trim tab v.12 - winter 2012

THE MAGAZINE FOR TRANSFORMATIVE PEOPLE + DESIGN

TR ANSFORMATIONAL THOUGHT

DON’T bE A

TOOLBreaking The COsT Barrier TO BuiLding susTainaBLe affOrdaBLe hOusing:A SUSTAINAbLE LIVING PLANNING APPROAcH

TR ANSFORMATIONAL DESIGN

SIMVAN DER RyN

TR ANSFORMATIONAL PEOPLE

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e d i T O r i n C h i e f Jason F. McLennan [email protected]

e d i T O r i a L d i r e C T O r Michael D. Berrisford [email protected]

s e n i O r e d i T O r Sarah Costello [email protected]

M a n a g i n g e d i T O r Joanna Gangi [email protected]

C r e aT i v e d i r e C T O r Erin Gehle [email protected]

a d v e r T i s i n g Joanna Gangi [email protected]

C O n T r i B u T O r s Michael Berrisford, Richard Iredale, Penny Martyn, Jason F. McLennan, Dale Mikkelsen, Sean Scott, Kim Sheagren, Paul Werder

For editorial inquiries, freelance or photography submissions and advertising, contact Joanna Gangi at [email protected].

Back issues or reprints, contact [email protected]

w inTer 2012 , is sue 12

Trim Tab is a quarterly publication of the International Living Future Institute, a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. Office locations: 721 NW 9th Ave Suite 195, Portland, OR 97209; 410 Occidental Ave South, Seattle, WA 98104; 1100-111 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 6A3; 643 S. Lower Road, Palmer, AK 99645.

All rights reserved. Content may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission and is for informational purposes only.

DEPARTMENTS

TR A NSFORM ATION A L DE SIGNby KIM SHE AGREN

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TR ANSFORMATIONAL DESIGN: Breaking the Cost Barrier to Building Sustainable Affordable Housingby KIM SHEAGREN

TR ANSFORMATIONAL PEOPLE:

Sim Van der Rynby MIcHAEL bERRISFORD

TR ANSFORMATIONAL THOUGHT:

Don’t Be A Tool – Use Yours Wisely by JASON F. McLENNAN

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TR A NSFORM ATION A L PEOPLEby MIch A EL bERRISFORd

TR A NSFORM ATION A L ThOughTby jA SON F. McLENN A N

w in t er Qua r t er 2 012

contents

Features20

Nuts & Bolts78

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Book review: reinventing Fire by amory lovinsREvIEw by FAITh gRAhAM

Moving upstream

FWD: read this

Moving toward the Climate tipping Pointby RIchARd IREdALE

opportunity outside of shadow – a New Paradigm for City Planningby SEAN ScOTT

Creating a Green Dividend – overcoming the (Presumed) Cost of sustainable Constructionby dALE MIkkELSEN

thriving as a Green Warrior by PAuL wERdER

the Building Materials Challenge: the selection Processby PENNy MARTyN

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Our team took on the challenge to develop and operate a

living and breathing residential community that would go

beyond current sustainability standards, aiming to set

new ones.

La Reserva de Santa Fe, the natural option for people

living in one of the largest and most environmentally

compromised cities in the world.

La Reserva de Santa Fe in Mexico City, coming soon.

La Reserva de Santa FeWe proudly present:

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Steel Wood+It doesn’t get any

greener

To learn more about gaining the benefits of using sustainable structural steel on your next project contact our Northwest Regional Office at 206.226.7551 or email [email protected].

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Seattle City Hall, Gold LEEDTM Certified, IDEAS2 Award Winner

Structural Steel Green Facts

Photos Nic Lehoux

Building a Greener Northwest Using Structural Steel

Winter 20126

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Visit our website at www.tiac.ca to find out more.

In Our World This Is Art Providing Cost Effective Thermal Efficiency for Energy Savings

Thermal Insulation Association of Canada1485 Laperriere AvenueOttawa, ON K1Z 7S8

Tel.: 613.724.4834 Toll Free: 866.278.0002 Email: [email protected] Web: www.tiac.ca

Winter 20128

South Quarter PhaSe IV

BY K IM SHE AGREN

1. Sunny Pedestrian-friendly Franklin2. PV Clad Sunshade/Balconies Reduces Summer Heat Gain3. “Great” Envelope

• R70 Roof• R40 Exterior Walls• Infiltration 0.24 CFM/SF @ 75 P

Breaking The COsT Barrier TO BuiLding susTainaBLe affOrdaBLe hOusing:a SuStaInable lIVIng PlannIng aPProach

4. PV + Rainwater Harvesting + Solar Thermal5. Heat recovery ventilation6. Roof Garden With Low Impact Landscape (Irrigation

from Greywater)7. CO2 Heat Pumps

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when aircraft designers set out to break the sound barrier, they were bent on

breaking free from various forces that stunted f light and impeded further acceleration. Simi-larly, the South Quarter Phase IV project is re-solved to break through cost barriers to build-ing sustainable, quality affordable housing.

South Quarter Phase IV, in the culturally diverse Ventura Village of Minneapolis, Minn., is the owners’ fourth affordable hous-ing development in a four-corner, urban re-vitalization project. The project, developed by non-profit partners Aeon and Hope Com-munity, Inc., is aiming to transform the very process of developing high-performance, cost-effective affordable housing. Not only will it transform the process and outcomes of affordable housing development, it will provide a replicable model for others.

8. Goexchange System9. Thermal Mass10. Wood (or other)11. Reinforced Concrete12. Rainwater to Potable System

13. Play Area14. PV Pavilion15. Community Garden16. Rainwater for Irrigation

Sustainable strategies diagram, courtesy of Mithun.

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What motivates an affordable housing developer to pursue sustainability initiatives?Over the next 20 years, Aeon estimates that it and its residents will spend at least $130 million in energy and water costs, alone. That’s assuming: 1) a likely conservative, two percent inf lator in utility costs, 2) adding only 100 units per year to the current 1,934 apartment homes Aeon manages, and 3) maintaining its current “green” development strategies. That’s not affordable. As a 25-year-old organization that owns, develops, and manages high-quality affordable hous-ing, the commitment to sustainable development is already considerable.

Aeon has established an internal sustainability model that drives its housing developments. The Three E’s: Environment, Economics and Social Equity are the main principles at play. Environment: The heart of green design is designing with nature as a central focus.

Economics: The economics must work financially for the project, its residents and the community. And Social Equity: As adopted by the late senator Paul Wellstone, Aeon believes “Everyone does better, when everyone does better.”

With Aeon’s cumulative work in green building, it has yet to see an impact that will reach a level of consid-erable cost savings (both first costs and long-term op-erating costs). The holistic and performance-driven spirit of the Living Building Challenge™ allows it to launch to a new level of outcomes that it believes will achieve significantly better results than other sustain-ability programs.

is it possible to build sustainable, affordable housing?

It is inherent that affordable housing be economically viable. It is also critical to think beyond just keeping the rents affordable. Utility, transportation, health,

“the new shade of green” workshop participants worked through site details, from urban square footage and figuring solar capacity, to pedestrian needs and transit infrastructure. images courtesy of aeon.

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food and similar costs also burden residents and im-pact the environment. Affordable, sustainable living – as opposed to housing – must be the end goal, includ-ing a plan to minimize more than just housing costs, and not just up-front, but over the long-term. In order to do that and keep developments operating optimally over time, the issue of energy and conservation must be addressed.

Up to this point, Living Building Challenge projects with net zero energy and water opportunities, have been generally smaller in scale, non-residential and non-urban – projects such as nature centers, education facilities and corporate office buildings. South Quar-ter Phase IV is mixed-income apartment homes with a density of approximately 65 units per acre. A typical medium density urban development is eight units per acre. South Quarter Phase IV stands out as one of the

few projects looking to use the Challenge in both ur-ban and housing-dense environments.

“One important characteristic of sustainability is den-sity,” says Mark Shipiro of Mithun, the project’s de-sign architect. “Higher densities are better served by sustainable solutions since residents have a variety of transportation options, live next to jobs and have easy access to amenities.”

For urban densities of these levels, net zero aspira-tions are not easy but clearly feasible. When working on higher urban density projects, the opportunity for renewable energy income starts to hit limits depending on how dense you make the projects. Is it really pos-sible for an affordable housing development project to perform at net zero energy and net zero water?

The design team worked on a number of massing schemes to find the most sustainable solution for South Quarter IV. Diagrams courtesy of Mithun.

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“The Challenge benchmark isn’t an all or nothing en-deavor,” says Shipiro. “If we have reduced our water conservation by 90 percent, we have done amazingly well. The point is that it sets up an aspiration to push the industry of building sustainable affordable housing forward and transforming it over time.”

Already, South Quarter Phase IV has made significant strides toward being a change agent in the industry by: 1) setting a standard for an integrated design process that is data-rich for decision-making, and 2) discover-ing cost breakthroughs in the business of sustainable affordable housing development.

THE INTEGRATED DESIGN PROCESS: PLATFORM FOR DATA-RICH DECISION-MAKING

In pursuit of higher performing standards and the sustainability goals of the Living Building Challenge, Aeon implemented an interdisciplinary approach to the design process. They carefully hand-picked mem-bers of South Quarter Phase IV’s integrated design team -- architects, contractors, sustainability special-ists and engineers. Typical design processes don’t inte-grate all of a project’s players as early or as holistically as is protocol for South Quarter Phase IV. Normally,

architects conceive the project first and then call in the engineers to make it work.

The team’s first step was to conduct a series of three workshops called “The New Shade of Green,” led by Billy Weber of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sustainable Building Research. Aeon pulled together a cross section of experts, community leaders and resi-dents to sort through what the Challenge framework means for South Quarter Phase IV. Technical experts, local engineers, top planners, local funders, public school officials, community members, transit officials, and residents attended – even a member of the city’s storm water department was in attendance.

The first two workshops did the following: 1) engaged everyone in learning about the Living Building Chal-lenge and 2) focused participants on the Challenge’s seven performance areas and what opportunities and barriers may be present. The group generated ideas to remove obstacles and take advantage of strengths and opportunities that the Challenge provides. The third workshop involved all participants in a classic charrette. Using 90 building blocks (demonstrating the number of new dwelling units), representative paper Photo Voltaic (PV) and urban agriculture pan-els, parking, and other various component parts, par-ticipant groups worked through building site details, from urban square footage and figuring the solar ca-pacity needed, to pedestrian needs and transit infra-structure. Each group came up with a site plan and gained a greater understanding for the potential of a living building.

Using the data from the workshops, Chris Velasco of PLACE, the project’s sustainability champion, recom-mended an integrated design team with the talent and expertise to achieve the Living Building Challenge™. They came together for three concentrated days of work in a studio environment. The team used the com-bination of technology, metrics and goals to enact real world results.

“We started from an engineering perspective, not the typical pretty rendering which is characteristically the first step in a project,” says Gina Ciganik, Aeon’s vice president of housing development. The team con-

ALL PLAYERS IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING – INCLUDING DESIGN TEAMS, RESIDENTS, AND FUNDERS – NEED TO EMBRACE A PARADIGM SHIFT IN HOW TO ACHIEVE, QUANTIFY AND CAPITALIzE COST SAVINGS.

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sidered orientation, scale, massing, envelope, energy modeling, renewable energy potential, rainfall on site, and constructability; and how to best integrate the project within the neighborhood context.

Velasco recommended that the team use Building Information Modeling (BIM) – a robust three-di-mensional modeling program – to actually design the building and reduce costs through better system inte-gration and fewer costly change orders in the field. En-ergy modeling alternatives, conducted by The Weidt Group, proved critical for informed decision-making on the project’s efficiency. Excel Energy, a local util-ity company, put together energy schematics to help the team balance renewable energy options. The team worked through six possible massing schemes and went back to its workshop participants with one opti-mum scheme for feedback.

What discoveries, so far, did the process uncover that has led the team to choose the particular design? It is

one that realizes cost-savings breakthroughs, not only over the long-term, but in construction costs. Addi-tionally, all players in affordable housing – including design teams, residents, and funders – need to embrace a paradigm shift in how to achieve, quantify and capi-talize cost savings.

THE BUSINESS OF GREEN IN BUILDING SUSTAINABLE AFFORDABLE HOUSING

The team’s commitment to seeing cost breakthroughs has never meant that it is aiming to build cheaper than conventional buildings. It really means the team is looking for the “sweet spot” between the various com-ponents that make up the fabric of the building.

For example, the team set a building energy output goal of 15 kBtu/sf-yr (compared to the energy output of typical code building measuring 100kBtu/sf-yr). Based on achieving that goal, the team designed and evaluated alternatives. The team discovered that us-

Site concept overview gives details of building orientation and overall green and activity spaces. Image courtesy of Mithun.

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ing a really high-performing envelope decreases the need for heating and cooling and reduces the cost on the HVAC system. This not only saves on first-costs but on the long-term operational costs of the building, not to mention the reduced carbon footprint over its lifetime.

Realizing cost breakthroughs to building sustainable, af-fordable housing requires balancing long-term and short-term costs. While Aeon is aiming for a $140 per square foot (or less) construction cost, it’s making decisions based on the total ownership of the life of the building, not just first costs.

“It’s critical that we do our math and evaluate the life of the building’s performance – its operating costs and life-cycle costs of systems and materials,” says Ciganik. “We are sometimes too focused on very short-term paybacks and eliminate systems because the payback is not less

than 10 years. We have to change our paradigm and recognize the importance of longer term invest-ments.”

Certain design considerations drive project costs up. Some considerations require a change in how devel-opers think. For example, designing a housing site with parking as the priority compromises the livabil-ity of the site and costs more money. It’s smarter to find a workable overall transportation solution that provides the possibility to eliminate costly parking infrastructure, and delivers multi-modal, shared tran-sit options. These solutions are easier on residents’ pocket books, the environment, better for project costs, and are also marketable. It may sound impos-sible, but it’s not as long as the design team keeps the intent of creating affordable living in mind.

South Quarter, Minneapolis, Minnesota: an early vision of urban transformation. Image courtesy of Cuningham Group Architecture, P.A.

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Building and operating sustainable affordable hous-ing also necessitates changing the way residents think about daily living. Aeon and Hope Community are conducting a sustainable living, resident engagement pilot program at The Wellstone – a 49-unit, four-story (75 percent affordable) apartment building. The goal is to foster long-term changes in residents’ behavior around decreasing water and energy consumption and increasing recycling by providing education and en-couraging resident leadership. Based on findings of the pilot, a program will be adapted to benefit residents of current and future properties.

“Each person generates energy – reducing consumption and producing energy. Developers must work on mon-etizing the saving so they can in fact afford the elements that they want to put into the building,” says Shipiro. “The business of green is balancing the capital costs of one category or another and making a way for the devel-oper or the user to capture the savings and apply that to a better performing building. You get what you pay for. When you are buying the right things, you are providing a cost-effective balance in what you are creating.”

