Model Conservation Home (60k jpeg)Society continues to debate environmental values and ethics to this day, as witnessed by the current focus on salmon and hydropower, timber and owls. While values may shift over time, the two themes of environment and economy remain central concerns.
Model Conservation Home (60k jpeg)
Key to understanding the complexities of this issue is the recognition that building activity is a transformation of natural resources into human artifacts. The transformation from a purely natural to a built environment has three overlapping phases: a settlement phase, a maintenance phase and a recovery phase.
In the settlement phase, buildings are constructed and placed in the landscape. The settlement activity is a complex mix of cultural preferences, available materials and building technology.
In the longer-lasting maintenance phase, people inhabit the buildings and go about their lives, maintaining the buildings and sustaining themselves. Finally, some buildings wear out and their materials and the land they sit on must be recycled. This model provides a framework within which larger questions may be posed.
The concept of sustainable development is both simple and complex. We will focus on two objectives of any sustainable development activity: to minimize the environmental costs of a project and maximize the economic benefits.
Sustainability has been defined as "meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." It recognizes the interdependence of life and the lack of an infinite supply of natural resources. It is about curbing wasteful, polluting building practices that increase the bottom line of a project.
Sustainable development is not unlike a cost benefit analysis; it aims to restore the balance between environmental costs and economic prices. As external costs to the environment begin to be accounted for, it is the sustainable development project that will be most profitable.
Ecology and economy
Considering a building's life over three phases can help inform design decisions, allowing design alternatives for each phase of a building's life to be evaluated and compared.
Recycle materials and spaces. Our long history of building bequeathes us a rich stock of existing structures. Some of them can be renovated and restored, capturing much of the energy embodied in an earlier settlement phase. When the building cannot be restored, it may still be possible to reuse the components in a new building. Renovation projects can be difficult and full of surprises, but well-considered projects still provide more space for the dollar in our urban environment. The Port of Seattle's Pier 69 is just one example illustrating the dynamic potential of reusing our existing building stock.
Recycling materials in a project can occur during both the demolition of old buildings and the construction of new ones. In the Puget Sound region, Seattle and King County's Solid Waste Departments have taken the lead on promoting job site recycling.
Both agencies provide technical service and professional referrals to project teams addressing this issue. There are a number of commercial projects in the region where jobsite recyling has generated tens of thousands of dollars from material typically sent to the landfill.
Garfield Community Center (103k jpeg)
Minimize new materials. New material use can be minimized not only by choosing recycled components, but also by building smaller buildings, which have the added benefit of requiring less energy to maintain. The use of party walls allows adjacent buildings to share materials, reducing the amount of building necessary to house a particular program.
The Puget Ridge Co-housing project in West Seattle, at 10 units per acre, is an excellent example of maximizing the spaces created with minimal new materials. Smaller, compact massing schemes can increase density and improve bottom lines.
There are a number of material guides that report recycled content of building products. The Harris Directory, a commercial database, and the Sustainable Building Specifier, developed with funding from the Department of Ecology, are two product guides produce in the Seattle area.
The Clean Washington Center publishes a guide of materials highlighting Washington manufacturers. As clients increasingly demand that their projects be on budget and green, the team that can demonstrate the use of innovative new materials is well positioned for the job.
Choose materials carefully. At issue here is what particular building components are most sustainable, that is, involve minimal environmental impact during their extraction and manufacture while providing a safe interior environment for the people who live and work in the building.
When using new materials, several factors must be considered. The natural ecosystem from which the material is extracted should be known and understood; avoid using old growth or rainforest woods, for example. The energy embodied in a material is also important to consider. Materials with high processing energy requirements have a history of creating environmental problems in manufacturing and should be avoided.
The long-term effects of a material should be considered as well. A number of new products, introduced as "eco-friendly," have turned out to have toxic outgas. Using indigenous materials can reduce the environmental and economical costs associated with a project, and keep dollars circulating in the local economy.
Finally, consider the thermal properties of materials, which impact a building's ability to harness natural energy sources.
A number of guidebooks and resources are being developed to address these concerns. The Seattle chapter of the AIA has a copy of the Environmental Resource Guide, a national AIA publication unrivaled in its indepth discusion of the implications of material selection.
