Jo-Anne and Bryan took Dave Edwards to the USGBC Northern California Chapter Gala Awards 2009 at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.  There were more than 800 attendees at the event, where the USGBC celebrated the awarding of its ‘Super Heroes’ for 2009.

Viewing the Exhibits

Prior to the awards, we were able to walk through the California Academy of Sciences, which was closed to the public.  The Academy is a remarkable building, housing a huge collection of exhibits.  We decided that we need to bring our son and daughter to the museum as we believe they would enjoy the exhibits.

The building was certified Platinum by the USGBC on October 8, 2008.  It is a both a beautiful building and extremely ‘green’.  The building has radiant heating and cooling, and used Uponor products throughout.  Uponor has a case study on this building in YouTube.

Bryan and Jo-Anne reviewing the exhibits at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

The museum has radiant heating and cooling, which is exactly what we are putting in our home.

One end of the museum houses a number of exhibits that describe global warming, its importance and consequences, and how to we need to address it.

This exhibit shows, in very real terms, how the amount of CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere.

 2009 Super Hero Awards

The Super Hero Awards, and the recipients, were as follows

Community Award - StopWaste’s Green Building in Alameda County
Green Groundbreaker Award - Integrated Design Associates (IDeAs)
Green Team Award - The David Brower Center
David Gottfried Special Achievement Award - Anthony Bernheim

We have not been to the Integrated Design Associates building in San Jose yet.  It was the first net zero energy, zero carbon commercial building in the U.S.  The mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, was at the gala to present the award to David Kaneda, who is the founder and owner of IDeAs.

Dave Edwards, who owns Earth Bound Homes, is the general contractor that is building David Kaneda’s private residence in Cupertino.  Dave drove with us to the gala tonight and, after the awards, introduced us to David Kaneda and his wife, Stephania Wong Kaneda.  Also, Dave introduced us to Bill Leddy, who designed David Kaneda’s house.

After receiving his award, David Kaneda mentioned in his address that his family had moved into their new house that afternoon and would be spending their first night in the house tonight.  Also, David acknowledged that Dave Edwards had built his home, which will be LEED-H Platinum and net zero energy and zero carbon.

After the awards ceremony, John Westly gave the keynote address.  We were surprised and delighted at how elequently John spoke and how inspirational his keynote was.

The awards were presented in the center of the building, which has a stage and screens.

Chuck Reed, Mayor of the City of San Jose, presented the Green Groundbreaker award.

David Kaneda receiving his award and acknowledging and thanking his team.

The room was full for the awards ceremony.

David Gottfried, the founder of the USGBC and owner of the first LEED-H Platinum home in Northern California, describing Anthony Bernheim's accomplishments.

Steve Westly delivers an inspirational keynote at the event.

Dave Edwards (left) congratulating David Kaneda (right) after the awards.

OK, we’re not finished moving the dirt and the conveyors remain in place but we’re hosting our ‘Grand Floor Opening’ celebration regardless!

We did our best to clean up the site and secure it for safety.  It scrubbed up nicely.

Our First Guests Arrive

Our first guest, the Berner family arrived early as they were on their way to San Francisco for another event.  Mikael and his wife, Karen, are starting a project in Los Altos and wanted to see our site so they brought their two girls.

Jo-Anne with the Berner family (very dressy for the construction site!).

Everyone Else Arrives!

A beautiful day for our Grand Floor Opening celebration.

Jo-Anne (left) chatting with Michael Good, who is with Pete Moffat Construction and is building the house at 2180 Bryant Street in Palo Alto.

Our good friends, Pia (left), David and Linnea Staab.

One of the regular attenders at our events, Baby Martin. He has grown since his appearance at the

Enjoying a glass of wine by the atrium.

Jim O'Brien (right) chatting with Carole Murray and Phil Murray, who is holding their daughter.

Phil Knopf, Paul Dodds, and Bonnie Knopf with Jo-Anne (holding our dog, Lucky).

Bryan and Suzanne Muller, in the Wine Dining room.

Wrapping Up the Day

After the event ended, we joined the Fultons for an excellent BBQ.

Dave Cullinane on the grill, with Bill Clyne (on BBQ Quality Control), at the Fulton BBQ.

We were delighted to invite all of our neighbors on Via Sereno and adjacent neighbors on Winchester Boulevard to come to our ‘Open Hole’ Party (it is not quite an open house at this phase in our remodel).

Of the other 15 Eichler homes on Via Sereno, 6 neighbors attended so we were very pleased.  We learned that the largest house footprint on Via Sereno is 3,500 sq ft (ours is 3,048 sq ft).  There were several discussions regarding how the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake shook the Eichlers on Via Sereno and how no windows broke in any of the Eichlers.  One question that we will address is to show the actual composition/layers from the finished floor in the lower level to the raw earth.

Preparation and Set Up

Setting up a temporary table using High Load 40 and a tablecloth on sawhorses.

We set out the concrete stain samples, high density foam samples, and the re-milled original redwood decking for everyone to view and give us comments on.

Samples of concrete stain colors, high density foam and the re-sawn original redwood deck.

Temporary mounting for corkscrew (gift from Donna and Mike circa Y2K).

Kate and our Toy Fox Terrier, Lucky Star, waiting patiently for our first visitors.

John Rider (Jrider + Design) explaining the design to our neighbor, Ray.

Our neighbor, Ned, reviewing the site with author Jerry Ditto.

Our neighbor, Eric, discussing the plans with John Rider (Jrider + Design).

Jerry Ditto and Ned reviewing rendering with Bryan.

Our neighbors, Paul and Siri, arriving with their daughter.

Pia and Bryan discussing rendering.

Baby Martin, David and Pia's son, enjoying the afternoon.

View of the event.

Bryan reviewing rendering with Diane and Bill Brown.

Our son, Nikolas, with his good friend Ryan.

We enjoyed hosting an event so everyone could see our progress.

Paul, Dave, Laurie and Robert reviewing the site.

The railing was a nice touch, especially when leaving the excavation.

After securing the site, Robert and Laurie hosted a wonderful, impromptu dinner at their home in Los Gatos.

Thank you everyone for coming to visit our site!