Velasco describes South Quarter Phase IV approach, “It is a matter of intent. We must begin the design con-versation with the intent of creating affordable living, not housing. This original intent drives the entire de-sign, funding, construction and operation of the build-ing. It is simply not affordable to waste energy, water

or space. Building a high performance building means that 1) everybody’s money is better spent, 2) govern-ment programs that support affordable housing, Aeon and its funders see more money going to people and less to fossil fuels, and 3) the residents are less vulner-able to spikes in energy costs. Everybody wins.”

THE LEARNING LAB: DISCOVERING SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS THAT ARE REPLICABLE

The development of South Quarter Phase IV is being watched by many in the housing development arena because of its goal to provide a practical, replicable and scalable model for developing sustainable affordable housing.

“It’s sound business to develop properties that can stay affordable for its residents and function optimally over time. South Quarter Phase IV is a learning lab for that; not only for Aeon, but for others who develop high-qual-ity affordable housing,” says Alan Arthur, Aeon’s presi-dent and CEO. From the start, Aeon has embraced the project’s planning process as a learning exchange and opportunity for sharing ideas. The team is documenting its findings as they progress and will make its “business of green” available for future building and to be replicat-ed by developers who aspire to the same.

“I wouldn’t give a nickel for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplic-

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOUTH QUARTER PHASE IV IS BEING WATCHED BY MANY IN THE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT ARENA BECAUSE OF ITS GOAL TO PROVIDE A PRACTICAL, REPLICABLE AND SCALABLE MODEL FOR DEVELOPING SUSTAINABLE AFFORDABLE HOUSING.

KIM SHEAGREN is communications man-ager for Aeon. With nearly 20 years expe-rience in marketing for non-profits, Kim currently works to actively promote Aeon’s vision that every person has a home and is interconnected within community.

PROJECT TEAM

owner /Partner: aeon

owner /Partner: hope community, Inc.

DeSIgn archItect: Mithun

e xecutIVe archItect: cermak rhoades architects

M.e.P.: Interface engineering

Structur al: tipping Mar Structural engineering

cIVIl: Pierce Pini & associates

SuStaInabIlIt y chaMPIon: Place

SuStaInabIlIt y conSultant: center for Sustainable building research of the university of Minnesota

contr actor: adolfson & Peterson

energy MoDelIng: the weidt group

PROJECT DETAILS

SIte are a: 2.27 acres or 98,881 sf

buIlDIng are a: 185,242 sf

houSIng SPace, ne w conStructIon: 104,352 sf

houSIng SPace, e xIStIng rehab: 27,420 sf

nuMber of unItS, ne w conStructIon: 90

nuMber of unItS, e xIStIng rehab: 30

unIt t yPeS for: 59 affordable apartments, 61 mar-ket rate, 12 long-term homeless

non-houSIng SPace: 10,000 sf

coVereD ParkIng: 43,470 sf

ProPoSeD aMenItIeS: a shared hybrid car on site, fit-ness room, variety of outdoor spaces (including an urban garden), children’s playground, pedestrian paths and lighting, and on-site structured parking. Parking: 19 surface spaces; 135 covered

ity on the other side of complexity.” Citing Einstein, this sentiment reflects the commitment the team has to their goals. Pioneering the aspiration of sustainable, afford-able living for multi-family housing is no small endeav-or. When Aeon and Hope Community break ground on South Quarter Phase IV sometime in the next two years, they will have broken through cost barriers that impede creating sustainable solutions to affordable housing de-velopment. On the wings of the Living Building Chal-lenge™, sustainable affordable housing development will become tangibly more cost-effective and provide living futures for residents and communities.

To find more information about Aeon, please visit www.aeonmn.org

To find more information about Hope Community, please visit www.hope-community.org

Design team’s massing design selection is the most sustainable solution for the South Quarter Phase IV site. Diagrams courtesy of Mithun.

Entering the second decade of the 21st Century, it is clear that the successful advancement of sustainable design offers a powerful means for transforming the built environment. The visionary design practitioners at Glumac are playing a pivotal role – charting new territory with innovative strategies for air, water, light, comfort and energy that continue to push the boundaries of green architecture.

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— JASoN F. MCLENNAN ceo, international living future institute

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REGISTER NOW

Check out our roster of pre- and post-conference events. See our website for full details on the dynamic program.

LIVING-FUTURE.ORG/UNCONFERENCE 2012

Pre- and Post- conference events such as tours, workshops and extra-curricular activities are available as separate tickets, including opening night complete with access to our vetted Living Future Trade Show.

Get your ticket before it sells out.early rate PricinG ends 01.31.12

Vandana shivaWorld-Renowned Environmental Leader and Thinker

Jason f. MclennanCEO of Cascadia Green Building Council and International Living Future Institute

carol sanfordAuthor. Speaker. Consultant

Opening Night Keynote Thursday Morning Plenary Friday Morning Plenary

Summer 201120

BY MICH A EL BERRISFORD

Sim Van der RynWhen I learned that the incomparable Sim Van der Ryn had accepted my invitation to be interviewed in Trim Tab, my excitement for the opportunity was only equaled by my expectations of the exchange. After all, this is a per-son that “got it” (the fragile state of the planet at our hand, our inseparable role as part of the grand ecology and the nature/design connection) more than forty years ago and has been actively influencing change through-out his entire career. From where I stand, Sim embodies the vision and wisdom that pioneered the green building movement and is every bit as relevant today.

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Beyond the importance of the work itself, one of the great things about the green building movement is that the leaders, visionaries, and general movers and shakers are accessible to the rest of us. In fact you can walk up, introduce yourself and strike up a conversation and despite how busy and in-demand the person may be, they will give you the time of day – and more if you ask good questions. still when sim, one of a handful of green masters – a genu-ine pioneer of the green building movement agreed to share a valuable chunk of his time with me (and you), it is special and important to hear his perspec-tive – and greatly appreciated.

sim is a potent spokesperson, an intellectual, a hard-ass on principle, a gentleman and lucky for us,

an educator at heart. His genuine humility is strik-ingly similar to some of my other eco-heroes that have graced the pages of Trim Tab. I guess what I am trying to say is – you’ll get no Bs here, sim is the real deal. enjoy.

TT: I had the privilege of hearing you present at sev-eral industry conferences however one of the most memorable moments was seeing you at the living Future unConference in Vancouver in 2008. Do you remember what gesture you made that brought the audience to its feet with applause, cheering and whistling?

SVDR: Hard to forget. as I went into the hall, I stopped by the Cascadia desk to say hello and ask how things

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were going. The woman said that the new T-shirt with “living” on the front wasn’t selling well and I said, “let me try and fix that”. she gave me one, and when I went to the podium, I stripped off my shirt, pulled on the “living” Tee, raised my arms and waved my fin-gers with a Victory sign. The crowd went crazy!

TT: when you speak of “multi-scale design solutions driven by Nature’s Intelligence” – what do you mean by that?

sVDR: what I believe is that at every scale of design, we need to pay attention to how our design solution relates to the natural systems it connects to – directly and indirectly. For example, all the terrific electronic gadgets we have access to – smart phones, tablets, laptop computers – include toxic components which affect the health of the foreign workers that make them and are often not safely recycled. In the build-ing sector, “green” and “sustainable” are not defined in comprehensive terms – The living Building Chal-lenge is the best route we have to achieve design so-lutions driven by Nature’s Intelligence.

TT: In your book, Ecological Design, you discuss the fundamental design principles that minimize our im-pacts on the world around us. what is the most im-portant thing that designers can learn from nature?

SVDR: The most important thing designers can learn from nature is that we are not separate from nature. The last cultures that truly understood and practiced this were indigenous hunter-gatherers, and the few still living that way some 30,000 years later. The In-dustrial Revolution acted on the assumption that hu-mans were separate from nature and set a course for our own destruction by reducing all of nature to com-modities that could be monetized. The framing of the

concept “Natural Capital” while well intentioned is dangerous because it leaves people to assume that while the entire living world has value, that values can, and inevitably will be monetized. Forty years ago, a mentor of mine said, “we are burning down the House of life in order to toast marshmallows”.

TT: How did your childhood inform your career path?

SVDR: I was born in Holland into a Dutch Jewish fam-ily with long roots in The Netherlands and a prosper-ous fourth generation non-ferrous metal business. Just before Hitler invaded Holland in 1940, my par-ents, brother, sister and I left for america. The up-rooting was hardest on my parents who lost touch with their extended families once the war started, and also had to start a new life from scratch. Thy never talked about it, but as a child I could sense their grief and sense of loss, which made me feel like I’d done something wrong and I found my own center in the little bits of ragged nature in outer New York City, and in drawing and other forms of art. when the war ended, they learned that most of the family lost their lives in the death camps. It left me with a feeling that I did not want to be a passive ob-server of another Holocaust. The one we are fight-ing now is a war against all nature and all humanity.

TT: You were involved with the resistance move-ment of the Peoples Park at UC Berkeley. Tell us about your experiences at Berkeley and how/if they influenced your design philosophy.

SVDR: People’s Park in the spring of 1969 in some ways was a model for the Occupy wall street Move-ment. In 1967-68, the University leveled several square blocks of housing and small business close to the Berkeley Campus. as Chair of the Campus Housing & environment Committee, I was told that the reason for this action was to build a new medical school, but I could find no plan or funding for such a project ap-proved by the Board of Regents. To this day, I don’t know why the land was cleared. It became a muddy eyesore filled with parked cars. In the spring of 1969, a group of local people and students decided to turn

“The most important thing designers can learn from nature is that we are not separate from nature.

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the unused land into a “People’s Park”. Within a few weeks, hundreds of volunteers, including children, and families were busy leveling, digging, planting, design-ing, revising. Sometimes the frenetic work would stop and the assembled group would have an on-the-spot community design meeting. “We’re digging a pond”. “That’s a bad idea. Children might drown.”

More discussion followed, “OK let’s fill it back in”. And so it went, a true participative design and con-struction process: spontaneous, chaotic, high ener-gy, as a park emerged.

I was teaching a graduate class in Design Methods and documenting the process of designing and creating People’s Park became our semester research project. The Campus authorities, goaded by Governor Ronald Reagan, were told to take action against “anarchists” and “communists”. I got the College of Environmen-tal Design to agree to take over the project as a Field Station, an idea rejected by the Administration. A few days later, I had a call from the Chancellor. “You need to meet with the leaders of Park Project and tell them they have to leave”. I replied, “You don’t understand, there are no leaders. Why don’t you go to the Park and see what’s going on. It’s exciting”. He replied, “I’m too busy” and I asked, “When are you going to show some leadership?” and he replied, “I’m just a janitor for the Regents and the Governor. And tomorrow I’m off to Washington to chair the American Council on Education”. At two o’clock the next morning, work-ers showed up and built a fence around the site. By dawn National Guard units in full riot gear with rifles and bayonets surrounded People’s Park. Helicopters sprayed the central campus and surrounding blocks with poison gas, and armed sheriffs killed one person and injured others.

Within a week, my wife and three children left our comfortable Berkeley Hills home and moved into a five hundred square foot cabin an hour away in a forest close to the ocean -never to return to Berke-ley. I was deeply shocked and depressed that a great institution seemed so hollow at its core. I be-came more convinced than ever that end users of

designed environments needed to be active partici-pants in the process.

TT: Generally “architecture” has a material, physical connotation and “communes” are more intangible though are certainly about people and community. How did “architecture” and “communes” come to-gether in your career?

SVDR: Through a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health in the sixties, I visited and studied a number of communes that had sprung up in Califor-nia and New Mexico. Very few of the communes sur-vived more than five to ten years in their initial forms. Some were consensual communities, others were

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more autocratic and cult like. “architecture” tended to be somewhat haphazard and none I visited had been designed or built with professional help.

starting in the seventies. I have worked with a va-riety of spiritual and learning-based communities –mostly Buddhist – on site plans and building designs. Most significant were san Francisco Zen Center’s Tassajara and Green Gulch sites, Findhorn in scot-land, Ojai Foundation school in California, Dharma sangha in Colorado, and Farallones Institute that I founded in Occidental, California.

TT: You are widely considered to be a pioneer of the green building movement and are a source of inspi-ration to many. who have been your mentors and wellsprings of inspiration?

SVDR: as an architecture student at University of Michigan in the early 1950’s, I was quickly bored with the ruling modernist ideology. Then Bucky Fuller showed up and I got the big vision of design at all scales – particularly because his geometries were all found in nature. Gregory Bateson was important in connecting human behavior and the living world for me. In 1976 I became a Fellow of the lindisfarne association and its annual meeting has been my key intellectual inspirational community ever since. Gary snyder, wendell Berry, wes Jackson, and lindisfarne’s founder, cultural historian william Irwin Thompson, have all been great teachers to me. as a young Professor at Berkeley, Charles Moore was al-ways a kind and gentle presence who gave me wide

berth to explore and experiment. Claude stoller, my first employer and colleague at Berkeley was always a great mentor and humorous mensch.

You were among the very first to thoughtfully consider the “social side of architecture” – Please tell us more.

SVDR: By the time of People’s Park, I had already initiated one of the first “Post-Occupancy evalua-tions” of a built project. The idea is that architec-ture is related to human ecology and nature’s ecol-ogy, but we had no objective means to evaluate how users of a particular built environment were affected by it, and to what extent actual perfor-mance of a building met the program objectives. In the “ Dorms at Berkeley” study, we used simple so-cial science techniques – primarily systemic obser-vation, (interviews with users, and questionnaires) in an attempt to get an objective assessment of how a building worked in human terms. Our ma-jor conclusion was that the design template then popular in a huge program to provide “modern ho-tel-like” student housing: high rise double loaded corridors, two students to a room, gang bathrooms at the end of corridors, cafeterias and lounges on the first floor – was an expensive failure in terms of what students wanted. The long hard corridors were noisy late into the night. Two to a room made it difficult to find privacy or solitude for study or reflection. It was hard to make a tiny-shared hotel-like room into a home away from home. The large expansive lounges were seldom used. students searched for spaces elsewhere on campus away

“what I often say to the many design professionals who come to me for mentoring and advice is, “we call it “The Present” because it’s a gift”.

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from the dorms where they could study and find quiet time and space.

Post Occupancy evaluation was never popular and has been pretty much forgotten. Neither clients nor architects really want to hear that their great ideas didn’t work out. Today leeD offers the same challenge. On several occasions I was invited to join UsGBC Board Meetings as a provocateur/advisor and asked: “why don’t you call it leeP: leadership in energy and environmental PeRFORMaNCe? I know from having initiated energy monitoring of buildings built to Title 24 standards in California, that actual performance varied greatly from the design numbers.” Getting good information on how people respond to and use a particular environ-ment is far more difficult than collecting quantita-tive data on a building’s physical/mechanical per-formance. The “social side of architecture” needs to be integrated into the design process from the beginning of programming and goal setting.

