top ten reasons why we need green buildings

Buildings have a huge role to play in addressing environmental concerns. They contribute around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the same proportion of waste; and since South Africa is in the top 20 list of worst offenders, the building industry in this country has a lot to be accountable for. [Update on 10 Nov 2008: The GBCSA informs me that the correct figures for buildings are 23% of greenhouse gas emissions, 40% of electricity use, 40% of waste production and 15% of water use.] The conference held in Cape Town by the Green Building Council of South Africa earlier this week also demonstrated that changing the environmental impact of buildings is relatively easy compared with some other sectors. Many of the appropriate technologies are proven and available.

Green buildings can influence impacts - positively or negatively - in a number of sectors, not only in the operation of the building itself. The technologies for reducing dependence on water, energy and other resources are ready and waiting; but it's not only about what goes on inside the building. By locating offices where more people can walk to do their errands, transport impacts are reduced. By collecting and using rainwater and greywater, downstream problems are reduced and upstream water is available for others. By designing for healthy indoor air quality, loads on the health care system are reduced.

The point is, there's lots that can be done and lots that already is being done - in isolated islands of change. The challenge lies in turning those islands into vast oceans, but the tide is turning. The business case for building green has already been made, and in countries where green building rating systems have been around for a few years, developers now understand the financial benefits.

Here are ten things (in no particular order) that green buildings are already doing in different parts of the world, as reported by the various speakers at this week's GBCSA conference.

fossil fuel-free community planned in the US of A

Geos in Arvada, Colorado, plans to be the first community in America to be self-sufficient in energy, using solar and geothermal sources. What I like about this plan is that it recognises that the layout of the street grid has a strong influence on how buildings are arranged to make maximum use of the sun. This is one of the big challenges in reducing energy demand particularly for housing in colder climates. Traditional street grids pay zero attention to energy issues, and that has to change. [via Stacked Tall]

gobsmacked

If we ever manage to reduce reliance on private cars to any appreciable degree, the benefit will extend beyond reduced emissions from driving and from making the car in the first place. There will also be less space dedicated to cars - on the roads, in parking lots and household driveways - and more for green lungs, play areas, community gardens or whatever tickles our fancy. Using that logic, conventional wisdom among progressive planners is that if we actually reduce the number of parking bays provided at offices, shopping malls and so on, we can encourage a reduction in driving.

But wait! North York, part of the City of Toronto, thinks paved driveways are a good thing. So good, in fact, that people have been stopped from ripping up driveways that they want to replace with greener alternatives. On their own private properties! Is this just plain dumb, or what?

will real communities emerge from the new breed of ecocity?

Another sustainable city being planned from scratch is Ecobay on the Paljassaare Peninsula in Estonia, overlooking the Baltic Sea. Inhabitat raises an interesting point regarding these built-from-scratch communities:

While they certainly present an organized and efficient vision of modernity, some staunch critics (most notably Jane Jacobs) have raised concerns that they may limit the organic self-organizing capacity of a city left to grow of its own accord. Since these super-funded cities are currently in the process of creation, it has yet to be seen how their communities will grow and develop.

give a damn

There are a few homeless people in the world, but not nearly as many as some people would have us believe.

There are billions of inadequately housed, under-resourced, oppressed, crime-ridden, malnourished and disease-afflicted people. But that is not the same as being homeless. I draw the (perhaps obvious) distinction because governments responsible for the welfare of large numbers of housing-challenged people have a tendency to set themselves housing targets so that they can claim political points for providing homes for the homeless. It's time to change the paradigm; time to take the focus off the house and put it onto the services needed to support the community.

I am not for a moment suggesting that a tin-and-cardboard shack is preferable to a more robust dwelling, but given the inability of government agencies (in South Africa, at least) to deliver houses on a scale that eliminates informal shacks and in a way that keeps communities intact, I have to wonder why there isn't official recognition that conditions in squatter settlements need to be improved.

dreaming of a cyclists' metropolis

Here's something for city planners to emulate. Paris has established an extensive grid of locations for short-term bicycle rentals, making them so readily available that many visitors will think twice before renting a car. Now, London is taking that model and adding a network of superhighways for bikes, to make commuting by bicycle a viable option for a significantly increased number of residents. The key to giving real priority to cyclists lies in reducing conflict between bikes and cars at intersections, and that's exactly what London is planning to do, by creating dedicated junctions for bicycles.

