The Green Wave of Architecture
By Andrew Charles Yanoviak, AIA, APA, CSI
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The American Institute of Architects (AIA) plots the “green wave” of architecture to crest this year, resulting in a downhill surf ride toward environmental sustainability by 2050. The AIA initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent to 60 percent below 1990 pollution levels represents a major breakthrough supported nationally by building contractors, materials and equipment suppliers, owners and government leaders.
Integrated professional design practice and related building performance activities of AIA and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) are intertwined. ACSA recently announced its intent to create a National Academy of Environmental Design (NAED) via eight architecture, landscape architecture and design organizations – including the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). NAED “ … which would focus on the built environment … how buildings and cities could produce less waste, consume less energy, and contribute to healthier living and work spaces.”
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
ACSA, AIA/COTE (Committee on the Environment), EDRA, ASHRAE (American
Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers) and
many experts agree buildings produce almost half of greenhouse gas emissions.
The National Wildlife Federation estimates that a typical college campus
physical plant emits 70 percent to 90 percent of these atmospheric pollutants.
The AIA graph (at right) of U.S. carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions
illustrates that while industrial manufacturing processes (excluding
production of building materials and products) have been reduced slightly
to early 1980 pollution levels, emissions attributed to building design,
construction, maintenance and human occupancy operations have more than
tripled in the last half century and the transportation sector (excluding
delivery of construction materials and equipment) has increased by 260
percent due to “pollute-mobiles” of many types.
Energy Consumption
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With “peak-oil,” ACSA, AIA and others are attempting to mitigate or reverse global climate change because the U.S., with less than 5 percent of the world’s six billion population, consumes more than 25 percent of the world’s fossil fuel resources. Also, we can’t ignore massive building construction outside U.S., as in China and Dubai. Therefore, the initial green wave of architecture efforts by AIA can be meritoriously viewed as a catalyst to further involve international planning and design organizations on an unprecedented real estate development and construction industry basis, to broaden perspectives.
In the event that the AIA green wave is ignored and Hawaii’s 2050 environmental sustainability plans are unaccepted by owners, government officials and professional practitioners, the AIA graph (next page) predicts annual U.S. energy consumption increasing by an additional 37 percent or 34 quadrillion Btu (British thermal units). As on Oahu with HECO and the PUC in microcosm, the U.S. will require 1,300 to 1,900 new electrical power generating plants (about one new power plant per week for at least two decades). However, the AIA reminds planning and design professionals that greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption do not only occur at power generation plants but also within building boilers, chillers, fans, furnaces and hot water heaters to satisfy increasing comfort levels required by global warming worldwide.
LEED and Honolulu Council Bill 87
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AIA graph of future
U.S. energy consumption |
The AIA acknowledges that, “Architects know that buildings can be designed to operate with far less energy than today’s average U.S. building at little or no additional cost. This is accomplished through proper siting, building form, glass properties and location, material selection and by incorporating natural heating, cooling and ventilation, and daylighting strategies.” This was vividly demonstrated at the 2007/2008 Honolulu Academy of Arts exhibition of visionary Hawaii architectural masterpieces by Vladimir Ossipoff, FAIA (1907-1998), during the 150th national AIA anniversary. However, as discussed in AIA Honolulu chapter committees, with density overloads and open space encroachments devoid of landscaping, the planning, design and construction challenges on increasingly congested lots are formidable, unless the Honolulu Land Use Ordinance (LUO) is revised. In 1982, the local AIA Energy Committee edited an illustrated booklet for the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism Energy Division on Hawaiian Design Strategies for Energy Efficient Design.
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Ossipoff house trade
wind ventilation |
In late 2007, City Councilmembers Donovan Dela Cruz and Ann Kobayashi
introduced Bill 87 mandating LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design) standards initiated by the U.S. Green Building Council in 2003.
Incentives in exchange for costly upgrades beyond minimum code requirements
may be preferred by real estate and building industry representatives,
as the original bill specified increasingly stringent silver, gold and
platinum awards by 2010, 2012 and 2014 respectively. Obviously, educational
seminars are required to follow the AIA/ACSA and City Council’s
exemplary leadership on behalf of global community health, safety and
welfare.
Alternatives to the City Council proposal would be to either achieve
silver status or at least adopt the less stringent Energy Star awards
program by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as a preliminary
step in eventually advancing toward LEED certification for new and existing
buildings, as well as commercial interiors. The very first LEED-CI gold
award in Hawaii for the AIA Honolulu downtown office, designed by Joe
Ferraro, AIA, was featured in the September 2004 “AIArchitect”
article entitled “LEEDing by Example.” Of course, SB2833
and/or HB2590 as well as the new statewide energy code may take precedence
with the adoption of the Hawaii Sustainability 2050 legislation.
Architecture 2030
New Mexico’s Edward Mazria, AIA, founded Architecture 2030 in response to U.S. Department of Energy data from 2007 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” It led the AIA’s green wave of architecture movement with webcasts following an earlier December 2005 AIA board policy decision “… to support this effort (as delineated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), our professional architecture and planning schools should require a mandatory, full-year, innovative, studio-integrated program that promotes creative problem-solving relevant to climate change. The curriculum should instill in students a deep understanding of the relationship between nature and design (‘Nature’ a la Frank Lloyd Wright in 1937 and Ian McHarg’s 1969 ‘Design with Nature’) … that dramatically reduces or eliminates the need for fossil fuels.” Recently, Dr. Spencer Leineweber, FAIA, mentioned that the National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) commended the University of Hawaii on its architecture curriculum emphasis on environmental design sustainability.
AIA 2007 Contract Documents
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The mid-January “AIArchitect” on professional practice and new contract duties includes an article by Washington architect-attorneys Bill Quatman, FAIA, Esq., and Ryan Manies, AIA, Esq., entitled “AIA Members Strive to Be ‘Legally and Ethically’ Green,” that asks (outside the courtroom): “How do you . . . apply sustainable design principles to adhere to the AIA Code of Ethics and Document B101-2007 (contractually binding Owner-Architect Agreement)? Summary (Response): The AIA Board added a new canon to the AIA Code of Ethics calling on architects to be environmentally responsible. ... Moreover, AIA contract document B101-2007 (and B103-2007; B104-2007; and B201-2007 Sections) includes language requiring architects to discuss environmentally responsible design approaches with their clients. ... The (AIA) green wave has caught some architects unprepared to deal with this new area of practice. … There is a need for (continuing) education on this important topic. … A recent study revealed that 83 percent of designers believe they have a responsibility to offer green design solutions to their clients, but only 17 percent actually do so.” AIA Honolulu COTE members advocated for these green wave of architecture promulgations at the national AIA level.