imagine a new parking lot

Image courtesy of Neville Mars, Director of MARS Architects in The Netherlands

The typical parking lot in the U.S. is a car's babysitter by day and a desert by night. While architects spend endless hours to perfect building designs, the parking lots are more than likely designed only to meet code and engineering requirements. While new parking lot materials such as pervious pavement that allow contaminants to filter rather than to runoff into our living spaces are now available, the trends in parking lot designs as they fit into our urban landscapes are, well, most often disappointing.

the architect as a social activist

 Samuel Mockbee's Mason's Bend, Hale County, Alabama. Photo courtesy of Rural Studio.

“Architecture has to be greater than just architecture. It has to address social values, as well as technical and aesthetic values. On top of that, the one true gift that an architect has is his or her imagination. We take something ordinary and elevate it to something extraordinary.”
Samuel Mockbee, Architect, 1944 - 2001.

A visit I still covet, I was fortunate to meet the phenomenal architect Ana Escalante in Palm Springs, California a few years ago. Over the course of several days of conversations, she talked about architects as those who solve all types of problems with the same kind of creativity and rigour that we also use when designing a building. Dovetailing her wisdom with that of one of my favorite architecture professors, Jacqueline Gargus, at The Ohio State University, “Well, there was a woman who lived in a shoe.” That is to say that you can theoretically make a living space out of anything, even an old shoe.

Like many other families in the U.S., mine lives in a school district that is facing a new set of severe financial constraints set before them due to a November levy failure. One of my recent writing feats was to digest comments from parents that have children at an arts magnet school and then to make a 5 minute presentation before the Board of Education as to why it is important to “save” the arts-focused elementary curriculum. Each parent’s comments are based on the fact that there is a small portion of the population that think outside of the “norms” and that an alternative teaching philosophy can do magic for their out-of-the-box child.

Being an architect in the middle of an educational problem at present reminds me of the late architect Samuel Mockbee, who is perhaps best known for making “the most” on a shoestring budget. His work is acclaimed for its use of recycled materials that are come together to create ingeniously beautiful spaces designed especially for those of us in our society who have very little resources of their our own. Samuel Mockbee’s professional career embodied the predominant architectural thought of leading, influential that WE CAN make a difference both architecturally and socially. 
Copyright 2012 Stephanie Aurora Lewis

fighting a new revolution

 Image credit: http://www.restorationhardware.com/rooms/?categoryId=cat1699014

Looking at a new catalog from Restoration Hardware, it is evident to me that the thoughts and intents of our beloved William Morris are surfacing at hand once again. No wonder either. In this day, when hand-held devices are the most essential wardrobe item, we have become very much estranged from the past, from handicraft, and anything that isn't digital.

Although, I do not necessarily appreciate tan neutrals throughout the home as Restoration Hardware is now advertising... I can appreciate the fact that they have taken notice that humans cannot ever do without real, true inter-personal relationships. So, RH has made an attempt to design our homes to reference a past that was built on human relations so that we can *feel* better.

What is the name of the Revolution that we are *fighting* against like that of the Industrial Revolution in Morris' era?

target finds a gold mine

Image credit: Thomas Concordia/Getty Images for Target from the New York Times Article http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/business/demand-at-target-for-fashion-line-crashes-web-site.html?_r=1&src=tp

Target is brilliant. That is all I have to say. Finally, a group of entrepreneurs have recognized the social phenomenon that people will pay for excellent design. And, in this case, we don't have to pay much at all. It is no wonder then that the Target website almost crashed with revenue equal to that of traditional Black Friday sales.

I am convinced that if architects can understand sales the way that the executives at Target understand it.... we too could have some type of revolution. I have rarely met a "lay person" who understood that good design does not have to equal a higher than average cost. So, it is up to us to lead the way. Design it - and they will come.

geothermal receives a bad report

Image courtesy of TrishVeo1

At one time if you had asked me what green building technologies do I recommend, I would have put geothermal heating and cooling systems on the top of the list... especially for buildings in Ohio. The system does work and does provide significant energy savings after all. In order for me to fully buy into a building technology such as geothermal, I would have to believe that this would be a great idea for all buildings. As such, I can no longer endorse geothermal.

