At Stearns Design-Build we have developed a design theory that deviates a bit from traditional green design. Traditionally, green design has focused almost entirely on a building's relationship to the natural environment, in an effort to minimize the home's energy consumption. While we recognize the importance of the relationship of a building to its environment, we feel that the inhabitant's relationship to the natural environment is more at issue. Home energy consumption is only part of the overall picture of sustainability.
Transitions to the natural environment
Traditional green design creates ultra-insulated, airtight boxes that tend to isolate people from the natural environment. Our designs invite people into their natural environment . While this may not be the most dramatic way to limit a building's energy transfer, it does help encourage people to be better connected to the environment and to their community. We call this theory of design, Transitions.
Modern home design is a study in isolation. We once had walkable neighborhoods, and homes with large windows and big porches. Now neighborhoods are often built without sidewalks and homes are built without usable porches. A typical homeowner drives up to their home, pushes a button to drive inside the house (garage,) then closes the garage door, shutting out community and nature before even getting out of the car. Their time at home is not spent on the porch listening to birds and in conversation with neighbors; it is spent in front of the television or computer, shut off from community and natural environment. This may be a good way to conserve home energy but it does not create a sustainable lifestyle.
Green Materials
The construction of our homes consumes huge amounts of natural resources. We should be very mindful of the environmental impact of the materials we choose. Issues like the distance those materials must travel, their renewably, and their refining processes are crucial criteria in the design process. We are grateful that our culture has become more attuned to the need for green building.
We must also be aware of “green-washing.” There are many products marketed as "green" that do not necessarily meet a rigorous consideration of what that means. An example of this is bamboo products. Bamboo grows very fast and is very hard which makes it potentially a green product. Unfortunately, at this time every bit of the bamboo building material sold in this country is shipped across the Pacific Ocean. While we have yet to find a quantifiable means of considering the full effect of transportation, we have to ask, is shipping material across the Pacific Ocean really green? Additionally, most of the bamboo sold has no quality control standards placed on it, meaning that it may contain toxic adhesives and finishes, and it may not be durable. There are also issues of local economies, environmental and labor practices where the material is harvested and manufactured. It is not easy to create an equation for what is and what is not green. We try to weigh a wide range of considerations, including health and durability, when recommending products that fit into a Transitions design.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Knowledge to the Green Meme
The most important factor in expanding the green meme is knowledge and understanding. We can think about knowledge and understanding in two categories: Individual and community knowledge. Knowing what mileage your car is getting informs your individual knowledge base. Posting MPG on the sales stickers of new cars informs provides a community knowledge base.
Generally speaking, we become more adept at making decisions with increased knowledge. When automakers started posting MPG information on new cars, we as a society started making decisions using that information. New hybrid cars provide a great deal of information on how the car is performing relative to MPG in the moment. If you pay attention to this information it tends to change the way you drive. I have had more than one large, student driven, pickup truck pull up to my bumper and honk as I coasted slowly up to a red light from a great distance because I could see how much this was impacting my MPG.
There is a great deal that can be done to raise our community and individual knowledge base of building efficiency. The current high bar are rating systems such as LEED or the city of Austin’s rating system designed specifically for their climate zone. These work on a point system. No one thing beyond code is mandated but points are awarded for various approaches to making the building green, so that a unique approach can be created for each design situation and each building is award a ranking for its overall level of efficiency. The LEED system awards colors from bronze to platinum. Austin’s system uses stars.
Short of a complete rating system there are steps that can be taken to better understand a building’s energy efficiency. One very simple thing to do if you are looking at buying an existing building is to ask to see the building’s energy consumption over the past year. As you compare buildings you will get a sense of which ones perform best.
Another step that some communities have taken is to require various tests before a building is put on the market. These tests provide the buyer with access to information about things like insulation and air leakage.
As a consumer, one of the best things that you can do is hire a green building professional t. At Stearns Design Build we provide site and building consultation. Another important professional is a certified green real estate agent. In the Brazos Valley you can find this service at Connective Realty.
Generally speaking, we become more adept at making decisions with increased knowledge. When automakers started posting MPG information on new cars, we as a society started making decisions using that information. New hybrid cars provide a great deal of information on how the car is performing relative to MPG in the moment. If you pay attention to this information it tends to change the way you drive. I have had more than one large, student driven, pickup truck pull up to my bumper and honk as I coasted slowly up to a red light from a great distance because I could see how much this was impacting my MPG.
There is a great deal that can be done to raise our community and individual knowledge base of building efficiency. The current high bar are rating systems such as LEED or the city of Austin’s rating system designed specifically for their climate zone. These work on a point system. No one thing beyond code is mandated but points are awarded for various approaches to making the building green, so that a unique approach can be created for each design situation and each building is award a ranking for its overall level of efficiency. The LEED system awards colors from bronze to platinum. Austin’s system uses stars.
Short of a complete rating system there are steps that can be taken to better understand a building’s energy efficiency. One very simple thing to do if you are looking at buying an existing building is to ask to see the building’s energy consumption over the past year. As you compare buildings you will get a sense of which ones perform best.
Another step that some communities have taken is to require various tests before a building is put on the market. These tests provide the buyer with access to information about things like insulation and air leakage.
