On Thursday, the DJC published an article I wrote on a new report that says codes are getting in the way of cutting edge green buildings. This, in itself, is really nothing new.  Last August, I wrote this article about the city’s Priority Green program. In it, DPD’s Peter Dobrovolny (whose last name is almost as difficult as mine!) said many projects consider innovative ideas but drop them when they realize how much extra time it will take under city code. However, having the problems and possible solutions written down in an actual report - well that is new.

However, the report. Is. Huge. If you dare to read it, click here . It manages to be very

The Rubik's Cube of codes

comprehensive and vague at the same time. It is comprehensive in that it studies code barriers across the country, identifies problems and makes recommendations. But because it is dealing with national issues, some of the solutions are vague in their range. For example, one solution is to “identify and address regulatory impediments to green building and development” while another is to “create incentives matched with desired goals.”

I spoke with one of the study’s primary authors, David Eisenberg of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, this week. Essentially, he said codes are built incorrectly in that they are hundreds of ad hoc responses to problems. Codes, he said, should instead be built comprehensively to support a specific kind of development or project. Basically, he said the entire system needs to be rebuilt.

Ouch.

In Seattle, it can take months or years for changes (especially large ones) to occurr. Can you imagine what it would take to wipe out all the city departments responsible for allowing development to get built… and then to rework the system from scratch? 

Eisenberg said he realizes that what he’s asking might be impossible. But even if it is impossible, by voicing the idea, he hopes to get people talking about it. Everyone - he said - whether it’s greenies or permitting people or anyone really - wants healthy buildings. And our current code system does not encourage healthy buildings because it pawns risks relating to climate change and environmental degradation off on future generations.

What do you think about all of this, dear readers? Is there any possibility that our overall codes could be reworked and if so, what would you want them to encourage? Here in Seattle (where we are pretty progressive in environmental issues, at least compared with some parts of the country) do we even need to be considering reworking the system or do we need to tweak it? If you could totally rework one code or issue, what would it be?

Last week, I had the incredible good fortune of being invited to listen in on a living building charrette. If you ever have this opportunity, drop what you’re doing and go. It’s worth the effort.

This charrette was for a project developed by GreenFab, a team headed by Johnny Hartsfield. If you don’t know Johnny, this is from his profile: “After working as an

Johnny Hartsfield

engineering technician for Snohomish County Surface Water Management and as a sustainable project designer for Mithun and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd., he realized that developers, not designers, control our built infrastructure.”

So Hartsfield formed GreenFab and is in the process of developing a modular living building house. He envisions his project being well-priced, easily replicable and super green. (He also has a great blog here that he has taken a break from recently. He promised me however that it would be up and running again soon.)

The charrette last week was the first step in developing that project and seeing how it would really work. Just listening to the differing viewpoints between the people in the room - and then between the “greenies,” if you will, and the folks representing the modular construction company, Guerdon Enterprises of Boise, was fascinating.

For example, one of the living building challenge prerequisites says that a building either needs a green roof or needs to be set above the ground, so as not to take away

A house from Brad Pitt\'s Make it Right project in New Orleans sits above ground. Would a house like this attract or disturb you?

from the site’s ability to perform functions of natural hydrology. One of the gentlemen from the modular company was pretty disturbed by the idea of raising a house above the ground and the living area that would create for vermin below. He said he could not imagine anyone wanting to live in a house above the ground, or seeing that as an attractor.

But the whole point of this project, Hartsfield said, is to educate people and change opinions (while of course also creating a profit to keep the company in business). He said, “I’m doing this because I don’t want to work in any system that’s out there now. I’m tiered. I’m pissed off. And we’re going to get there…. Our job is to create the demand.” 

What do you think? Would you ever consider living in a building that was sited above ground? If a living building was available to you that cost around $120,000 plus the cost of land …. so let’s say $400,000 on the low side - would you do it? Or would you stick with whatever you can find in Seattle for that price?

You can weigh in below or answer my new poll at right.

Hybrid Architects is designing GreenFab’s modular home. Bright minds that attended the charrette and were fleshing through ideas included Jon Alexander of Sunshine Construction, Mike Broili of Living Systems Design, Judith Heerwagen of J.H. Heerwagen & Associates, Jonathan Heller of Ecotope, Chris Meek of the UW’s Integrated Design Lab and Sage Saskill of SAGE Designs NW, among others. Marni Evans of The Living Project led the charrette. 

On the other end of the fence, the Bullitt Foundation is also planning to develop a living building. I wrote about this in today’s paper here. The Stranger asked some great questions about urban density in regards to the project here.

What exactly the Bullitt project will be is still entirely in the air, though it could be a five story mixed-use project with retail, office and residential. More to follow later as the project progresses.

