Portland Architecture

“Platinum Will Be a Yawner”, And Other Notes from Friday’s Green Building Forum

Last Friday at the Gerding Theater I attended the panel discussion about green building in Portland moderated by Metropolis editor Susan Szanasy as part of PNCA’s “Idea Studios”. My notes aren’t comprehensive, but hint at the 90-minute long conversation.

The panel was first asked to put Portland in the national context when it comes to green building. “Portland is definitely out near the front if not in the front,” Scott Lewis of Brightworks said. “I think there’s a danger of resting on our laurels. But I get kids applying for jobs because they want to move to Portland, because they think it’s the greenest city in the country.”

Greg Bob Baldwin of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca added, “We’re in a place where it’s relatively easy to do well. If there’s something that troubles me…we don’t necessarily put the pieces together. It’s building by building.”

Mark Edlen, head of Gerding Edlen Development, said, “Green building is in our DNA more than other cities….But pretty soon, getting to LEED Platinum will be a yawner. We need to get to net-zero and regenerative buildings.”

Susan Anderson, head of the city’s Office of Sustainable Development, noted that greenhouse gas emissions are down 14% in Portland since 1990 while the national average is up 16%. “The challenge is we need to reduce emissions by 80%,” she said. Anderson also added that we should retrofit and weatherize every building in the city within 10 years, pointing to a program in Berkeley, California where banks and the city sell bonds to provide loans for retrofitting.

Randy Gragg, editor of local home magazine Portland Spaces, pointed out there’s a difference between strategic and tactical. We have a long history of public-private partnerships, and a comprehensive planning tradition, but the last few years we’ve been more tactical than strategic with ill-advised affairs like the Burnside couplet. Gragg also cited Lawrence Halprin’s Keller Fountain as the beginning of the downtown rebirth, acting as a metaphor for the return of the watershed.

Lest we pat ourselves on the collective back here in Portland, though, Scott Lewis had this reminder: “If we get every building to LEED platinum we’re still going off the cliff.” He cited a city in Abu Dhabi intended as an entirely net-zero metropolis, and asked, “How fast can our region run on 100% renewable power?”

Mark Edlen also connected worldwide food shortage and poverty to green building. “Until people in Africa can stop worrying about feeding their kids, they’re not going to worry about solar energy.” But he also called sustainability, “the biggest grassroots movement ever.”

Oh, and most importantly of all given the morning hour at which Friday’s panel was held: The event included lots of tasty, highly fattening donuts and some very respectable Illy coffee. I hope some of the rest of you were able to access the couple of pastries I didn’t scarf down.

A Super-Green House With...Dirt Floors? (Updated)

Last Friday The Oregonian's Gail Kinsey Hill reported on a house in Portland being designed and built by two brothers, Dustin and Garrett Moon, that will achieve a level of green that even substantially bests the US Green Building Council's LEED ratings. It will be an almost entirely self-sufficient, truly sustainable home. And as Hill's report indicated, these aren't top local architects doing this project, but a couple of young guys (22 and 30) heretofore unknown in the architecture/building community.

[In the image above, which I took from the Oregonian article, the numbers denote several individual features: (1) green roof, (2) rain capture system, (3) translucent movable roof, (4) a movable wall, (5) insulating concrete walls, (6) photovoltaic modules, and (7) a shop and garden.]

The house used as its guide the Cascadia USGBC chapter's Living Building Challenge, which favors simple performance measurements over the point system of LEED. Their project may be the first in the country to meet these more stringent standards.

Historic preservation fans may cringe at the fact that Dustin and Garrett are tearing down an old Southeast Portland home to build this new version. But as they explained in the article, the solar orientation was all wrong. This will be a very glassy home wrapped around a courtyard. It'll also have composting toilets and even a movable roof and interior walls. (The photo at left is by Stephanie Yao of the Oregonian.)

One of the admirable aspects of the project is that the brothers are building the house themselves as well, using lots of recycled supplies from places like The Rebuilding Center. The whole thing will only cost them about $200,000.

However, one thing that made me scratch my head was that Dustin and Garrett's cost-saving measure to have bedrooms with dirt floors.