TT: Throughout your career you have been a cata-lyst for collaboration; the Farallones Institute and the Integral Urban House were iconic in their day – and you founded the ecological Design Collabora-tive – a highly sought after and respected design firm among others. If you were to hand pick a col-laborative of visionary change-agents to advocate on the world stage, whom would you select to speak on behalf of nature and man – and fight against the urgent global crises that man has created by disre-specting nature?

SVDR: emily Pilliton of Project H would be my pick number one. Her book, Design Revolution should be required reading for every designer and student. al-though I don’t know him personally, I like what Cam-eron sinclair has done with architecture for Human-ity. emily and Cameron act for the other 90 percent on the planet who are less fortunate than us. Bill McKibben is the leader on climate change. He got the delay of Us approval of the tar sands pipeline. and then there’s our man, Jason (Mclennan)! Of course, we should also acknowledge the unknown

numbers of change agents working in positive ways in communities all over the world.

TT: You led numerous energy and sustainability ini-tiatives during your work as California state archi-tect during the Jerry Brown administration. If you were to step back into that roll today with carte blanche – what course of action would you imme-diately pursue?

SVDR: There is no role to step back into today that bears any resemblance to what Jerry was able to offer me in 1975. The state is broke. Far more money goes into the prison system than into the Califor-nia University and state college system. There’s no money for new buildings or even maintaining what’s there. we’ve been in a thirty-year tailspin since Ronald Reagan became President with the slogan. “Government is the Problem not the solution”.

TT: You are a prolific author – six/seven books to date. The publisher in me suspects (and hopes for) a new release in the near future! Is there something in the works? Or if you were to undertake another book project what might be the subject and scope?

SVDR: I’m glad you asked. In the last few years, I have been organizing my archives and donating them to the College of environmental Design library at UC Berkeley where I taught for thirty five years. In doing this, I discovered over a hundred published pieces that give a picture of the growth of my de-sign philosophy and practice over time. I’m planning to publish them with an Introduction that provides context and flow to my ideas and life’s work. Plan-ning to call it, “Nature’s Mad as Hell!”.

TT: How does the philosophy and platform of “liv-ing Buildings, sites and Communities” fit with your design philosophy?

SVDR: It fits totally!!!!

TT: You play an important role in a serious business, facing seemingly insurmountable predicaments, yet

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you appear to be enjoying life. How do you account for your endurance? What makes for a good quality of life for you?

SVDR: Good questions. What I often say to the many design professionals who come to me for mentoring and advice is, “We call it “The Present” because it’s a gift”. Yes, I had a full and fruitful career but at the same time I often wasn’t present, driven by the goals I wanted to achieve. I, my family, and co-workers all paid a price for my frequent inability not to be fully present in the moment. The organizations I founded started many community and school food gardens. When I visited them, the gardeners would often in-vite me to spend a few hours learning to grow food. I would dismiss them saying, “I’m too busy raising money for these projects, and keeping it all togeth-er”. In these last years living in the country, and hav-ing more time, I’ve learned to grow most of our own vegetables and fruits. My Garden Goddess Francine says, “Sim, you have a green thumb!” and I grin and answer, “Thankfully I learned before it was too late!”

Michael berrisford is the Director of Ecotone Publishing for the Interna-tional Living Future Institute and the Editorial Director of Trim Tab magazine.

I’m fortunate to live in a beautiful and unusual ru-ral community. I never was truly an urban person. We have a wonderful yoga studio in the loft of the town’s feed barn and daily yoga practice has be-come an anchor in my life, along with stewarding my five acres of forest, meadow, and raised bed gardens. My partner, Francine is an accomplished writer, teacher and gardener.

Yes, I spent most of my life trying to “save the planet” and now just want to tend a little piece of it. Gregory Bateson used to say. “The world is mad for quantity, but the real issue is quality”. A “good quality of life” is just that: focus on Quality not Quantity (of money, fame, awards, Facebook Friends, etc. etc.).

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Rehabilitation of Seattle’s historic King Street Station restores the original character of the 1906 train station, strengthens its role as a regional transportation hub, spurs other development in the SODO neighborhood and targets LEED Platinum certification.

www.zgf.com

Sustainable History

Roof insulation with R-30 value

Photovoltaics on restored canopy produce 2% of energy use

Historic glass roof restored with matching salvaged tiles

Performance-based design for seismic upgrade

Original operable windows preserved and restored

New public landscape space with pedestrian link to King Street

Electrical transformers for streetcar incorporated

Natural ventilation restored in the main waiting area

Water harvesting for toilet flushing

Ground-source heat pumps for 100% heating and cooling

Rehabilitation of Seattle’s historic King Street Station restores the original character of the 1906 train station, strengthens its role as a regional transportation hub, spurs other development in the SODO neighborhood and targets LEED Platinum certification.


Performance-based design for seismic upgrade

original character of the 1906 train station, strengthens its role as a regional transportation hub, spurs other development in the SODO neighborhood and targets LEED Platinum certification.


Performance-based design for seismic upgradePerformance-based design for seismic upgradePerformance-based design for seismic upgradePerformance-based design for seismic upgradePerformance-based design for seismic upgrade


Natural ventilation restored in the main waiting area


Natural ventilation restored in the main waiting areaNatural ventilation restored in the main waiting area


Original operable windows preserved and restored

Water harvesting for toilet flushing

Roof insulation with R-30 valueRoof insulation with R-30 value


Original operable windows preserved and restoredOriginal operable windows preserved and restored

Water harvesting for toilet flushingWater harvesting for toilet flushing









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Use YoUrs ProPerlY

Winter 201228

BY JA SON F. MCL ENN A N

“If all YoU have Is a hammer, everYthIng looks lIke a naIl”

—aNONYMOUs

“measUre twIce, cUt once”—OlD CaRPeNTeR saYING

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his article speaks to matters that, like everything in Trim Tab, have important consequences. The tools we use to solve problems of any kind are critical in de-termining successful outcomes. Carpen-ters require quality tools to produce high

quality craft, and a surgeon’s tool requirements are even more rigorous for achieving safe and effective medical outcomes. Individuals in the building profes-sions who focus on reducing the environmental foot-print associated with our work rely on a series of tools to help make informed decisions relative to energy and resource use and a host of other factors. How-ever, just as a the wrong screwdriver will inevitably strip a screw, the wrong tools or even the right ones, wrongly applied, will result in negative outcomes.

The green building universe has become awash with assorted tools. There are countless green certifica-tion programs, energy, daylight and natural ventilation modeling programs, green product labels and Life Cy-cle Assessment tools to name a few. The list has been growing longer in recent years as our relatively young movement struggles to figure out how to deliver on the promises we have made. But how do we actually re-duce the environmental footprint of our buildings and other designs? How do we select the right materials and make the most informed choices for our projects? And how do we reassure our clients (and ourselves) that we are “on-track” to meet project goals while the project is still in design?

Why, we use tools of course!

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Everyone wants a magic tool to apply to particular situ-ations to help us make the best possible choices. We es-pecially like things that can seemingly make complex and multi-faceted issues both simple and definitive. We love getting charts, graphs and exact percentage answers that allow us to show how clever we are and how good and precise our decisions are.

Part of our love for tools comes from the desire for the simple fix – we seek clear answers, not nuances. “Tell us what it will cost, tell us how much energy it will use.” “Tell us how many LEED® points we’ll get.” People de-mand answers– and our industry, often against its bet-ter judgment, tries to deliver. “Here you go,” we say… “We’ve done our analysis and this is the answer.” We distill down and segregate issues and provide our clients with what they want. And what many people want is the one-liner, the certificate or the plaque. We want tools, ti-tles, ratings or labels to tell us when we have been “good enough,” that our choices are responsible “enough.” We want fancy bar charts to validate our decisions. We share a culture that desires certainty in a highly uncertain field and we seek the air of scientific certainty even for things that are, by their nature, impossible to quantify.

We are, culturally speaking, addicted to pushing a but-ton and getting an answer from some authority… any authority at times. We want our guilt assuaged and we want our ideas validated, preferably by a third party. This validation is understandable and most often well intended. Sometimes our tools of the trade really do help to illuminate a powerful path forward. And some-times intelligent tools in skillful hands do help to cre-ate remarkable things that result in significant change in the industry.

At other times, however, the desire for the “answer” pushes us to unwise or even damaging decisions by accepting assurances or information that we should rightly question. Sometimes our tools unknowingly lead us down the wrong path, or we stand behind the wrong tool and use it as a shield to justify doing what we wanted to do all along. Often something as simple as user error leads us astray – the case of a good tool poorly administered, which occurs far more frequently

in our industry than people would like to admit. What-ever the case, it is clear that determining when and how to utilize various tools is the key - and having the good sense to avoid them or to use a different protocol or system is essential.

What is also essential is understanding that our tools are not the point or end. Just like process is not the point or end. They are a means only – and they should not be treated as an end. Tools, no matter how powerful, should be respected but never revered or fully trusted.

I want to be perfectly clear. We do need tools. They are vital to furthering the performance of our build-ings and the quality of our infrastructure. I have spent a great deal of my own professional career utilizing many of the tools used in the green building world as well as time creating the tools that our industry needs to move further, faster. Working with Bob Berkebile and my old team at BNIM, I provided a great deal of feedback to the first iterations of LEED and served on voluntary committees to improve standards. I have witnessed LEED used as an incredible force of change in the industry (see my defending LEED article, in the Spring 2011 Issue of Trim Tab) and also greatly misap-plied as people chase the cheap and easy points and seek shallow marketing benefits.

I led a building science team known as Elements that extensively used energy, daylight and natural ventila-tion modeling and collaborated with dozens of other consultants who also used these tools – sometimes powerfully, sometimes in ways that made me cringe. I have worked with many leading LCA experts who worked hard to make a highly unscientific process of material selection more scientific and in doing so I have witnessed some significant abuses of the ap-proach as well as skilled analysis. I have helped create tools such as Pharos that guide material selection and our own tool, Declare, that we will soon launch to help make material selection easier in terms of avoiding per-sistent toxic chemicals. I also created the Living Build-ing Challenge – a tool to challenge all of the industry to move rapidly to a place of restoration. I note all of these tools, not to impress - because there are many individu-

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als more expert than I in each of the areas where tools are used in green building- but to provide context. I have seen the best and worst in the industry. And that is what this article is about in the end. I offer the fol-lowing general points on tools:

• Tools are critical to helping us move forward with careful and considered analysis.

• We need multiple tools to advance our understand-ing. There is not one single approach or paradigm that will, by itself, help us reach a world of regenera-tive buildings in the time we have left to figure it out.

• We must remember that tools do not supplant skill and knowledge. To use any tool well you need to understand the issues that it affects or you are mere-ly creating a misleading or dangerous condition. Tools inform knowledge and they are best used by individuals who often already “know” the answer.

• Any tool should be used with a solid understand-ing of its limitations and all “answers” it provides should be taken with a grain of salt. The real world rarely behaves like things in the laboratory.

• Never, ever, overstate what the tool can do and cannot do or you risk undermining the credibility of the tool and misleading the people who are look-ing for accurate and correct answers.

Many well meaning and highly intelligent people mis-use tools and the results become counterproductive and even damaging, sometimes leading people to ex-actly the opposite solution than what should rightly be realized. Yet, the right tool in the right hand can be a beautiful thing and we can learn a great deal from those individuals who truly understand how to use the right tools to make informed decisions. So, to this end, let us examine several tools.

energY moDelIngOne of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal are energy models. There are many different programs available with different user interfaces and capabilities. I am going to remain “tool neutral” here, but suffice it to say that few tools have more potential to improve a building’s environmental footprint than energy mod-els that are properly utilized. Yet I have seen a lot of bad practices. Here are some things to consider:

• Be wary of modelers who do not understand archi-tecture. I have seen a multitude of models where a completely different “building” is being modeled than what is actually being designed. Sometimes it is due to a disconnect between the modeler and the designers, sometimes the modelers cannot read drawings properly or they oversimplify. Guess what? If you have the percentage of glass complete-

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ly wrong or the form of the building is inaccurate then the results are quite likely useless.

• Be wary of modelers who do not understand en-gineering. Good modelers are hard to come by because they have to understand the practice of engineering and architecture to model accurately. They have to be detectives and interpreters. They have to know what can be simplified and what can-not and why. They have to understand how to use parametric thinking to isolate particular strategies or systems in order to see how important it is for a given building type or climate.

• Do not wait too long to model. Energy models are best used early and often as part of an integrated design process to inform decisions. Understanding properly how to do “quick and dirty” energy mod-els and how to interpret the results is essential. If you wait until the end of the design process to do an energy model you have missed out on the major usefulness of the tool.

• Be wary of models that do not properly address passive solar or natural ventilation, the role of ther-mal mass and other critical strategies. Some mod-eling software simply was not designed to analyze passive systems.

• Do not relegate the modeling process to some-one well outside the decision-making scope. The leading architects and engineers should inform the models and learn from the models.

• Immediately distrust any answer that sounds too exact. Buildings never operate like the models. People use buildings differently than intended and buildings are never commissioned or built as expected. Treat all answers as guides or trends to understand.

• Do not make claims about the energy perfor-mance of your project based on the modeled re-sults. Make sure you say, “it is modeling at ‘x’ or we are targeting ‘y’.”

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ratIng toolsRating systems like LEED, BREEAM, Green Star and the Living Building Challenge have been essen-tial for the maturation of the green building move-ment and have been essential in changing the indus-try. Yet many programs are abused as tools. In the United States we have seen a wide degree of actual success from LEED projects – some are exemplary – and others embarrassing.

