Kristin Dispenza writes on architecture and design topics. Even as an architecture student at The Ohio State University, she gravitated toward history and theory classes, and happily volunteered for any writing work that was to be done for her studios' team projects.
Moving to Seattle in 1989, Kristin got her start in freelance design journalism, which she still enjoys doing today. Now, however, she has returned to Athens, Ohio, and lives on the same family farm where she grew up.
Kristin is married to Don and has two children, Kate and Samuel.
For more excerpts from Kristin's published work, please visit: http://kristindispenza.com
In my post of May 6th, “Traditional Neighborhood Development and LEED Go Hand in Hand,” I made the point that smart growth and new urbanism are helping give a ‘boost’ to green building practices. While conducting research for that article, however, I did find several assertions to the contrary. So, for the sake of playing devil’s advocate, I will here take a look at some of those assertions.
In the 1980’s, New Urbanism catapulted into the national consciousness. Today, a site called The Town Paper lists hundreds of Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) Neighborhoods from all over the world. And this surge of interest in mixed use planning may be helping pull environmental building practices into the spotlight.
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions related to the built environment: it hopes to make all buildings carbon neutral by 2030, and aims for a 50% fossil fuel reduction by 2010. But to accomplish what is, in effect, a complete overhaul of the way the construction industry operates, the AIA must make sure that its message is heard by people outside its own membership. Toward that end, the group announced its “Walk the Walk: Architects Leading the Sustainable Evolution” campaign On January 15th of this year.
In the United States, 340 billion gallons of fresh water — or 1/4 of the nation’s total supply — are pulled from rivers and reservoirs every day. (See greenerbuildings.com)
Our taps, plumbing fixtures, and irrigation systems all draw from the same sources of clean, potable water. After being used, most of the water ends up in the sewer system — all of it, at that point, contaminated. Then it is treated and returned to a body of water. This creates a cycle in which unnecessarily large volumes of water circulate through the built environment and municipal treatment facilities. However, in the last decade or so, major strides have been made in reducing the amount of water that must go through such a cycle.
Last week, at the Regeneration ‘08 conference in Seattle, winners of the 2008 “What Makes It Green?” competition were announced. Partnering with regional chapters of the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the AIA Seattle’s Committee on the Environment took the opportunity to recognize some of the best green designs in the Northwest and Pacific regions. (For this competition, the regions were defined as Alaska, Guam/Micronesia, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Idaho, Japan, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia).
Below are the top 10 projects, along with short descriptions of ‘what makes them green’. (For more details on these projects, and to see all of the 2008 submissions, check out: http://wmig.aiaseattle.org/taxonomy/term/1).
Bertschi School, Seattle WA
Because it is an urban infill project, the Bertschi Center reduces urban sprawl and provides the opportunity for families to live in the city and minimize their transportation usage. This project also takes advantage of its position as an educational facility, and provides features such as cutaways in the walls to showcase green features.
On March 18th, I posted the article, “Metropolitan Home Goes Green,“ discussing the magazine’s feature story on a Seattle penthouse. Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Linda O’Keeffe, the Director of Design and Architecture at Metropolitan Home. Since Ms. O’Keeffe sees design trends as they happen, I asked her a few questions regarding what kind of changes she sees the green movement bringing to our homes.
Green Building Elements: Do you see a significant number of people opting for smaller homes?
Linda O’Keeffe: I do. Even people who can afford more are choosing to live in smaller spaces, sometimes because they are young or because they are empty nesters, but in general, just because it makes more sense now.
GBE: As people scale down, which rooms are they prioritizing, and which ones are they eliminating?
LO: I’m seeing fewer home offices and dining rooms. We were fooled into thinking we’d need a home office. But our offices are paperless now, so there is less to store. And there has been a change in technology, too; people are doing a lot of their work on a BlackBerry while they wait at the airport. Sometimes people with kids want a home office so that they can have a separate space, but even then, often everyone is in the kitchen. The kids can work on a laptop in there, and [parents] can see what they are doing.
Overall, people feel now that rooms should be adaptable: cozy enough for one person to read in, but able to accommodate 30 guests. Also, formal rooms are becoming less popular. They seem almost Victorian. Now we want every square inch of our homes to be usable.
The urban environment depicted in the cult classic film Blade Runner (intended to represent Los Angeles in the year 2019) has received its share of scholarly attention… and no wonder. Scenes in which flying cars zip through a maze of city “streets,” riding thousands of feet above ground level, are among the movie’s most captivating. And while the film is dystopian, depicting a distressingly dense and inhumane cityscape, it may nevertheless be prophetic: current explorations in neighborhood development are more Blade Runner than they are The Andy Griffith Show.
On April 4th, the architecture and planning firm of Weber + Thompson will move into its new headquarters, located at the intersection of Thomas Street and Terry Avenue in the South Lake Union neighborhood of downtown Seattle.
The firm sees its new headquarters as an emblem of its sustainable approach to architecture. The most innovative feature of the building is its passive cooling design; the building will not be air conditioned at all.
Banner Bank has been one of the leading institutions in Idaho to pursue LEED certification for its facilities. The Banner Bank Building itself, an 11-story art-deco structure in downtown Boise, received an LEED Platinum rating in 2006 and also won a 2007 Excellence in Design award from Environmental Design and Construction magazine. It gained national attention for implementing an unusual water reclamation system; instead of being restricted to re-using wastewater captured on its own site, the Banner Bank Building captures stormwater from seven acres of downtown roofs, streets, and parking lots.
Last month, the bank’s downtown Boise branch (which is located inside of the Banner Bank Building) was awarded LEED Gold certification. Cornerstone Design provided interior design services for the project. According to Cornerstone’s website, the goal of the client was to produce a traditional bank which maintained their existing brand image, while also adhering to LEED for Commercial Interiors standards.
As green design becomes mainstream, it faces the challenge of having to appeal to an ever wider audience. To do so, it must adopt a diverse vocabulary, and not remain limited to — or associated with — a subculture. It is invaluable, then, when designers who are working to reinvent green are showcased in traditional publications that reach a broad readership.
In April, Metropolitan Home is introducing its first entirely green issue. One of the feature stories, “Sustainable in Seattle,” details Greg Smith’s remodel of a downtown penthouse. According to the article, project architects Kyle Gaffney and Shannon Rankin “tried to avoid the burlap-and-Birkenstock earnestness that can afflict green projects.” And Smith, a developer himself, said, “The goal was for visitors to walk in and not recognize that it was a sustainable, green space.” To this end, attention was lavished on the selection of interior materials, with an emphasis on stylish as well as sustainable design.