Sustainable design and construction has always had this aspect to it. I think of the cob benches I see at various co-op groceries, bike shops and the occasional cafe around town. Or the rammed-earth projects one reads about in various rural locales. You don't get much more basic and sustainable than using the ground beneath our feet for architectural purposes.

Still, I keep saying to myself, "Dirt floors?" When I think of those few conservatives out there who are skeptical about green building, cob benches and dirt floors are to me precisely the kind of stuff they'll ridicule.

I absolutely love Dustin and Garrett's chutzpah making a do-it-yourself project into one of the nation's most sustainable homes, all on a tiny budget and lots of their own sweat. Yet if you're spending $200,000 on your future house, which is cheap by most standards but still a huge amount of money, couldn't you just spend the extra few hundred dollars for some simple flooring? If they want to stay green, there are countless fine options in bamboo, true linoleum, cork, etc.

Imagine their mom staying there and saying, "You boys are grown men and you're still tracking dirt all over the house. Wipe your feet!" And they of course retort, "But mom, it's our floors!" Maybe it's just the neat freak in me, but I'm with mom on this one.

UPDATE 4-18-08: As many have already read in the comments to this post, it's not really dirt floors that will be in the Moons' house. Rather, it's an earthenware flooring that is more akin to hardened clay. Regardless, I was being at least partially tongue-in-cheek when I harped as much as I did about these guys' floors. I just am not fond of the cob and rammed-earth aesthetic, although I certainly can't fault the function and sustainability of these age-old practices. As one commenter said, earthenware floors are a lot less weird when you think about it than cheap synthetic manufactured linoleum leaking chemicals into the air of our homes. And above the floor in the Moons' house is an aesthetic (and a function) I do love: lots of glass. So whether it's dirt or earthenware beneath their feet, nice going fellas!

Green Investment Grants and a Resurrected One Waterfront Place

Earlier this week the City of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development and the Energy Trust of Oregon announced $425,000 in grants to several sustainable developments as part of its Green Investment Fund.

The projects include Mercy Corps' global headquarters being built in Old Town, with a design from Thomas Hacker Architects; 14th & Everett, the old Meier & Frank warehouse in the Pearl District being renovated by Gerding Edlen Development from a GBD Architects design; Park Avenue West, the Tom Moyer-developed and TVA Architects-designed condo tower just west of Pioneer Courthouse Square; an addition an aquatics center in east Portland that will make innovative re-use of water; Simpsons Commons, an affordable housing project; 12W, a new mixed-use tower; and One Waterfront Place, developer Jim Winkler's BOORA Architects-designed office building.

I was especially surprised to see One Waterfront Place on the list, because this project was planned several years ago and has been languishing in search of an anchor tenant seemingly named Godot. It's been so long, in fact, that one of the primary architects at BOORA with whom the project was associated, the exceptionally talented Frenchman monsieur Eric Cugnart, has been gone from the firm for a few years. (He's now at Mulvanny G2.)

Originally, though, One Waterfront was supposed to rise near the Broadway Bridge around the same time another office project, One Main Place by GBD Architects, was set to be built at the west end of the Hawthorne Bridge. One Main also languished unbuilt in a slow office market for a few years, and it's now under construction. So perhaps it's fitting they come up together again. One Waterfront is also supposed to have a pedestrian bridge connecting the Willamette Greenway to the Pearl, so that will also be an interesting extra. When completed in 2010 (which I'll believe when I see), the building is poised to be the first Platinum LEED-rated speculative office building. That would have been even more impressive a few years ago when it was originally planned. Still, you've got to admire Winkler's stick-to-it-iveness.

One Waterfront actually received 27% of the total GIF funds, which will be directed toward an innovative storm water system that will disconnect the building from the city's storm water system by filtering and percolating all site storm water into the aquifer. As it says on BOORA's website, "The project's design team and the grantmaking entities believe that disconnecting the entire 3.27-acre brownfield site from the city’s storm water system represents a solution to on-site stormwater management for brownfield sites that can be replicated in other development projects. If widely adopted, this innovative stormwater management system has the potential to curtail future investments in CSO (combined sewerage overflow) mitigation measures, which have become a large cost to municipalities throughout the country, including Portland."