Do noT gAme The SySTem. Every rating tool has a built- in “logic model” and level of rigor that makes it possible to game the system in some way. It is hu-man nature. But chasing the cheap and easy points is shallow. Certainly go after them – but never at the expense of doing the right thing or doing something that would have a more lasting, positive benefit. Giv-en the choice, always seek to lower your environmen-tal footprint even if it means a lower point score. Al-ways try to do the right thing first and the thing that will get you a medal or certificate second.

mAke no FAlSe clAImS. I get tired of projects that use “LEED as a guide” only but do not want to cer-tify – yet claim that they have achieved it. “Platinum equivalent” is thrown around a lot. Rubbish. You were lazy or cheap and odds are you would not actually get the rating if you were to submit it. The whole point of certification programs is that they force a level of rigor and accountability that is essential, especially on larger commercial projects. I have a similar disdain for proj-ects that do get a rating but do not follow up to make sure that the buildings perform as intended after occu-pancy and yet continue to publish energy results that they know are not right. Performance counts. Do not keep f launting your 6 star project when you know it ac-tually does not perform as modeled and in reality, it is a 5 star project.

lIfe-cYcle assessment (lca)It was the best of times; it was the worst of times – so be-gan the saga from Charles Dickens. Where do I begin with this one? Life-Cycle Assessment is considered by many to be the Holy Grail. Taking a full cradle- to- grave

or cradle-to-cradle approach to understanding the best decisions to make about materials or technology choices is understandably exciting. We have learned the hard way how single attribute thinking can lead us astray, and how only looking at a single phase of a product’s life can also be misleading. So, we all want to be able to use a scientific process to give us better answers – or better yet – the an-swer. The promise is significant. The reality – OMG.

aDoPt lIfe-cYcle thInkIngBy all means adopt life-cycle thinking. We have to take a holistic view towards materials selection or the de-sign of any element of a project. Look upstream and downstream and ask questions. Do not be swayed by single attributes like recycled content or whether the “use phase” of a product is benign. Starting with Life-Cycle Thinking is a great place to begin.

garbage In- garbage oUt The important thing that people have to realize when it comes to LCA is that much of the data we have avail-able to feed ever more compelling LCA tools is gar-bage. Total mumbo jumbo in many cases. Most LCA’s are using a mix of data that is either:

• Old and outdated• From another country where conditions are different• Incomplete • Averaged industry-level data across a wide spectrum

Do you know what happens when you pile a ton of assumptions onto assumptions? Do you know what that does for accuracy? People routinely overstretch the accuracy of their results based on faulty data. If anyone tells you that they can give you an accurate assessment for a whole building- well, they are smok-ing something or just blowing smoke. What you can get is a generalized sense of impacts and relative com-parisons between decisions – never precision. Deci-mal points in the spreadsheet do not translate to real-world precision.

overextenDIng LCA is often abused to stretch into areas it has no busi-ness stretching into. It is one thing to look at something relatively measurable like green house gas emissions

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and yet another thing entirely to try and come up with a single number to represent “impacts to human health” or “habitat impacts.” Using a reductionist process to get a single answer for something as ho-listic as health or ecosystem is abusing the tool’s ca-pabilities. Shame on people who push answers that are not answers. Certainly links can be made – and certain pollution categories have known, measurable impacts to things like habitat and health – but do not present results as if they neatly translate into a holis-tic framing of those issues.

geekIng oUt Simply put, work with LCA experts who have a healthy degree of skepticism for their own tools and who are upfront about their limitations and what they can and cannot do. Avoid experts who are enamored with LCA as if it is a religion. They are out there so best to run like mad and lock your doors.

Use lca whenever YoU can Seems like a paradox, doesn’t it? No, it is not. Each analysis that we conduct offers significant potential to inform our decisions and to focus on the challenges in the industry. We need better data and we need con-sistent standards for data and more transparency. We need to encourage life-cycle thinking and try our best to make informed holistic decisions. It is like a chain-saw… highly useful for cutting things up – but not very precise and, in the wrong hands, deadly. In the right hands… well, you have seen the handy work of chain-saw artists. Some of them are even quite good.

bUIlDIng InformatIon moDelIng bIm

I have to admit it, BIM is sexy and captivating. Build-ings are three dimensional objects – and the promise of designing all systems in tandem in 3D can lead to much more integrated solutions. And while the pur-pose of BIM is not solely for improving our environ-mental performance, it has significant potential to do so and the ability to tie into other modeling and analysis that does help inform better decisions. It is a

powerful new tool in the designer’s toolkit – and one that can extend to engineers and contractors and affect the whole process of design and construction. At this point, I highlight just a few conclusions and issues:

exPerIence Is essentIalI am repeating myself here, but you have to know how to put a building together – for real in the field. A model that looks highly convincing is not the same as contract documents that really work. The majority of the buildings we admire most in the world were done before BIM or computers even existed. That reality is important to keep in mind. BIM adds powerful func-tionality to our decision-making and design process but it is not the only arrow in the quiver.

UsIng mUltIPle ParaDIgmsI am convinced that the process of drawing and sketching and building physical models leads to a critical path of discovery. Models should supple-ment, not replace, the tools we have used for centu-ries. I am always sad to see whole offices with only a single drafting board left. We utilize different parts of our brain when we draw versus when we use a com-puter. Both are important. Remember that any tool you use in some way imposes itself on the act of cre-ation. Our tools always define our art and science to some degree. Being aware of that aspect, respecting it and honoring it is essential.

fInal thoUghts

There are many other tools and programs that I could discuss in more detail that are often misused such as green product labels, daylight models, and personal accreditations that need to be considered and ad-dressed....and perhaps I will, another day, in another article. But for now, I leave you with a few summary thoughts on tools:

• There is a wide selection of tools available in the market to help you design a green product – evalu-ate many, and seek help from experts to understand what works best, when and why.

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• Do not overstretch the abilities of any design orperformance tool and always take results with agrainofsalt.Outputsarenevertruth.Theymerelyapproximateapotentialtruth.

• Donotsubstitutelearningatoolthatgiveseasyan-swers for learningtheprinciplesbehindit.Atooldoesnotreplacegoodengineeringorarchitecture–atoolaugmentsitandinformsit.

• Forrealexpertisemeasureandseekoutreal-worldvalidationsofthetoolsyouusewheneverpossible.Monitoring and measuring actual projects is al-waysthemostinstructive.

• Be truthful andadmit limitations anduncertain-tieswhenyoudousetoolstoprovideinformationto inform design. Transparency and disclaimersneed to be upfront and center when presentingoutputsandpredictions.

jason f. mclennan is the CEO of the International Living Future Institute. He is the creator of the Living Building Challenge, as well as the author of four books, including his latest: Zugunruhe.

• Donotundervalueorignorethethingsyourtoolscannothandleoraddress.

• Contributetothemovement!Ifyouseethatatoolismissing...thengettoworkcreatingityourself!

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Winter 201240

Moving toward the climate tipping point

This is the first in a series of three Trim Tab articles that assess the tools available now for reducing North American greenhouse gas emissions. This first article summarizes the current science. A second article will analyze US industrial emissions. I will argue that it is possible to cut emissions dramatically, and without delay. The third presents a set of practical proposals that will help us achieve this goal. Some of these proposals are for new green technologies, others are for stronger anti-pollution regulations, and others are for lifestyle changes that will (directly and indirectly) cut fuel use. The fourth article will lay out exactly how these proposals will work. The general conclusion: we can cut emissions by 40% to 60% of our current levels by 2050 if we have the courage to make these changes.

However, there will still be very hard times ahead. According to the latest climate models and the very discouraging observations coming out of the arctic, it is too late now to avert catastrophic global warming. We are going to have to adapt to a hot, dry and hungry planet.

The principal message I hope to convey is this: buildings and neighborhoods must be re-engineered to capture their waste and to support a local food supply. We have to radically redesign our settlements to adapt to the hot, dry and hungry world that awaits us. A roadmap for change will be the subject of my upcoming book to be published by Ecotone.

BY RICH A RD IREDA L E

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If a horde of lemmings was running toward a cliff and you were one of those lemmings, albeit a little smarter than the rest, would you continue running with the pack toward the cliff? Or would you step aside and try to warn the other lemmings of the imminent danger?

—Andrew Weaver – Canadian Climate Scientist, November 2007(Keeping Our Cool, Penguin Books, c. 2008)

Hard times aheadCurrent climate science presents an alarming picture of the future of our planet. For the past century, hu-man civilization has glutted itself on fossil fuel and the result is a climate that will soon be warmer than at any time during the last six million years. Sea levels are ris-ing. Rivers are drying up as glaciers melt, and droughts are beginning to spread across the planet’s warm belt where six of the earth’s seven billion people live. Every-one will soon be affected. Many will die. Individuals will die of starvation or drown in f loods or fall prey to disease. They will be killed in wars over water-rights and land use. But the real cause of their deaths will be global warming.

Recent data shows that the rate of warming is worse than climatologists earlier predicted. In the summer of 2010 a Russian arctic-research vessel “Vostok” (aptly named) happened upon clusters of mysterious meth-ane bubbles rising out of the arctic ocean 1 . Researchers investigated the source of these fountains of methane and discovered a horrifying truth: due to rising sum-mer air temperatures, the outf low of the nearby Azov river has grown much warmer. The warm river water run-off has in turn heated the surrounding ocean suffi-ciently to cause frozen methyl-hydrates on the sea bed to melt. These pockets of methane have lain frozen and inactive for over 50 million years. Today, as a direct re-

sult of global warming, they are thawing and bubbling up to the surface, beginning to release vast amounts of planet-heating methane into the atmosphere.

Another grim picture comes from the Canadian artic. Last summer Inuit children near Inuvik discovered a new game: throwing matches onto newly-formed meltwater ponds in the tundra2 . Methane gas (which is lighter than water) gurgles up from the rotting perma-frost below ground and f loats on the surface of these ponds. The gas bursts into f lame when the children toss their matches.

These are signs of things to come. The arctic is warm-ing faster than predicted by even the most pessimistic computer climate models. Natural feedback systems like permafrost rot and methyl-hydrate thawing will add nature’s fury to the affects of man. Satellite mea-surements taken in summer 2011 show that the Arctic sea-ice and West-Antarctic Ice Shelf reached new and unprecedented seasonal lows 3. The poles are melting far faster than we predicted. As this is written, scien-tists are revising their estimate of sea level rise by the year 2100 from half a meter to about 2 meters 4. Few people fully understand the astounding implications of such a rise in sea level: billions of people living in low-lying regions will likely lose both their homes and their arable land sometime in the next century.

Challenges to human survivalIt now seems that the challenges to human survival will start hitting us sooner rather than later – certain-ly within the lifetimes of people now under 30. The year that the real struggles begin will likely be closer to 2030 than 2080. By 2030 the earth’s average tem-perature will have risen to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – 1.3 degrees higher than in 2011 5. Heat and drought will be endemic. Wheat, rice, soy and corn crop yields across the globe will decline by 30% to 50% as plants wither,6 and we will have to farm and live with much less water – particularly in the warm middle-third of the planet 7.

Canada and northern US states will not only be faced with intense demands for freshwater from a hot and dry southern US states and Mexico, but we will be

Winter 201242

asked to absorb vast numbers of climate refugees. Our crowded cities will get even more crowded as the rest of the world struggles to escape regions that have be-come un-livable. The ability of our military to main-tain peace and order at home and to help manage disas-ter in desperately stricken neighboring countries will be sorely tested 8.

Moving toward the climate tipping pointIn the past ten years Earth’s atmospheric CO2 level has continued to rise at an astonishing rate of 2.5 parts per million (PPM) per year 9. This is despite the best ef-forts of environmentalists and engineers. Earth’s at-mospheric CO2 will reach 400 PPM in 2012. This level, as climate scientists have long known, puts planet earth dangerously close to a point of no return. 450 PPM is usually considered the critical tipping point 10. Once at-mospheric greenhouse gas begins to exceed 450 PPM, a series of natural feedback mechanisms will accelerate warming at an exponential rate, with the likely result that earth becomes inhospitable for life 11.

Climate simulation models developed by research labs in Canada, the US, Britain and Germany estimate that we need to return CO2 levels to around 350 PPM to re-tain hope for long-term survival 12. Even if we manage to achieve this goal, the actual outlook remains disturbing: warming gases, once emitted, linger in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, in some cases thousands. And the planet-warming effects, once established, last far lon-ger. Even if we cut emissions now, our descendants will have to survive thousands of years of drought, storms and sea-level rise before the climate re-establishes bal-ance. But at least they will have a chance of survival. If we don’t stop runaway global warming, homo-sapiens faces near certain extinction 13.

This is hard reading. Most people will want to turn on the football game at this point and reach for a cold beer. When we feel helpless, confused and deeply un-comfortable a common human response is denial. Like ostriches facing attack we try to “bury our heads in the sand.” We distract ourselves. We avoid confronting the painful and difficult truth.

But somehow we have to open our eyes and ears to the overwhelming evidence that life, as we know it, is in grave danger. We have to face the fact that our genera-tion has only about twenty years to turn things around. We must immediately return atmospheric greenhouse gases to 350 PPM.

How?

That’s the question that these articles seek to answer.

Society has vast amounts of capital invested in the fos-sil fuel industry. The powerful few are still getting rich from oil and coal and gas and are committed to busi-ness as usual. Their proxy governments, such as Can-ada’s Conservative Party, seek to distract us with false promises of temporary oil jobs. Yet we have to cut fossil fuel use by 50% by 2050. Over the next fifty years, after 2050, we will have to continue to reduce our consump-tion of fossil fuels until we can eventually wean our-selves entirely by 210014.

The rich have to be persuaded to abandon their oil wealth and to invest instead in renewable energy. The remaining 99%, the normal middle class patrons, need to realize how critical and imminent global climate change is and have the ability to change their behavior in order to reduce our dependence on non-renewable energy.

Notes and Bibliography:

1) Methane releases from the arctic ocean.2) Methane observed in arctic melt water ponds 3) Summer Arctic and West Antarctic melting: Dr. James

Hansen, “Storms of My Grandchildren”, Bloomsbury USA, C.2009, P.167. This information is also presented in Andrew Weaver, “Keeping our Cool”, Penguin Canada C.2008 P. 38. More recent information is available at …

4) Estimates of Sea Level Rise: Dr. Andrew Weaver, Ibid, P.2135) Estimates of 2030 Temperature Rise: Ibid, P. 2106) Estimates of crop yield reductions under 2 degree tempera-

ture rise: Anna Lappe, “Diet for a Hot Planet” .7) Precipitation and drought estimates: Dr. Andrew Weaver,

“Keeping our Cool”, P. 216. Summarizes results of fifty-eight simulations from 19 international climate modeling groups, compiled by Daithi Stone of Oxford University.

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8) Affects of global warming on global security: Gwyn Dyer, “Planet Wars” …

9) Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels: Dr. Peter Tuns, US Na-tional Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association / ESRI website. Estimate of total anthrogenic CO2 emissions: 2009 Report of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IGPCC)

10) The idea of a 450 PPM Tipping Point for out-of-control natu-ral feedbacks such as West Antarctic ice sheet collapse and methyl-hydrate released is discussed in Andrew Weaver P. 231, and James Hansen P. 160. In “Target Atmospheric CO2: Where should Humanity Aim” , Open Atmospheric Sciences Journal (2008) Hansen presents Deep ocean temperature records over the last 65 million years. Atmospheric CO2 of about 450 PPM occurs at the transition to an ice-free Antarc-tica. This transition would produce 75M sea level rises.

11) The devastating effect of natural feedbacks is discussed in Hansen, Ibid, P. 233

12) Climate models that predict 350PPM as a “safe” level of CO2 are discussed in Hansen, Ibid, P. 164 and Weaver Ibid P. 252. Both propose 450PPM as a maximum.

13) The devastating effect of the methyl-hydrate is discussed in Hansen, Ibid, P. 233. These heat spikes, termed “Paleocene-Eo-

RIcHARD IREDALE is partner at Iredale Group Architecture in beauti-ful Victoria, British Columbia and is a Vice-Chair of the Cascadia Green Building Council.

cene thermal maximums”, resulted from carbon emissions of about 300 gigatons - equivalent to burning all known fos-sil fuels, - and seem to have been triggered by natural global warming due to normal perturbations in earth’s orbit (the Malenkovich series). Major methyl hydrate releases 52 and 42 million years ago caused earth’s temperature to spike by 5 degrees Celsius and caused mass extinctions.

