Getting to Zero: Aspiring to the Zero Energy Home

Going into the new year I'm naturally in a reflective mood. What can I do to impact the greater world as we head into the unknown promise and potential of a new year? Sharing ideas which matter is a place to start!

What if more Zero Energy Homes became more prevalent in the coming year? What's a Zero Energy Home you ask? It is a home which produces the same or more energy than it uses over the course of a year. The specific design and make up of the Zero Energy Home adapts to its regional and micro-climate, siting and the needs and budget of individual homeowners. There is no single solution but rather a common approach to design which starts with shifting behaviors and motivations of all those involved.

A Zero Energy Home is valuable for a number of reasons. It can be an extremely comfortable, healthy and pleasant place to live. It can be carbon-neutral and good for the environment. It also can deliver future energy cost predictability by committing to upfront investments in a super-insulated building envelope, high performance internal heating / cooling systems, renewable energy sources, energy star appliances, lighting and healthy interior materials/ furnishings. As we head into the new year we don't know what our energy costs will be going forward but know intuitively they will continue to escalate with fossil fuel scarcity and growing demand. (See IHS Data, DOE calculator). There will be no magic energy solution I believe. Just hard slogging...

Thus, Zero Energy Homes can form part of the solution going forward, reshaping how we think about our homes into long-term investments which steady-state our energy costs into the future. Their lighter footprint on the earth and in our communities can only be an asset to strengthening them.

How and where does one start?

Read as much as you can: Visit informative web-sites such as....

• Building Science Corporation and it's information on Low-Energy Buildings.
• The Dept. of Energy's Building America website and it's Building Technologies Program has superb and accessible Builder's Guides which are organized by regional climatic zones.
• National Home Builders Toolbase site and it's Seven Steps to a Zero Energy Home.
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory and it's insulation fact sheet. It's a little clunky but useful.

Hire and Organize a Great Integrated Design Team: Contact your local American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Homebuilder's Organizations and look for standout professionals who have experience designing and building low-energy use and/or zero energy homes. They can assist you in early stages of site selection, construction strategies and project delivery methods which best adapt to your needs, budget and schedule. Depending on your project's complexity and your goals your Architect may suggest hiring an Energy Consultant and other specialized sub-consultants/ team-mates to really look at your needs and help optimize building envelope, heating-cooling systems, lighting, building controls and interior design.

Be Prepared to Learn and Grow Over the Course of Your Project: It's a journey with lots of learning along the way and exposure to new ideas and concepts. With the right team, it will be an enjoyable and never dull experience!

Investing in the Future: Remember, you're doing something which will benefit generations to come by looking beyond the present!

Happy New Year!

What I want for the New Year: "The Green Workplace", Leigh Stringer's new book

Two Greenbuild's ago in Boston in November 2008, I saw Leigh Stringer, the Author of "The Green Workplace: Sustainable Strategies that benefit employees, The Environment, and the Bottom Line." who participated in a social media oriented seminar with other green luminaries of the blogosphere. I blogged about it in November of 2008. It was a fascinating session.

Last August her book named after the blog she originated and oversees became available. It's what I want going into the New Year. Apparently The Green Workplace Blog provides much of the material she and others cultivated there into a transformative book about the ins and outs of greening your workplace. Reading reviews of it on Amazon indicates usefulness to workplace sustainability managers, human resource personnel, designers of all kinds among others.

I'm going to sample some of the review words and phrases I saw there to tantalize.

------------

"alternative work options"

"replacing destructive behaviors"

"a good compilation of the issues facing corporations today"

"help(s) businesses improve their ecological footprints"

"(the book) informs, educates and inspires..."

"illuminating, accessible, and comprehensive"

What I'd like to know is how others who have read the book used it in their workplace design and sustainability efforts in the last couple of months? What effects do resources like this have on workplace culture and facilities management, design process, materials selections and operational effects, user satisfaction etc.? What kinds of changes has this inspired for others? Do people who bought the book use the blog and vice versa? At Maclay Architects we're always on the look out for inspiring ideas to help us with our work with our environmentally and socially conscious clients and partners.

Of course, I've got to go read the book and I'll let you know how it folds into our work and design process as well.

In the meantime, tell me how this book has affected you. Or, if you have other books or articles you suggest I take a look at and perhaps share with others, please let me know. I'm happy to take a look. 

Interested in learning more? 

You can find us at www.arocordisdesign.com, the website of our Montpelier, Vermont-based residential architecture firm practice Arocordis Design. If you want to contact us there, click on this link. 