Sadly disappointed, my opinion is rooted within the idea that the antifreeze chemicals flowing through the tubing, if erupted into the environment, would be too damaging for the gain we would receive from its energy efficiency savings. Once having a hydrogeologist for a roommate, I learned that our precious water tables are to be preserved at all costs. In order for many geothermal systems to function, the lines penetrate through the water table and reach down further into the earth's crust; which is especially true for the larger commercial projects.

If geothermal tubing should erupt and flood into the water table, we are contaminating our primary clean water supply. When at a seminar, I asked this critical question only to hear the following response from the manufacturer's representative, "Yeah, the EPA doesn't like us very much." The tubing can erupt especially within seismic regions of the country; bear in mind there are many seismic zones for which even the smallest tremor could be destructive for the tubing. Old age can also cause the tubing to leach antifreeze.

Creative design professionals who love all things green... let's come up with some other solutions. My previous post on passive house design is one solution for which I can recommend with confidence. Geothermal would be perfect if a water-only system could be invented. Look for my full article to be published in the Winter 2011-12 edition of AIA Ohio Architypes.

Le Corbusier Would Have Seen NASA's Final Launch

Photo credit: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now

It wasn't my architectural interests that drew me to Cape Canaveral to watch the final viewing of NASA's shuttle Atlantis launch STS-135. Prodded by my science-loving 5-year old, I found the launch to be much more inspirational than expected. Was this probably one of the most inspirational moments of my life?... you betcha. Camping out in a minivan, watching from a private property on the Indian River, and experiencing the launch with tears in my eyes surrounded by cheers from others in the crowd is a memory that will endure.

Unfortunately, the 30-years of NASA's accomplishments are largely unnoticed. Even though 1 million people came and flooded the area around Cape Canaveral in anticipation of the final shuttle launch show, there are many Americans who don't understand that these missions have impacted our lives on many levels. The shuttles have supplied work on the International Space Station that has a laboratory that conducts experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, and meteorology. Bringing these experiments closer to home, it was in this laboratory that significant advances in breast cancer were realized, infant and child car seats were better designed, advances in muscles atrophy, bone loss, crystal formation, recycling water, plant growth, and much more were discovered.

An architect at heart, I can't help but remember Le Corbusier's legacy. He was inspired by the leading engineering feats of his day when thinking about Villa Savoye and beyond. L-C thought that his architecture could be made better by using leading ideas and materials of his day in his own work. In fact, he said in Towards a New Architecture, "Engineers unknown to the world at large, mechanics shop and forge have conceived and constructed these formidable affairs that steamships are. We land-lubbers lack the power of appreciation and it would be a good thing if, to teach us to raise our hats to the works of 'regeneration,' we had to do the miles of walking that the tour of a steamship entails."

How can we be inspired by NASA, digest their feats a bit, and use some of their great lessons in the work we do today?

My full article will be featured in Georgia Engineer and Georgia Contractor later this year.
Towards a New Architecture
The International Space Station (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)
Creating the International Space Station (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration)
Space Station (IMAX) 

Passive House Seminar

Courtesy of Matthew Engel blog 

Yesterday, I started out on the road at 5am to attend a day-long seminar (presented by HalfMoon Seminars) in Cincy about the green building trend called Passive House that is soon to become much more of a mainstream practice... my prediction. While I could explain to you many of the facts and details about this new green building standard, I prefer to let you know why I am sold. Americans cringe at the idea of having to turn off their lights with hyper-maintenance, to wash our hands with cold water, to freeze during the middle of the night under a down comforter, and to just skimp on the comforts we have grown up with. I am the type of person who loves to skimp and save on energy whenever possible.. but this is just not a realistic expectation for the average American.

