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Articles by Kate Griffith
Forced Speech in Wine Country
On a quiet stretch of California’s Central Coast, where small wineries compete not through scale but through identity, we built Flying Goat Cellars the old fashioned way—one bottle, one customer, and one relationship at a time. In a market defined by differentiation, independence is a business model that allows us to stand apart. Now, our uniqueness is under threat from a government mandate that forces us to participate in a story written by someone else.
Lompoc’s Next Crop
Once known as the flower seed capital of the world, the City of Lompoc is sowing seeds of optimism with its commitment to a five-year trial participation in the new Santa Barbara County Wine Business Improvement District (Wine BID). This initiative promises greater inclusion for Lompoc-based wineries within the broader Santa Barbara County wine community. In particular, Lompoc stands to benefit from the Santa Barbara Vintners Association projected $1.6 million annual marketing budget.
Seattle Goes Beyond Green Buildings to a Green Economy
Story at a glance: The Emerald City is a breeding ground for innovation in the built environment. The passage of Seattle’s Building Emissions Performance Standard codifies the city’s steps toward carbon neutrality. Read more about some of the latest sustainable projects in Seattle, including Amazon Frontier, the Maritime Innovation Center, an expansion at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, The Jack, Fairmont Olympic Hotel, and the Climate Pledge Arena.
Amazon Frontier is a Playground for Employees and Neighbors
Story at a glance: Built on half a city block, Amazon’s new Frontier building highlights density and connection within its Seattle campus. Architects went all out on a staircase that connects all floors of the building and is visible from the exterior. The LEED Gold–certified space features indoor parks with flora native to the Pacific Northwest to bring the outside in. Seattle is often touted as a city of neighborhoods.
How the Latest Technology Makes Better Buildings
Ever increasing technological integration makes control of your building just a thumb’s swipe away. The ability to visually represent a building’s data so clients can understand and adjust what’s happening in their spaces is now reality. Delta Controls’ O3 Sensor Hub uses a combination of motion sensing, infrared temperature detection, and audio sensors to understand indoor environmental conditions.
Rebooting Joint-Employer with Presumptions — A Modest Proposal | OnLabor
Coming soon: The return of the fight over joint-employer doctrine. Earlier this year, the National Labor Relations Board announced that it plans to amend the current joint-employer rule that a Trump-era NLRB adopted to supplant a broader legal standard. Good. NLRA joint-employer doctrine needs a serious reboot. Here, we offer an idea: Add industry-specific rebuttable presumptions of joint-employer status to supplement whatever general joint-employer legal standard the Board adopts.
How Andrés Laborde Reconsidered Nature with This Design in Chile
Story at a glance: A Chilean fishing industry innovator teamed up with a local design team to create this boundary-pushing workspace in Puerto Varas. Keepex’s new headquarters in Chile uses laminated wood and Isopol prefabricated panels. LAGAR designed the project to orient the space for expansion inside or future additions outside. Just outside the Chilean city of Puerto Varas, Keepex’s new headquarters sits tucked against a forest. The building is unassuming.
Patagonia's Rick Ridgeway on Designing for Anti-Consumerism
gb&d: What has it felt like to watch Patagonia’s commitment to sustainability deepen over the years? Ridgeway: Patagonia has always had a commitment to cutting-edge products, and it’s always had a commitment to environmental protection, but those commitments have never been stronger and never deeper than they are right now. The company is doing everything in its power for environmental protection. It is increasingly fierce. It’s a place that’s a privilege to work in.
Blog Post: A Call for Radical Labor Solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter Movement
Five labor scholars write to denounce racial injustice and call for radical labor solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement and all movements for racial justice.
The Lion, The Witch And The Artist Formerly Known As Wardrobe:
Hollywood’s Favorite Armoire, Unvarnished And Wide Open Photo by Jean van der Meulen on Pexels.com As the anniversary of the release of The Chronicles of Narnia approaches, we sat down for a candid conversation with the film’s famed Wardrobe as part of our Famous Furniture retrospective. Since Narnia, the Wardrobe has pivoted away from the screen and is now focused on her spiritual pursuits. She currently resides on a farm in Sacramento, where we met up.
Why the DOL Should Keep its Hands Off of Worker Centers
Recently Bloomberg reported that the Office of Labor Management Standards of the U.S. Department of Labor (the DOL) has reason to believe that the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en La Lucha (CTUL) is a “labor organization” under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA). The investigation is ongoing, but if the DOL’s current view stands, the practical import is that CTUL would need to submit extensive reporting of its finances and internal affairs.