Meanwhile, the migration of offices from downtown to the Pearl continues. When you've worked in an office space with lots of natural light and ventilation, along with all the other amenities of green, it's pretty dreary to be anywhere else. What will become of the countless old office buildings downtown? Can we rebuild them green in a way that favorably compares with the new offices north of Burnside?

One other thought, though: Is it right that these projects, many of which seem to come from the city's biggest developers, are the ones getting a lot of the public investment from the GIF? I'm not saying it's wrong. These guys in the private sector, particularly Gerding Edlen and GBD, are leading the way in this field. Maybe I'm imagining some more romantically ultra-sustainable little projects out there that either don't exist or didn't apply for GIF funding.

Green Building's Resident Curmudgeon

I got to know Metropolis magazine columnist Philip Nobel last November while we were on a press trip for a museum opening, the Ullens Center in Beijing. I found him to be a nice guy, if quite the chain smoker. We and a couple other journalists had fun scurrying away by taxi from a gala dinner with champagne and caviar held in a building with no heat (that's China in a nutshell). But in his column Philip has somewhat of a curmudgeonly reputation.

That's definitely true when it comes to green building. "And not only because it's boring," Philip writes in this month's column. "As saving the Earth has become the cause of all causes, I thought this might just be my usual knee-jerk recoiling from things earnest and popular. Now I know it's a deeply principled stand based on the defense of public manners." He continues:

"When one does something good, does one then crow about it, seeking gain? That would be the opposite of grace. But that is exactly what we see in page after page of project after project, each claiming to be LEEDier than thou. Here, planet, I've done you this kindness. Look everyone, I'm saving the planet!"

"Clearly there's a place for a specialized literature, a quiet little spot on the journalistic margins where green architects and clients can trade best practices and grow the field. It's the right thing to do. But that doesn't mean we need to hear about it."

Philip is really just 'taking the piss', as the English say, crowing in a provocative way that makes entertaining copy. I hesitate to dive into defending green building for fear of seeming too earnest and popular. And because green building doesn't really need defending from Philip.

Still, even if he's just joking, it's too bad if Philip or others who grow weary of green building talk think it's only about saving the planet.

Let's suppose for a moment that they discovered global warming wasn't happening after all, or that there was some infinitely plentiful new energy source that made efficiency and alternatives to fossel fuels less urgent. Even then, I'd take the chance to live or work in a green building in a heartbeat, because they're better places to be. Spend a day working in front of a window, then the next in an artificially lit basement. When were you most productive? Happy?

Philip is right, though, that green buidling needs to develop an identity based more on altruism and back-patting for meeting LEED strictures. How can we capture people's imagination with green buildings without just rattling off the points they score for recycling or low-flow showerheads?

Saltzman Announces New City Green Building Standard

Tonight at PDX Lounge, the Portland showcase at the USGBC's Greenbuild Conference, Commissioner Dan Saltzman announced a new incentive and fee program for all new buildings based on their carbon footprint and energy usage profile.

The standard is still just in the talking stage - it hasn't been approved. But it seems very likely to pass in this city council.

As I understand it, the standard would break down like this: If your building is 45% more efficient than energy code stipulations, you'll actually get a rebate check from the city. If your project is 30% better, there'll be no rebate, but also no fee. If your building is less than 30% more efficient than code, you'll be charged what's called a "carbon fee".

As a point of reference, the OHSU Center for Health & Healing by GBD Architects is about 50% more efficient than code, and it attained a 'Platinum' LEED rating from the US Green Building Council. So even if they wouldn't have to attain high LEED ratings, the City is more or less saying that every building built in Portland will need to either meet that range of greenness (the only way to get those kind of efficiencies) or pay the cost in a very literal sense.

This would be the first carbon fee issued by an American city for new buildings.

I'm sure architects and green building enthusiasts would be quite jazzed about this plan. But there also is probably going to be some fear and trepidation. What do the rest of you think?