#netzero #homedesign #arocordisdesign #vermont #vermontarchitect #architecture #climateaction

Apply Now for 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces

Winning Workplaces, a Chicago-based nonprofit that helps small businesses, is teaming up with Inc. Magazine to recognize "Top Small Company Workplaces." This yearly competition attracts the best of the best of small business entrepreneurs, especially those active in the socially responsible business sector.

Applications for 2010 are now being accepted at: https://tsw.winningworkplaces.org Winning organizations will be featured in the June 2010 issue of Inc. Magazine.

Winning Workplaces says a benefit of applying is the opportunity to think about your employee practices in a formal way, to help develop a people strategy that aligns with your business strategy.

Learn more about Top Small Company Workplaces 2010 by reading Winning Workplaces' FAQ at: http://www.winningworkplaces.org/topsmallbiz/2010/faq.php

Green Headquarters Delivers 375% ROI for SAS Canada

I read today in the second digital edition of HQ, a collaboration between McGraw-Hill and Architectural Record some interesting articles. One article on HQ was about how SAS Canada's headquarters which turned four recently has been a very good financial investment and on other levels too.

Please see the link to the article originally published on Canada Newswire. Please comment!

I'm always on the hunt for information about the effectiveness of green building and sustainability on workplace design / business performance.

Here's also a link to a digital version of the first inaugural issue as well.

The Value of Design Thinking

Design is an active participatory and collaborative process. It is a verb not a noun. Design is really design thinking applied to problem solving or creatively surmounting challenges we face in business. Design and design thinking equals value creation. It's participatory because the design process does not operate in a vacuum.

The design thinking and doing process means engaging with others in value setting conversations and active design sessions of brainstorming, sketching, prototyping, pricing. These cycles of design move from the fuzzy blank paper stage to the implementation, creation, building, roll-out stage and finally into the living and using stage which is why it's so much fun.

It's also why it is so much work. So many factors effect design thinking on one hand it seems extremely complex and the other it is beautifully simple. The idea of honing down, clarifying, editing of design concepts into functioning, attractive and sustainable realities keeps me coming back for more. It is a process which builds upon itself. Good ideas become richer for it. So does the conversation and the learning!

If you think about it the action of design involves identifying something missing, whether it is designing a new workplace or home or better yet, redesigning an existing one, re-purposing and renewing it for a new chapter of living or working.

Marry the design thinking process with sustainable green design and game changing results can happen. A new re-energized future awaits you.

Address wherever you can in your process consider energy flows and usage, water conservation, resource conservation and recycling, creating long-term effective behavioral interactions, create and preserve healthy indoor air quality. Re-direct choices people make when using your product, service, building or software into greener more long-term value's driven decisions.

Seeking and Sensing the Sacred In Jerusalem_Part 2

Continued from the Part 1, 10/24/09 post....

Friday, Saturday, Sunday.....

...I also visited

each of the sacred sites during their weekly holy days. Each called the faithful to prayer and worship through sound. Five times a day the call to prayer of the Muslims rang out around the city. Fire-raid sirens shrilly whistled at sunset on Friday, not to blow again until the next night, signaling the beginning

or end of Sabbath, the day of rest for the Jews. On Sunday morning bells from church steeples rang all over the Old City heralding the holy day services of the Christians.

Together, their sounds indicated the coming to an end of the week and the beginning of yet another within the context of each religion’s holy year of festivals and sacred time. The calls to prayer, horns and bells all reached out and defined the sacred territory of their

neighborhood or section of the city in a sound net. Often, during the week, confusion and tension would result from overlaps in calls to worship where calls to prayer would occur when bells were being rung for Christian services.During these moments the heterogeneous nature of the city became apparent.

I befriended an Imam or teacher at the Mosque of Omar near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian Quarter. I asked if I might accompany him to Friday services at the great Al Aqsa Mosque adjacent to the Dome of the Rock within the Haram esh Sharif. This Mosque served all of the Muslims of East Jerusalem and the Old City, and was the equivalent of a great cathedral or synagogue which serves an entire city. He was delighted.

That Friday I met him at his small mosque, ritually washed myself at the wash-basin and walked with him towards the larger mosque area. We joined thousands of faithful pouring through the streets of the Old City towards the many gates which surrounded the mosque sanctuary space. Because it was Summer it was an outdoors service with everyone lined up facing the entry of the Aqsa Mosque in a great mass of humanity. From there the hour-long service was given. At different points, in unison, the many thousands of people prostrated

themselves on prayer mats directing their bodies and uttering their intentions towards Mecca to the south. My hair rose on my neck in reaction to the expressive sounds of unity.

By participating in this ritual, I suspended my fear of another faith and culture, willfully projecting myself into the service. The clapping and chants of thousands of people at once during different point of the service reinforced the sense of unity and harmony I felt in general between Islam and the Old City. The market areas or Suqs, as they are throughout the Islamic Middle East are the belly of the city, the Al Aqsa Mosque or the Friday Mosque, the spiritual heart. Together with nearby housing, they formed a hierarchy of large outdoor rooms connected by narrow canyon like streets.