A Multi-Generation Property Focuses on Sweeping Views, a Big Layout, and a Minimized Profile
Building a home in Coastal California is tough. The state’s environmental and green building standards are some of the strictest in the nation. But when you add in a client’s desire for seclusion, severe winds, and a hands-on community design review committee, the task becomes down-right daunting.
How to Meet Performance Specs Using Sustainable Interiors
We interview Brian Aske, project director with design-builder Lease Crutcher Lewis, to find out how SunOrShade is helping his project achieve its building goals. When it came time for the design-build team of Lease Crutcher Lewis and Miller Hull Architects to maximize energy efficiency and occupant comfort in the design of the University of Washington’s new Population Health building, the team turned to SunOrShade.
The Haunted Forest And The High School Acquaintance
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Home for the season, Alice rounded a bend Through the dark forest to surprise an old friend. “Let’s do this,” she said, literally out loud, And into the darkness she fearlessly plowed. Off to see Jeremy! Her smile did glisten. She’d talk about men, while “he liked to listen.” Since her move to the city, she’d felt a tad lonely But but surely she’d find that she wasn’t the only. Suddenly, a noise. The snap of a stick?
Oceanside Glass Tiles are Unlike Anything Else
Color & Innovation Oceanside is one of the few North American companies that manufactures its glass with through-body color. The manufacturer bakes color directly into its glass using a variety of chemical mixes instead of relying on colored paint or back adhesives to add hues to a colorless glass tile. The technique offers consistent color and a reflective quality that rates high with designers and architects. “You can’t duplicate that look,” Moiso says.
Flying Goat Cellars to Hold Reception for Lompoc Artist Sarah Allred
By Kate Griffith for Flying Goat Cellars | May 25, 2019 | 4:21 p.m. Flying Goat is hosting an artist reception for Sarah Allred, 3-5 p.m. Saturday, June 22, at the tasting room, 1520 E. Chestnut Court, in the Lompoc Wine Ghetto area. Community members are invited to come by, meet Allred and enjoy her paintings over wine and cheese. Allred is a Lompoc-based, self-taught visual artist. She began working with watercolors in 2015.
Steel, Concrete & Beyond: An Expert's Guide to Light Poles & Mountings
Forward-Thinking Consultation: Prepping Poles for the Future NOV’s design process is one part problem solving customer-specific needs, one part research into ongoing industry trends, and one part customer education. “From an engineering standpoint, we need to make sure we include the functionality specified at any given moment and keep an eye to what could be added on in the near future,” Blackbern says. “With ever developing technologies, you have new tech constantly being deployed.
Flying Goat Cellars Reception Focuses on Photographer Jerry McGinnis
Flying Goat Cellars will host a reception for local photographer Jerry McGinnis, 2-4 p.m. Sunday, March 17, at 1520 E. Chestnut Court, Lompoc. Light snacks will be provided with wine flights for sale. McGinnis, a Lompoc resident, has lived in the Santa Barbara area most of his life. His interest in photography was launched during his stint in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1972-85. McGinnis became interested in photography in his early 20s, after moving to the Bay Area.
Reception to Introduce Showing of Teresa Pratt’s Artwork at Flying Goat Cellars
Flying Goat Cellars will host an artist reception for Teresa Pratt, 2-4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16, at the tasting room, 1520 E. Chestnut Court, Lompoc. Community members are invited to meet the artist over a flight of wine and snacks. Pratt’s paintings will be on exhibit at Flying Goat Cellars through Feb. 28. The tasting room/gallery features new and established local artists and photographers; for more information, contact Flying Goat, 805-736-9032.
Coca-Cola is Improving the Future of Water Management
Striving to Do Better The legal battles and heated accusations that followed Coca-Cola’s operations in India from 2004 onward drove the company to take a hard look at all of its operations across the globe. Coca-Cola sells in more than 200 countries worldwide, where its namesake secret formula is trucked in as a concentrate and mixed with water, sweetened, bottled, and sold by local franchise bottling companies.
5 Benefits of Raindrop Gutter Guards
4. Engineered for Easy Maintenance Clogging is an annual gutter guard problem Steve Nitch’s team engineered away. Where other products lay flat to handle water, Raindrop guards are designed to be installed at a pitch, as a continuation of the roof, to keep debris moving off the gutter. “We came up with a widemouth outlet that opens the downspout outlet and gets rid of snagging possibilities,” Ben Nitch says. The feature ensures all water flushes through, taking micro debris with it.
