Green Housing: Getting the most out of what you have

 

In my architectural day job I work on large projects, mostly University buildings. It might seem like a far cry from designing homes, but I realised recently that a lot of the issues that come up in my work are also relevant to how people might address their housing needs in a more sustainable way- using their (undoubtedly) limited resources in the most effective way to meet their needs. In Australia continually rising housing prices have led many people (ourselves included) to rethink how they use their existing home, instead of buying a different larger one.

Making the best possible use of existing physical resources and materials (Reusing and Recycling) is often better environmentally (and in other ways too) than building new, even if the new building incorporates the latest ‘environmentally friendly’ materials, technology and ‘green building’ design research. I find many of the homes I’ve seen on World’s Greenest Homes appalling, with regards to their consumption of resources and pursuit of brand spanking new, cavernous, luxury, even if they are using some environmentally good materials in a clever way.

I’d like to highlight 5 green building design principles about making the most of what you have already have, and explain how we have been applying them over the last couple of years, as we’ve been renovating and expanding our own home and garden. I'm not claiming that our home is one of the world's greenest, but it is certainly greener than many alternatives.

1. Think long term. Our needs always change over time, but it doesn’t make sense to address short term needs in a way that compromises long term needs, or creates a whole lot of wastage or redundant renovations.Think about the big picture master plan, not just the problem that is bugging you today. You may have a toddler now, but will you still be living in this home when they are 10? 20? 30?? (Hmmmm, scary thought...)

With a child entering into our life, we realized we needed a new craft/study room, more living space, and a dining space that could seat more than two people without rearranging the furniture. Fortunately, we had an outside space that was completely underutilized, where we could build two new rooms.

2. How else can you use it? Flexible and adaptable spaces are more useful in the long term than highly specialised spaces. Some rooms have to be single function- the kitchen and bathroom aren’t going make very good bedrooms- but can other rooms be changed around (bed/craft/lounge/dining room) as needs change? Perhaps small changes, like changing doors or windows, removing a wall, adding power points, removing fixed storage, or changing lighting will change how you can use the spaces you already have.

Our rooms aren’t big, but they’re generous enough, with doors in sensible locations, so that they can be used in different ways, with different furniture layouts. We can use our new craft/study room as a bedroom if we need to, as can a future owner.

3. Inside and Outside. Depending on your climate, at different times of the year the spaces outside your home can really expand your living space, and the kinds of things you do. Are you invited out by being able to see and hear what’s happening outside? Is the door in the right spot? Is the space outside at the same level as inside? Is it shady or sunny, sheltered from wind or rain, appropriately paved or decked?

We hardly used our back garden because you had to go through the laundry (which included a toilet) to get there, and immediately down a couple of ugly concrete steps. Not ideal, especially when you have visitors. By building a deck area and installing a new (fully glazed) back door into our kitchen, we now have much more light in our kitchen, can see how lovely the garden is, and spend a lot more time in out there.

4. Collecting water. Where we live, the price of tap water is cheap, so until the government brought in restrictions on how we use it, investing in large rainwater tanks didn’t seem worthwhile. However it’s now our legal option for watering the garden, washing the car or letting our toddler play under the sprinkler. You can also collect rainwater for toilet flushing or laundry, depending on how you set the system up. Rain and grey water collection options vary, depending on local regulations, budget, space and water needs.

We now have two water tanks- one in the front yard and one in the back, to help our efforts to set up a food producing garden and shade trees. We also have a basic grey water system set up so that we can collect bathwater to hand water our small lawn when it needs it.

5. Sun and Shade. The key to keeping a building warm (or cool), without spending money on energy, is letting the sun in (or keeping it out), along with insulating the walls, floors and roof. The potential benefits vary depending on your climate and time of year. There is also energy saving benefit if the daylight means you don’t need to turn the lights on all the time. The location and size of windows, type of glass, and any fixed, movable or growing shade (inside or outside) will all make a difference.

We packed our extension with insulation (the existing house has virtually none, so we do rely on air conditioning to keep us cool upstairs in summer) and installed large windows with special coated glass on the sunny side of the house. A sheer blind reduces glare on sunny winter days. In hotter months, we have a removable fabric sunshade that shades the window and the outside deck. All our shade trees are fast growing and deciduous (sadly not native) which means the garden gets sun in winter, but our lawn is beautifully shaded and cool in summer.

I’ve tried to keep this as a simple outline- something to perhaps get you thinking, and inspire you to investigate further. There are many resources out there for more detailed information on green building design and many of the things I’ve mentioned- too many to pick just a few. I encourage you to Google, or if you’re in Australia on 12th September, it happens to be Sustainable House Day, with many homes, all over the country, open to visitors and all their questions.

Solar Decathlon

One of the holy grails for a green building is achieving a net-zero existence. A couple of weeks ago I visited the bi-annual exhibit featuring the future of net-zero residences as sponsored by the Department of Energy on the national mall-The Solar Decathlon. The department describes the event as a competition in which 20 teams of college and university students compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house.









This is the fourth event since 2002. The 10 finalists set up on the national mall in the form of a village on a main street (of sorts)and education centers at the center of the solar village. The contest lasts a little over a week and the contestants are judged on the following categories:

Architecture
Market Viability
Engineering
Lighting Design
Communications
Comfort Zone
Hot Water
Appliances
Home Entertainment
Net Metering



During 9 days of the contest, visitors can line up and meander through each house. The design team of students and professors are on hand to answer any questions. Select team members spend the night at their temporary home on the national mall, so someone is living in the building for the entirety of the contest.