The Sustainable Building Resource Center has a number of guides available for public review at no charge. The Model Conservation Home in Seattle demonstrated a number of sustainable building materials, and a booklet describing the project is available from Seattle Solid Waste.
Minimize auxiliary energy use. Remote energy production removes the sustaining component of a community from public scrutiny. Problems associated with the material extraction are distanced from the benefits of its use. The use of energy-intensive machinery to condition a building requires it to be separated from the natural environment by an hermetic envelope that is often the most expensive part of building to maintain.
At the Seattle City Light Lighting Design Lab designers can see the latest energy-efficient lighting. The Washington State Energy Office operates the Electric Ideas Clearinghouse, a bulletin board service accessible by modem. Iris Communications publishes a variety of guides describing energy efficient equipment for residential and commercial projects.
Seattle City Light has two popular incentive programs: Super Good Cents for multi-family, and Energy Smart Design for commercial projects. The EPA also has a range of succcesful Green Star programs. All of these programs attempt to transform markets to more efficient and environmentally benign technologies. The EPA Green Lights program, for example, is estimated to have saved $16 billion per year while simultaneously reducing air pollution by 12 percent.
Port of Seattle Headquarters (63k jpeg)
Use renewable resources. The building form should harvest natural energy from sun, wind and water. A building should sustain itself as much as possible by "producing" its own energy: catching sun and wind, channeling rain, using earth berming to provide insulation for warmth. Buildings should be placed on the site so they can harvest natural resources. In an urban setting, the building should not impact the performance of another building.
Architects who can satisfy the comfort requirements of the program with the building form will see a corresponding shift in the construction budget, from the support systems to the architectural fabric. This budget shift potentially represents a larger fraction of the design fees.
The Lighting Design Lab in Seattle can help evaluate daylighting in commercial buildings, and operates a daylighting lab along with free consultation to designers. The Solar Energy Research Institute publishes Builders Guidelines, easy-to-use software which helps design residential passive solar projects.
Maintain indoor air quality. As our buildings become more energy efficient, they resemble a closed thermos. Indoor pollution results from the building materials, as well as from gas and electric appliances such as office equipment, stoves and clothes dryers, and even from the people themselves.
Special care must be taken to introduce plenty of fresh air without large losses of heat. The State of Washington Department of Ecology headquarters were carefully designed to provide maximum indoor air quality. Indoor air quality guidelines are distributed by the Washington State Department of General Adminstration. The IAQ Product Guide, and A Guide to Planning, Building and Maintaining A Healthier Home, and the Indoor Air Quality Bulletin report product performance in toxin reduction.
Indoor air quality standards are now being legislated in many states, particularly in schools. Increased awareness of sick building syndrome has fostered a more demanding client base.
Several case studies by the Rocky Mountain Institute show that healthier buildings can actually increase productivity by as much as 10-15 percent, by significantly reducing absenteeism and sick days. This increased productivity can be worth 10 times a building's annual energy budget. Understanding the strengths and shortcomings of technologies, and their potential to increase productivity through market transformation, is central to sustainable development.
Most succesful entrepreneurs argue that the price system effectively and efficiently communicates information and knowledge. Until recently however, ecological ramifications of business practices have been considered externalities, and this information has not been communicated or reflected in the price system.
The private and social costs associated with ecological externalities that distort business decisions are neither efficient nor equitable. The difficulty of estimating social costs has contributed to our current environmental problems. Bringing these externalities into the equation is another component of the market transformation.
Adjustments to the pricing system, in combination with regulatory intervention and assisted compliance, may be the most equitable solution. As a society we are responsible for deciding what level of pollution, habitat loss, or species extinction is optimal, and what price should be paid to prevent it.
The design and construction industry occupies a unique position from which to offer creative solutions to the problems of environmental degradation and our lost sense of community and place. Building professionals need to know the effects of their choices, in order to make informed decisions.
Tom Paladino is with Environmental Works and Aidan Stretch is with the Miller/Hall Partnership. They both serve on the Seattle AIA Committee on the Environment.
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