Glimpse into the Future

Here is a brief report on the tour we were given through the UBC CIRS building last Friday.
Very good impression overall, nice design, well-used structural and finishing wood, efficient
use of natural light. They used embedded in the glass photo elements, which look nice on the
skylights and on the window awnings. The building incorporates almost every existing (at least
at the time it was conceived) "sustainable" technologies, from PV, to geo and solar thermal, to
heat recovery and rainwater collection and regeneration. There is also a number of "high-tech"
features, like big screen at the entrance,  touch-pad conference table from Microsoft and other.
Another big contributor is Honeywell. The building has quite impressive theatre. The middle of
the building made as a closed loop is taken by the garden (on the roof of the second floor). Semi-
detached portion o the building at the front houses a bio-processing facility.

Building sustainable community at Sun Peaks

On September 19 made a presentation on Sustainable Development for Sun Peaks Municipality.
Very well received and directly supported by the Mayor - now to work further on the analysis
of the fire hall building and future municipal buildings. This is how Sun Peaks Fire Hall building
looks before and after installation of the solar thermal system.

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Sustainability at Thompson Rivers University

Last Tuesday I met with director of Sustainability at TRU, Tom Owen. Not only I was glad to know that TRU is very interested in the subject of Sustainable Development I also found Tom being a very interesting person, with rich background and wide range if interests - from wild mushrooms to aerospace. His dad was one of the chief designers of the legendary Canadian super fighter jet, Avro Arrow. Accidentally, the first plane was rolled out of the gate on October 4, 1957 - the same day the first satellite was launched into space,  and under the star of Sputnik
Yours Truly was born ...