I'm at the Seaport World Trade Center again this morning — "again" because I spent the day here yesterday, and because this was the site of NESEA's Building Energy '08 a couple of weeks ago. The occasion this week is ResDesign, the annual residential design and construction show sponsored by the Boston Society of Architects. Halfway through, I'm finding it somewhat less thrilling the BE'08, almost certainly a reflection of my interests, rather than their programming.

In the workshops, I'm following a green path, choosing topics addressing that interest, so in that way, it should be, or could be, the same as BE'08, but I'm finding some of them to be more beginner level than I feel the need for. I'm not an expert —yikes, what an understatement! — but I'm getting to be less of a novice. There's always more excitement, I think, at the beginning of a new subject, since then, everything is, like, wicked cool!

But where there were three seminars I wanted to attend in practically time slot two weeks ago, I'm finding less available here. And, as I said, they never said they were exclusively green, so it's not like they should have programmed differently. But I still don't feel called to sit in on "Fee setting, speaking the unspeakable," or "Business comes to the expert."

Just because I'm OCD doesn't mean I was completely unwilling to attend non-green presentations, but the one time I was tempted, I found a presentation on the totally integrated home — which Georgie and I made a stab at in Arlington, though next time, I think, we'd go even further — to be too simple. I soon enough felt I was n't going to learn enough to justify 90 minutes, and I left after 10.

That made yesterday's keynote, a joint presentation by George M. Beylerian and Richard Lombard of Material Connexion, all the more rewarding. It was just plain fascinating. Beylerian was a very entertaining, easily senior and accomplished enough to be as irreverent as he wants. Lombard played it straighter, but he clearly knows his topic too.

Material Connexion maintains a library of more than 4,000 materials, and Beylerian tried to sell his roomful of architects on the notion that innovative use of materials is a way for them to make their work known to the public. He highlighted a passel of awards that MC gives out, and surely the winners constitute one list of the hippest designers and architects extant.

He also highlighted four "maestros," including Hussein Chalayan, a Cypriot designer/deviser of clothing that actually shape shifts, such as the ankle-length dress that mechanically retracts to knee length right there on the runway.

What I most enjoyed was a presentation of material innovations that would have to tantalize just about anyone. There is the NASA innovation aerogel, which Lombard said is essentially "air in solid form." It is such an impressive insulator that you could get sufficient R levels from perhaps an inch. (Later in the day, presenter Betsy Pettit of Building Sciences Corp. was asked a question about it and she said it is 10 times more expensive than closed-cell icynene, which previously was the pricing bad boy of insulation materials. By comparison, she said, closed cell is 3 times more expensive than bat insulation. "I don't think any of us will be buying [the gel] anytime soon," she said.)

Lombard also highlighted "phase change materials," which liquefy when heated, but retain that heat and can give them back later. The example he used was non-architectural, but exciting nevertheless: When used in an exercise suit, it would draw heat away from the athlete, but then return that heat during cool-down.

He also cited biomimicry in several instances, such as what a lotus leaf can teach. Water sheds without losing its surface tension because of its unique surface, that its lessons applied to building skins could make them self-cleaning.

They closed their presentation citing a number of products that have Cradle to Cradle certification, for having met the standards that are an outgrowth of the book of that name by architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart. These included Timbersil, which fuses wood and glass particles to make a product that can worked like wood but resists rot, and Climatex Lifecycle, a biodegradable, stretchable material. Material Connexion has formed a partnership with MBDC, a consultancy that grew out of the C2C collaboration.