In the course of just a few hours I watched the weather outside my home office change from intense snow pellets to big fluffy snowflakes, then to steady rain and finally to a foggy drizzle, all of which were accompanied by blustery winds. At some point I realized that the common thread running through my response to all those weather elements took the form of my appreciation for the shelter I enjoyed.

The hemlocks, firs and cedars…even the spring flowers…seemed to take it all in stride, reminding me of just how detached - and in many ways fragile and vulnerable - our human species has become.

Almost daily we face a barrage of headlines, news reports and heartbreaking images of people in this country, and all around the world, whose basic built environment has been denied them or reduced to ruins by natural disasters, extreme weather events or, perhaps worse, by destruction brought about at the hands of man. And yet, it remains so easy for many of us to take this most fundamental of necessities for granted.

Cover. Protection. Refuge. At the core of the built environment is our common desire and commitment to provide safe places for people as they go about their lives, especially in unusual or threatening situations. And while it is unlikely that we will ever devise completely foolproof, 100% guaranteed protection in the buildings we design and construct, we can still make that part of our goal if only we choose to.

Already this year, numerous communities have been ravaged by outrageous weather events even as recovery is underway from previous tragedies…tornados, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis. Property damage totaling into the billions of dollars strain federal and regional relief programs and yet don’t even begin to address the loss of life and human suffering.

Shelter needs not only to be attainable, it must be sustainable. The building industry needs to embrace vision, inspiration and innovation in a unified response to the growing demands for homes, neighborhoods and communities that provide safe dwellings and all the kinds of places where we work and play.

Let’s commit to sustainable solutions to help meet the present and future challenges we’ll all be facing as we strive to provide shelter in an increasingly unpredictable world.

Hard as it is to imagine, it’s already time for our outdoor living issue for 2012 and that got me to thinking about a really interesting and informative book I came across called “The New American Landscape”, edited by Thomas Christopher (Timber Press, Inc. 2011), in which I found some stunning statistics about lawns in America.

The book says that according to studies of NASA satellite imaging the country’s number one irrigated crop is, you guessed it, lawn grass. In fact, American lawns cover more than 40,000 square miles, ironically, a land area larger than the state of Kentucky.

It goes on to state that “a 2002 Harris Survey suggests as a nation we spend $28.9 billion yearly on lawns” (that’s about $1,200 per household) and that we use three times as much synthetic pesticide on our laws as we do per acre of agricultural crops, or about 67 million pounds annually according to the Safer Pest Control Project.

Another startling set of numbers comes courtesy of the EPA: “54 million Americans mow their lawns each weekend, using 800 million gallons of gas per year and producing tons of air pollutant…..one older gas-powered mower emits the same pollutants as forty-three cars being driven 12,000 miles per year.” Even newer models of mowers emit “eleven times the pollutants of a new car.”

Adding a final insult to injury, it is reported that “seventeen million gallons of fuel, mostly gasoline, are spilled each year while refueling lawn equipment.”

But the stats of greatest concern are about water. Between fifty and seventy percent of residential water use is attributed to landscape, mostly lawns, translating to roughly ten thousand gallons of water per summer for each one thousand square feet of lawn.
So how did we come to find ourselves on this treadmill of “water, fertilize, mow…water, fertilize, mow” anyway?

The answer is more complex than it might seem at first blush. I remember building in a Southwestern desert climate city that at one time required projects to meet certain minimum percentage of turf in the landscape plan, an insane regulation that was later reversed in order to limit the amount of turf and other water guzzling landscape plants/trees in new projects.

We have seen public policy go to some pretty extreme measures to reduce water demand for landscape. The Southern Nevada Water Authority even offered homeowners $1.50 a square foot for removing grass from their landscape.

May I humbly offer that we might just want to use some common sense?
 

Arguably Shakespeare’s most recognizable character, Juliet Capulet, captures the play’s central theme and struggle in one simple line after asking her beloved Romeo Montague “what is in a name?”

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

It’s a message we can all take to heart as we grapple with how to market products, goods and services to the ever expanding green economy, especially the green building sector. And it’s been a problem since the early days of the movement.

When we started offering media services to companies interested in the green building arena we assumed, like many others encouraging sustainable business, that our major concern would be “greenwashing” by those who would over-promise and under-deliver, folks who would exaggerate claims about the environmentally friendly aspects of their offerings.

However, what we actually encountered was quite different. We rarely came across manufacturers who deliberately inflated their stories but quite the reverse. There were, and still are, serious concerns on the part of many that they will be challenged by skeptics, called out very publicly if they make claims they cannot categorically prove.