14) The target of zero carbon emissions by year 2100 is present-ed in Weaver, Ibid. P. 250. The goal is to stablilized earth’s climate at 2 degrees above pre-industrial level, assuming a “climate sensitivity” (i.e.temperature increase) of 4.5 degrees Celsius which each CO2 density doubling.

15) Renewable energy share of US production: US Department of Energy 2010 Report “30% Wind by 2040”.

Net Zero energy Building Certification is a new program operated by the International living Future Institute using the structure of the living Building Challenge – the world’s most rigorous and progressive green building program. Certification is simple, cost effective and critical for integrity and transparency.

for more information visit www.living-future.org/netzero

Rand K. Ekman, AIA, LEED-AP BD+C, Director of Sustainability, [email protected]

Baltimore / Boston / Buffalo / Chicago / Los Angeles / Mumbai / New York / Phoenix / St. Louis / San Francisco / Shanghai / Toronto / Vancouver / Victoria / Washington DC / cannondesignblog.com

WATER USE BELOW EPACT BASELINE

62.8%

Richmond Olympic Oval Richmond, BC

INFORMED DESIGN AND BUILDING ADD UP TO RESOURCE SAVINGS Cannon Design has organized specialized sustainability services in response to the collective challenge of working with increasingly limited and valuable resources. By working with clients at all stages of the building lifecycle, we uncover new possibilities to create enduring value.

VALUE

DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

ENVIRONMENTALSOCIAL

ECONOMIC

PRE-DESIGN

OPERATIONS

REDEVELOPMENT

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Rand K. Ekman, AIA, LEED-AP BD+C, Director of Sustainability, [email protected]

Baltimore / Boston / Buffalo / Chicago / Los Angeles / Mumbai / New York / Phoenix / St. Louis / San Francisco / Shanghai / Toronto / Vancouver / Victoria / Washington DC / cannondesignblog.com

WATER USE BELOW EPACT BASELINE

62.8%

Richmond Olympic Oval Richmond, BC

INFORMED DESIGN AND BUILDING ADD UP TO RESOURCE SAVINGS Cannon Design has organized specialized sustainability services in response to the collective challenge of working with increasingly limited and valuable resources. By working with clients at all stages of the building lifecycle, we uncover new possibilities to create enduring value.

VALUE

DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

ENVIRONMENTALSOCIAL

ECONOMIC

PRE-DESIGN

OPERATIONS

REDEVELOPMENT

InTeRnATIonAl lIVIng FuTuRe InSTITuTe: ReSeARch AnD TechnIcAl conSulTIngTools and Resources to Transform our Future

Our research advances the adoption and understanding of the living Building Challenge and other high performance policies, programs and standards throughout North america and beyond.

contact us to learn more and how we can help your organization envision a living future.

Winter 201246

INTRODUcTION

Imagine your team just completed your firm’s first Liv-ing Building! This is an incredible accomplishment and a milestone in building performance. Then, just as the project enters it’s second year of life, the building ceases to perform as intended due to an adjacent property. A new project emerges to the south of your building and now shadows your project for a portion of the year. It’s not a large portion of the year, but it’s enough to erase the net zero performance of your efforts and interfere with your investment. The new project meets all ap-plicable regulations and even though you are financially burdened there is no recourse. This mater would be eas-ily resolved If only all buildings had a collective moral obligation beyond current statutes, allowing solar access to neighbors as a collective right. Its too bad all projects aren’t living buildings as the Living Building Challenge does indeed insist on this standard.

Imperative 18 of the Living Building Challenge sets a limit of shadow height on neighboring buildings based on the surrounding density (or transect).

Transect L5, for instance allows 15 meters, which is about a 49’ high shadow.

The Rights to Nature imperative officially states:

That a “project may not block access to, nor diminish the quality of, fresh air, sunlight and natural waterways for any member of society or adjacent developments”.

oPPortunIty outSIDe of ShaDow a new ParaDIgM for cIty PlannIng

Transect L2-L3 L4 L5 L6

Maximum shade height on adjacent facade measured to Winter Soltice between 10am-2pm

6M19’-8”

10M32’-9”

15M49’-2”

20M65’-7”

BY SE A N SCOT T

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Broad solar access substantially benefits the entire community in many ways. • results in energy security / savings • reduces operating costs • acknowledges finite resources• helps to curb climate change • provides comfort, aesthetics, and contextual re-

sponses• supports community based thinking, moralistic

aspect of social justice through the “right to light” concept

PREcEDENT AND HISTORIcAL cONTEXT

There are 36 states (and multiple other municipalities) that limit building envelopes from shading neighboring structures. Some are required by civil law, and others are more explicit within zoning regulations.1 These zoning regulations sometimes refer to “Solar Envelopes”, which

is a maximum 3D volume a building could occupy and still allow solar access to neighboring facades. Think of SOLAR ENVELOPES as the “Upstream” version, and SOLAR ACCESS as the “Downstream” version of solar f low from the sun. For example, the City of San Jose precisely describes what constitutes a solar access dwelling unit. The amount of shade on the dwelling unit defines its level of solar access. Shading from a structure and/or vegetation must not exceed specific amounts to comply with the commu-nity requirements.10

Other countries also have laws in place, some that build on historic efforts based on the fundamental premise that natural sunlight was a privilege com-mon to all landowners. In the United Kingdom, the Prescription Act was passed in 1832, noting “When the access and use of light to and for (any building) shall have been actually enjoyed therewith for the

Winter 201248

full period of 20 years without interruption, the right thereto shall be deemed absolute and indefeasible…” 2 This was reiterated in 1865 by the “Right to Light” easement, giving a an owner of a building the right to prohibit neighboring construction if the owner has enjoyed access to direct daylight for 20 years or more. Debates continue over methodologies to enforce it, but the history is deep rooted toward this concept.7

In the Dutch building codes, the principal façade of houses must receive 3 hours of direct sunlight between the dates of March 21st and September 21st, the vernal point and autumnal points of the equinox, when the solar elevation is about 38°. For East and West oriented houses, the solar elevation is lowered to 32°, which re-f lects the sun’s path across the sky.8

cHANGING HOW cITIES FUNcTION – VALUING THE SUN

For years our society has viewed almost all develop-ment as a positive thing. It typically brings jobs and investment into an area. Bigger is better, or so people think and who cares if an adjacent building loses its daylight and ability to generate energy? Until recently

hardly any building attempted to use solar in urban settings and not enough daylight? Simply turn on your f lorescent lights was the common theme! But times are quickly changing, and access to the sun is quickly meaning much more. For instance, the need for energy security, the protection of investment in decentralized energy infrastructure and soon property values will in-crease that are tied to energy efficiency. In a peak oil world the sun is more important than ever.

Most blatant, allowing solar access to our neighbors through the use of solar envelopes is paramount be-cause of energy security, climate change, community based thinking, comfort, aesthetics and other con-textual responses. Any forward thinking city should begin to invest in rules and regulations that ensure future resilience and protect the responsible invest-ment in decentralized renewable energy. Doing so does not mean a city gives up density – or necessar-ily condemns itself to uniform heights as this article will quickly demonstrate. Indeed communities can become more interesting and responsive to place, lati-tude and climate through the thoughtful application of solar zoning.

Brown states have solar envelope regulations in some form.

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1832 Prescription Act provided England, “When the access and use of light to and for (any building) shall have been actu-ally enjoyed therewith for the full period of 20 years with-out interruption, the right thereto shall be deemed absolute and indefeasible, any local usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding, unless it shall appear that the same was enjoyed by some consent or agreement, expressly made or given for that purpose by deed or writing. . . “ 2

1865 “Right to Light” is an easement from English Law giv-ing a an owner of a building the right to prohibit con-struction if the owner has enjoyed access to direct daylight for 20 years or more. Methodologies were developed further in 1865 by Robert Kerr RIBA. 50/50 rules, Daylight Factor rules, tables, and other rules of thumb were created. We are fairly certain they didn’t have Sketch Up which makes this analysis and iterative studies a bit easier. 3

1932 In the center of London, near Chinatown and Covent Garden (particularly in back alleyways) signs stat-ing “Ancient Lights” can be seen marking individual windows. The design and construction of Broadcast-ing House was affected by locals declaring their right to ancient lights. It resulted in a unique asymmetrical

sloped design that allowed for sunlight to pass over the building to the residential quarters eastward.4

1862 Bushnell v. Proprietors of Ore Bed – Court rulings decided it was not worth the restrictions placed on new projects. In this case solar access laws were inte-grated, only to be weakened by the supreme court and other cases around 1875 and 1896. 12

1959 Fontainebleau Hotel Corp vs. Forty-Five Twenty-Five, Inc. – Florida Appellate Court stated “ancient lights” doctrine has been unanimously repudiated in the United States. 5

2006 “Right to Light” has been the basis for legal action as re-cently as 2006, Regan vs. Paul Properties. Others have followed.6

Early efforts to protect solar access took the view that every landowner’s right to natural sunlight deserved protection. It was later realized that broad solar access substantially benefited the entire community in many ways. However we have forgotten some of these bal-ance points to a middle-ground between maximizing FAR and allowing others to have their rights.

HISTORIc SOLAR RIGHTS LAWS

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Testing What It Takes To Respect Solar Rights

As a way to visualize the impacts of the Living Build-ing Challenge requirements, a hypothetical city was created with various street widths, maximum street grade, natural features and public space. (See Figure 1) The goal was to investigate what affects these variables had on the overall height, volume and Floor Area Ratio (F.A.R.), and to build on the fundamental theories es-tablished by Ralph L. Knowles13:

1. Diagonal streets are better than a cardinal orientation.

2. An East-West orientation yields the highest ridges / most volume. North-South yields less volume, and diagonal ridge has the least volume.

3. Using solar envelopes as a concept allows the 4th dimension of a site (time) to become integrated, re-inforcing the pulse of the site. For example, a highly dense urban area allowing sun into a court during the lunch hour allows for more frequent use of the court.

Each street number had a different width; the higher the number, the wider the street. All grades are slop-

ing up at 10% as designated (F = f lat, E = up toward the East, S = up toward the South, N = up toward the North). Every conceivable street width and physically adjacent slope was represented.

On winter solstice, it was assumed that there would be a higher priority for sunlight passage into build-ings than outdoors spaces. Thus, public spaces would have direct sun for most of the year, but not as much during the winter solstice.

The maximum bounding volumes for compliant buildings are shown in Figure 3. They are not in-tended to be viewed as the final form of the build-ings, but rather denote the solar envelopes that result from applying the current Living Building Challenge requirements. Note how the public spaces affect the maximum heights: The park with an east-west orien-tation has the most dynamic affect on its surround-ings. The river running mainly along a north-south axis also has a large impact on potential development. The buildable volumes grow toward the sun, intro-ducing themes of biophilia.

Diagonal orientation yields preferred solar access to street grids over cardinal orientation and yeilds more FAR potential than orthogonal grids.

Figure 1

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TEN DESIGN PRINcIPLES FOR SOLAR ENVELOPES

Using the metrics in the Living Building Challenge as a guide, five different solar envelope studies within the hypothetical city were completed. The results inspired the following design principles:

1. Buildings can still have generous heights if properly located within the city. Current Living Building Challenge requirements yield densities beyond the average base FAR allowed, and roughly double the actual FAR for a mid-sized city such as Portland, Oregon. This was tested with grade variation, street width variation, and other realities of urban design.

2. Using solar envelopes creates homologous instead of monotonous building massing opportunities. They come from the same source, but are not re-petitive. The resulting buildings range from 4 to 30 stories high. Variance between buildings would be even more true in the hands of qualified designers, as the massings represented below were created by an unqualified designer.

3. Creating solar envelopes (as a design process step-ping stone) is about “sculpting light” instead of “sculpting buildings”.

4. An appropriate scale is reinforced when integrating solar envelopes. This reinforces the concept previ-ously published in Trim Tab called, “The Tyranny of the Big” as it relates to building scale. Most re-sulting building massings are around four to fif-teen levels, but not all are restricted to this range.

5. Solar envelope volumes and heights increase the closer the site is to the equator.

6. To an extent, the more an offset from due south in-creases, the allowable volume and height of a solar envelope decreases.

7. The further from the equator, the larger the differ-ence is from shifting the grid from due south. How-

ever, buildings do not necessarily have to conform to the urban grid, but maximizing profits pushes the design toward this goal.

8. Solar envelope volumes are heightened as street widths increase. This is blatant, but how much? Going from a 60’ right of way to a 98’ right of way yields about 1-3 more f loors in a building.

9. The further from the equator, the less of a differ-ence street width makes. Conversely, the further from the equator, the less allowable height avail-able for given specific solar access rules.

HOUSTON, TEXAS LAT 308 levels @ 60’ wide street11 levels @ 98’ wide street3 levels difference, 9.5 average levels.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA LAT 387 levels @ 60’ street9 levels @ 98’ street2 levels difference, 8.5 average levels.

BOULDER, COLORADO LAT 407 levels @ 60’ street8 levels @ 98’ street1 level difference, 7.5 average levels.

PORTLAND, OREGON LAT 456 levels @ 60’ street7 levels @ 98’ street1 level difference, 6.5 average levels.

10. The Factors influencing solar envelopes in order of greatest magnitude to least.

- Month- Hours- Public space- Latitude- Size of block- Shift of urban grid from due south- Topography- Street width

Winter 201252

As a point of reference, Portland, Oregon has an aver-age base allowable FAR of about 6 within the city cen-ter. The same area has an actual FAR of 2.5 (existing buildings). Almost all of this area would fall into Tran-sect L6 according to Living Building Challenge rules. The studies that follow are based on L5. Even with this lower shadow height restriction assumed, the studies showed FAR allowed within the solar envelopes al-lowed by The Living Building Challenge exceed cur-rent allowable FAR in the heart of Portland. In other words, the current rules within The Living Building Challenge work for L5, let alone L6 requirements when compared against what’s allowed by this given city.

To illustrate these “Recent Principles”, we can study the latest solar envelope research performed. A hypo-thetical city was created with various street widths, maximum street grade, natural features, and of course, public space (see figure 2). The goal was to investigate what affects these variables had on the overall height, volume, and FAR possible WITHIN The Living Building Challenge current rules. Each street number had a different width; the higher the number, the wider the street. All grades are sloping up at 10% as designat-

ed (F = f l at, E = up toward the East, S = up toward the South, N = up toward the North). Since west is sym-metrical to East (for the most part), West was not re-quired. Therefore, every conceivable street width and physically adjacent slope was represented.

