Hello and welcome back to The Weekly LOdown - where we gather our favorite links from the architecture and building industry and share them with you each and every Friday.

This week our PR intern, Anna Collins, is joining the conversation! And with her help, we have a nice mix of content and style too!  Here’s what we’ve been clicking:

Anna

Courtesy New York Times

As a soon-to-be college graduate, I found this article on budget design interesting and hopeful. With the help of Incorporated Architecture & Design, a recent Columbia law school graduate decorated and furnished his apartment in Manhattan for only $8,000. With cheap high-design accents, he moves from dorm grunge to adult sophistication. And I think the end result is pretty impressive…

Allison

Today is the first day of the 2010 Pittsburgh Home and Gardens Show, which runs through Sunday, March 14, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. You can check out more than 1500 exhibits spread out across nine acres, showcasing everything you could possibly want or need for your home. You’ll also have the opportunity to tour the 2010 Dream Home (not to be confused with the HGTV 2010 Dream Home). Are you planning to attend the show? If so, we’d love to get your feedback for the LOdown!

Julianne

Courtesy USA Today

Earlier this week, President Obama unveiled the details of a Homestar program that would help homeowners make energy-efficient retrofits to their homes, while spurring jobs in the construction and manufacturing industries. The program has two levels and the first level of the program is the silver star level, which will give homeowners 50% rebates of up to $1,000 - $1,500 for doing basic energy-efficient upgrades such as insulation, water heaters, roofing, windows, doors and more.

One noted downside of the program is that there are not enough qualified contractors to help homeowners receive the $3,000 gold star rebate which requires accreditation by the Building Performance Institute. Homeowners would need to undertake a whole home energy audit and retrofit their homes for 20% energy savings at the gold star level.

Since builders welcome the program and others view it as a waste of taxpayer money, it will be interesting to see what happens next as the plan still needs to be approved by Congress, which will also set the funding and timing of the program.