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!

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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Define Green Building

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.

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?