Sparkflight Studios

Image Credit: NASA. Taken from Emergence Magazine : Ten Love Letters to the Earth by Thich Nhất Hanh. In honor of Earth Day this week, we would like to share with you our passion for creating healthy, equitable, and community-centered design. In our practice areas (Multifamily, Commercial, Interiors, and Public Art) we approach every project with this care and sensitivity. This stems from one of our core beliefs that a healthy, sustainable world is possible. As design professionals, it is our job to ensure that the spaces we live, work, and play support our health. Organizations like the  Healthy Building Network  are raising their voice and partnering with communities to advocate for a built environment in which all people are free of chemicals that harm us. To make spaces where we breathe easy, think clearly, and feel more creative requires research and community buy-in. According to the HBN, of roughly 85,000 chemicals available in the market, few are adequately tested fo...

  The Nature Conservancy in Nevada. Image credit © Simon Williams. Wetlands: Hands On! (W.H.O.) is a stewardship program at the Clark County Wetlands Park involving more than 5,000 community volunteers since 2013. Volunteers participated in monthly projects including picking up trash and debris, removing graffiti, painting, removing invasive plants, trail maintenance, and restoration. Dozens of southern Nevada organizations, clubs, businesses, and agencies have participated. The next W.H.O. stewardship opportunity is this Saturday, 2/12/22, from 9 AM - 11 AM. Sign-up link here:  who.ccwetlandspark.com . Additional contact information :  7050 Wetlands Park Lane Las Vegas, NV 89122 (702) 455-7522 wetlands@clarkcountynv.gov More February programs may be found by clicking here .

A country’s overshoot day is the date on which Earth Overshoot Day would fall if all of humanity consumed like the people in this country.  Humans use as much ecological resources as if we lived on 1.6 Earths. The Ecological Footprint is the only metric that compares the resource demand of individuals, governments, and businesses against Earth's capacity for biological regeneration. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. In 2020, Earth Overshoot Day lands on August 22. We maintain this deficit by liquidating stocks of ecological resources and accumulating waste, primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Earth Overshoot Day is hosted and calculated by Global Footprint Network, an international research organization that provides decision-makers with a menu of tools to help the human economy operate within Earth’s ecological limits. More information may be found...

Rendering of the proposed mixed-use site In September, we introduced Sparkflight Studios' involvement in the 2019 AIA Blueprint for Better Housing , a mission to solve housing needs in our community. Anne was invited to be the Team Coordinator of the Multi-Family Mixed-Use group. She worked diligently with her team and alongside the charrette participants and members of the local community to create a design that was presented to AIA Las Vegas in October. The team proposed a 381,000-SF mixed-use, mixed-income development on the west side of Martin Luther King Boulevard, south of Lake Mead Boulevard, in the 89106 zip code. The team chose this site due to the economic disparity between this zip code and the rest of our city, with a diaspora of community members seeking opportunity elsewhere. This community has an intense desire to preserve its heritage and build a vibrant future for its children; Anne and the rest of the dedicated charrette team worked hard to come up with u...

Image courtesy of UNLV Team Vegas http://unlvsd.com/sinatra In its third effort at the biennial Solar Decathlon, UNLV's  990 square feet "Sinatra Living" entry placed second in the Architecture and first in Innovation.   Designed for desert living and aging-in-place, the project emphasizes: Passive Design Comfort & Accessibility Home Automation Electrical/Mechanical/Water Systems  Sustainable Building Techniques The Team Vegas website shows more background and imagery. See the project under construction here... Read local press here...  and Vegas Seven here... Innovations specific to energy use include use of a phase change material (PCM) , Tesla battery storage, and a modular mechanical room: PCM - cooling system works at off-peak hours and stores energy creating utility bill savings Tesla Powerwall 2.0 battery - stores energy for high need periods or to sell back to utility Modular Mechanical Room - used for solar thermal tu...

As discovered on a recent visit to Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport, bottle fillers are becoming a more commonplace way to hydrate.  According to the Pacific Institute , global sales of bottled water are growing faster than any other beverage.  If you must buy a bottle, refill it for seconds.  Better yet, get a reusable bottle in BPA-free plastic, steel, aluminum or even glass. Ready for a refill? Elkay EZH20 bottle filling station has a fill rate of 1.1 gallon-per minute (gpm) for a refrigerated unit, which is three times faster than a standard drinking fountain.     The unit is sensor-activated, so users don’t have to touch anything. The bottle can be held or placed on the designed platform to balance the bottle as it is being filled. The intuitive, touchless operation helps keep the station clean and germ free. What makes Elkay EZH20 bottle filling station appealing? It fills bottles with filtered water in seconds and providing sustainable benefits b...