Sunset Breezehouse

For a slide show of the interiors, click on the photo above.

By Jordan Lebovich, JBL Photography

For the 2012 Sunset Magazine Idea House, Sunset Magazine and Blu Homes teamed up to create a spacious, updated Breezehouse, built in Blu Home’s state-of-the-art factory in Mare Island.  The home arrived in three trucks and the panels were then assembled on-site in Healdsburg on a steep lot that over-looks the wine country. Unbelievably the house was installed in only a day and a half and then finished in about a week.

Of course the site engineering and preparation took several weeks, but once the foundation was ready it was quick work.  The Breezehouse is a modular home that seamlessly blends indoor living with the outdoors and provides a stunning environment that is healthy, energy-efficient, and well constructed.  Since the house is precision built to local and state codes at the factory, onsite inspection times are shorter and there is less impact to a city’s resources. 

Some of the environmentally friendly features include:

• Built in a controlled setting with faster construction time
• Steel framing is recycled up to 90% 
• Batt insulation is recycled up to 80%, with no phenol, formaldehyde or acrylics used
• Low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints
• Reclaimed wood or bamboo floors

The home features two bedrooms, a guest bedroom/office and three bathrooms as well as a separate in-law unit or Breeze Pod.  There is lots of storage space throughout the house.  For a factory built home, the house is beautiful and pretty amazing.  Blu Homes is a San Francisco and Boston-based company founded out of a research project by MIT and the Rhode Island School of Design to transform the way pre-fab homes are built. They use technology to help revolutionize the way that green homes are built.  For floor plans, a virtual tour and more information go the Sunset Magazine Breezehouse Idea House page.

Bay Bridge Boat Tour

(For more photos click on the photo above.)

By Jordan Lebovich, JBL Photography

With perfect weather and an eager group we set off to tour the new bay bridge that will link Oakland with Yerba Buena Island.  To start the tour we were shown a short video about the bridge and the progress to date.  The numbers that were covered are colossal.  From the tons of steel, rebar and concrete to the miles of cable to the dozens of companies and countries that are involved, it’s hard to comprehend the effort that has gone into the design and building of this bridge. 

The eastern span replacement of the bridge has been under construction since 2002 and is scheduled to open by Labor Day Weekend in 2013 at a cost of $6.3 billion. The replacement span is engineered to withstand the largest earthquake expected over a 1500 year period and is expected to last at least 150 years with proper maintenance. The Self-Anchored Suspension (SAS) tower was completed in 2011 and all 28 deck segments on the span are in place.

Workers have completed the challenging task of pulling and installing the last of the 137 strands of the nearly 1-mile-long main SAS cable. Each strand consists of more than 17,000 individual high-strength steel wires. The SAS’s single, nearly 1-mile-long cable is anchored into the east end of the roadway, traveling up and over the single tower to wrap around the west end before traveling back up and over the tower to anchor back into the east end; in other words, the 2.6-foot-diameter cable acts like a giant, unbelievably strong sling. The cable’s diameter is the largest for a self-anchored suspension span and at nearly a mile-long, the cable is also the longest looped suspension cable in any bridge. The cable features 118 miles of 2 1/2-inch steel strands and more than 17,000 5mm wires, each of which can support the weight of a military grade Hummer. The cable weighs 5,291 tons or nearly 10.6 million pounds. Anchoring the main cable in the deck itself puts the span into compression and enables it to remain standing.

The new East Span of the Bay Bridge features a unique single tower suspension bridge, connecting to a mile-long elevated viaduct, or Skyway. The parallel roadways of the new span will provide motorists with sweeping views of San Francisco Bay. Each deck will accommodate five lanes of traffic and include 10-foot-wide shoulders to help keep traffic moving. The Skyway has massive pilings reaching deep into bay and seismic safety devices that will enable the road decks to move rather than buckle in the event of an earthquake. The Skyway’s decks are comprised of 452 precast concrete segments, fabricated in Stockton and transported by barge to the project site. These are the largest segments of their kind ever cast. They are lifted into place by winches, which were custom-made for this project.

These are just some of the features of the new bridge, but there were other considerations like the wildlife habitat that the bridge spans. The Bay Bridge and other Toll Bridge projects are global leaders in developing ways to reduce underwater noise caused by construction activity.   In addition, since birds have been roosting on the original Bay Bridge for years, the team designed special platforms (a.k.a., “Cormorant Condos”) under the Skyway to provide nesting habitat in the same area. The project will provide opportunities for the creation and/or enhancement of shorebird roosting habitat in the East Bay. The team regularly monitors birds in the area, such as the Peregrine Falcon, Least Tern, California Brown Pelican, Double-crested Cormorant and Western Gull, to ensure they are not disturbed by construction activities. 

For more information about the bridge project go to http://baybridgeinfo.org/

Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay, Redding CA

(For more photos click on the photo above.)

By Jordan Lebovich, JBL Photography

The design for the Sundial Bridge was conceived by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the world’s premier bridge designer. Calatrava has built bridges, airports, rail terminals, stadiums, and other structures around the world, but this is his first freestanding bridge in the United States.

The Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay is for pedestrians and bicycles and crosses the Sacramento River in the heart of Redding, California.  With Mount Shasta visible in the distance, the river flows below you as you stand on this beautiful bridge.  The steel, glass, and granite span evokes a sense of weightlessness and the translucent decking provides for spectacular viewing at night.

 The bridge opened July 4, 2004 and forms a large sundial, hence its name.   The support tower of the bridge forms a single 217 foot mast that points due north at a cantilevered angle, casting a shadow on the ground where blocks are set to indicate the hours of the day. It is the world's largest sundial and the tip of the shadow moves at approximately one foot per minute so that the Earth's rotation about its axis can be seen with the naked eye.

The bridge is also environmentally sensitive to its river setting. The tall pylon and cable stays allow the bridge to avoid the nearby salmon-spawning habitat as there are no supports in the water.  The cable-stayed structure has an inclined, 217 foot pylon constructed of 580 tons of steel. The deck is made up of 200 tons of glass and granite and is supported by more than 4,300 feet of cable. The structure is stabilized by a steel truss, and rests on a foundation of more than 115 tons of steel and 1,900 cubic yards of concrete. The McConnell Foundation, a private, independent foundation, funded the majority of the bridge’s $23 million cost.

Near the bridge is the Turtle Bay Museum.  The Museum’s wood structure and floor-to-ceiling glass walls help the building sit “lightly” on the natural site.  Large roof overhangs on the north and west facades provide shade for visitors. Permanent and changing exhibit galleries are housed in the Museum.  For more photos, click on the picture above.