Imagine a city where roads have more lanes for cyclists than for cars...

 

[Photo: source unknown]

designing for sustainability

California architect Sym van der Ryn calls the environmental crisis a design crisis:

"It is a consequence of how things are made, buildings are constructed and landscapes are used." Sustainable Design finds new ways to design our built environment so that the earth can be restored and healed and the human spirit strengthened. If poor design is a major part of the problem, good design is certainly a key part of the solution.

Which is not to say that I, as a consumer, am absolved of responsibility for the choices I make. I can choose good design or bad design. There are more efficient lightbulbs, fridges, cars and a whole range of products that have reduced impact on the environment than the standard fare. If we all made better choices, if we insisted on buying products that were low-impact, and if we altogether reduced consumption of products that use energy and water in their manufacture and operation, the environment would thank us.

Some choices have obvious impacts. A 4x4 uses more fuel and contributes more to greenhouse gases than a Toyota Prius. But to expect consumers to understand the implications of all their choices is asking a bit much. Improved labeling of products will raise awareness, but in many cases the manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers themselves don't understand enough to adequately guide consumer decisions.

It's partly because of the complexity of the issues that it's not enough to rely on market forces to get us out of the environmental crisis. Intervention is needed on a number of levels to ensure that design decisions are carbonsmart. At its most basic level, this is the purpose of the gathering of scientists right now in Bali. The politicians and their negotiators are there to make sure that geopolitical interests are taken into account, but the process would otherwise be a reasonably technical debate about how to guide design decisions so that they consider the impacts of carbon on the environment.

If Bali COP 13 and the next two years of negotiations manage to produce a workable solution, then it will be down to individual countries to meet agreed climate change targets. Countries will establish incentives and other mechanisms to guide consumers and businesses and designers, who - the theory goes - will make low-carbon choices or pay more dearly for choices that exact a heavy ecological cost.

South Africa has established a very positive national policy framework for moving towards more sustainable design practice with regard to urban planning. What is missing, aside from specific emissions targets, is education of local government authorities who are responsible for approving planning applications. Design professionals, after educating themselves through efforts like those of Dendrite Studios, need to motivate sustainable designs to government authorities. Although national policy supports sustainable design, local guidelines and standards often contradict this, and need to be amended. This can be a challenge, but is an important step in reordering urban life to be environmentally sustainable.

engineering the future

When I think about the UNFCCC gathering of 15,000 climate change scientists, politicians, bureaucrats and activists that begins today in Bali, I can't help wondering about the complicity of planning and design professionals in the lack of progress in reducing global carbon emissions since the Kyoto Protocol was established ten years ago.

The IPCC tells us that climate change is a direct result of billions of lives lived today and over centuries past. The way those lives have been lived has determined the level of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Some of those billions of individuals have been able to exercise considerable choice over the carbon intensity of their lifestyles, while others have had almost no choice at all; but the vast majority been influenced by the decisions of a much smaller group of people - architects, engineers, planners and others who design the built form around us.

When I studied for my civil engineering degree, I had a sense that it was important to learn about the context in which I would be working. I would, after all, be designing "public works" to improve conditions for society, so shouldn't I know what was good for society? I wanted to add subjects from the humanities to my technical courses, but the degree was too restrictive and the best I could do was squeeze in a couple of half-year courses on geography and African studies. That hardly constitutes a well-rounded education.

Some would argue that it's more important that society can trust the technical competency of engineers, and rather leave planning and related disciplines to others. The professions dealing with roads, bridges, buildings and other structures have become more and more specialised over the years in order to be able to deal with increasingly complex design challenges. Design teams these days include a range of specialists, and together they should be able to arrive at an appropriate solution.