The crux of my admiration for Passive House is that the theory and the standard makes a home for a family that works to save 90-95% of the energy other homes of equal size use to heat and cool the interior. The air that circulates through the home has been purified and is monitored to circulate regularly. So, finally, a home design that performs with a very high level of excellence, yet does not require much (if any) more maintenance than any other home. May I also emphasize the fact that this housing design standard does not add much more initial building expense to the project... much less than slapping PV's onto your roof. It does take a professional to design this home... one who is well-versed with how to calculate the geographic traits of a particular site, one who can dance through mechanical equations, and one who wears an inventor hat. Afterall, that is what we should all expect from a design professional any way.

The CSC Design Studio in Lexington presented the workshop. www.cscdesignstudio.com.

My full article will be featured in AIA Ohio's Architypes later this year.

no-mow grass

                     Photo Credit: Shades of Green Landscape Architecture

Find The Article At: "Buildipedia.com - No-Mow Grass: Sustainable Fescue Grasses" by Stephanie Aurora Lewis

robson square: how to design a successful city

 Photo Courtesy of David Godin, Vancouver Resident and Activist for Sustainable City Planning Design

Read the article at "Buildipedia.com - The Olympics: Crowds at Robson Square" by Stephanie Aurora Lewis.

how to install solar panels

photo courtesy of Alison Morris

"Buildipedia.com - Solar Panels: Think Passive, Then Active" by Stephanie Aurora Lewis

"Buildipedia.com - Going Google Over Green" by Stephanie Aurora Lewis

Vancouver Sets The Green Stage

"Buildipedia.com - The Olympics: Vancouver Sets The Green Stage"

Green Desert Home

 

Photo Courtesy of Ana Escalante

Read The Article:  "Buildipedia.com - Green Desert Home"

becoming a LEED AP

The editor of Green Building Insider, www.greenbuildinginsider.com, invites me to write about LEED topics primarily because I have been a LEED Accredited Professional since 2004. I took a class from the USGBC in 2002 taught by some of the founders of the LEED program because back then the program was quite new and experimental and instructors were few and far between. I greatly value the fact that I became a LEED AP so early so that I have first hand knowledge of how the organization has evolved. 

regionalism

Rural Illinois (photo credit: SAL)

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) created a program called the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) to serve the public as a green building assessment system. Therefore, LEED acts as a third-party verifier that quantifies just how “green” a building, community, or even a group of buildings are.

thank you Bruce

Bruce S. Fowle, FAIA, LEED AP of FX FOWLE

Can you not tell by looking at his face that this man is approachable?

Indeed, all we want as journalists and young professionals is to meet an expert who is not simply willing to share their knowledge and wisdom, but someone who will do so with nearly no reservations.

vinyl

PVC extrusion plant. Photo courtesy of Vinyl Institute.

The controversy over vinyl is white hot.

Experts go back and forth as to whether vinyl is environmentally friendly. And, thus we see that much of what we think of today as a pollutant may be thought of as "green" tomorrow. 

my paint preference

Sometimes my opinions are edited out of an article... and understandably. I cannot solicit products specifically in my articles even if I think that everyone should have my same opinion.

right sizing is key

Nestled deep into the hillside, the sleek cantilevered nanotechnology laboratory’s building design grasps the awe of the landscape and offers brilliant views of San Francisco for the scientists and students who use the facility. First introduced in 1959 and put into practice in the early 1980’s, nanotechnology is a fairly new science. As such, there are yet only a few research centers in the U.S. devoted to its rapid development. Matching in scientific excellence, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) – The Molecular Foundry is the first LEED Gold laboratory in California, consuming 35% less energy than is required by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 90.1 (1999).

nature inspires handicap design

Ramp in Chatanooga, Tennesee by George E. Norkus Photography

I was asked by the Editor of Deckworld Magazine to write a feature article on handicap ramp and deck design for the March/April Issue 2009. At first, I had to think about the different types of handicapped people. I became quite enlightened when interviewing Jacqueline Kehl of Barrier Free Design, an interior designer and universal design consultant. (Universal design is a term coined in the 1960's for architectural design catered to the physical limitations of an aging generation.) Jackie is handicapped herself and is a golden resource for all types of architectural designers who use her services. Most interestingly, she told me that the first step in designing a space for handicapped individuals is to understand for whom are we designing the space, what is their disease or disorder, what are their physical limitations, how can an architectural space (either indoors or outdoors) help their condition, and lastly in what ways will their condition transform in the coming years?