Everything You Never Knew About Strand Bamboo
Tom Goodham’s career as a leader in sustainably derived hardwood flooring started with a fascination for unusual solutions. “I was captivated by the idea that there were options for hardwood flooring that didn’t have anything to do with traditional hardwoods, that people were making this product out of fast-growing bamboo,” says Goodham, president of Trinity Bamboo and former vice president of manufacturing and operations for Teragren Bamboo.
Gilbane Partners with Students to Create a Sustainability Center
What is the right thing to do? At Gilbane Building Company, this question has driven interactions with clients around the world. At Salisbury University in Maryland, it meant diverting 90% of construction waste from landfills. At a high school in Washington, D.C., it meant ensuring more than 90% of classrooms and offices enjoyed natural light.
Aquafil is Making Radical Change Toward a Circular Economy
Fifty-three years ago, few could have guessed that a company founded to create yarn for textile flooring in Arco, Italy, would become an international leader in creating sustainable, circular economies. Even fewer may have guessed that organization would become a model for creative partnerships. “At the beginning it was quite a traditional business,” says CEO Giulio Bonazzi, second generation leader of the family-owned Aquafil, a top supplier for commercial and residential carpet manufacturers.
Google: Can Post-Consumer Glass Be Used in Concrete to Reduce Carbon Footprints?
Google is in the business of glass, and we don’t mean Glass of the high-tech optical variety. In its partnership with Building Product Ecosystems, the tech giant is exploring the world of recycled glass, poured concrete, gypsum, wallboard, and the sustainability of its built environments. It’s an inspiring collaboration with two parts: The first is piloting the use of post-consumer glass as a cement replacement in concrete.
Why Stainless Steel Pools are Better
What It Looks Like Design is one thing. Construction and installation are another. When it came time to find a supplier for Arquitectonica’s contemporary pool designs, with their geometric edges, clean lines, and lush native vegetation all sitting above living and commercial spaces, Bradford Products was the obvious choice. An international leader in the design and manufacturing of stainless steel pools, spas, and hot tubs, Bradford dived right into Brickell’s challenges.
Beautiful Window and Door Solutions of 2018 from Milgard
Product performance is integral to sustainability, and few products do as much for a building and its occupants as good windows and doors. Ventilation, natural light, connection to the outside world—not to mention points of egress in situations of emergency—those seemingly simple panes of glass offer a link to the world beyond that keeps us from minding whether we’re stuck inside.
Patagonia's Rick Ridgeway Talks Sustainability - gb&d
gb&d: What has it felt like to watch Patagonia’s commitment to sustainability deepen over the years? Ridgeway: Patagonia has always had a commitment to cutting-edge products, and it’s always had a commitment to environmental protection, but those commitments have never been stronger and never deeper than they are right now. The company is doing everything in its power for environmental protection. It is increasingly fierce. It’s a place that’s a privilege to work in.
Sasaki is Reimagining Resiliency to Build Stronger Communities - gb&d
By the end of 2017’s hurricane season, it was clear to communities across the United States that our understanding of nature’s fury and the metrics by which we measure human safety are quickly shifting. When 100-year floods happen every 10 years, or 500-year storms happen multiple times in one lifetime, it’s obvious that communities need to do more than just armor themselves: They must adapt. Infrastructure must protect, and to do that, it must flex. Above all, it needs to nurture future growth.
How One Green Building Superstar Created His Own Family’s Nest
To that end: The home combines on-site construction with salvaged items. The double-height living space is structured by insulated rammed earth walls and south facing glass doors for energy efficiency and thermal mass. Upper level exterior walls feature the Japanese charred wood finish Yakisugi.
Greener Building in the Pacific Northwest - gb&d
Seattle’s most notable and visible feature may be its iconic Space Needle. But as Seattleites will tell you, building cranes are quickly taking up the negative space between skyscrapers and mountain views. Seattle is growing fast, thanks to tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. But this Pacific Northwest city has long been known for a certain ethos of sustainability. Even with an exaggerated building rush, that ethos of responsible living remains.
Perkins + Will is Building for the Future - gb&d
It’s designed as a single four-story building organized around a 38-square-foot outdoor courtyard. “Taking a block and developing a courtyard type of building that can be experienced either as two separate buildings or as a single building gave us the opportunity to create a sense of a campus,” Mott says. The simultaneous experience of being in one place and in several different places creates identity on multiple levels, he adds, for building tenants and the community alike.
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