That's all very well, but assumes an integrated design process, which rarely happens, despite years of rhetoric on integrated planning. And even when it does happen, engineers are too narrowly focused to accept some of the planners' inputs. And when I say narrowly focused, I refer not only to our state of mind or to our limited education.

True, we talk about the need for a conservative design approach that is safe and efficient and based on tried-and-tested methods, making it difficult for us to accept alternative points of view. And we ignore the fact that many of our professional colleagues around the world have developed new approaches that adhere more closely to sustainability principles. Really, "professional conduct" is no excuse for digging in our heels. If we had a fuller understanding of the implications of our contribution to design, we would be open to new ways of thinking about challenges, while maintaining our civic duty in safe design.

But we are also constrained by design guidelines and standards that are imposed on us, and by client instructions that limit our roles in the design process.

This applies particularly - but not exclusively - to my field of transport planning and traffic engineering, which has a significant impact on city development, social wellbeing, economic development and the health of the natural environment. In many cases the impact of current best practice is negative, because the standards we use were developed before carbon became a currency.

Although I have just said that those standards are imposed on us, that's not quite true. As a profession, we are collectively responsible for developing and maintaining standards to ensure that we are acting responsibly in our design decisions.

From the perspectives of climate change and energy supply, it's time to update those standards. We have helped paint cities and towns into an unsustainable corner. If we were more aware of the implications beyond our narrow technical training, that might not have happened. So society's trust in transport planners is, to some extent, misplaced.

Similarly, structural engineers should be specifying materials, designs and construction methods that reduce the climate impact of buildings and other structures. We need to reduce their embodied energy, reduce the need for carbon-intensive heating and cooling systems, and make it easier to deconstruct structures and resuse their materials at the end of their useful lives.

Engineering is no longer just about applying mathematics and science to find the most efficient design solution for a narrowly defined practical problem. (See Wikip edia for a more rigorous definition of engineering from the American Engineers' Council for Professional Development.) The challenge is to frame the problem in terms that address broader sustainability imperatives. That means education and awareness in our professions and among our clients. We have actually reached a point where some developers have leaped ahead of the design professions, specifying more sustainable engineering systems in buildings, to meet the expectations of a much more discerning market. If engineers and architects don't catch up fast, they will be left behind.

To date, most engineers committed to sustainable development have been self-educated on the technologies, methods, legalities and related issues. Here I have to single out Vernon Collis in Cape Town, who happens to be a former classmate of mine from the University of Cape Town and is now forging new paths in building construction methods, using sheer force of will to overcome the resistance that he and his practice inevitably face in this early stage of turning the industry around. Vernon and his partner Anna Cowen have taken urban sustainable building design to new heights.

Beyond education, we need vision and committment, as Vernon demonstrates. There must be trailblazers, and there must be people following closely on their heels. It's difficult for an entire industry to turn itself around, so I suspect that true sustainability will only become ingrained in the various branches of engineering when there is both vision that has been translated into new guidelines, and legislation that mandates the adoption of new standards to be followed in the design disciplines.

Whatever comes out of Bali for the post-2012 phase of the Kyoto Protocol, success will depend on addressing these challenges.

RED is the new green

After posting on Wednesday about biophilia, I came across another paper on the topic that adds a new twist to the whole concept of sustainable design.

Restorative Environmental Design [126 KB PDF], or RED, proposes a reformation of not only our conventional development paradigm but also prevailing approaches to sustainable design. It's "a framework of development that combines the objectives of avoiding adverse environmental impacts while also promoting positive connections between people and nature in the built environment."

The gist of the argument by Stephen R. Kellert of Yale University is that most sustainable design guidelines, such as LEED or BREEAM, are based on the objective of achieving "low environmental impact", which is not enough to achieve true sustainability in the long term. Noting the work of William McDonough, who argues that "a broader and more sustainable design approach must move beyond simply avoiding environmental damage, seeking to generate ecological health as well", Kellert uses the biophilia hypothesis to suggest that McDonough's approach should be extended "to include humans in this ecological health equation, recognizing how people’s physical and mental well being and productivity in the built environment is also contingent on the quality and quantity of their experiential connections with natural systems and processes".