Gearing Up For Greenbuild

Hello frequent flyer miles.

Less than 36 hours after touching down at PDX airport on Sunday night from a Beijing trip, I again embarked for the Friendly Skies to attend this year's Greenbuild conference here in Chicago. As I write this, I'm looking out from my hotel at Michigan Avenue and downtown Chicago, including two buildings I particularly love: the twin 'corn cob' buildings (officially known as Marina City, and pictured here), by architect Bertrand Goldberg (also seen on a Wilco album cover).

It was funny on the flight to Chicago this morning, because it seemed like half the plane was filled with people attending Greenbuild. Even Mayor Tom Potter was aboard - he'll be speaking at the PDX Lounge opening tonight. And say what you will about our self-described "irrelevant" head Portland honcho, but you've got to love any mayor of a major American city who flies in economy class. I also ran into principals from BOORA Architects, Opsis Architecture, and several others.

For those of you who don't know, Greenbuild is presented by the US Green Building Council, the people who issue the LEED ratings for green buildings. This is my third time around at the conference, after catching previous editions in Austin and Portland. I refused to go the year it was in Atlanta (not a fan of sprawl or the red-state South), and reluctantly missed last year's shindig in Denver. It's fun to be here in Chicago, though. And let me tell you: the Windy City is much prettier than Beijing.

This week in addition to posting here when I can, I will also be a guest blogger for BetterBricks.com, one of this blog's sponsors. I'll focus more on the intricacies of educational sessions I and the other BB people attend on their site, and use my own blog for a looser, more anecdotal perspective.

Speaking of which, we're all feeling a little star struck at this year's Greenbuild because the keynote speaker is not an architect or business leader, but one William Jefferson Clinton, the last legitimately elected president of the USA and a personal hero (for his politics, not the personal stuff that got him erroneously impeached). Maybe if I hang out at McDonald's after the address, I might get a personal audience with Bill over a couple Egg McMuffins.

Oh, and not that this has to do with architecture, but in this land of Big Ten football, I am very proudly prancing around in my Oregon Ducks stocking cap. It's needed, too. It's quite cold here and, appropriately given the city's nickname, very windy.

The Green Skyline

On Wednesday the Cascadia region chapter of the US Green Building Council will be hosting a tour of five buildings in Portland with exemplary sustainable credentials. Three are new projects and two are green re-habs.

The first rehab project, the 200 Market Street building (near Keller Auditorium), was the first multi-tenant building in the United States to earn LEED-EB ("Existing Buildings) certification. I've never written about this building before, but it's in its way a distinctive downtown piece of architecture. According to the Green Skyline tour's website, it's been dubbed "black beauty", for its dark skin of exterior metal and shaded glass. Like it or not, the GBD Architects designed building is a real monolith. I'm not so crazy about it just because of the proportions - it's a Portland stump. But the utter blackness of the building does indeed have a certain appeal.

The other re-hab project on the tour, the Lovejoy-Opsis building at NW 17th and Lovejoy, is a more than 80-year-old structure. I visited Opsis Architecture's offices there a couple years ago and they looked fabulous: lots of wood everywhere, but natural light everywhere. This project received a 'Gold' LEED rating, and I like the fact that they have that kind of sustainability factor but also can create very handsome modern buildings (the early 20th Century place they occupy not withstanding).

In addition to the Glumac offices by Emmons Architects, mentioned in a recent post, there is the LEED 'Platinum' rated OHSU Center for Health And Healing (designed by GBD Architects) and Stephen Epler Hall at Portland State University, designed by Mithun of Seattle, which received a 'Silver' rating. As I've said many times, when it was on the drawing board, I was less excited about the OHSU building than the nearby South Waterfront towers by Peter Busby going in about the same time. Now that they're built I definitely prefer the OHSU building. It's also arguably the greenest piece of architecture, at least on this scale, ever built in Oregon.