The massings that follow are solar envelopes that result from applying the current Living Building Challenge

FLAT

EAST

EAST

FLAT

FLAT

FLAT

EAST

EAST

NORTH

NORTH

NORTH

NORTH

SOUTH

SOUTH

SOUTH

SOUTH

Spanish steps, Rome - Public space with solar access extending it’s comfort hours

Figure 2

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Portico Scots Church Housing above cathedral with solar access to park to south. Sydney, Australia.

rules. They are not meant to be the end forms of the buildings. Rather, they are the resulting bound-ing volumes that compliant buildings could occupy at a maximum. Note how the public spaces affect the maximum heights. The East-West running park has the most dynamic affect. The river running mainly North-South also has a large impact. Massings fitting within these maximum volumes grow toward the sun, thus becoming more biophilic.

What about shading outdoor spaces? It is assumed that allowing light to buildings is a higher priority than allow-ing light to outdoors spaces during the winter solstice. Thus, public spaces would have direct sun for most of the year, but not as much during the winter solstice.

From the “10 Design Principles for Solar Envelopes,” it may be worth considering the following in the next generation of solar access / envelope considerations.

1. Varying requirements based on latitude. Anchorage is dark on Dec 21 10am to 2pm. Allowable shadow heights could be adjusted for every 15 degrees of lati-tude away from the equator. Most of the World pop-ulation lives between the equator and north latitude

of 55 degrees, thus focusing on that range of latitudes for a world-wide goal would be pertinent.

2. An exception in hot climates where shade is coveted.

3. An exception if energy needs are supplied by the project to adjacent shaded buildings.

4. Measuring solar access via areas / SAR instead of total height. What if we considered the concept of FAR applied to Solar Access Rations (SAR)? What if restrictions could be relaxed by, say 25% on a given block, if other parts were increasing solar access by 25% from the maximum height allowed?

SUMMARy

So what? What does this mean to my project? What it means is there is an opportunity (Living Building project or not) to consider the conditions that lay be-yond the property lines. Check your local laws (not just codes) in Pre-Design, especially if the project is within an urban area. Consider a higher goal than the minimum required to keep professionals out of jail. Consider this challenge as any other design challenge, finding opportunities through terraces,

Solar City Park Blocks Spring Equinox 2:00 PM

Solar City following The Living Building Challege rules, showing 350’ plus heights possible, and illustrating the Top 10 Solar Envelope Recent Design Principles

Solar City Southwest quadrant – FAR Plate Model

Figure 3

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SEAN K. ScOTT is a leader in sustain-able envelopes, speaking at numerous national events, writing a book called “Envelope Tools” and performing inde-pendent research. Sean works at SERA Architects, teaches at the University of Oregon part time, and walks his dog ev-ery night.

6. http://w w w1.american.edu/dgolash/fontainebleau%20v.%204525.htm

7. http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jba/journal/v4/n1/full/jba200818a.html#ftnote2

8. http://www.lawlectures.co.uk/RTL-1.pdf 9. MVRDV. FARMAX: Excursions on Density. 010 Publish-

ers. Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 2006. ISBN 90-6450-587. page 206

10. Kettles, Colleen McCann. A Comprehensive Review of So-lar Access Law in the United States. Solar America Board for Codes and Standards. 2008

11. http://www.energysavers.gov/renewable_energy/solar/in-dex.cfm/mytopic=50013

12. http://www.ilbi.org13. http://www.cga.ct.gov/2007/rpt/2007-R-0498.htm14. http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~rknowles/sol_env/sol_env.html

balconies, stepping of the massing, and so forth that allows the maximum FAR while balancing this with other community needs. Educate others within the project team that the Living Building Challenge Imperative 18 rules are no more restrictive than numerous other city zoning restrictions. Consider Ecotect, Sketch-Up, and other tools to quickly study variations and their impact.

Consider the top 10 recent design principles found in the research, as well as the future considerations be-ing discussed. As we move forward as an industry, it’s comforting to note that there are numerous examples of solar envelope integrations occurring all around the world.

REFERENcES

1. http://www.statesadvancingsolar.org/policies/policy-and-regulations/solar-access-laws

2. http://www.solarabcs.org/solaraccess/3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Statute_Law_Data-

base4. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fpkDA A A AQA AJ

&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Ancient+lights+%22&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Lights

The massings at left are solar envelopes that result from applying the current Living Building Challenge rules. They are not meant to be the end forms of the buildings.

Winter 201256

BY DA L E MIK K EL SEN

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creatIng a green DIVIDenDovercoming the (presumed) cost of sustainable construction

Whenever you’re facing a barrier that’s actually been given its own name, you have to know you’re up against a resilient roadblock. Such is the case with “the green premium” – the presumed cost

of constructing buildings that are environmentally responsible. As soon as you hear those words, you can be sure that the next question in everyone’s mind is not whether green buildings cost more; it’s how much more?

Winter 201258

Right: Windmill at Harmony Residences. Below left: Conerstone building green roof. Below Right: Trails at Serenity Residences

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That’s not fair. Certainly, it is not accurate. In creating the UniverCity development on Burnaby Mountain in Met-ro Vancouver, we at the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Community Trust have proved time and again that you can raise the bar on environmental performance and stay competitive with “browner” buildings. We are on the verge of demonstrating that you can build a Living Build-ing™ for less than the cost of a conventional alternative.

It’s not necessarily easy. There is a learning curve (and those can always be expensive). There is resistance to be overcome. But the “premium” that we all should be worrying about is the long-term cost of ignoring the value (and values) inherent in green design.

Our development, UniverCity, is unique, but we work continuously to make sure that the best of what we do here can be replicated – easily and affordably – else-where. Those were our marching orders when this new community was initiated in the mid-1990s.

The location – high on Burnaby Mountain, in the geo-graphic center of Metro Vancouver – is immediately

adjacent to Simon Fraser University, by wide agree-ment the best comprehensive university in Canada. SFU was built in the mid-‘60s, and its far-sighted de-signers – the architects Arthur Erickson and Geoffrey Massey – included plans for a neighboring suburb, the profits from which could help underwrite the costs of running the university.

Three decades passed before any work began on SFU’s “endowment lands,” and by then, the idea of a four-homes-to-an-acre suburban tract had lost its appeal. Instead, then-SFU President John Stubbs called for “a model sustainable community.” The SFU Community Trust was formed in 1997 to make that vision a reality – and in the process, has transferred between $155 mil-lion and $170 million (today’s dollars) in development proceeds to the university for teaching and research.

concentrate DeVeloPMent

The first job was to concentrate development, it be-ing both cheaper and greener to build and service the same number of homes on a smaller property. SFU

our development, univercity, is unique, but we work continuously to make sure that the best of what we do here can be replicated – easily and affordably – elsewhere.

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donated 800 acres (320 hectares) to the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area in return for density and development rights on the remaining 160 acres (65 hectares). That’s nearly five times the value of the “Habitat Exchange” mandate of the Living Building Challenge™. The Trust then set about creating a com-munity plan and a set of construction standards that would make the neighborhood sustainable even as it assured that development would be profitable.

One of the first challenges was overcoming the notion that “green” was something special – and therefore ex-pensive. The international construction consulting firm Davis Langdon identified this perception in a landmark 2006 report, Cost of Green Revisited, which confirmed: “There is no significant difference in average costs for green buildings as compared to non-green buildings.”

The problem, Davis Langdon reported, is this: “We continue to see project teams conceiving of sustain-able designs as a separate feature. This leads to the

notion that green design is something that gets added to a project – therefore they must add costs.”

At UniverCity, we have worked to build the notion of sus-tainability into the very core of the community, including in the pedestrian and transit-oriented layout, and we have (and required) our developers to do the same, avoiding toxic materials, sourcing supplies locally, maximizing en-ergy efficiency, minimizing water use and, especially, at-tending to the quality – and the flow – of rainwater into the “stormwater” system. (The community sits above a salmon-bearing watershed that would be damaged if wa-ter was polluted or diverted into a storm-sewer system that reduced seasonal flow rates. We are committed to building a development at the top of the mountain that the salmon won’t notice at the bottom.)

Plan early, Plan often

One of the biggest barriers to success – and one of the greatest opportunities for a “model” community – is

Above: University High Street. Below: Verdant playground

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one of the first challenges was overcoming the notion that “green” was something special – and therefore expensive.

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overcoming inertia, convincing development part-ners and regulators alike to do things differently.

This creates a planning burden that is the single un-avoidable cost of green development. If an engineer knows exactly how to lay out wide roads with large storm sewers, it will take extra time to design narrow roads with bioswales and infiltration galleries to cap-ture and clean runoff. If an architect has been design-ing medium-density residential units with baseboard heaters, thin walls and poor orientation, it will be a burden to imagine a building with a geothermal heat source, better insulation and oriented to maximize access to solar energy and light.

And if the already overburdened health approval of-ficer is accustomed to signing off on standard sewage connections, you can expect resistance when (as we did with our UniverCity Building Childcare Centre) you propose to treat and clean grey and blackwater for reuse or infiltration back to the natural watershed.

The advice here would be: give yourself time for in-novation. A green building doesn’t have to cost more – and ultimately should cost less. But your first green building may come with a steeper learning curve. Karen Marler (of Hughes Condon Marler), the excel-lent architect who designed the Childcare Centre, says that she added innovation time in her budget – but not enough. Still, as the only architect on the continent who has designed a childcare centre that can meet the Living Building Challenge™,– at no ex-tra cost – we’re confident that she’ll make up for lost time in future projects.

Do More wIth leSS

If you want both profit and sustainability, think not about what “green” might add to your development, but what it might take away. The simple notion of building orientation mentioned above is one exam-ple. For example, an increasing number of UniverCity buildings have been designed townhouse-style, with exterior entrances, or oriented to maximize environ-mental gain. Designers have turned the challenge of

building on hillsides into an advantage and cost sav-ing through terraced forms and increased ventilation and exposures.

As Karen Marler points out, a building that is situat-ed and insulated for passive solar heating also doesn’t need some of the expensive mechanical components that drive up the cost of conventional buildings. You have to spend your money differently on a green building, but you shouldn’t have to spend more.

be flexIble, be fIrM

This leads to the question of how best to plan and ac-credit green designs. In addition to its comprehensive submission criteria and associated fees, the Leader-ship in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system tends to be prescriptive about features that a building must include to qualify for LEED® certifi-cation. At UniverCity, we prefer performance-based standards, like the Living Building Challenge. We don’t tell developers what heating systems to use; we just specify a target level of energy efficiency (45% better than baseline) and allow them to find the most convenient and affordable way to get there. We’ve even added our own infrastructure developments (such as a neighborhood energy utility) to help them meet those goals.

We began with performance guidelines – and had excellent response from those in our development community – but in 2010, we worked with the local planning authority, the City of Burnaby, to embed high standards in zoning requirements. As a result, every building in the third and fourth phase of Uni-verCity will have to be at least 30% more energy efficient and 40% more water efficient than those built under Canada’s Model National Energy Code for Buildings. The bylaw also requires builders to reduce their use of toxic substances, and to source materials locally. And it establishes a 10% density bonus for developers who bring in buildings that are 45% more energy efficient or contribute more to our groundwater and stormwater goals, for example by building green roofs.

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We consulted developers beforehand, to ensure that our standards were f lexible and achievable, but the best have actually said that they appreciate the re-quirements being set in law. “It’s nice to have a level playing field,” says Kerry Kukucha, Development Di-rector for Porte Developments.

Porte was the first to develop a building under the new bylaw – and buyers snapped up the 75 units in its Origin pre-sales so quickly that Porte then bid on a new UniverCity parcel, on which it plans a 48-home development called Lift. This new building also hit the higher energy-efficiency target, thereby giving Porte the density bonus.

The Trust and the City of Burnaby review the green building standards at three stages during construc-tion, with final approval concurrent with the occu-pancy permit. If buildings fall short of the required performance, the Trust retains a performance bond that it can reinvest in other green infrastructure, but there have been no such failures in the first four struc-tures built under the new requirements.

When developers seek LEED® Certification for their own corporate or marketing objectives, buildings that

meet the UniverCity requirements are falling into the high Silver or Gold range. Three examples include: Verdant, a residential building developed by VanC-ity Enterprises and specifically designed – in both its financing and its construction – to be affordable for SFU faculty and staff; the Hub, a mixed-use project on the High Street; and the University Highlands El-ementary School, which will be the first LEED Gold retrofit school in Canada, as well as a BC Hydro solar demonstration project.

InVeSt In QualIty

One of the purported advantages for non-green build-ers is that they can build structures with low capital cost, but high operational and maintenance costs. This is a non-green premium that everyone winds up paying in the long run. But the alternative – high quality, low-maintenance buildings – can come with up-front costs that builders and buyers sometimes find daunting.

UniverCity has found a couple of solutions to this challenge. In the Verdant project, developed at a discount for university faculty and staff, the Trust partnered with reSource reThinking Building on a

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DALE MIKKELSEN is Director of Development at SFU Community Trust.

60-unit structure that is one of the most energy-effi-cient woodframe buildings in Canada. Verdant has a geo-exchange heating system, as well as a passive solar hot water system, both of which were financed through a separate mortgage. Residents now pay the equivalent cost of energy for a traditional building, and use the op-erational savings to pay down the mortgage. When the mortgage is retired, residents’ costs will drop – probably while everyone else’s energy costs are skyrocketing.

Our second solution is a Neighborhood Energy Util-ity, a hydronic system that ultimately will provide heat and domestic hot water from a central biomass facility, fueled with construction wood waste that would oth-erwise be landfilled. This system, which will begin op-eration early in 2012 with a temporary high-efficiency, natural gas boiler, will remove the need for furnaces and hot water heaters in every residential unit in the third and fourth phases of our development, helping developers meet their energy-efficiency requirements. The biomass facility is also expected to replace the aging gas incinerator that currently serves the univer-sity’s institutional buildings, reducing related green-house gas emissions by more than 70%.

The truest test for all this innovation is whether the market can “afford” it, and by that measure, Univer-City is passing with high marks. Developers such as Porte are successfully pre-selling whole buildings

before beginning construction. And far from finding the sustainability standards a burden, Porte’s sales manager, Kristie Marsden, says that buyers quickly identify them as a primary selling feature.

“I get two kinds of buyers,” Marsden says, “Some people are on a mission: they’re only going to purchase a home built to the highest green standard. Others are looking here because they like the community, and they’re pleas-antly surprised.” Once they see they can have energy efficient homes that were built to high environmental standards, they don’t want to accept anything less.

When it comes to assessing the “cost” of a building, that’s the last word: no matter how much money they “save” in construction, if a developer can’t sell a proj-ect, it was not “affordable.” We’re proud, at Univer-City, to be building a community that people want – one that will be enduring and, especially, one that has a light environmental footprint. The long-term savings from that approach will benefit everyone, whether they helped pay for it or not.

