Pringle Creek repeats in Natural Home top ten

Pringle Creek Community is on Natural Home magazine's list, America’s Top 10 Best Green-Built Neighborhoods.The magazine states that "our favorite planned communities strive for responsible construction and promote sustainable living.”

Two and half years ago Natural Home published a similar listing, their top 10 “green housing projects,” and Pringle Creek was also on that list.

Two entries on the new list that weren't on the previous list are in Oregon:
Mosier Creek is in the small town of Mosier, seven miles west of Hood River. The other is Northwest Crossing in Bend.

Pringle Creek in Forests for Oregon magazine

The Oregon Department of Forestry has written about Pringle Creek Community in their quarterly magazine, Forests for Oregon. The article, "An innovative approach to trees, landscaping, homebuilding," by Cynthia Orlando, is on pages 6-7 of the online 12-page pdf.

The pervious asphalt is an important feature – it allows 90 percent of rainwater to infiltrate on-site to the aquifer, thereby protecting local rivers and streams. Pervious asphalt notwithstanding, “our trees are our most effective stormwater management tool,” says James Santana, Director of Community Development at Pringle Creek.

The site’s commitment to mature tree retention – an astounding 80 percent of the site’s trees were preserved during development – is another important feature. “Retaining existing trees on a development site is often more valuable than planting new trees,” says ODF’s Urban and Community Program Director, Paul Ries. “Mature trees deliver and instant sense of place – as well as a variety of environmental, economic, and social benefits that small trees take many years to provide,” he adds.

Photo log

Shannon (our Urban Farm Intern) working with Pete and Mark from Marion Polk Food Share

Pete, Mark, Shannon and Will in the Conservatory growing starts for MPFS

Our first blooms of passion flower inside the Conservatory!

The passion flower vine soon will be covered in incredible flowers

Kristen's LEED tall house is just about finished, gets exterior paint next week or so

Fariborz's LEED roundhouse getting framed

It will have a one car garage with master bedroom above

Inside the great room, lots of south facing windows

View of the north side. The crane work was done by local company Santana Crane.

Cousteau Loop beginning to take shape with six LEED certified houses!

Fairview Wetlands Park

Fairview Wetlands Park is a 40 acre naturalized park space with trails just a one mile walk from Pringle Creek Community. There are native plants and flowers and migratory birds to observe. The wetlands is a small wildlife oasis in the city, and a very nice place to walk or go for a run. Pringle Creek Watershed Council is asking for some help with maintenance.

Click to enlarge

Exchange students check out Pringle Creek

Here are some photos from a recent gathering in the "net-zero energy" Painter's Hall. Sixteen South Salem families are hosting 16 foreign exchange students from Munich, Germany, and they all came out for a potluck dinner. Afterwards, many in the party filtered outside to play and visit and check out Pringle Creek Community.

"This place has good potential for a disc golf course."

"Clouds are a problem for solar power in Germany too."

Potluck for 60? Notice the ceiling detail, which is an assembly of wood strips removed from another pre-existing building at Pringle Creek.

No clue as to which ones are German and which are American.

"We're hiding what tree?" Inside joke; behind the group is the "nurse log" in front of the Painter's Hall, a 300 year old naturally-fallen Oregon White oak that we’ve incorporated into the neighborhood landscaping plan.

A local award goes to Pringle Creek

Pringle Creek won the award for Sustainable Small Business of the Year at the first annual Green Awards, an event to raise funds for the educational programs of the Straub Environmental Learning Center. The nominees and winners were picked by the Friends of Straub along with representatives of Marion County Environmental Services and Garten Services. Pringle Creek team members DeSantis Landscaping and Bilyeu Homes were also winners. Here is the listing of nominees with the winners in boldface:

Recycler of the Year (Resident)
Greg Craven, Steve DePina

Recycler of the Year (Education)
Linda Nishioka, Jon Yoder

Recycler of the Year (Business)
Cascade Baking Company, Hillyer Ford, Sabroso, Salem Habitat for Humanity ReSTORE

Sustainable Business of the Year (Small)
Advantage Pre-Cast, Cascade Baking Co., First Impressions Last, Illahe Vineyards, Pringle Creek Community, Willamette Valley Fruit Co.