'Green Skyline' is a nice, catchy name for this tour, but ironically, this one of the only movements in the history of architecture that isn't rooted in primarily in aesthetics. What does it mean to have a green skyline? When I think of the word skyline, I think of the view we have of a city's major downtown tall buildings from a distance. That's an act of aesthetic observation. Unfortunately, the building on the tour I would actually consider part of a green skyline is the OHSU Center.

But really the purpose of this tour is to go check out projects and meet the people who made them happen, in large part from a practical perspective. That's just as important as the look of the skyline - even more so, arguably. But I'd still like to know what a green skyline in Portland, or elsewhere, might look like.

Have a Green Weekend

Just in case the TBA Festival, the Affair @ the Jupiter Hotel, various concerts and football games aren't your thing, this Saturday brings the sixth annual "Build It Green!" homes tour and information fair.

The tour, featuring 18 remodels and new homes, two high-rise condominiums and one co-housing development, will be held from 11AM to 5PM. The idea, according to my handy press release is to showcase "a variety of ways homeowners are conserving energy and other natural resources while creating beautiful, unique and healthy homes." Tickets are $15 or $10 for one on a bike or bus, or if you're a student or senior.

Some of the homes on the tour are carbon-neutral and/or very low energy users. There are also examples on passive solar and hydronic heating, salvaged materials, cob building, rainwater catching and more. There is also an 1899 Victorian home that was severely damaged by fire that was remodeled green. Another house was purchased for $1, moved to a new site, and fully renovated.

After the tour there is also an "information fair" at Environmental Building Supplies at 819 SE Taylor Street from 4:30 to 7PM.

The "Build It Green!" tour is part of the 2007 Oregon Green and Solar Tours program, coordinated by Solar Oregon and the National Solar Tour, sponsored by the American Solar Energy Society. It's presented locally by the Portland Office of Sustainable Development.

Let There Be (Less) Light?

In the August 20 edition of The New Yorker, David Owen has a fascinating article about outdoor lighting and light pollution. Because it relates to several environmental and health issues from wildlife habitat to human cancer rates, I thought it would be worthwhile mentioning here.

Since beginning to write about green building and sustainable design several years ago, I've also long been interested in the properties of natural light, especially daylighting - how natural light is introduced into architectural spaces. I work from home in front of a window and keep all the lights in the house off until dark. I couldn't ever go back to working under fluorescent lights.

But this article is about something related yet different: how important the absence of light can be, or at least a more judicious application of it. And not just for the sake of astronomers, who can see less with their high-powered telescopes than Galileo could see in the 1600s with the equivalent of a coke bottle - all because of light pollution.

The desire for security has prompted throughout public spaces the increased use of exterior lighting. But many of these fixtures actually inhibit the ability to see or prevent crime. Bright unshielded floodlights are one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting. Yet these "glare bombs", as one lighting expert in the story calls them, "cast much of their light sideways, into the eyes of passersby, or upward, into the sky," Owen explains. "Diminishing the level of nighttime lighting can actually increase visibility."

It reminds me of how home kitchen lighting has changed. It used to be the whole room was flooded with light from overhead. But in a modern kitchen, there's more likely to be task lighting that shines onto countertop workspaces.

Besides visibility issues, outdoor lighting has been found to have a huge effect on both humans and animals. Our 24-hour body clock, or circadian rhythm, is such that we've evolved to experience darkness at night. If we experience too much light at nighttime, it can lead to a reduction in natural melatonin production, which Owen explains is "a cancer-protective agent whose production is severely diminished in people exposed to light at night". One study, for example, showed a strong correlation between breast cancer sufferers and working the night shift. My girlfriend's aunt passed away from breast cancer many years ago, and she routinely worked late hours at a grocery store.

Large levels of artificial outdoor light have also shown to harm a variety of wildlife, particularly in bird and insect populations. In Florida, sea-turtle populations have been devastated by artificial lighting--they come out from the ocean to hatch their eggs and get drawn into town, where they're often run over by cars or attacked by other predators.

Here in Portland, my residence is right outside a big streetlight, and after reading this article (if not before), I'd like to inquire with the city about turning it off, or failing that, replacing it with a less pervasive lamp that focuses more squarely on the street and sidewalk. I'm already pulling enough late nights writing as it is; I don't need my street lamp giving me or the girlfriend cancer.