geothermal is universal

Photo credit: Exclusive Geo Works, LLC

Geothermal technology no longer consists of simply harvesting energy from the earth and underground water resources. The energy-efficient technology consists of a specialized furnace that circulates water through buried tubing to supplement the conventional source of either heat or coolness to achieve the optimum human comfort temperature.

building materials reuse and recycling

Photo credit: Bedrock Industries, Inc.

Apparently, when we set our recycling bins out on our residential curbsides, our glass containers are often simply crushed and set to compete against stone aggregate for road construction. Chris Munford, Marketing Director, of Bedrock Industries, Inc. told me that it is a shame for glass - which is such a beautiful material - to be downcycled into a material that really isn't greatly needed for road construction.

moms at work

You are looking at the little blond-headed reason why I work as a freelance writer part-time from home. I worked at two different architecture firms after he was born, asking for flexibility with my work schedule so that I would not have to make the choice between FAMILY or WORK.

In the AIA Ohio Architypes Winter 08 Newsletter, I wrote an article entitled, "Caution: Moms at Work." It is yet another plea for women in the architecture field who have children... for employers to understand better the life of a working mother and to have more compassion.

East Germany started a program that supported working mothers with state-subsidized childcare, laundry services, one-year paid maternity leave, and hot lunches for moms and babies. As a result, psychologists found that the moms felt less guilty and were were much more productive and happy workers. Babies were also happier because their moms were better equipt to care for them in the evening hours.

You can read the full article at www.aiaohio.org..."newsletters".... "winter 08"... second page.

hot water conservation

Photograph courtesy of Carl McDaniel.
The tankless instant hot water heater is on the left,
with the solar water heater technologies and tank on the right.

Passive Solar Design

WM. G. Murray Conference Center, Living History Farms, Des Moines, Iowa.

Photo credit: Patsy K. Anderson.

I just completed a CEU course for registered architects related to Passive Solar Design for Design Arts Seminars.

I first saw this building as an elementary school student with my mom, brother, sister, and another mom & her kids. At a young age, I was interested in architecture... and this building was probably the first building to make me think! As a child, I thought it was ridiculous to bury a building or a home... afterall no one could really answer my questions.

In fact, I couldn't have answered any of my questions until I completed this CEU course this week. The biggest discovery I made was that Passive Solar Design is not so complicated and not so expensive... I found that many of the high confluent architecture books are attributed to making passive solar design ethereal and unattainable unless you become a scientiest or an engineer.

Not so, may I recommend Daniel D. Chiras' book, The Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling? He provides a list of "do's" when designing passive solar homes... which easily translate to passive solar principles for commercial buildings as well.

Passive Solar Design is completely attainable and well worth all the effort... energy savings start out at a minimum of 30% and go all the way up to 80%.

composite decking materials

I know that we all want to choose green for environmental purposes.

Don't forget, however, that green also means safety - and that most importantly for the vulnerable... as this photograph so wonderfully tells the story.

Pressure Treated and Stained decking materials contain chemicals that can enter the human body through sensitive skin locations... such as the bottom of bare feet.

Composites are much more expensive than even the high quality P.T. woods, but they last more than 5 times longer as well.


When the end of their service is at hand, composites can be recycled again into new material. Correct Building Products provides Jobsite Recycling Bins at various hardware stores so the material can more easily be brought back to the manufacturing plant for its reincarnation process to ensue.

The largest company that manufactures composites is Trex. Most composite materials like that of Trex are the same, with recycled wood content and recycled polyethylene and high density polyethylene (HDPE). Heartland BioComposites, however, uses wheat straw cellulose rather than recycled wood to step up the sustainability competition among manufacturers. Wheat is harvested every year whereas it takes up to 20-30 years to harvest wood. Therefore, wheat is a rapidly renewable resource and a post-agricultral waste product.

