Why do Green homes have to look like this? October 16, 2008

You have to wonder about the value of a LEED Platinum certification. This seems to be what happens when commercial architects decide to design a home. It isn’t that I am jaded… well I guess I am. Too many drawings like this have come across my desk. When I point out that the insulation has been drawn backwards, or question the intelligence of a California Contemporary (glass box) in our climate (MN) I get the “look of reproach”. Of course what would us residential guys know. Commercial is king!

This house was recently featured in the NY Times. Lets look at some of the issues with this home.

Exposed on Four sides. This house does not consider the environment it has been placed in. Rather, it has come from the architects desk and been plopped down on some land.

No overhangs. There is no consideration for the protection of the home from the elements. In fact it appears that in an effort to break up the box-nature of the design horizontal projections were added mid-wall.

Unless we are looking at the North and East elevations in this picture there is little to no consideration for natural light and possible passive solar.

Decorative Wood Element. At first I thought this might be a solar shade for the West elevation, but looking closer it seems both unlikely that this is the West side and that it is shadding anything at the top of the building. I would be curious to see how this element fairs over the next 40 to 80 years.

There is a visually interesting detail that sticks out around the window. What I struggle with is the functionality of such a detail. Homes are built for people who know nothing about them, and who value price over quality. In order to maintain the integrity of this detail it will need to be inspected and repaired on a semi-routine basis. That is not practical in this country.

Aesthetics are important, but durability is also important. I wish that we would see more from those with the skills to do better when it comes to residential Green building. Detail the home to function in the climate it will live in, detail the home to blend in with its surroundings, detail the elements of Green building that matter most and cut back on all that fixed glass!

The problem with Green design…. Egotecture! September 16, 2008

I came across this in a post by the innovative and forward thinking Minnesota architect John Dwyer who has long been a champion for sustainable architecture.

“The problem is the all too egotistical paradigm that; design is art and art should be a means of individual expression, not something free and open for others to contribute to. But design is, at its essence, problem solving and the free sharing of information is the most effective way to solve any problem.”

I’m not sure who coined the phrase first but in a fit of design rage over a local project that was pure evidence of this type of oppressive building style I blurted out the word “Egotecture”. (Intention separates this word from a Bush-ism.)

The willingness to share ideas, discoveries, techniques, and solutions is to often shuttered up in someone’s library. Bill Billy the inventor of the automated genome sequencer chides those that hide their codes away in a safe-room. “What you should be scared of is that no one will use your program, not that they will steal it!” In the absence of ideas you have ego. Add in a pinch of poor judgment, a dash of incompetence, and a cup of wealthy client and voila, egotecture!

Sometimes it is purely the client. Sometime it is purely the architect. I pity the tradespeople who while constructing the monstrosity are fully aware of what they are creating, yet are compelled to build what they are told. So sad.

Define Green Building July 7, 2008

Defining Green is an important first step towards understanding the conversation taking place surrounding the idea. When we first set to work writing the Green building standards for Minnesota we started by looking for a definition of Green building. Surprisingly very few people or organizations had sought to define it, so we did it ourselves. Here is what we came up with:

Green building is the application of the five key components to the traditional building practices for the purpose of improving the life of the occupant and the impact of the home on the occupant, the surrounding community, and the environment.

The five key concepts are as follows:

· Resource Efficiency (includes concepts of durability, embodied energy, Life Cycle Analysis)

· Water conservation (includes irrigation, plantings, indoor and outdoor water used)

· Energy Efficiency (Energy consumed in the operation and occupation of the home)

· Indoor Environmental Quality (Includes EMF, Radon, Lead, and air pollutants)

· Site and Community Impact (Erosion, storm water, land use, social impact, air pollutants outside the home, global community impact)

Since then, a number of people have also taken a pass at creating a definition of Green building and they all look rather similar to this one. The primary difference in definitions comes in the key concepts chosen. Some authors have taken a much narrower view eliminating the Site and Community Impact, or have chosen to deal with indoor air quality rather than indoor environmental quality. I do not buy into the stool or the chair metaphors (3 legs, 4 legs) but argue that there are five distinct sets of glasses that must be used to evaluate Green building. (Note: in theory we could move water into the resource efficiency category as water is a resource that we should be efficient with, however I don’t feel that it takes it far enough. It is not sufficient to be efficient with our water usage. Rather we must actively conserve our water resources and given waters close relationship with life it is deserving of its own category)

Which of these is the most important? I could make a strong case for Water, as we are rather dependant on it for survival, but in the eyes of Green building all five should be equal. In fact it is the balance that we strive to create between these five concepts that makes Green both viable and attractive to everyone. Green is the first win-win proposition to come around in a long while.

I would like to point out that we used the term “traditional building practices”. There are non-traditional building practices that can be very Green, however since the majority of construction in our world uses traditional techniques it seemed important to indicate that this was a shift in the way that we use those traditional methods. Keep in mind that “traditional” would include stick frame, masonry, concrete and steel, as well as cob, straw bale, stone, and earth (adobe and rammed). I look forward to the day when we can plant a seed and grow our bio-home, but until then we need to look to more accessible methods of construction.

It is also interesting to mention that under this platform of Green, we have seen numerous environmental groups come together along with generally conservative building associations and industry. Additionally, regulatory and government agencies have been willing to work with these groups in partnership; a change from the previously adversarial roles everyone had been used to playing.