless his heart, recounted animal stories involving babies and inevitable death. Niko stayed quiet and ran his finger over our new friend's head. I searched on the Internet for more information, relaying back information that seemed relevant, such as the need to massage the squirrel's belly every couple hours to make sure he emptied his intestines, as well as to make sure he got fed up to four times a day.

Plastic dropper filled, we huddled around and gave it a shot. Niko held the squirrels head aloft while Jay attempted to squeeze formula down his throat. We discussed names. Cornice was decided upon. The milk went just about everywhere except into Cornice's mouth, dribbling down his cheeks, gathering in the creases of Niko's hands, ending up on rather than in the squirrel's belly.

After three or four dropper-fulls came to rest in paper towels, we gave up. Niko made Cornice a bed from fleece pants and installed him by the bathroom radiator. I read that creases in the squirrel's skin means dehydration. Our little friend looked like one big California raisin, aged way beyond his years. When you pinched his skin, soft as the underside of a wrist, it stood up like a paper back, requiring a good minute or two to return to his skeleton.

The rain had stopped and we had lost valuable hours on the job. We returned to work, finished rebuilding the necessary frame for the (actual) cornice, filling in with pressure-treated lumber to support the brackets and corbels we had pre-built in the shop, all the while discussing different permutations of possibilities for Cornice. Should we bring him to a rescue? The local fire department? Construct him a new home in the new cornice? Let nature take its course and send him on his way?

At the end of the work day we walked quickly back to the apartment, everyone silent and (I would guess) worried we might have a dead baby squirrel in our bathroom. Niko undid the folds of fleece as we watched. Indeed our friend looked in bad shape, the folds of his skin even deeper, like an emaciated rodent, dragging himself across Jay's open palm more like a miniature sloth than anything resembling a squirrel.

I found in my dopp kit a glass dropper from a tincture bottle. We heated the milk, took up our positions around the kitchen table, and gave it another shot. Again Niko held the squirrel, cradling his head between his thumb and index finger, while Jay prepared our new dropper. I found a number for a local rescue and began researching whether they would take a baby squirrel. Dave stood by and again voiced his skepticism about the general project. As I watched the formula dribbling down Cornice's cheeks, I couldn't help but agree with him. Each time Niko would get near his mouth with the tip of the dropper, the squirrel would turn his head away and exhale, small air bubbles appearing around his mouth.

I dialed the number for the rescue and had my finger over the Send button. Then Jay let out a yelp. "He's sucking!" We huddled around – and indeed he was, the little bugger – and not only taking a drop at a time but sucking eagerly, as if his life depended on it – which it surely did. Each of us shouted encouragement to the little guy, including Dave, and a chorus of cheers went up when Cornice pooped on Niko's hand. Another one when he took a pee.

Fully fed, we nestled him back into his bed by the radiator. The four of us leaning over, collective squirrel fathers, peering down at the little guy and happy with ourselves, feeling like gods I suppose. We made a grand dinner involving bacon and beer and fell into a deep sleep.

Thus began a tenuous juggle between work, eating, and squirrel-sitting. Two girls, recently moved to Alexandria, lived beneath where we were staying, and, as soon as they caught wind of the squirrel, we realized the awesome potential of our new pet. We redoubled our efforts in feeding him.

(The finished product in Alexandria, despite squirrel-sitting duties)

Thus began the era of the squirrel. Perched on your shoulder as you make a cut on the chop saw, rolling on his back and boxing with you as you fasten on a sanding pad, rotating a strawberry between his two paws like corn on the cob, or spiraling up a down your leg as you attempted to move lumber. Cornice, nicknamed "Boog" by Niko, became a presence in the shop. Niko became the squirrel's care keeper, while Jason and Brian pitched in whenever they could. We had Brian's birthday at the shop, and the squirrel upstaged him, party goers in disbelief that the squirrel could be a permanent fixture in our lives.

