Posted on 28-5-2004
Design for Green Living
by Jim Motavalli
"The natural building movement is where organic food was
20 years ago," says Joe Kennedy, co-editor of the new book
The Art of Natural Building. "Now we have exponential growth,
and we're riding an intense wave."
Until recently, natural building was a movement in a diaspora,
with adherents working largely in isolation, inspired by such
groundbreaking texts as Helen and Scott Nearing's 1954 Living
the Good Life. It began more or less spontaneously in reaction
to construction practices that, in the context of the energy
crisis of the early 1970s, were regarded as resource-extractive
and energy- and capital-intensive.
By the early 1990s, especially after actor Dennis Weaver attracted
worldwide publicity by moving into a passive-solar house partly
built of old tires and soda cans (an "earthship"),
the movement began to coalesce. In 1994, the first Natural Building
Colloquium was held, links were made, and green builders began
to see their individual work as related to a larger vision.
That vision encompasses such disparate disciplines as energy-efficient
design (including super-efficient insulation, passive solar
features and heat-retaining windows); preservation and use of
recycled building materials (from old tires to straw); and such
common-sense techniques as shade-tree landscaping and roofs
cooled by growing plants. While the movement didn't begin in
the Northeast, it is increasingly strong in green pockets like
Vermont, where energy efficiency produces not only satisfaction,
but very real cost savings.
Today's green architects, designers and construction companies
are both learning from the past--through studying such basic
structures as the yurt and the teepee--and applying the latest
technology to save energy and materials. And they're finding
that eco-design is not just for the rich; in fact, it can be
very cost-effective.
"[Waste] on building sites often amounts to about 20 percent,"
says architect and ecological home renovator Edward Harland.
Buildings consume a third of all the energy used in the U.S.,
says the Alliance to Save Energy.
Alex Wilson, editor of the Brattleboro, Vermont-based Environmental
Building News, a national newsletter on environmentally sustainable
design and construction, says he's learned a number of important
truths about green construction. "The first lesson was
that at least 90 percent of a building's environmental impacts
are determined by the design, so the builder doesn't really
have that much leverage," he says. Wilson says the primary
factors are the size of the house and its orientation (south
is best for solar, obviously), the heating and cooling decisions
made and the levels of insulation used--all beyond the builder's
control.
Elizabeth Cordero, program director of the Green Roundtable,
an educational collaboration between Boston-area design professionals,
says that the key points for would-be green builders are to
find the right architect and contractor, and to finance the
project taking into account the long-term energy savings from
green technologies.
Washington, D.C.-based architect Harry Gordon agrees that the
planning stage is crucial, and he points out, "Going green
can, in fact, save money, particularly when costs are calculated
over the life cycle of the building."
The Vermont Law School in South Royalton invested $3.25 million
in Oakes Hall, a new energy-efficient classroom facility, in
1998. Features include natural ventilation that's restricted
to occupied rooms, composting toilets and an "energy wheel"
that recovers exhaust heat. "We're a leader in environmental
law, and we wanted a building representative of our values,"
says spokesperson Peter Miller. "What makes the building
really distinctive is that it was not inordinately expensive
to build--under $110 per square foot." The law school estimates
that, each year, the building's reduced use of oil and electricity
means it avoids emitting 161 tons of carbon dioxide, .63 tons
of sulfur dioxide and .57 tons of nitrogen oxide.
Also in Vermont, which is emerging as a center of natural building,
is the increasingly green Middlebury College. Instead of simply
knocking down its old Science Center and creating a mountain
of waste, Middlebury took the building down piece by piece.
Some 75 tons of wood and 150 tons of steel and iron have been
recovered from the site. Crushed glass from the windows will
have new life as paving material, and limestone from the façade
will be used by landscapers. The concrete that makes up the
bulk of the building is becoming backfill for the school's new
eco-correct library, which will incorporate natural materials,
triple-glazed windows and light-control blinds that reduce unwanted
heat transfer.
Solar power is an important part of green design, and it is
being effectively applied to public schools, says architect
John Rountree of Westport, Conn., whose company, Solar Works,
launched the Solar on Schools program with roof-mounted photovoltaics
(PV) in 1988. Solar Works has installed solar systems throughout
New England, from a six-kilowatt system at the University of
Vermont in Burlington to a 14.5-kilowatt installation at Fairfield
University in Connecticut. Rountree's initiative is designed
not only to reduce energy costs for schools, but also to educate
teachers, students and the general public about the benefits
of renewable energy. "Currently, PV systems are expensive,
but as demand increases prices will drop and eventually solar
power will become an option available to all," Rountree
says. Currently it costs $8,000 to $10,000 to install a one-kilowatt
home solar system, versus about $5,000 for a new furnace, though
obviously maintenance and operating costs are higher with oil
heat.
Many other techniques--some ancient, others up-to-the-minute--can
enhance energy efficiency and reduce material use. Super-insulating
straw bale construction, in which straw is used as a very efficient
insulator between conventional walls, goes back hundreds of
years, and puts to use a product that is often treated as waste.
The urban reuse movement concentrates on retrofitting and remodeling
older buildings, rather than wastefully tearing them down.
And then there's the related science of house reclamation.
G. T. Overholt, vice president of his own North Carolina company,
Sustainable Living, specializes in buying and moving homes that
would otherwise be reduced to rubble because they're in the
way of new developments or too small for upscale property owners.
He points out that not only does his work keep many tons of
debris out of landfills, but it also reduces the need for new
building materials. And, of course, there's the simple fact
that older homes have a unique character that's hard to duplicate.
Many happy owners of these buildings would call it "soul."
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