As a consumer, one of the best things that you can do is hire a green building professional t. At Stearns Design Build we provide site and building consultation. Another important professional is a certified green real estate agent. In the Brazos Valley you can find this service at Connective Realty.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Local vs. Organic: A False Comparison
Bias is a strange and often subtle thing. Green America is a great publication promoting saner paradigms for healthy alternatives in a seriously unsustainable world. They are supported in large part by a bunch of great companies committed to the principles of social justice including environmental stewardship. They are not, for the most part supported by small family farms. Nonetheless, they do their best to honor these businesses and acknowledge their importance, but perhaps a bit of bias has slipped into their assessment of the choices between locally grown and organic.
In this linked article writer Tracy Fernandez Rysavy says, “The local food movement isn’t just about food miles—it’s about the importance of asking questions about where your food comes from, and really connecting with your food and how it impacts your community. It’s a way to break free from corporate agriculture—and its chemicals and processed corn and soy end products—and support family farmers.”
As much as this statement seems to “get it” the article sort of belies the sentiment. It presents the whole local verses organic as an either/or proposition, which could not be further from the case. She lays out the arguments against chemical farming as if small local “non-organic” farms are using the same practices that factory farms are using. That simply is not the case. More often than not the local farmer is working to get organic certification or they have just given up on a certification process that has been co-opted by organic agribusiness. Regardless of their position, small farms cannot use the level of chemicals that large farms do simply because the cost of those chemicals are paid in an economy of scale that only exists on factory farms.
But as Rysavy does a good job of pointing out, one of the most important aspects of local farmers is your ability to talk to the farmer and know what you are getting in your food. If you demand absolute organic certification, including the many acceptable yet way less than healthy options permitted within that certification, you will find many local farmers who can provide that. And if you want a little more reasoned, less scripted approach to food production you can also find that. My experience is that there are few people who know more about the biology of food than the folks with dirt under their fingernails at your local farmers market.
Unfortunately, in her discussion Rysavy does not make this distinction and implies that a “non-organic” local farm is the same as a factory farm when it comes to chemical use.
One of the really wonderful things that we see happening is the cooperation of small local farms and some of the smaller certified organic farms. A good example of this is sort of leadership comes from my friends at Saw Mill Hollow Family Farm. This is a certified organic Aronia Berry farm that is working hand in hand with their community and area farmers to help challenge the practices of the huge chemical drenched farms that surround them in Iowa. Vaughn Pittz is a former Kraft foods executive who began working long ago on this American wonder fruit. He is now a champion of getting this plant into the fields of farms as a means of reducing or eliminating chemical dependence. Along with his wife Cindy and Son Andrew, Pittz is a revolutionary working with a new breed of plant and a new breed of farmer to provide an alternative to our dependence on factory foods.
Though somewhat of a tangent, this is a design issue in at least two respects. 1) Sustainability is a social design issue. 2) Something as intimate as food has to be a design issue in our homes. How we select, grow and store our food are issues of residential design. Granted, very little falls outside of my definition of design. That is sort of the point.
In this linked article writer Tracy Fernandez Rysavy says, “The local food movement isn’t just about food miles—it’s about the importance of asking questions about where your food comes from, and really connecting with your food and how it impacts your community. It’s a way to break free from corporate agriculture—and its chemicals and processed corn and soy end products—and support family farmers.”
As much as this statement seems to “get it” the article sort of belies the sentiment. It presents the whole local verses organic as an either/or proposition, which could not be further from the case. She lays out the arguments against chemical farming as if small local “non-organic” farms are using the same practices that factory farms are using. That simply is not the case. More often than not the local farmer is working to get organic certification or they have just given up on a certification process that has been co-opted by organic agribusiness. Regardless of their position, small farms cannot use the level of chemicals that large farms do simply because the cost of those chemicals are paid in an economy of scale that only exists on factory farms.
But as Rysavy does a good job of pointing out, one of the most important aspects of local farmers is your ability to talk to the farmer and know what you are getting in your food. If you demand absolute organic certification, including the many acceptable yet way less than healthy options permitted within that certification, you will find many local farmers who can provide that. And if you want a little more reasoned, less scripted approach to food production you can also find that. My experience is that there are few people who know more about the biology of food than the folks with dirt under their fingernails at your local farmers market.
Unfortunately, in her discussion Rysavy does not make this distinction and implies that a “non-organic” local farm is the same as a factory farm when it comes to chemical use.
One of the really wonderful things that we see happening is the cooperation of small local farms and some of the smaller certified organic farms. A good example of this is sort of leadership comes from my friends at Saw Mill Hollow Family Farm. This is a certified organic Aronia Berry farm that is working hand in hand with their community and area farmers to help challenge the practices of the huge chemical drenched farms that surround them in Iowa. Vaughn Pittz is a former Kraft foods executive who began working long ago on this American wonder fruit. He is now a champion of getting this plant into the fields of farms as a means of reducing or eliminating chemical dependence. Along with his wife Cindy and Son Andrew, Pittz is a revolutionary working with a new breed of plant and a new breed of farmer to provide an alternative to our dependence on factory foods.
Though somewhat of a tangent, this is a design issue in at least two respects. 1) Sustainability is a social design issue. 2) Something as intimate as food has to be a design issue in our homes. How we select, grow and store our food are issues of residential design. Granted, very little falls outside of my definition of design. That is sort of the point.
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