Bullitt also recently held a living building charrette, though I wasn’t invited to that process. Teams tend to be a bit cagey about letting a reporter sit in and hear the process of arguing through and figuring out what a project is going to be.

But listening in on GreenFab’s process was invaluable to me. So if you plan on developing a living building, please send this reporter an invite!

A proposed living building in Portland is moving along. This week, the Portland Development Commission announced its plans to award the project’s feasibility study to Gerding Edlen Development.

A living building is a building that meets the Living Building Challenge. The challenge

In 2007, this was Mithun\'s award-winning concept of a living building

goes beyond LEED platinum. A living building is self-sustaining, and aims to produce and reuse all its resources like energy and water. Since the concept was introduced by Jason McLennan of the Cascadia Green Building Council in December 2006, a number of projects have taken the challenge on. Most of them are on the smaller side, or are residences.

What makes the Portland project unique is its size. The building would be around 220,000-square-feet.

The project, called the Sustainability Center of Excellence, is on a super fast track. It received proposals two weeks ago and held a public meeting last week. Yesterday, the PDC announced it intends to award the project to Gerding Edlen, along with SERA Architects and GBD Architects. The three main partners in the project are the PDC, the Oregon University System and the Living Building Initiative, a consortium of organizations focused on sustainability.

Gerding Edlen and its team will investigate whether the project is feasible. If it is, it will have the option to move ahead with project development.

The goal of the building will be to attract other sustainably-minded businesses to Portland and to Oregon. Do you think this is a good way to attract business? Should Seattle be following in Portland’s footsteps, or are we too different to compare?

Locally, the Phinney Neighborhood Association hopes to turn the Phinney Neighborhood Center (everyone’s favorite giant blue building) into a living building. The Bullitt Foundation has also purchased a property and is just in the beginning stages of considering whether to do a living building or not. Am I missing any local living building projects? If so let me know.

For more information or some interesting local opinions on this project, visit Portland Architecture here, the Burnside Blog here, or read this article in the Portland Tribune. Enjoy!

I think we can all agree that green is a snowball that is slowly getting bigger and bigger as it rolls down the mountainside.  But contrary to what marketing firms want you to believe, not everybody is on the green bandwagon yet.

So here’s the question: why not? What stops you from going green?

I’ve heard a lot of reasons.

Last week I was talking with Pam Worner of Green Dog Enterprises and she said the economic downturn isn’t helping anything. High-end home builders can still go green because their buyers can afford the premium. But everyday home builders just can’t afford it right now, she said.

Usually, what I hear is that green is too expensive. So I, for one, am surprised by the current results of my poll at right. So far, what stops the majority of respondents from building green is people just aren’t asking for it.

But as you can see, not that many people have answered the poll yet. If you haven’t please choose an answer. If you have more to share, please add your comment below.

I want to know why you’re not building/designing/working green… what stops you, and what, if anything, could convince you to make the jump!

When the Associated Press runs a story on the ”green grudge” between two Hollywood celebrities trying to outdo each other’s green homes, you know green is going mainstream.

Or is it? Are we talking about Angelina Jolie and Harrison Ford finagling over home energy efficiency? Or Madonna and Nicole Kidman scrupulously watching their water use? Nope. It’s Ed Begley Jr. and Bill Nye (the science guy).

According to the AP story, the battle to the death (of carbon footprints) started two years ago when Nye, a former Seattleite, moved one house away from Begley. Immediately there was tension. Nye said he’d beat Begley at his own green game. Begley got jealous of Nye’s solar panels, and so blossomed the now historic rivalry.

In Nye’s corner: a new solar panel system that shows when he’s saving more power than he’s using, an electric fence powered by a matchbox-sized solar panel to keep animals away from his home grown produce, a patio cover made of recycled plastic lumber, copper rain gutters, and an American flag that gets illuminated at night via a light bulb powered by a tiny solar panel.

In Begley’s corner: older solar panels, rain barrels to offset his wife’s 20 minute showers and water plants, composts garbage, cooks in an outdoor solar oven,  an electronic sprinkler system that checks the forecast and shuts down if it is supposed to rain, a white picket fence made of recycled plastic milk cartons… a shtick as a green guy and a TV show on HGTV to share his info with the masses.

So which one is greener?

And are these really the best ways to green a home? Personally, I’m wondering about their energy efficiency, insulation… house materials. Things that are less flashy than a night-lit American flag. 

And while they may not exactly be A-list celebrities a little competition (and publicity) is always said to be good for business. Now if only Brad Pitt and Britney Spears could get in on the game….

