Workshop: NYC Apartment Hacks for Climate Action

69% of households rent their homes – if you’re among them, you might feel powerless to take climate action in your daily choices at home. In reality, there are a lot of actions you can take!

Join us for an evening of experts, building professionals, and New Yorkers sharing low-tech actions and technologies anyone can implement, even in a small, rented apartment, to reduce your impact on the climate while improving your quality of life. We’ll go beyond ConEdison’s tips to install LED light bulbs and cover topics such as smart radiator covers, night flush cooling, making compost manageable, and even line-drying laundry. We might sprinkle in ideas for offices as well!

We’ll hear from experts such as Clare Miflin, The Center for Zero Waste Design, and more – including our hosts at Transsolar KlimaEngineering (Stuttgart/München/New York) and the sound-dampening window ventilators installed at their office. Our experts will lead us in a moderated discussion, sharing their knowledge and hacks with the crowd before we open the floor to share your personal energy-efficient hacks, innovations, and ideas!

Followed by a reception

Do you have an idea you’d love to share? Are you a building professional excited about a simple hack you implemented? Everyone is invited to contribute, even if you have a simple, one-minute idea to share.

Please Include:

• One sentence explanation of your pitch
• Length of pitch (1-3 minutes)
• Option to submit up to 3 slides
• One sentence bio about yourself

Submit: p>

This

Biographies

Transsolar is an international climate engineering firm determined to create exceptional, highly comfortable indoor and outdoor spaces with a positive environmental impact. Since opening their doors in Stuttgart in 1992, they have grown to over seventy full-time engineers in Stuttgart, Munich and New York. They believe that the very measures taken to create remarkable architecture can simultaneously enhance human experience and minimize resource use; Sustainability is not separate from design, but an indispensable component that enhances the experience of the built environment.

Transsolar is a diverse team of engineers and architects focused on creating climate-responsive built environments, collaborating with clients and partners to enhance the human experience while minimizing resource use following their self-declared attitude: High Comfort, Low Impact.

In partnership with the world’s leading architects, Transsolar's unique approach has led to numerous breakthrough projects including Manitoba Hydro Place, which in 2012 became the most energy efficient office tower in North America. Their collaborative style has earned their projects many AIA Honor, COTE Top Ten, and other international awards; high points are the 2015 AIA Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement and the 2020 OPAL Special Award / Sustainability.

Clare Miflin is an architect and systems thinker with experience designing buildings to Passive House, LEED Platinum, Living Building Challenge and AIA COTE Top Ten standards. She has over 20 years of architectural experience, most recently at Kiss + Cathcart, Architects where she helped develop their philosophy of “productive” architecture. Clare led the development of the Zero Waste Design Guidelines through a multidisciplinary and collaborative process. As a certified biomimicry professional, she finds inspiration from natural systems that she applies to the built environment. Clare has also founded a consultancy – ThinkWoven – to develop strategies to weave urban systems into ecosystems. From 2017-2021 Clare was co-chair of the AIANY’s Committee on the Environment.

Center for Zero Waste Design was created in April 2019 to share knowledge on Zero Waste Design, adapt the strategies within the ">span> to the context of other cities, expand the database of case studies, and develop research and policy tools for designing cities and buildings for zero waste. The Center consults with design teams, community organizations and municipalities to integrate best practices for zero waste into programming and design of buildings and the public realm.