And as it happens, a review of Portland's outdoor lighting might be able to prompt some large savings through greater energy efficiency. In Owen's article, Calgary is reported to have saved about two million dollars annually by switching to full-cutoff (shielded) and reduced-wattage streetlights. That's a nice potential chunk of change for our city's budget. And maybe I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night with a blanket wrapped around my head in a subconscious search for darkness.

Oh, They're Better

The BetterBricks Awards are returning for the fifth year to Portland. Sponsored by BetterBricks, the commercial initiative of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, the awards acknowledge extraordinary steps taken to design, build and engineer, operate or champion the most energy-efficient commercial buildings. Architects, engineers, developers, building owners, building operators, service providers, facility managers, emerging leaders, and other building professionals are all eligible.

So that of course begs the question: who are some of the important leaders and talents in Portland with respect to sustainable design, and are there certain people out there who haven’t been properly recognized? Everybody knows awards shows are never an exact or fair measurement of who is doing the best and most important work—just look at the Oscars. But it never hurts to celebrate those making a difference, ya know? Go to BetterBricks.com to cast your vote.

Buildings Coping With Heat, Sans AC

Today as I write this, it's barely after noon and already close to 100 degrees, which we should surpass later this afternoon.

Most reading this are in air-conditioned buildings, while a few are toughing it out elsewhere. I work from home, and aside from a small window AC in the bedroom, I'm facing the heat without artificial air. I say this not proudly, but with lament. Still, I have a nice alternative I can take advantage of: the basement.

A basement is something hardly any new homes seem to have. I guess they're more expensive to build because there's the extra digging. But it's quite comfortable down here, even on the worst of heat days. Particularly if a home doesn't have AC or a heat pump, thus depending natural ventilation, I'd think surviving the summer would be worth the extra digging or expense, don't you?

Incidentally, I'm curious if there are architects or others enduring the heat today in green buildings with natural ventilation and no AC. How is your space holding up? When I've heard sustainable design enthusiasts talk about using things like thermal mass from concrete, thermal white membranes on the roof, exterior shading and all that stuff, it sounds great - until you get to a 100-degree day. Can any building without AC, no matter how green its design and materials, survive comfortably when we hit the century mark?

Tightened Energy Efficiency Standards at USGBC

The US Green Building Council announced today that all future LEED certified projects will be required to achieve at least two 'Optimize Energy Performance' points on the rating system's scorecard. This will improve average the energy performance of all LEED certified green buildings by 14% for new construction and 7% for existing buildings. “Improving energy performance will immediately increase the LEED Green Building Rating System's impact in reducing building energy related greenhouse gas emissions,” said Tom Hicks of the USGBC.

The move is part of an eight-point agenda passed last November by the USGBC’s Board of Directors to address climate change and buildings. It's really more like a 9-point agenda, because #8 is really two. (Not that I'm being nitpicky, of course.) Anyway, here's the list. Where's Kasey Casem when you need him?

(1) 50% CO2 reduction: all new commercial LEED projects are required to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% when compared to current emission levels.

(2) Increased energy reduction prerequisites: all LEED projects must achieve at least two energy and optimization credits (today's announcement).

(3) Implementation of a carbon dioxide offset program.

(4) Continuous process improvement incentives: all LEED for New construction and Core and Shell buildings that reach certification will automatically (at no cost) be registered for LEED for Existing Buildings.

(5) Pushing the envelop on performance - certification fees rebates for 'Platinum' rated buildings

(6) By the end of 2007, the USGBC as an organization will be 100% carbon neutral.

(7) Portfolio performance program: the long-term goal of this program is to recognize companies for high environmental performance across their portfolios.

(8) Carbon reduction education and industry challenge: the USGBC will launch a new educational program to help industry professionals gain the knowledge they need to apply design and construction practices that are energy efficient and have immediate and measurable impact on CO2 emissions. By 2010, there will be 100,000 LEED certified commercial buildings and one million certified homes. By 2020, there will be one million LEED certified commercial buildings and ten million certified homes.