These houses are machines for living. It would require more that your standard afternoon to really understand the complex workings of the systems involved in regulating energy usage. In order to compete, these houses had to be theoretically net-zero. I was most interested in the day-to-day living one could expect to have in a net zero house. How livable was it?.



Bugheart and I had time to tour most of the houses. This event was very well attended and the average wait just to get into a house was 45 minutes!



The most successful houses created an efficient floor plan that tied into the greater landscape. These houses integrated the solar technology into the building form. The floor plans were open with non-specialized rooms. Gone are the days of grand foyers and seasonal dining rooms in the new green home. The future of energy efficient design requires a new approach to the floorplan in which rooms serve many purposes. The multi-use room echoes the floorplans of vernacular houses of early America. Due to energy constraints of the time (fireplaces , coal, & wood), the same rooms were often used for dining, dancing, sleeping. In both the homes designed by Germany and Ontario, the beds were retractable. This reinforced the idea that a bed is not used all day long, so that space should be used as a general living space during the day. Kitchens were small for the most part, so chefs of the future will have to be efficient as well.



Our favorite buildings had integrated the solar gathering technology into the siding so it became part of the building rather than an accessory. The everyday interaction with the system was also integrated into the interiors. Many of the systems were automated and could be controlled by a mere app on your iphone.



My job is to design dream houses. Our clients’ dreams involve a lifestyle they never had- space for all the luxuries of life. They always want one more room- a room for crafts, storage, etc. My visit to the Solar Village made me realize that with current technology we must strive to use less. Less space. Less stuff. The village on the mall represents a change in the way we live and view living- the complete opposite of what I or my clients want.



Space is one of those guilty pleasures. An extra room gets filled with massive amounts of embodied energy- the energy it takes to build and maintain it. It is a professional conundrum. Do I give the client what they want or do I use my skills guide the client to getting what they want in a more responsible way? I envision the next time a client asks for a craft room or a large master bathroom that I should take a serious look at the design plan and ask, Do you really need that? Let’s find a way to work with what you have…



Germany, one of our favorites, was declared the winner.

Re-using design

Photo by Michael Moran

Green and the application of the term to the architecture and design is an often abused. I have known of professionals who label their designs “green” just because it had “natural ventilation" (i.e. the windows open). When I was in architectural school in the early nineties, Green had the stigma associated with hippy designs. These relied on centuries old rules-of-thumb. Buildings faced south, incorporated massive walls for heat retention (trom walls), and were usually in the form of geodesic dome. There was a movement towards legitimizing green architecture in the late 1990’s and the US Green Building Council sought to avoid casual and abusive application of the term by qualifying “green” through a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification system. The system codified everything from achieving healthier built environments (from air quality to daylighting) to encouraging the use of sustainable building materials and building practices.

Upon becoming familiar with the system for the book, The Good Office, that I coauthored with Kristen Becker, I was drawn to the emphasis the system put on the value of reducing waste through the reuse of items that would be slated for demolition. The LEED system declared there was a value to this architecture beyond just aesthetics.

When researching projects for my books on restaurant and office design, I found myself drawn to projects that incorporated the reuse of materials. From restaurants that reuse the instruments for eating in their design to an office that created an iconic design piece from items that would have been thrown away, the most green and inspiring designs demonstrated the synergy of a common material.

In my first book, Restaurants by Design, I reviewed a small restaurant in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Confronted with a small space the designers took inspiration from the restaurants theme (seafood) and common serving utensil (the skewer). These applied en masse transformed the space and made you feel like you were on a sea bed amongst grass. The skewers had been collected over time and were reused (after washing) prior to installation. The design is representative of how how a green approach to design can not only transform a space, but take waste material and incorporate it into design.

Photo by Michael Moran

Only blocks from the Hudson river in Manhattan’s NOLITA, Smith and Mills integrates countless artifacts from a defunct machine factory in Brooklyn into the design for their small restaurant and bar. The former stable was changed into a cozy and hip bar with their collection of old machine jigs, engineering drawings, drafting equipment, and furniture. An old elevator makes the enclosure for the bathroom, all of the tables and stools are direct from the engineering drafting room. The items were selected to maintain an alluring aesthetic that carefully walks the line between a modern cocktail bar and an attic rich with history and long forgotten purpose.

Photo by Noah Kalina

Years before it was trendy to have a Green workplace, the marketing firm of Sedgwick Rd, hired Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects to adapt an old machine shop into a new office space. After seeing the raw undemolished space, the design team saw the beauty in what most would want to throw away. The design team convinced the client to save some pieces for the old space by tapping into the marketing team's philosophy- to share ideas through an open office space . These reused items where integrated throughout the design, but most noticeably in the “Frankenstein” piece-a series of original elements that were mobilized with reclaimed castors mounted on old steel beams that allow for flexible definition of meeting space.

Photo by Tim Bies

I find inspiration in the spirit and execution of such environmentally and aesthetically responsible designs. Our society has made it easier to throw-away, rather than to save. These designs constantly change my perception of what is possible with everyday materials. It is easy to get comfortable with traditional materials and methods of construction. I have preferences that I defer to because I know them to be beautiful. When a design outside of those constructs catches my eye, it causes me to take a second look and ask critical questions. It redefines for me what is possible in a greener architecture.