Energy Crazy August 8, 2008

For those of you who have not yet visited the highly amusing and energy obsessed site Unscrew America I highly recommend it. The site design and programing alone make it worth visiting. The message is pretty simple; Change your bulbs! I found the videos to be not only a waste of time but totally disappointing. The hidden treasure on the site comes when you go turn off the catchy music that plays without break while on the site.

Unscrew America is brought to you by the Gore group who’s hearts are in the right place. They are not here to push the envelope or convince us to make serious changes in the way we live. They know that we can at least slow down the rapidly deteriorating state of things.

I heard it said best at a conference I attended a while back; You are driving along at night and you hear on the radio that the bridge is out ahead. Concerned, you slow from 65mph to 30 mph.

The problem folks is that the bridge is still out. Slowing down just means that you end up in the same place a little later. What we need to do is either turn this bus around, stop and help re-build the bridge, or find a new direction to travel.

What about Energy? What about Sustainablity? July 7, 2008

What about Sustainability? Isn’t it the same as Green?

Sustainability is a component of Green building, but sustainability suggest that we strike a balance with the natural environment to continue as we are, when what we need is an about face. We need to reverse our course, change our impact, improve the world. Finding sustainable solutions to the problems we face is a critical component in determining whether a system or product belongs in the Green conversation. Sustainability is really a component of Resource Efficiency as we perform a life cycle analysis study (some software does exist) on the structure and its systems. It is then that we ask, “Is this sustainable?”.

Why isn’t Energy at the top of your list? Isn’t this all about Energy?

When we talk about the need for balance within our approach to building it is not just nice sounding rhetoric. There is a very real need to have a much better understanding and consideration of all the components that come together to create the structure and its relationship with the land and the community in which it sits. Building with blinders on has been a big part of the problem over the last 60 years. We focused on energy once before and created the “super-insulated home” and the “passive solar home”, and an energy code that proved to be highly flawed and helped create the “sick homes” of the 90’s.

In a lecture I attended on the relationship between Green building and the codes, David Eisenberg suggested that looking at the building process through the eyes of the code was like looking through a microscope. When you make decisions based only on what you see through the microscope and ignore the impact on the world around it you fail in your task of building and design homes that are safe for their occupants. The same is true when we fail to recognize that energy consumption is only one fifth (perhaps even less) of Green.

Energy is the one thing we can live without. We did it 80 years ago, and plenty of people live without it today. I have a client who reminds me that his mother still lives without electricity or indoor plumbing and wouldn’t have it any other way. The “energy crisis” may be one of the contributing factors to the Green tipping point, but it is the easiest of all the issues to solve.

I would be willing to go as far as to say that there is no energy crisis. There is only a consumption crisis. The vast majority of us are unwilling to change our behavior and more importantly, don’t believe that we should. Utilities spend millions of dollars working to help us reduce our consumption in order to maximize existing plants and supply systems without incurring the costs of adding plants or re-building the grid.

Perhaps the most repulsive rhetoric coming from our world’s political leaders is the drive toward bio-fuel subsidies, but I’ll save that soapbox for another day.

Person David Eisenberg

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To build Green or not to build Green June 17, 2008

I had a meeting this afternoon with a colleague who posed an excellent question that I thought was worth sharing here. The questioned asks: Is it ethical for architecture to produce anything but Green design? Is it ethical for builders to build anything but Green? Is it ethical for remodelers to do anything but remodel Green?

This comes across as a tough question when in fact the answer should really be easy.

There is a great deal of noise and attention given to projects across the world that purport to be Green when in fact little about the project is truly Green. Attention may be given to a single attribute that has minimal impact or should really be the baseline for projects rather than celebrated as an achievement. Projects that have met code requirements are hardly examples to be followed.

Much of the problem falls back to our media outlets who struggle to maintain readership and complain that they have to keep their readers attention. The general public doesn’t care about a life-cycle analysis study, or an achievement in embodied energy. You can’t publish pictures of PEX piping or flashing details. Counter-tops, flooring solutions, large homes and lavish furnishings – this is what we want to see.

Even the trade publications want it kept simple and palatable. “We don’t want to overwhelm people.” “We have to take it one small step at a time.” “We don’t want to appear to be too far out there.” “You know how tradespeople are, most of them don’t own computers. You can’t expect them to understand how to properly document a job.”

This pervasive culture of mediocrity and acceptance of the lowest common denominator as the status quo is the reason why in todays world we still question whether the world is changing, whether we humans have an impact on the planet, whether climate change is a hoax, and whether Green building is important. This allows us to still design and build outrageous buildings with no consideration given to impact. It gives us permission to construct 12,000 sf homes for a family of two and present it to the public as Green. The media accepts this and in the interest of a story (substance need not be included) promotes this same monstrosity rather than condemn it.

So is it ethical to continue down the road we are on? At what point do we take responsibility for our actions? When does the Architect refuse to design buildings that are not efficient in resources and healthy for the occupants? When will the public demand a higher standard of living? When will ethics play a role in Architecture?