Practical Sustainability

i've been doing a lot of thinking about what i want this blog to be: interesting, fun and interactive. i want it to help connect a community of similar interests. while my expertise is sustainable architecture, i want it to be more than that -

connecting people in practical sustainable lifestyles

i don't always live up to my ideals. i live in a large house in the suburbs of chicago. i bought this house so that my kids could go to great schools and i could have a yard to grow my own food. but because of these choices, some of the things i do are really just putting "lipstick on a pig." will my hybrid cars, rainbarrel and organic garden ever make up for the embodied energy to build this house that is really too large for my family of four? no, but we did join a walkable community where everything we need is within walking distance so we rarely use the cars. life is about compromise. we make choices that we feel will give ourselves and our families the best chance in life, and sometimes this does not agree with other principles we try to live by.

i think we all do the best we can with what we have. and that's what i'll try to showcase here. practical sustainability.

Garden Gossip: 3rd Week in July

I have a garden in my back yard. It was the first thing I did to my back yard when I moved into this house last year. After many years of living in high rises and container gardening, I selected this house in large part because of its south facing rear yard where I could grow my own organic food.

Last year, I planted a little bit of everything: corn, tomatos, squash, pumpkin, watermellon, blackberry, raspberry, and many types of herbs. I had some successes, but since I was pregnant and largely ignored the garden, I had a lot of failures. We had a cherry tomato plant that produced a lot of little tomatoes that my then 2 year old daughter loved picking and eating. And the raspberry bushes did well. The rest got eaten by pests or disease.

This year, I've been more attentive to its needs. So that's where this entry comes in. I'd like to record weekly the successes and failures in my garden adventure.

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Amy Coffman Phillips

why is environmentalism through architecture important?

buildings consume or are responsible for:

* 40% of the world’s total energy
* 25% or the world’s timber harvest
* 16% of fresh water withdrawl
* 35% of all carbon dioxide emissions
* 60% of the electricity generated in the US
* 30% of all carbon dioxide emissions.

Additionally, more than 210 million tons of solid waste is generated and disposed of annually – a substantial portion of which is attributed to construction site and building-use waste.

green design can counteract this, with the following benefits:

* results in a high-quality, healthy living environment
* lowers residents’ utility costs
* enhances residents’ connection to nature
* protects the environment by conserving energy, water, materials, and other resources
* advances the health of local and regional ecosystems

source: green communities criteria

Just the Beginning...

Penthouse Terrace Garden

Seating with a View

This penthouse terrace was my view from our dining room in our Jersey City apartment in 2007. The terrace was approximately 12' x 10' and was on the 23rd story of a large apartment building. Its exposure was to the south-west, so our microclimate was very warm and very windy. I had a Rosemary plant overwinter in our USDA Zone 7 and we were able to be outside in the afternoon with short sleeves in March.

Small coffee nook

I am an avid gardener, as you may notice from my posts. I was not satisfied with a few pots of ornamental plants. I needed space to grow food, flowers, and space to sit and enjoy my view of the Statue of Liberty.

Concept Plan

East Hampton NY Residence

Enlarged model courtesy of Cook+Fox Architects

While working at Cook+Fox Architects in New York, I had the unique opportunity to help design and construct an immense single family home in East Hampton, New York.  The owners came to my previous employer, Rick Cook, specifically because of previous work he had done out there as well as his knowledge and passion for green building.  I got to work on the project because I am a die-hard greenie and had a working knowledge of the technical aspects of green building.  And I had time, a precious commodity at any architecture firm.

The East Hampton home was designed to LEED 2.1 standards before LEED for Homes was released.  While this rating system was not entirely appropriate to this project type, we felt it was a good starting point.  And, due to its size, this project would never qualify for LEED for Homes, which is directed more at builders of tract housing.  We also actively pursued passive survivability issues as Hurricane Katrina and her remnants were forefront in our minds.  We also though hard about luxury homes, both the resource intensiveness of them as well as their inevitability, and decided to pursue green systems on this house as a case study for what can be done. 

Green Features Graphic courtesy of Cook+Fox Architects

The concepts we focused on were preserving the natural dune characteristics of this site on the beach, using open geothermal wells for cooling to eliminate the need for noisy compressors, creating movable storm shutters and storm serge mitigation in case of a hurricane event, and working with an award-winning interior designer to use sustainable materials.  We were also proud of our work to educate and work with the contractor on his first "green" home. 

Building Section Courtesy Cook+Fox Architects

Ever the building science nerd, I was excited when we had the fortune to hire Joe Lstiburek for a day to speak to our office and review our drawings to provide insight.  From him we learned about the benefits of rigid spray foam insulation as both an air barrier and an insulator, in addition to other building specific comments.     

My role on this project was largely one of research and coordination.  I coordinated the work of the interior designer, lighting designer, mechanical and electrical consultants, and our in-house team.  I also conducted and coordinated various research tasks and designed  specific tasks, such as the multiple fireplaces.

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No project is ever perfect and compromises are always made.  But by the end of the project we felt we had created a beautiful home that the homeowners were proud of while educating the East Hampton, NY, building community about green building issues.