The implication of this argument is the need for a fundamental change of mindset in how we design the urban environment:

The environmental crisis of damaged natural systems and impoverished humannature relations is fundamentally a design crisis that can only be resolved through constructing more efficient and environmentally benign buildings and landscapes. Restorative Environmental Design goes beyond avoiding harm and damage to natural systems and human health to also seeking the restoration of positive and beneficial contact between nature and humanity. Lacking this more affirmative dimension of design and development, sustainability will rarely if ever be achieved no matter how much improvement occurs in resource conservation, energy efficiency, waste minimization, or pollution abatement. Absent the positive human experience of nature, people will not commit the energies, emotions, and resources necessary over time to sustain buildings and landscapes no matter how technologically sophisticated.

Quoting from Judith Heerwagen, Kellert suggests that well-designed buildings with biophilic features "contain the ‘essence’ of natural objectives without being exact copies. They draw on design principles of natural forms". Reading this, I can't help thinking of the vernacular design of rondavels: the round, thatch-roofed, mud-walled homes of Southern Africa. Built entirely of locally-sourced, natural materials and containing no corners or straight edges in their design, and often built on hillsides with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, they surely represent the ultimate in biophilic design.

As Kellert would have it, the key to successful modern design is to translate these ideas to the urban context, and he believes it can be done. I hope he's right.

green cities

With half the world's population now living (in many cases, just surviving) in urban areas, this would be a good time to consider the role of the natural environment in cities.

And I mean really consider it, not just plant a few trees down the boulevard. (Not that I'm knocking urban forests, but even street trees need careful planning.) Big cities have big impacts. Perhaps it's a good thing that in Africa, smaller cities are growing faster than big ones, because with bigger cities struggling to cope with the influx, smaller ones often have better housing standards and living conditions.

This [growth of smaller cities] doesn't have to be a bad thing. Urbanisation can make it easier for governments to provide schooling and healthcare for its citizens, the report points out, and sound city planning can help reduce a country's overall environmental degradation. While many smaller cities struggle with scant financial resources, they also tend to have greater flexibility in planning, space and decisionmaking.

The UN's recent State of World Population 2007 predicts that "for the foreseeable future, the smaller cities will predominate".

Big or small, "sound city planning" is not something that comes naturally. Some have even suggested that it's not planners or engineers or architects who design cities. It's bankers. And bankers don't give two hoots about sustainability, so somebody else has got to put things right. Here are some thoughts.

Cities need fewer cars. Even if vehicles were all nonpolluting, a recent study pointed out that in Indiana (USA) parking spaces outnumber drivers 3-to-1. Parking, roads, driveways - all that infrastructure devoted to to motorised vehicles is not just unnecessary, it harms communities and adds to the urban heat island.

Urban heat is usually fought with the brute force of airconditioning, which is an intensive user of electricity (generating carbon emissions) and doesn't actually reduce heat, it just moves it outside. Far better to use trees and other vegetation to reduce the buildup of heat in the first place.

Better building design can even further reduce the need to artificially cool (and heat, and illuminate) buildings. Put your architect on notice: if he doesn't reduce your building's energy needs, fire him. It's not that difficult.

Green roofs are slowly gaining ground, and for good reason. Not only do they reduce solar heat gain, they reduce the building's heat loss in cold winters, can provide a green space for people to use, can be used to grow food, increase biodiversity, attract birds and butterflies, clean the air and reduce stormwater runoff.

Reducing or delaying the flow of rainwater into storm drains can help reduce the amount of money spent on drains, and reduce flooding during heavy storms. There are lots of ways to do this, but some municipal engineers don't take it seriously. They should, because they will not only save money, but also provide green spaces on the ground for social and sports activities and all the benefits offered by green roofs.

Cities need more walkers, cyclists, joggers, runners, amblers, rope skippers, sitters, hopscotch players, perambulators, rollerbladers, hikers, strollers and aimless wanderers with nothing better to do than enjoy life.