It may help you to understand that when taking your plastic grocery bags back to the grocery store, Trex ends up using 7 of the 10 bags harvested from such stores throughout the U.S. each year!

This photograph is courtesy of Correct Building Products.
This information comes from an article I published in May in Green Building Insider, www.greenbuildinginsider and one that will come out this summer in DeckWorld Magazine.

http://www.heartlandbio.com/
http://www.trex.com/
http://www.correctdeck.com/

green elevators

In fact, all elevators are green.

During an interview with Bruce S. Fowle, FAIA, LEED, with FX Fowle Architects, for an article published in the New York Construction Monthly last year, Fowle explained to me why elevators are green.

The key to their eco-friendly status is the fact that they allow construction to go vertical rather than horizontal. One of the buildings Fowle designed in New York City would have consumed 40 acres of new, fresh landscaping. Instead, the building took up one block or only 1 acre in NYC, as is typical for most skyscrapers.

So, density is the key. Technology is not needed to design density, rather a renewed sense of building design that is focused on green concepts.

Elevators are already so green, that a building owner cannot gain extra points in the LEED system by adding an elevator to the design. (www.usgbc.org)

Yet, despite its green qualities, companies such as KONE, Otis, and ThyssenKrupp are making huge strides in renovating their elevator designs to make them even more green. They have figured out a way to eliminate the large elevator room, saving building square footage. Also, the chains no longer need lubricants. The lubricants often used in hydraulic elevators can be harmful to the environment if left to leach into the ground.

So, I suggest you come up with a little smile the next time you ride an elevator. For once, you are being green by just standing there.

Check out my article in www.greenbuildinginsider.com for additional details!

Editors note: photograph is courtesy of ThyssenKrupp.

Green Galore Design-blogg-er: The Fragility of Nature

http://www.homedepot.com/ecooption
http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=4692474&pageid=r&mode=all&query=cancer
http://www.rainforestweb.org/newsitem.php?id=50&area=

Green Galore Design-blogg-er: The Fragility of Nature

The Fragility of Nature

On Wednesday morning, I left the house to go to the zoo with Carter when I intentionally stopped to see how much Spring foliage had progressed. By the time we returned home for the afternoon nap, the forsythia shrubs were in flamingly full yellow bloom!

This reminds me of how fragile and how complex nature truly is...

After recently completing an article on green options for decking materials for DeckWorld Magazine, I made a connection between this forsythia shrub and the Amazon rainforests about which I warned readers to preserve.

According to the Rainforest Alliance, "United States National Cancer Institute has identified 3,000 plants that are active against cancer cells. Seventy percent of these plants are found in the rainforest."

Watching the delicacy of the forsythia in its ability to bloom at a specific hour, I am reminded that all of nature is indeed fragile. Not only is it fragile, but we depend on its ability to endure.

One of the points I made in the article was that woods from rainforest locales as well as other areas such as Indonesia should be avoided because the fragility of their native ecosystems are dependent upon their existence.

The Rainforestweb site states, “Logging damages up to half the area to get at just a few trees, eliminating up to 50% of the canopy and bulldozing roads and skid trails through pristine old growth forests. Ipê occurs in densities of only one or two trees per acre and only a tiny fraction of the entire tree yields four-side-clear 2x4s (as little as 5 board feet!).”

Home Depot's EcoOptions website has incredibly good resources for alternate wood options as well as other eco-friendly tips and advice for the home.

Summer Porches

As an architect, I am beginning this blog to inspire other designers to think in the most creative ways to be green.

Many years ago, homes were built with summer porches. So, in the evenings and for sleeping, the family would camp out on the second floor porch added to the rear end of the home. Besides the exotic aspect of this sleeping arrangement, it was one way to achieve a good night's sleep without sweating like a pig. The natural breezes of the summer night air were unobstructed and the family slept like content babies.

So, no air conditioning for the summer porch family.