I often get questions about how to run an eco-charrette for a project. So, in the spirit of being multimedia, I have put together a quick little video titled “A Crash Course in Eco-Charrette Facilitation”. I hope it helps!

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t take my decision to join the marrow registry lightly. I realize that if I am found to be a match for a patient now or in the future that it’s a big and potentially fairly painful commitment. Still, spending a few days or even weeks experiencing some inconvenience or pain seems like such a manageable thing to save a life by simply giving something that my body naturally produces so routinely.

Are you interested in joining the Marrow Registry? Find out more at www.BetheMatch.org

I guess that at this point I should define “eco-bling”. I tend to prefer one of the definitions that can currently be found on Urban Dictionary, which is:

Eco-Bling:

Generic name given to ecological technology or gadgets that cost an amount of money that you will never get back in terms of energy saved or produced. “simply adding thicker insulation to this building will save a lot more money than the proposed eco-bling stuck to the outside.”

Solar panels and green roofs can certainly have real benefits from an environmental and financial standpoint if they are designed correctly and used in the correct applications. Unfortunately, it seems like these and other highly visible or “trendy” symbols of sustainable design are frequently applied as a billboard advertisement of how green a project is rather than being an integral component in the project’s overall sustainability. On one hand, I appreciate the attention that eco-bling sometimes brings to sustainable design projects by proclaiming the project’s “greenness” loud enough for even the completely uninitiated to notice. On the other hand, I resent the fact that the general public is starting to equate sustainable design with these often superficial moves rather than the good design and thoughtful, contextual solutions that are required for a sustainable project to have a true environmental impact.

So, what can we do to move away from a public consciousness that only recognizes eco-bling as the symbols of sustainability? The answer is certainly not an easy one, but I think much of the responsibility rests on us as architects, engineers and designers to make sure that the strategies we employ are based on long term environmental AND financial sustainability and that as professionals we are as transparent as possible when it comes to tracking and reporting data about actual building performance. If we do that consistently then, over time, the data should speak for itself in such a way that even a five year old could see that a well-designed building with comprehensive sustainable design solutions is better and more sustainable than a “conventional” building with a bunch of green stuff growing on the roof any day of the week.

Note: This blog has also been published on my firm’s brand new blog here: The SHP Leading Design Blog

SHP Leading Design Press Release:

SHP Designs Ohio’s First LEED-Certified Platinum School
London Middle School achieves USGBC’s highest sustainability rating

(Cincinnati, Ohio) – SHP Leading Design is pleased to announce that London Middle School in the London City School District is the first LEED Platinum school in Ohio.  LEED is the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) rating system for sustainable building design and construction.

“This is undoubtedly one of the most exciting LEED projects SHP has ever been a part of,” said Allison McKenzie, AIA, LEED AP, SHP’s director of sustainability. “The new middle school marks our first LEED Platinum project and proves that lofty sustainability goals are achievable within a tight budget.”

LEED is a comprehensive rating system that focuses on multiple attributes of sustainable design including energy and water efficiency, sustainable site development, material selection, and indoor environmental quality. The USGBC established LEED for market leaders to design and construct buildings that protect and save precious resources while also making good economic sense.

Located on a campus setting, the new middle school is 75,000 square feet, houses 500 students, and had a construction budget of $13.3 million.

“We had a very strict budget set by the Ohio School Facilities Commission,” said Eric Steva, AIA, LEED AP, project manager at SHP. “It’s important to mention that the project was completed without any outside grants, locally funded initiatives, or funding sources.”

“The building reflects what’s important to the school district,” McKenzie added. “We didn’t seek out trendy sustainable design solutions or ‘eco-bling.’ We integrated sustainable design strategies that had real, positive effects on the school.”

The school boasts a geothermal heating and cooling system, 20 solar tubes and light baffles for daylighting, and 20 acres of prairie grass for restoring habitat. In addition, 37 percent of the materials were regional and 25 percent were made from recycled material. The cost saving compared to baselines standards include 42 percent energy saving and 40 percent reduction in water usage. Moreover, a 71.2 kW solar array generates more than 15 percent of the school’s yearly energy needs.

“On a recent sunny spring day, the array was generating over 62 kilowatts of power,” Steva said. “Simply put, the building was using the electrical equivalent of a medium-sized house.”

In addition to saving money, the design also provides educational solutions to the district. Two extended learning areas in each classroom wing help bring natural light into the corridors and flexible learning spaces. Unique features, like “found space” at the end of each hall, create an extended learning area for informal and formal gatherings.

“The school is also seeing an increase in teacher attendance and a decrease in student disciplinary actions,” Steva added. “The positive impacts of sustainable design are quite extraordinary.”

Fast forward a few years and here we are, about to wrap up the comment periods for LEED 2012 and take an official vote on its adoption. LEED 2012 is by no means a done deal with a fourth (unplanned) comment period opening May 1, but the drafts to date have left me with many more questions than answers. To me, the proposed versions of LEED 2012 are revolutionary, but perhaps not in a good way. I am very much in favor of continuously raising the bar on sustainable design and the LEED Rating Systems. However, I am very concerned that LEED 2012, as currently proposed, introduces changes that are either too significant to be called incremental or add more complexity to implementation and/or documentation requirements than is needed or wise.

To me, the significant changes proposed in LEED 2012 raise a philosophical question about LEED. Is LEED, at its heart, meant to be a tool for market transformation, as USGBC has often claimed, or is it actually meant to be a certification that recognizes and rewards industry leaders? I have always thought that the strength of LEED is its ability to create market transformation with a system that is difficult enough to feel like an accomplishment but approachable enough to encourage adoption by a wide variety of businesses and organizations. I am afraid that the current version of LEED 2012 is too much of a radical change to do this. In my own evaluation, LEED 2012, as it stands today, would cause significant increases in building cost for achievement. These increased costs would be a result of both increased material and systems costs as well as increased costs for the additional time that will be needed to document more complex credits and train design and construction teams on all of the changes contained in the credit requirements and processes. I am just now starting to work with design and construction teams that have a good handle on how LEED works. The thought of the massive changes contained in LEED 2012, especially when it comes to materials and resources credits, and the re-education they will require makes me shudder.

I have talked to many people in the design and construction industry as well as many clients that tell me very directly that if LEED 2012 is adopted as currently written, they will not pursue LEED on future projects. Wow. If people who are currently undertaking LEED projects feel like LEED 2012 is too difficult or too costly, how in the world is LEED going to attract new devotees and continue to transform the market? If LEED 2012 is accepted as currently written (or in a similar draft), USGBC is making a decision, whether it’s a conscious one or an unconscious one, to shift from continuous market transformation through widespread adoption to being a program that rewards industry leaders who are significantly ahead of the curve on sustainable design. Personally, that’s a shift that I don’t want to see LEED make. How do you feel?