Briar Rose Creamery

Winsome Construction is proud to include the Briar Rose Creamery state of the art cheese-making facility and storefront in Dundee, Oregon as part of our family of buildings.  Briar Rose Creamery, owned and operated by Co-Proprietors Sarah Marcus and Jim Hoffman, creates some of Oregon's most delicious and unique artisan cheeses.  Briar Rose Creamery cheeses are now handmade, still in small batches, in a custom commercial production space, designed and built precisely to their needs by Winsome Construction.

Sarah Marcus, Cheesemaker of Briar Rose Creamery, has as much passion for the environment in which she creates, ages and packages her cheeses as she does for each ounce of cheese.  She is an artist in a studio of stainless steel.  It might sound more appealing to your mental tastebuds to say that Briar Rose Creamery cheeses are homemade, but it's much more important that the places where cheeses are made and aged are dust-free, draft-free, and kept at precisely the right temperatures, and it doesn't hurt that the Cheesemaker is happy too.  "I love all of the natural light in the building," says Sarah.  

The building boasts radiant heat flooring and a FabricAir Dispersion System (www.fabricair.com) which creates a positive air environment, reducing or eliminating condensation, drafts, dust and other things you don't want in the cheese making process.  The lightweight fabric ducts are also noiseless and can be removed and washed for maintenance.  The radiant flooring maintains a consistent temperature without sacrificing efficiency.

Sarah says, "the building is designed with the intention that we will be growing."  If you've tasted Briar Rose Creamery cheese then you'll agree, Sarah and Jim were smart to think ahead when working with Winsome Construction to build.  Their cheeses are so good, there is no doubt as to why they are busy in their new digs and that they will be growing in the near future.      

  

You can learn more about the features of the Briar Rose Creamery building at www.WinsomeConstruction.com.  You can find out more about Briar Rose Creamery's rich, delicate cheeses at www.briarrosecreamery.com.

LEED Certification

If you do any amount of research into home building or new construction you will see or hear the acronym LEED. The US Green Building Council has developed LEED to certify homes, new construction and commercial building projects to achieve the highest level of quality and practices. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy

and Environmental Design. Since it’s development in 1989 it has become the only international standard for green or advanced practices certification.

Although third party certification is not needed to build a green or super efficient building, many choose to use the process to challenge their builder as well as their own choices. You may live in a LEED Platinum home and not have the certification ever completed. Many commercial projects are certified for advertising reasons, and homes are certified for resale re

asons. The average certification will cost the project owner about $2,000.

The process from the outside looks really simple, but once you take a closer look, the complexities come out. Basically the system works by earning points. The more points you earn the higher your rating is. Simple right? Not so fast. Below is a brief breakdown of the process:

1. Determine what version of LEED 2009 you will be using. There are 10 versions of the LEED program covering Homes, Schools, Health Care, Neighborhoods and Commercial Construction.

2. The version of LEED that best f

its your project will have 6 categories within it. Which include: Sustainable Sites, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Innovation in Des

ign, Water Efficiency and Indoor Environmental Quality. The point values will vary depending on which version you end up using.

3. A meeting will be held with everyone involved in the project to determine what points can be awarded and what steps need to be taken to document those points. The goal of what level of certification is generally set at this meeting (Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum) Usually your builder, architect, designer and a third party LEED rater will be in attendance.

4. During the building process many regular meetings will be held to assure that the project is staying on track. Some points may fall to budget or specific design criteria. Other points may be added for various reasons. Th

ere will also be several site visits by your LEED rater to assure your builder is doing the things necessary to get you to your goal.

5. When the project is complete your builder will supply the LEED rater with all the documentation they will need to certify the project. This process can take as little as a few months and some projects may take years to fully rate.

Currently Winsome Construction has one project undergoing the LEED 2009 for Homes program. We’ve dubbed it the Nathan Good Vineyard Home. Keep watching this blog for specific projects that will earn the home points.