New Green Building Concept; Conference Coming Friday
SOUTHFIELD -- A Ferndale entrepreneur is ready to go with a novel green building and business construction concept.
"We're ready to build a prototype system on a site working with a nonprofit community development corporation and a for-profit developer," said Robert B. Prud'homme of his Concept 22 Inc., which carries the slogan "22nd Century Living In The 21st Century."
Prud'homme has designed a system of steel-framed structures, 12 feet wide by 12 feet high by 12, 36 or 48 feet long, that he says "can be used for anything from a single family home to an eight-story commercial infill project, and anything in between."
Prud'homme said he dreamed up Concept 22 while he spent months in rehabilitation recuperating from a 20-foot fall he suffered in 2008 while inspecting a building.
Prud'homme said his building system could be used to repopulate areas of Detroit that city government says it is not "investing in" any more -- creating high-tech, self-sustaining settlements within them. Those projects could be designed to generate their own power, collect rainwater for drinking, process their own waste, and grow their own food with urban agriculture, Prud'homme said.
"The technology is all there," he said. "It just hasn't been put into a single project yet."
Concept 22 will also create modular wall systems that can be used to retrofit existing buildings.
"I call them Legos on steroids with a mission -- part of the mission is to be net zero energy, part of the mission is to be a healthy environment," Prud'homme said.
Prud'homme's concept will be among many under discussion Friday at a meeting of the Detroit Regional Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, "Making LEED ND Happen For Your Development."
The USGBC has rolled out a new version of its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards, which had been applied to buildings, for entire neighborhood developments.
The event runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Henry Ford Community College's Andrew A. Mazzara Conference Center, 5101 Evergreen Road, Dearborn.
The event opens with a keynote from Doug Farr, founding principal of Chicago-based sustainability architects Farr Associates and one of the authors of LEED ND. Farr is also author of the urban planning best-seller "Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature." Farr will give a concise overview of the new LEED ND rating system.
Following this, attendees will have their choice of participating in three of the six breakout sessions, including the business case for LEED ND and a look at Dearborn's new transit center as a LEED ND project. There will also be a workshop that will examine the potential for a portion of Detroit's historic Eastern Market to become the city's first LEED-ND project. The event will conclude with an address by architecture dean Glen S. LeRoy of Lawrence Technological University, followed by an opportunity to network with fellow developers and investors to compare notes.
More at this link. And Prud'homme can be reached at (248) 548-7288.