That fact, as much as any other single reason, may explain why third-party certifications and approvals have gained so much importance in the world of sustainability. It is one thing to say you’re green yourself, it’s quite another to have an endorsement from a trusted outside source.

But not every product or system has access to accepted criteria, testing and verification. Those tools simply don’t exist in every case. And that leaves companies wondering how they can safely get their message to potential customers.

Enter Shakespeare’s underlying message…

The rose is not sweet because of what it’s called. The rose is sweet because of what it is. Green is not just an ingredient, a feature or an attribute. Green is an outcome, an added benefit, a by-product of doing something well.

Green building is quality building, and green products are – more than anything else- quality products. You don’t have to call them green, just build in the right ingredients…responsible materials and processes, durability, resource efficiency, water and energy savings, response to indoor air/environment concerns…build in the quality and value.

That’s the story you need to tell. The green message will take care of itself, and your success will smell just as sweet.
 

OK, I’ll happily admit that I’m a real soft touch for old dogs, old trucks (you can easily tell how comfortable I am leaning against this cherry ’51 Chevy!), and old buildings, like the one housing the clocktower featured in our February 2012 issue.

These days I don’t have much time for close involvement with projects other than those in our VISION House® series and that means I have little direct participation with homeowners compared to a few years ago. So even though I’m regularly contacted by someone requesting my involvement in a particular project I’m rarely able to make an exception just due to time limitations.

But when a remodeler acquaintance asked me to look at an historic structure in New Orleans’ warehouse district I couldn’t resist the invitation. She and the property owners were struggling with design solutions in hopes of producing results that would do justice to an opportunity as unique and memorable as this. They offered me a chance to be involved and after one visit there was no way I could refuse.

My reward was that I got to know the creative and stubbornly determined owners, learned the fascinating story of their project, and had a chance to offer a little input along the way, while helping to make connections with some of the manufacturers of the essential products and systems that were needed to help assure maximum (and sustainable) results for this extraordinary residence.

I’ve long maintained that most existing buildings inherently have a “green” head start by virtue of the simple fact that they are already in place. The environmental costs for the land, materials and other resources required to construct them have already been paid and there’s no going back, so why not reuse rather than replace whenever possible? Still, they come with their own set of special concerns as well, like structural uncertainty, outdated and obsolete systems and fixtures, logistical difficulties, and code and safety challenges, just to name a few.

It is no small task to incorporate code compliant plumbing, electrical components, fire protection, controls and appliances (not to mention modern air conditioning and ventilation, sound attenuation, insulation, modern glazing, air and moisture barriers, etc.) into a traditional masonry and heavy timber structure where few surfaces are plumb or level, square corners are almost nonexistent and the utilities are perhaps a century old, but the result is more than worth the effort!

I hope you enjoy reading about the clocktower as much I enjoyed being involved.
 

A favorite story of mine comes from an interview with Thomas Edison who, late in his life, reportedly confided that if he "had known anything about metallurgy" he would never have invented the incandescent light bulb, because he "would have known it is impossible".

The  human imagination may be among the most powerful forces in the universe, but without the courage to exercise it, to challenge "conventional wisdom" and to embrace the endless possibilities, we are doomed to go along with outdated ideas and obsolete concepts that not only perpetuate our ignorance, but actually promote collective laziness and conservatism, leaving us increasingly unwilling to accept change, even when it is clearly in our own best interest.

The path of least resistance is found by going along with accepted thinking, because we don't want to risk the embarrassment of being wrong, or simply because we assume that others already agree with whatever is being said. Sadly, that is a path to nowhere.

Worse yet, we fool ourselves into believing we are part of the "solution" by participating in established institutions who on the surface appear to be seeking progress but who, in fact, use us to advance predetermined agendas. Their process has been perfectly described as "transactional, not deliverative" and they are masters and herding the rest of us in directions of their choosing.

Fortunately, there is also another ytpe of person who has the intellectual capacity and the courage to challenge the status quo, to confront conventional pluralistic ignorance and push the boundaries of the existing comfort zone.

Begun in 2002, and presented biennially in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon has challenged collegiate teams from a variety of countries to "design, build and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive".

The 2011 Solar Decathlon provided more than 350,000 house visits over a ten day period, and information to millions more across the globe through a wide variety of media.  Additionally, more than 30 onsite public workshops were held, as well as a day of workshops dedicated to builders and industry.  Conducted on the National Mall in Washingotn, the event featured 19 teams from as nearby as Maryland and from as far away as New Zealand.

As you can see in our January issue, the innovative solutions were as diverse and imaginative as you might expect, but they shared some commonalities too - especially a fearless pursuit of knowledge and solutions for a better future.