Here also, the joy of movement and connection to the Land were of equal importance in serving and shaping sacred space and place. The sites were reached by walking through the Old City along proscribed routes each with their own quality of movement and path. To enter a succession of thresholds and interlocking spaces had to be passed through before gaining access to the innermost sanctums. Instead of the topography being shaped by the layout of the Old City, the hilly terrain and system of valleys and ridges radically affected the design of the city.

To gain access to these special places, one must ascend or descend in an almost choreographed or deliberate manner through narrow and dark streets. Some streets were like dark tunnels, burrowing below streets and housing above, with narrow skylights and ventilation shafts providing dusty air and sharply focused light striking the cobbled streets. Others were wider with more of a sense of the sky above.

All paths which led to the three great shrines, ended with a sense of wide expansion of space in contrast to the strong sense of compression felt earlier. Usually this was preceded by entering a gate and passing through a threshold. In this way, the sacred sanctuary differentiated itself from its profane surroundings. The cardinal directions of north, south, east and west in conjunction of the rise and fall of the sun and the moon contribute to the design and layout of the Holy places and shrines. Each employs movement in proscribed ways through their spaces in relation to these forces.

If asked where and what was my most sacred place and space in Jerusalem I would answer an earthwork sculpture by James Turrell located in the garden of the Israel Museum situated in West Jerusalem. There a large unobtrusive mound is sighted, the visitor descends along a path winding around behind the breast-like form to the single entry of the space to the west. It was named Space that Sees. Like much of the work of the Turrell, it presented a frame upon the sky above. You experienced it from below in a very simply detailed chamber of stone with seats located along the four walls of the space.

Unlike all of the other historically sacred places in the Old City, this one was devoid of all narrative imagery, decoration and cultural conflicts. Instead of being focused on an altar or inner sanctum, the changing qualities of the sky above dominated the space. On hillsides near the Old City, similar older sepulchers or burial chambers and deep cisterns punctuated the landscape. Turrell’s earthwork captured a primordial element common to these spaces, framing nature and its forces in a peaceful, yet spiritual manner.

Playing my harmonica and singing softly, I played an ode to the primordial spiritual forces of the Land pervading the place, enframed in the sky-frame above. My harmonica and voice activated the space, inert before my sounds, into a place of celebration and joy. I participated with and made a place sacred through my own self-made ritual. By doing so, I experienced how these places are mere instruments whose walls, ceilings and roofs stand inert until engaged by action of the people using it. I could make up my own narrative in this simple, abstract space strikingly modern, yet of the earth and sky, endearingly primal to its core.

I finally found my own sacred place and space.

The importance of constant communication with clients

It's important to constantly talk and interact with clients, manage their expectations, requests and yes even their demands. Doing so helps keep the flow going on projects and keeps you in their mind's eye on an ongoing basis. I'm reminded of this everyday. Usually because I'm not as effective at this as I can be and suffer somewhat from not doing this as effectively as can be.

Avoiding interactions, not talking or deferring to a later time, especially in this economic climate, is not a good idea. Being direct, communicative and clear is essential to being effective. Plus it makes it easier to do business. Go figure.

Am I great at this. No way! But, I am learning how to do this better. It is certainly going to be a lifelong passion as far as I can tell. Hey just think of all the great conversations that haven't been had yet...and relationships to be built...this sounds like good business and good fun!

Any feedback from you cultural creative designer types? We're not always wired to do this well out of the box. Effective communication isn't a typical course in design or architecture schools.

So, to sum up, try to be in constant communication as much as possible with your clients and folks in your network. It really matters to be in touch. Especially as we all move together organically into our quasi social / professional networking sites like LinkedIN and Facebook, Plaxo etc. It's important to be alive on the internet and to be alive in face to face communication.

Images of the Imaginary City and Waste Oil

A few years ago I painted this blue on blue image of any imaginary city with various levels of clarity. It's haunting blue coloration has stayed with me with it's simplicity and striking mood. When I was making it I was imagining how I felt during 9/11 which certainly wasn't very settled or happy, but rather downcast and confused, although now I can see I was trying to structure and control the uncontrollable with a composition of four figures against the sky.

Contrast this with the following more expressive painting of oil cans I made demonstrating the alternative and eirie beauty of painted words found on oil cans in Rutland, VT leaning against a Garage wall. I wanted to create a message with the piece causing the viewer to reflect on the

idea of beauty from such a ordinary and ugly fixture of our oil dependent society.

What are your thoughts or readings?