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Winter 201266

All of us long to “do well by doing good.” It is some-times called right livelihood when we make our living with our integrity intact by not compromising our val-ues for the sake of the almighty dollar. But that’s just the beginning.

In Embedded Sustainability (Stanford Business Books), Chris Laszlo and Nadya Zhexembayeva pro-vide a scholarly, engaging, and compelling case that “green” is no longer a fad, or optional “bolt it on” way to gain public approval. They assert that embedding sustainability is not simply a strategy, but the only path to both shareholder and stakeholder value in the future - for all of us. But they go further with the assertion that there are immense opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs to become very profitable by creatively solving our most challenging social and environmental problems. I believe it is a “must read” for anyone seri-ously exploring the “business of green” opportunities that are all around us.

But here’s a question worth your personal investment right now. How prepared are you to take advantage of

Thriving as a green Warrior

the opportunities all around you to do well financially by “doing good” for our planet? It’s a great question because, whether we want to admit it or not, we are all in business for ourselves one way or another. Whether you are a solo entrepreneur, company executive, or a young professional working in an organization, your financial future will be determined by your ability to contribute at the highest level possible and negotiate a fair return for your contribution.

Contribution comes in two categories: professional expertise and leadership effectiveness. You have to be an excellent engineer or architect or project manager but that’s not enough. You also need to develop a way of being that is inf luential, can work through problems and failures effectively, and bring the best out of oth-ers. Leadership effectiveness is the core competency of every green warrior who wants to optimize their con-tribution and not become overwhelmed with stress as they do so.

And the truth is we all can do better at our own effec-tiveness. But we rarely invest in our own leadership

BY PAUL W ERDER

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“Green Warrior” phrase coined by Jason F. McLennan.

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skills. We just don’t easily recognize that we need to take great care of the goose that lays the golden eggs. Yes, I am talking about you!

We mostly focus on developing our professional exper-tise; and get by with the level of effectiveness that has gotten us this far without much focused attention. If it’s good enough for you to be “good enough” then read no further. But if becoming a masterful change agent is an intriguing idea to you, then this article is about to get really interesting.

What is mastery? Most people confuse mastery with perfection but forget that even the best baseball players in the world strike out often, and get one hit for every two outs they make. Mastery is the ability to walk back into the dugout after striking out with your head up, learn from your missed attempt, and come back and wallop the next one when it really counts. Mastery is the ability to learn from every life situation that is uncomfortable or challenging. It is the unconscious access to the competencies you need when you need them most.

Mastery for a green warrior involves surrendering to a lifetime of service, discipline, and excellence. And mastery for someone who considers themselves in business for themselves involves all of that - and the ability to make a difference in a way that provides an equitable financial reward.

But how does mastery occur? Practice, practice and more practice. But not merely practicing what you have already been doing that is “good enough.” You need to identify the best practices to perform over and over again if you want to become a master.

And that’s where Jason met Paul. Jason F. McLen-nan is the CEO of the Living Future Institute, who authored the Living Building Challenge, an inter-national green building program, and co-created Pharos, the most advanced building material rating system in North America. In his book Zugunruhe, Jason wrote “Profound change requires deep per-sonal effectiveness that is not taught in our schools or is rarely discussed in the environmental and green building movement.” After writing his book Jason had

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many emerging green warriors coming to him asking, “Now that I am awake what do I do?” Jason realized he needed to find someone who could provide best leadership practices to the thousands of green war-riors it would take to fulfill the expansive vision he carried for the Living Future Institute.

So we have collaborated to offer you a set of best leadership effectiveness practices. These practices are the skills you will need to optimize the contri-bution you make with your professional expertise. These skills will also equip you to optimize the re-turn you receive on the investment you have already made in your career. It’s a given that you work hard and will continue to do so, so why not master your craft and feel you are being fully rewarded for the difference you make?

The Zugunruhe Mastery Guide is the product of our collaboration, but it is so much more than a product. It is the doorway to a radical new way of being that will allow you to accelerate your leadership effective-ness. One of the best aspects of this doorway is that

PAUL WERDER, CEO of LionHeart Con-sulting Inc, is the author of Mastering Effectiveness. You can reach him at [email protected].

A companion to the groundbreaking book

Zugunruhe – The Inner Migration to Profound Environmental Change by Jason F. McLennan with Mary Adam Thomas

By Paul Werder with Jason F. McLennan

EXPANDING YOUR CONTRIBUTION AS A LEADER

THE

MASTERY GUIDEZUGUNRUHE

you can enter at your own pace and go as far as you desire. The cost of entry is low enough that everyone can participate and still receive an unexpected level of support.

You will find it to be a simple toolbox that illuminates how to resolve your most relevant challenges. While the simple tools are easy to understand, you will come to the same conclusion as we have, that “com-mon sense is not so common.” This is because the simplicity of effectiveness does not make it easy. It’s often difficult to tell the truth, live up to your com-mitments, and be coachable when others are not hav-ing an easy time working with you. But if you could trade in your negative, limiting self-talk for clarity, peace of mind and wisdom, wouldn’t you take us up on this invitation?

You can transform yourself over and over again on the road to mastery if you are willing to do the work. The financial investment is more than reasonable, and the investment in time is certainly manageable. The real in-vestment is in giving up your ego to discover the power in your heart. And that is where our journey begins.

If you are ready to take your next steps to-wards mastery, new actions will be required. There is much more information available about the various ways to begin at www.cascadiagbc.org/education/zugun-ruheguide/zmgmain. Invest in yourself!

Click here to buy the Zugunruhe Mastery Guide:ecotonedesign.com

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The Building Materials Challenge: the selectIon Process

VAnDuSen BoTAnIcAl gARDen VISIToR cenTRe +cenTRe FoR InTeRAcTIVe ReSeARch on SuSTAInABIlITy AT The unIVeRSITy oF BRITISh columBIA

Perkins+Will has recently completed two projects in Vancouver, British Columbia that are targeting Living Building Challenge™ certification. Both the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability at the Univer-sity of British Columbia (UBC) and the VanDusen Bo-tanical Garden Visitor Centre opened to the public in the Fall of 2011. The projects are based on a holistic ap-proach to sustainability, closely aligned with The Liv-ing Building Challenge (the Challenge). Both of the buildings are integrated into the environment beyond their site boundaries and will have a positive overall ef-fect on their surroundings, a key concept envisioned by the Challenge. Selecting the most appropriate and sus-tainable materials for each building is complex; there are many parameters to consider in terms of design intent and the life cycle environmental assessment of building products. Choosing to pursue the Challenge has provided a framework of specific targets for materi-als.

BY PENN Y M A RT Y N

at the centre for Interactive research Sustainability the naturally lit laboratories and offices surround a courtyard with a daylit auditorium. the solar aquatic wastewater treatment system is prominently located behind the corner glazing on the ground floor.

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University of British Columbia’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability.

UBC’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainabil-ity (CIRS) is a 60,400 square foot office and labora-tory building. The design concept for the building is a “living-lab” in which researchers can perform interac-tive research and assessment of building systems and technologies; the project goal was to create a building that could provide an example of regenerative design and act as a catalyst for future building projects on the UBC campus. The building is projected to have both net positive operational energy and water use.

VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre

The VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre is a sin-gle story, 20,000 square foot building at the eastern edge of a 55 acre botanical garden. The client wanted an iconic gateway facility to visually and ecologically connect the

gardens to its urban surroundings, and help to increase visitor attendance. Features include prefabricated wood roof panels, a geo-exchange system, a roof mounted solar thermal system, roof rainwater collection, a blackwater treatment system, a passive ventilation system and a green roof which ramps down to the garden.

Living Building Challenge Materials’ Imperatives

The selection of materials is an important part of the overall design of both building projects. The inherent qualities of materials have an effect on the building in terms of aesthetics, functionality and sustainability. The focus of this discussion is to specifically look at the Challenge’s Imperative requirements.

The Living Building Challenge is comprised of seven broad performance areas or petals: Site, Water, En-ergy, Health, Materials, Equity and Beauty. The fo-

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windows open automatically above the metal heat sink as part of the passive ventilation system at VanDusen’s new Visitor centre.

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cus of this discussion is on three specific Imperatives within the Materials Petal which directly affect ma-terials selection: Red List, Appropriate Sourcing and Responsible Industry. These three Imperatives have provided design teams with ambitious targets in ad-dition to project goals related to the use of materials.

Red List

The most difficult Living Building Challenge Materials Imperative to successfully achieve is the avoidance of items on the Red List, a list of substances that cannot be used in projects because they have been determined to be detrimental to human health and the environment. The intent of the Imperative is to avoid the use of any material that contains within it a Red Listed substance and applies to products throughout the building, includ-ing electrical and mechanical components. There are some temporary exceptions to the list granted by The

The selection of materials is an important part of the overall design of both building projects. The inherent qualities of materials have an effect on the building in terms of aesthetics, functionality and sustainability.

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Top: The VanDusen Visitor Centre roof petal forms were inspired by an orchid.Below: Polishing the concrete floor has a higher initial cost than sheet flooring but will last longer and be easy to maintain.

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International Living Future Institute to acknowledge that compliant products are not always available. De-spite these exceptions, it remains extremely difficult to find the products required in complex buildings types that meet the terms of the Red List Imperative.

Perkins + Will found that of all the items on the Red List, Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) is one of the most prevalent. A constituent of PVC, Vinyl Chloride, has been classified as a carcinogen by the EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) and IRAC (International Agency for Research on Cancer). PVC is typically present in many architectural, mechanical and electrical products. A resourceful and interest-ing solution at VanDusen was implemented to replace standard PVC foundation drain tile. ABS (Acryloni-trile Butadiene Styrene) plastic pipe was substituted and drilled on site to create drainage holes. The local building inspector required that a particular pattern of

holes specified by Canadian standards be drilled into the ABS before permitting its use.

Appropriate Sourcing

Another challenging Living Building Challenge requirement is that all materials must be appropri-ately sourced according to a logical sourcing radius relating to the weight of the product, its potential to contribute to the ongoing performance of the proj-ect, and opportunities to reinforce place-based solu-tions. For example concrete, a heavy material, has to be manufactured and extracted within 500km of the project, whereas ceiling tiles, a lighter product, can be manufactured and extracted from a radius of up to 2000km. The appropriate sourcing requirement is harder to meet in Vancouver than in many places on the continent because the manufacturing base, the source of a great many typical building products, is

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on the east coast. Vancouver’s location on the Pa-cific coast is remote from the industrial heartland of North America and the sourcing radii stretch over the Pacific Ocean, making it much harder to meet the sourcing requirements. For example sheet f looring is required to be sourced within 2000 km of the build-ing, but no products could be found that were both manufactured and sourced within this radius.

Responsible Industry

In addition to the Red List and Appropriate Sourcing requirements, the Challenge’s Responsible Industry Imperative requires that projects advocate for third party certified standards for sustainable resource extraction and social justice. Presently require-ments for this Imperative are that all wood products be certified to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) 100% labelling standards, from salvaged sources or

from the intentional harvest of timber onsite. FSC is a worldwide organization that provides a certifi-cation system for sustainable harvesting of wood in each location which includes logging restrictions and fairness for workers. FSC-certified wood in Canada is mostly produced in the east; so much of the projects’ new wood actually comes from FSC sources in the western United States. Salvaged wood is available for purchase, but the market is limited and often requires that the wood be sourced ahead of time. The older salvaged wood is in demand as it is often of better quality than more recently harvested wood and has a desirable patina.

Materials Requirements

Adding to the complexity of sourcing, the Living Build-ing Challenge requires that specified products com-ply with all Imperatives. For example, a wood beam

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Facing page: Overlapping watch lists complied by various organizations.Left: Living Building Challenge sourcing radii from Vancouver, BC, showing remoteness from manufacturing on the east coast.

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must: not contain added formaldehyde (Red List), be sourced within 1000km (Appropriate Sourcing) and be either FSC-certified or salvaged (Responsible In-dustry). Often after research, a product could not be sourced that complies with all the requirements. The Challenge allows for exceptions for the limiting factors between Imperatives in these cases, particularly allow-ing for an increased sourcing radius to include prod-ucts without Red-Listed substances or FSC-certified wood products.

Use of Wood

At the VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre wood products are used extensively. Timber is readily available in the Pacific Northwest and has low embod-ied energy and renewable qualities, making it more ap-propriate to use than other structural and material sys-tems. The nature of photosynthesis that allows wood to sequester carbon is an invaluable asset that concrete and steel can never possess. All three of the options al-lowed for sourcing wood products in the Responsible

Industry Imperative have been used in different appli-cations throughout the project.

The FSC-certified prefabricated roof panels, com-posed of glue laminated beams, framing lumber and plywood were built in a local FSC-certified shop. Each of the 60 panels have a unique three dimension-ally curved shape, some as large as 60 feet long and 10 feet wide. The panels were designed by the architect using Rhino and Revit software and the 3D model was then used by the fabricator to build the panel geometry and incorporate services into the curved panels. Insulation, sprinklers, wood ceiling slats and the first layer of roof protection were all installed by different trades in the shop. The finished panels were delivered to the building site, hoisted by crane and bolted into place. The wide truck turns meant the main street next to the botanical gardens had to be closed and delivery had to occur in the middle of the night.

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Salvaged wood and timber from the site were incorpo-rated into landscape elements and millwork. Lumber salvaged from a demolished breezeway on the site was resawn and used to construct several new bridges and benches in the landscape. The wood doors and mill-work were salvaged from an office building in Seattle. This salvaged wood forms the finished visible surface of the millwork and has a weathered patina that fits the architectural design intent. The number of trees that had to be cut down on the site were minimal; the tim-ber that did become available was seasoned and used to construct exterior benches. The building was located in a section of the gardens in which very few trees were growing and, in fact, invasive species were present that were identified and removed.

Rammed Earth

Rammed earth walls were chosen not only to comple-ment the curvilinear design but also because their ingredients are locally available and free of Red List items. The rammed earth walls are double wythe con-struction with insulation sandwiched between the in-terior and exterior layers. The rammed earth mixture, which resembles a dry concrete mix, was pneumatical-ly tamped in layers inside heavy duty formwork. The organic layers were part of the design intent, but the lack of transparency in the disclosure of proprietary in-gredients made the structural design of the walls and tracking of materials challenging.

Reducing Redundancy

One basic strategy for improving the environmental footprint of products in a building is to reduce ma-terials redundancies. This can be achieved either by avoiding the use of certain building products alto-gether or by simplifying the design, resulting in the use of fewer materials. Reducing redundancies is beneficial environmentally because less material is used and problematic materials can be eliminated. The design team thoughtfully reduced the need for applied finishes on the interior of both buildings, as they often contain Red List items and are not manu-factured locally. In addition, many interior products contribute to poor interior air quality because they

contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that off-gas at room temperature. At VanDusen, polished concrete f loors were used in the public spaces instead of adding sheet f looring. In addition, the curved con-crete walls throughout the project were not covered by additional finishes. The concrete walls were not cast in the usual way, but sprayed onto curved forms using shotcrete and then trowelled on the most vis-ible side. This construction method gave the concrete walls a beautiful, organic look which did not need to be covered by additional finishes.