Meanwhile Cornice grew. His eyelids, as if operated by a slow-moving pump jack, slowly opened, revealing two brown beads. His fur grew in, and his tremendous tail grew out. We all remarked proudly on his endowment, figuring that he could put a full-grown squirrel to shame. We pondered the possibilities of finding him a suitable mate.

One morning Niko came in with a dark look. His girlfriend's terrier had gotten loose and made an attempt on Boog's life. The squirrel made it beneath the couch but not before the dog yanked off a mouthful of tail, and shucking off the fur, leaving Cornice with more of a stub. Niko – a card-carrying animal lover and protective of our newest family member – told us he almost strangled the dog.

We spent three days retrofitting Tony Siragusa's North Jersey restaurant for the DIY show "Mancaves" with architectural salvage. Expecting to get a fair amount of face time speaking on our redwood staves from the brewing barrels of Schmidt's brewery in Philadelphia, we instead found ourselves watching as Cornice had lights and cameras shoved in his face, and Siragusa marveled over our shop pet. Cornice did, however, work his squirrel magic and helped to lure over two cute female designers, giving us the inside track on the other dudes.

(Below - the finished restaurant, absent Cornice)

At stoplights Cornice perched on Niko's steering wheel. Fellow drivers honked and laughed. He saved Niko from a parking ticket while briefly stopped in front of Greenables (a regular stop of ours for purchasing environmentally-safe construction materials.) When the Philadelphia Parking Authority officer saw Cornice staring out the back window, instead of handing Niko a ticket, she shared her own squirrel stories from caring for one when she was a kid.

I'm sure he got us jobs – and perhaps lost us a few – when people saw him running around the shop. He never roamed far, but he never moved slowly either. The dogs, Sol and Colorado, just stared at him, whining. How did this creature, representative of everything they desired to catch, get to roam free in the shop that used to be their domain. One afternoon, in a second attempt on Cornice's life, Colorado rammed through a folding chair in front of the garden door and went for Cornice, who managed to escape to the top of the bookshelf.

Meanwhile Cornice's nails developed into mini-wolverine claws. Undulled by a normal squirrel existence of scampering up and down bark, he began to be something of a liability in the shop, leaping a good four feet in the air toward your face as you tried to make a cut on the table saw. While transporting tools to a kitchen site, I turned around to see a flying squirrel, midair, coming toward my nose. At the last moment I turned my head, and he slid down the side of my face like a cat down a curtain, drawing a number of inquiries over whether I had been swatted by a bobcat.

The requirements of taking care of him also began to weigh on Niko. Left at home in Niko's room, Boog rummaged into orange oil paint. When Niko returned home, he had a new paint design or squirrel prints – not confined to the walls. The car where Cornice spent much of his time began to resemble a squirrel nest, with nut shells strewn over the floor mats, almonds hidden within the seat crevices and various deposits of peanut-butter colored squirrel doo on the dash.

We contemplated the idea of building a squirrel habitat in Niko's garden, allowing Boog to roam as he pleased. Indeed he would play outside, and come home at night to sleep – often in Niko's bed, closing his eyes only after a thorough stomach scratching. It seemed like a plausible dream.

Then he bit a neighbor of Niko's, drawing blood. And then he bit one more. Then he chewed through his plastic carrier. And it became clear that Boog's days of a domesticated lifestyle were drawing to a close.

He was released into the Schuykhill Valley Nature preserve. On weekends we occasionally go out to check on our friend. Sometimes he appears, sometimes he doesn't. Niko reported seeing Cornice with another squirrel, seemingly at peace in the wild. Either way, we miss his presence, and hope he does well in the wild. Perhaps, years down the line, a biologist will report a new population of Del Ray squirrels in the Philadelphia area – and we'll know our little guy has been busy.

Labels: Architectural salvage, Green building, Greensaw, Pet Squirrel, Squirrel

posted by Brendan Jones @ 6:10 AM 0 comments

A blog addressing the importance of re-using material, and building with existing structures. A strong emphasis on architectural salvage, as well as the people that make the difficult work possible.

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Name: Brendan Jones
Home: Philadelphia, PA, United States
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