And local readers, when Begley was in town at the AIA’s ReGeneration Conference in April, he said Seattle already understands sustainability… and that architects and people in the construction industry here need to keep up the great work and set examples for the rest of the country. Take it for what it’s worth.

For other versions of this story, check out green gossip site Ecorazzi. For information on green celebs go to msnbc here and click on the picture of Brad Pitt to the right (Begley is picture 5). Interested in the least-green celebrities? Visit Ecorazzi again or the Chicago Tribune (P.S., number 4 is Al Gore….)

Last week I came up with my own “brilliant” idea: create an online forum where people that work in green buildings would record their experiences to create a better understanding of how green buildings really feel.

That post was in response to Weber Thompson’s blog that is doing exactly that. If you missed it, that blog also answered my question on how the team is measuring their building’s performance (see tag below for Weber Thompson).

Now I’m asking you what your brilliant ideas are?

It’s no secret that Seattle (and Chicago, and Portland and New York etc….) are racing to be the greenest city in the country. So if Seattle wants to hold onto that goal, what should it do? Should density be the focus or should it be regulations through things like stricter energy codes?

On a broader scale, is urban planning the answer or is it more incentives?   

For a British perspective on what cities should do, see a BBC story here. For a video on the nature of sustainability and its future from the perspective of Sir Norman Foster, click here. Or you could check out Sustainable Ballard’s Web site here to see what one Seattle neighborhood thinks, or Sustainable Capitol Hill’s site here.

Yesterday, I asked the question ‘what do you think is the greenest project(s) in the region‘ and so far, I have received no comments. Unless  I get some comments soon, I will be forced to conclude that you, dear reader, have no opinion on the topic (which I just know isn’t true).

So tell me, what do you think are some of the greenest projects in the region? 

If there ever was a post to comment on, comment on this one. You are more than welcome to post anonymously, as evidenced by a past comment by ‘Rico Suave’ (to hear the hilarious song about the real Rico, click here). To read the overview post of the AIA Seattle COTE’s green awards and see pictures of award winners, see below.

To get your creative juices flowing, I’ll broaden the question: what is the greenest project(s) you have worked on, or know of, in the Pacific Northwest (or Pacific region)? It can be built or unbuilt. What do you think is particularly green about it? Perhaps you think it’s the Oregon Health & Science University’s Center for Health and Healing by GBD Architects (above left) or the “inhabit” unit in Seattle by Mithun and HyBrid Architecture (right). P.S. the DJC has written stories on both those projects here and here.

Until you answer, I will be sitting here at the computer, waiting for your response. Come on, I’m begging here!

If Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin get their way, you will be charged a 20-cent “green fee” on all disposable shopping bags from Seattle grocery, drug and convenience stores, starting Jan. 1, 2009.

According to SPU, about 360 million disposable bags are used in Seattle every year, most plastic. That translates to 600 bags for each Seattle resident.

And those handy white foam containers that hold your pho soup or Mexican takeout, pictured at left? Under the proposal, you’ll also stop seeing those. Instead, businesses would have to replace everything from foam plates, cups and egg cartons with a different product by Jan. 1, 2009. Then, they would have to switch to using compostable or locally recyclable packaging by July 1, 2010.

The changes were announced in a proposal today supported by Nickels and Conlin. The legislation isn’t ready yet, but Conlin said it should be finalized, and considered by council, in June.

Nickels said Seattle is the first city in the country (that he knows of) to create a program like this, though cities across the world are adopting similar policies. At least 20 U.S. cities have banned polystyrene food packaging including Portland and San Francisco.                                                                             

Other options include packaging made of corn starch and sugar cane. A spokesperson for local restaurant group Tutta Bella, pictured at right, said at a press conference today that due to the restaurant’s recycling and composting of everything from expired pizza dough to food containers, the waste from all three restaurant locations combined fills only one garbage can per day.

(more…)

When I’m out in the field at forums and talks, I hear over and over that the construction and design community wants to build sustainable projects, but Seattle’s code prevents them from really pushing the envelope. But rarely does a talk go into the specifics of what exactly needs to change.

So here’s my challenge for you: answer what exactly needs to change and how. I want to know what general issues are problematic, how code makes it difficult to build green or incorporate green features, and what you would change to make the process easier. I welcome personal experiences and third-party stories, comparisons working in other jurisdictions or just ideas. It can be about residential, office, mixed-use, etc. I’d also welcome comments from areas outside Seattle (or Washington for that matter).

What’s the biggest hurdle? It it soil issues, gray water or water rights? Is it related to density or materials?

Conversely, is there anything Seattle recently did to make life (and projects) a whole lot easier? 

Post your thoughts and experience. You never know who could be listening……