Watch Lists

The elimination of materials that can be detrimental to human health in buildings is a universal concern; the Living Building Challenge Red List is one of a number of excellent lists that have been compiled by different organizations in an attempt to eliminate toxic materi-als in our buildings. Perkins+Will Architects has de-veloped its own Precautionary List of substances com-monly found in the built environment that have been classified by regulatory entities as being harmful to the health of humans or the environment. This tool is in-tended to promote transparency and be a resource for project teams. The Precautionary List (and suggested alternatives) is available to the public online at www.transparency.perkinswill.com.

Product Transparency

Increased transparency in the market place is crucial to understanding and improving building materials in the future. At present, product information available from manufacturers is variable in factual content and often misleading. A valuable aspect of the the Chal-lenge, besides specific criteria for building materials,, is that project teams are asked to write letters to manu-facturers addressing human health and environmental concerns relating to specific products. For example, the Red List Imperative indicates letters must be sent from a project team member to manufacturers who have Red List items contained in their products, stat-ing that the project team does not endorse the Red-Listed component of the product, even though there is a temporary Living Building Challenge exception.

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Writing such letters is a controversial position for many project teams to take, but this kind of advocacy has al-ready started to be a powerful tool in the market-place, especially as companies with larger buying power get involved.

The Pharos Project, developed by the Healthy Build-ing Network, is currently the most thorough resource. The Pharos website is beginning to provide scientific evaluation tools for selecting building products as well as information on substances and materials. Pharos provides in-depth and illuminating information and helps to expose “greenwash” (marketing that is used to promote products as environmentally friendly, some-times misleadingly).

Complexity in Specifying

Specifications for buildings that accommodate Living Building Challenge Imperatives are complicated be-cause of the intertwined requirements and additional complexities are introduced by the typical specifying methods used for some building systems. Specifica-tions ref lecting requirements for building products are unfamiliar to the construction industry making the process onerous for all, just as LEED require-ments were perplexing when first introduced. Some building products and systems are necessarily speci-fied by performance rather than by a more descrip-tive method because that end result is paramount. In the performance based model the actual materials within a specified system are left to be chosen by the contractor and submitted during the construction submittal process. For example, the complex systems such as blackwater treatment are typically bid as a design build package with specific key performance outcomes specified. Finding alternatives to red-listed neoprene gaskets and valves containing lead typically included in the system becomes a necessity during the construction process. (Editor’s note: The Liv-ing Building Challenge includes a Small Component exception for complex products. A small component must be discrete and retain its form as introduced into the product’s assembly, as well as be less than ten percent of a product by both weight and volume.)

Penny Martyn, MaIBC, LeeD® aP BD+C is a Senior Architect and Specification Writer for Perkins+Will Canada with over 20 years experience working for architectural firms across Canada.

project schedule and must be a collaborative process. The designers start by thinking of concepts for mate-riality at the project outset and continue researching options as the project contract documents and speci-fications are prepared; they must be ready to change course during construction if issues with product sourcing become apparent. The builder needs to tirelessly explore possibilities and alternate solutions with the team that meet the stringent requirements and work within the budget. The client’s support is vital to achieving Living Building Challenge require-ments, which are often far from typical and challenge the status quo of the building construction proce-dures. No one individual member of the team can achieve these goals on his or her own, everyone must actively participate.

Specifying building materials for high performance buildings is a complex process. The Living Build-ing Challenge has provided a good framework and target for project teams at both CIRS and VanDu-sen throughout research, design and construction. The Red List, Appropriate Sourcing and Respon-sible Industry Imperatives have guided selections and required a rigorous process, as well as organiz-ing a process of advocacy for more transparent proj-ect information. The use of wood and minimizing building materials have worked well as strategies and blended well with Living Building Challenge require-ments. The enthusiasm and skills of the entire team have been essential in meeting challenging materials requirements at VanDusen and CIRS and has helped to develop strategies that can be carried forward.

Future Articles: This article is the first in “The Building Materials Challenge” series. Article II will focus of materials transparency, article III will explore FSC and article IV will be about materials sourcing.

References:Living Building Challenge 2.0Environmental Impacts of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Building Materials, A briefing paper for the Health Building Network, By Joe Thorton PhD

Team Collaboration

The process of selecting materials that will comply with Living Building Challenge carries through the

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Start the year off on the right path.

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At WSP Flack + Kurtz, our mission is to ensure that today's built environment preserves the natural

environment in which we live.

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DID YOU KNOWBuilt Ecology is a specialty group that works exclusively with WSP F+K engineers to provide our clients with cutti ng edge, integrated, innovati ve, and deep green design soluti ons that link building systems and architecture.

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Winter 201278

Book Review:

ReinventingFiRe

BY FA IT H GR A H A M

Imagine waking up in your super comfortable and healthy home and deciding what form of transporta-tion you will take to work today – personal electric ve-hicle, bicycle share, highly predictable mass transit, or telecommute on the information super highway. Your home and office are comfortable and quiet because they are designed to take advantage of natural systems. They are smartly sited, extremely well insulated and ventilated with plenty of fresh air. Your workforce is more productive and absenteeism is largely a problem of the past. Your home and office building have be-come energy harvesters and storage receptors. Rather than paying for electricity to heat and cool your home, you now get a monthly check from your utility com-pany for the excess power you generate and sell back to the community. The news headlines are no longer dominated by stories of war and unrest in the Middle East in part because the United States no longer fuels the feud in order to protect the precious oil reserves once thought critical to maintaining the American way of life and indeed world prosperity. Price volatility at the pump is irrelevant. Economic prosperity is more

widespread. New career pathways persist. American businesses are rewarded for ingenuity and the national budget deficit has been steadily reduced.

Is it possible to imagine such a future, one that is per-vasive, lasting and attainable in short order? Amory Lovins, co-founder and chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute, thinks it is and his newest book Reinventing Fire, Bold Business Solutions for a New En-ergy Future delivers a roadmap to wean us from our fossil fuel dependence starting right now. Not only that, but Lovins delivers a convincing argument that such transition will unleash enormous economic po-tential for a broad and diverse set of stakeholders and participants.

Amory Lovins has never suggested a timid approach. It is no small task to eloquently articulate a better en-ergy future and a method of achievement while thor-oughly examining the real barriers to implementation. Reinventing Fire does exactly that in an easily digestible form told with a voice of hope and inspiration. Through

By Amory LovinsChelsea Green Publishing, October 2011

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“IT Is NO sMall TasK TO elOQUeNTlY aRTICUlaTe a BeTTeR eNeRGY FUTURe aND a MeTHOD OF aCHIeVeMeNT wHIle THOROUGHlY exaMINING THe Real BaRRIeRs TO IMPleMeNTaTION. ReINVeNTING FIRe DOes exaCTlY THaT IN aN easIlY DIGesTIBle FORM TOlD wITH a VOICe OF HOPe aND INsPIRaTION. ”

Reinventing Fire, Lovins and the Rocky Mountain In-stitute examine how to eradicate dependence on fos-sil fuels, in large part by drastically reducing energy waste, in an effort to curb environmental degradation, social unrest, and economic uncertainty.

Reinventing Fire examines the four dominate sectors of the economy that consume fossil fuels – transpor-tation, buildings, industry, and electricity generation. Each sector is broadly described including its current dependence on fossil fuels and a vision for liberation. Once the goal is articulated, Reinventing Fire details the business opportunity for fossil-fuel free energy in terms of dollars and scope, an overview of current tools and innovations, anticipated challenges, and policy en-ablers. The examination not only yields an abundance of relevant information but also suggests implementa-tion of an integrated strategy, one based in technology, policy, design, and new business models. The message is one of hope: current tools and strategies employed by opportunistic businesses can get us to a secure en-ergy future that does not depend on fossil fuels.

At the end of this book, Lovins implores “Shall we con-tinue down the path we’re on, toward economic stag-nation, rising costs, unpleasant risks, social upheaval, and an ever more dangerous world, or shall we make a bold break and start laying the energy foundations of a world without waste, want, or war?” Reinventing Fire entices readers with promises of vast economic oppor-tunity, social benefit and environmental healthy while exposing a plethora of current tools to achieve the en-visioned new energy future. All that is needed is a bit of human ingenuity, self-interest and passion. Sounds like a recipe for success.

What piece of the action will you take?

FAITH GRAHAM is a sustainability lawyer focused on energy efficiency and real estate finance in Portland, Oregon and currently serves on both the Interna-tional Living Future Institute and Casca-dia Green Building Council boards.

Winter 201280

Moving UpstreaMMoving UpstreaM

Do you have a lead on cutting-edge green building progress in the region? Contact [email protected] and put “Moving Upstream News Lead” in the subject line.

making progress?

‘Place-based’ Plans to conquer child Poverty

a group in vancouver, bc called the inner city

response initiative organizes a network of place-based

services to nurture children and their families from

infancy to graduation. this idea of a “fully-supported

upbringing within one neighborhood leads to a better

future” is an interesting and compelling strategy that

many cities should adopt.

the united states Green buildinG council’s Project haiti

it has been just over 2 years since the devastating

earthquake hit haiti that affected approximately 30

million people. the usGbc and the architecture firm

hoK have joined forces to design and construct Project

haiti – an orphanage and children’s center in Port-au-

Prince that is aiming to be leed Platinum. Watch the

video to learn more about the inspiring project.

yet another innovative aPProach to biomimicry – the sunfloWer + solar PoWer

biomimicry – studying the designs of nature for

sustainable models. this time, the sunflower’s pattern

has turned the heads of mit scientists. they very well

may have revolutionized the effectiveness of concentrated

solar plants by emulating the pattern found in the

sunflower. learn more about the sunflower’s power.

seattle’s Green buildinG evolution

the city Green building team takes an exciting new

step in 2012. beginning in january, part of the “green

team” will join forces with the office of sustainability

and environment (ose). as this next step unfolds,

both dPd and ose will continue to develop and

implement innovative approaches to building sustainable

neighborhoods including supporting the living building

challenge pilot program and potential adoption of the

international Green construction code. read more

about this exciting news.

Customized support for

WHAT IS IT?This optional service is intended to improve a project’s potential to comply

with the Living Building Challenge requirements at a point in the design

process where adjustments are still possible.

HOW DOES IT WORK?The Institute spends a day with the team to learn how the project accounts

for each Imperative of the Living Building Challenge (an option for a virtual

meeting is also available). Following a review of the project documents, we

will issue a report outlining our guidance for the team to improve their ability

to succeed. It is possible to receive feedback on the Imperatives within a

single Petal, select Petals, or all seven Petals of the Living Building Challenge.

HOW DO I GET STARTED? For more information on fees and scheduling, email: [email protected]

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT GUIDANCE

WHAT IS IT?To steer teams toward innovative yet feasible solutions for their Living

Building Challenge projects, the Institute offers an optional service to lead the

kick-off meeting or “charrette” and help define fundamental, strategic goals.

HOW DOES IT WORK?The charrette should take place at the beginning of a project when the

potential to explore is at its fullest. The one-day meeting format focuses on

fostering an interactive dialogue that allows participants to consider each area

of impact. The two- or three-day format allows time for a deeper examination

of promising ideas. The Institute designs the agenda, facilitates the session,

and provides a follow-up summary.

CHARRETTE FACILITATION

Living Building ChallengeSM is a philosophy, advocacy tool, and certification program that addresses development at all scales. It is comprised of seven performance areas: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity, and Beauty.

At the International Living Future Institute, we believe that a compelling vision is a

fundamental retirement of reconciling humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

www.livingbuildingchallenge.org

Measure Twice, Cut Once.

The Early Bird Gets The Worm.

Designed for your needs, delivered to your office.

IN-HOUSE WORKSHOPS WHAT IS IT?Customized training is available as an optional service for organizations

and project teams to ensure that everyone has a shared fundamental

understanding of the Living Building Challenge or particular Petal area.

HOW DOES IT WORK?Whether there is a specific area of interest or a desire for a private

presentation of an established curriculum, the Institute can bring the

education to you. The most common workshop requested is a full-day

introduction to Living Building Challenge that also includes discussion of

contextual information such as development patterns and density, and

regulatory, financial, behavioral and technological barriers and incentives.

Are you inspired by the living Building challenge?

Do you want to transform your community?

you’re not alone.

Discover your local living Building challenge collaborative and engage in innovative, place-based discussions.

a Collaborative is a community-based, in-person group of living Building Challenge ambassadors that meets regularly to share ideas and experiences. Your activities create the local conditions that support development of living Buildings, sites and Communities. Collaboratives are open to all, and they thrive on a diverse range of perspectives.

• Check the ambassador Network Map to find a Collaborative near you, and connect with fellow ambassadors through your local Collaborative’s Facebook page.

• If you don’t see a Collaborative in your area, we hope you’ll be inspired to form one. sign up online to receive the training and support to successfully facilitate your local group.

We ARe All AmBASSADoRS.

livingbuildingchallenge.org/ambassador

Urbanized. A documentAry film by GAry Huswit

Did you know over half of the world’s population now lives in an urban area, and 75% will live in cities by 2050? Urbanized is a new documentary by Gary Huswit – the filmmaker of Objectified and Helvetica. This film is about 21st – century urbanization with interviews featuring designers, professors, and community activist who explain the meaning and ideal purpose of a city. Watch the documentary to learn from these careful selected images and thoughtful interviews.

top 10 enerGy efficiency tips for tHe new yeArWant to start the New

Year off with a bang? Learn the top 10 ways to create healthy, bright and sustainable spaces from our friends at the Rocky Mountain Institute.

sHininG A liGHt in tHe pHilippines

Many people living in the slums of Manila, Philippines do not have access to electricity and live in relative darkness. Until some inventive and creative thinking citizen discovered that an old plastic soda bottle, water and the sun will shine much needed light on this dark situation. The recycled plastic bottles are filled with water and wedged in a hole cut in the roof, with the help of the tropical sun the makeshift bulbs generate 55 watts of light – with no electricity involved. Click above to learn about this inventive plan.

life in tHe slow lAne: one less pArkinG spAce, one

more pArkThere are now more than two-dozen parking spaces that have been turned into pedestrian nooks in the year of 2011 in San Francisco. San Francisco’s “Pavement to Parks” project is seeking to temporarily reclaim these unused swathes and quickly and inexpensively turn them into new public plazas and parks. This project has been inspired by similar projects in New York City where plazas and seating areas have been designed and built into excess roadway by treating the asphalt, installing movable tables and chairs and placing protective barriers along the periphery. Read more to learn about parklets and this spreading trend.

fwd: reAd tHis!

click

clickclick

fwd: reAd tHis!If you have something that should be included here please send it to us at [email protected].

click

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