Sustainable Business of the Year (Large)
DeSantis Landscaping, Grand Hotel Salem, Green Acres Landscape, Heritage Seedlings, Hillyer Ford, LifeSource Natural Foods, Performance Health Technology, SAIF Corp., South Town Glass

Sustainable Business of the Year (Organization)
Oregon State Capitol,Oregon Department of Energy

Green Building of the Year (New)
Bilyeu Construction: residence on 14th and Nebraska, City of Keizer City Hall/Police Department/Community Center, Kroc Center

Green Building of the Year (Retrofit)
Travel Salem

EarthWISE Businesses of the Year (two winners)
Cascade Baking Co., Hillyer Ford, Sabroso, Advantage Pre-Cast Inc., Willamette Valley Fruit Co., DeSantis Landscaping, Grand Hotel Salem, Green Acres Landscape, Performance Health Technology, SAIF Corp., Oregon State Capitol, Oregon Department of Energy, Travel Salem

Here is the link the article in the Statesman Journal, which said the following about Pringle Creek's award:

The development was built as a living laboratory to show sustainable practices from its geo-thermal heating to its strict green-building standards.

Painter's Hall, the development's community center, is one of the few buildings on the West Coast to reach the highest level of LEED certification from the Green Building Council. It also has a zero-waste policy for events. Developers also reused materials from several existing buildings on site, repurposed others to minimize waste and used local, sustainable products and practices throughout.

The development was recently certified as the Salmon Safe residential development for its efforts to promote water quality and fish habitat on site.

"Manufactured Landscapes" at Grand Theater

We love the Salem Progressive Film Series but this one, Manufactured Landscapes, coming up on Thursday March 11, is the one we're most excited about seeing. Edward Burtynsky is AMAZING. The film is about his photography. The director of the film, Jennifer Baichwal, will "appear" via Skype at the Grand Theater to talk about it. Variety magazine says the documentary is "a profound, open-ended meditation on Man's physical impact on his environment." To read more about it and see the trailer, go to the Salem Progressive Film Series website.

Location: Grand Theater
191 High Street NE, Salem, Oregon
Doors open at 6:15p, Films begin at 7p
Admission: Adults $3, Students $2

Courtyard cottages

Springtime is around the corner and its a great time to come out and see what's new at Pringle Creek Community. Designer and builder Spectra Construction has two cottage homes that are close to completion. These unique single-level homes are two bedroom/two bath, LEED gold certified, and are each available for under $200,000. This includes landscaping and access to the geo-thermal heating and cooling system. The courtyard cottages share a common backyard green space. They are at different stages of construction but in both cases a buyer is able to choose finish details such as cabinet design, paint colors, countertops and bath fixtures.

Call (503.315.1055) or email (sarah@pringlecreek.com) Sarah de Haan for a personal tour of these homes and the community.

Photo log

Sanyo solar photovoltaic panels on Painter's Hall

Recycled decking and trellis on Painter's Hall

Painter's Hall in the sun

Paco on the greenroof

Oak log

Marge walking Sampson

Lumber milled onsite . . .

. . . becomes coffee table

Pringle Creek's geothermal heating and cooling system

At Pringle Creek Community we've been busy with several projects--cottage homes, Painter's Hall, greenhouses, geo-thermal system, two new custom homes, and organizing our community gardens, as well as other endeavors. So much going on that we've neglected to keep up to date about it here on the "community news" page. We'll get caught up right now and over the next few weeks.

Regarding Pringle Creek Community's geo-thermal heating and cooling system, here, from the case study by Opsis Architecture, is a brief explanation:

A well designed for domestic water use and irrigation, located at the Pringle Creek site, has been utilized for a GPHS (ground source heat pump system) water distribution system. The well has a 280 gallon per minute capacity for delivering water at a 59 degree temperature. The GPHS district loop will extract the ambient earth temperature water from the production well pump and deliver the water to each lot via a supply piping system within the street right of way. At each lot, the water will be borrowed and circulated through a heat pump where the heat will be either extracted from the water in the heating mode, or rejected to the water in the cooling mode. After passing through the lot, the heat pump returns the water through a return piping system, where it either becomes available for irrigation use or it is returned to the aquifer via injection wells. Untilized by half the lots at Pringle Creek, the GPHS system is approximately 300% more efficient at delivering heat that a gas furnace.