Ed Mazria (photo by Jamey Stilli)
It must be autumn because the art and design events are suddenly coming at a fast and furious pace. So on the heels of the Architecture + Design Festival, the EcoDistricts 2010 conference, the Green Champions summit, and various homes tours comes another lecture, but one very much worthwhile: by Architecture 2030 founder Edward Mazria.
Mazria is speaking as part of the daylong Green Day Forum at the Gerding Theater, an annual event that brings together Northwest regional leaders in green building, sustainability and climate change to explore carbon mitigation in the built environment. This year's conference, entitled "Marking the Milestones, Adding Momentum," will focus on the benchmarks that enable the industry to evaluate progress and impacts, and will take a critical look at how we measure the momentum of building sustainably and the resulting market transformation. The conference, hosted by the Earth Advantage Institute will highlight innovative strategies that seek to bridge industry gaps and scale up efforts to mitigate climate change.”
Mazria’s Architecture 2030 is a research organization focused on reducing the impact of the built environment on global warming. This comes on the heels of an already distinguished career of award-winning architecture and planning projects spanning thirty-five years. He is the author of numerous published works, including The Passive Solar Energy Book.
Seasonal solar orientation illustration from The Passive Solar Energy Book
Most recently, Mr. Mazria has reshaped the national and international dialogue on climate change to incorporate building design and the building sector. He developed and issued the 2030 Challenge, a measured and achievable strategy to dramatically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and fossil-fuel consumption by the year 2030.
The annual 2010 Sustainable Design Survey of 240 design industry leaders in the U.S. by the Design Futures Council ranked Architecture 2030 first among industry leaders in 'leadership and resource deployment' to move sustainability issues forward in the U.S. and identified Mazria as one of the nation's leading 'role models' for green and sustainable design.
Mazria’s lecture also comes at a key time. This week code and government officials meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina voted to improve the 2012 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) standard by 30% beyond its 2006 strictures, as called for by Architecture 2030 and by a large coalition including the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Mazria's Rio Grande Conservatory in the Albuquerque Biological Park
“This is the first step on our way to carbon neutral buildings by 2030,” said Mazria. “The next steps include timely state and local government adoption of the new code and improving the IECC code standard by 50% beyond 2006 IECC in 2015.” Doing so would meet the next energy reduction target called for by the 2030 Challenge and by legislation passed in the House of Representatives (HR.2454) and in Senate Bills S.1462 and S.3464.
At the meeting, government voting representatives also rejected efforts by some to weaken the IECC’s efficiency standard by allowing less building improvements in exchange for more efficient equipment. “Efficiency shouldn’t be an either/or proposition,” said William Fay, EECC Executive Director.. “We need to improve the efficiency of both our building envelopes and our equipment.”
Admission to The Green Day Forum is a bit steep at $125 ($69 for students), although that comes with not just Mazria's lecture but a full slate of speakers including Umpqua Bank's Brian Alfano, Portland State University urban studies professor Loren Lutzenhiser, Portland Development Commission board member and Glumac president Steven Strauss, and the Energy Trust's Kendall Youngblood. Besides, Mazria's own words may be all the motivation one needs:
"Every time we design a building, we set up its energy consumption pattern for the next 50 to 100 years."
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