GREENSAW Blog: June 2010

Friday, June 25, 2010

Friday Night Green Fights

So our first Friday Night Green Fights was pretty informal, the product of a winter's worth of frustration. Like a bunch of raccoons stuck inside an upright piano we were, ready to flex our wings and - well, you get the picture. We had some swingin to get out.

If you can't convince people to do the green sustainable thing with the force of a moral argument, why not tell them, "Hey, unless you are involved in a green trade, then you can't get in the boxing ring and get beat up!"

Well, that's exactly what we did. The only requirement to box was that you be involved in some sort of business that emphasizes sustainablility. Something green, anything green. We would consider all applications. Not that we had that many - but we had enough.

It saved us money on company therapy. We wore 16-ounce gloves, big balloons, just enough to tap the riser of blood in the nose. The fightcard, drawn up on the spot, was:

(Samir cheated and used an axe)

Brian Eckert vs. Eric King
Samir Patel vs. David Wing
Niko Dyshniku vs. Reed Anderson
Angelo Anastasio vs. Brendan Jones
Reed Anderson vs. Brendan Jones

Please don't tell the Boxing Federation, or the state commissioner. We should have used more furniture blankets to cover edges of the table, and a mat of some sort instead of the concrete floor wouldn't have been the worst idea.

At first one corner of the ring was the tablesaw, then someone had the bright idea to unplug it, then someone had the bright idea to lower the blade, then someone had the bright idea to turn it around so it wasn't facing the ring, then someone had the bright idea not to use a tablesaw at all for a ring boundary. We're all thinkers here.

In any case, the photos speak for themselves. We went on to the Piazza afterward to watch the Flyers beat Chicago. For that night, at least, we were all quite content.

posted by Brendan Jones @ 6:51 AM 0 comments

Thursday, June 3, 2010

LEED's Lamentable Lacunae

In his New York Times Op-ed piece “Don’t LEED Us Astray” (10 May 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/opinion/20Appelbaum.html) Alec Appelbaum addresses an essential problem of the LEED rating system: it measures the possibility of a building performing in a sustainable manner, instead of the building’s actual performance. This is a valid and understandable complaint. However, there exists an additional lack in the LEED rating system that is much more grave: its myopic focus on new build construction.

On the one hand, the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a standard developed by the United States Green Building Council – note the word “building.” Based on a system started in the United Kingdom called BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method), LEED came into existence in 1998. Today, LEED is the nation’s most recognized rating system for environmental standards.

As Mr. Appelbaum notes, for better or worse, LEED has become the torchbearer for sustainable building. Structures such as 1 Bryant Park aspire to LEED’s highest rating: platinum. While it is unrealistic to believe that all new building will come to a halt, LEED needs to award substantially more points for the reuse of existing building stock, and employment of reclaimed materials in construction.

As it stands now, LEED awards one point – as much as you would get for screwing in a bike rack in front of the building – for using an existing structure. This boggles the mind. I could build a zero energy thermodynamically perfect house, and I’d still be in the red when it came to expenditure of fossil fuels because of the energy it took to create this structure in the first place. Constructing a LEED platinum building uses considerably more fossil fuels than a typical renovation of an existing structure.

Factors that contribute to this are: transportation of waste material; landfill or incinerator use; oil burned to remove structure; residual planetary impact of the waste as it biodegrades. My company, for example, refuses to take on new build jobs, including additions. Instead, we believe in innovative design solutions, and a re-envisioning of space in order to meet a client’s goals for their space.

Recently, we have been in the process of building a LEED Platinum home and commercial space in Philadelpia’s Fishtown area. As it stands, the property is a 6500 square foot shell. However, the brick walls are in fine shape, and most of the joists will continue to do work for years down the line. The previous general contractor on the job refused the job, because he said the building should just be ripped down.

We approach it differently. Our first step in deconstruction will be to salvage all the flooring and set aside the re-usable material for re-use in the finished building. The other material we will re-mill for use elsewhere. The remainder of the deconstruction material will be sorted and portioned out for re-use, with the goal being 100% recycling. Not unlike the goal of the Native Americans to use every part of the animal, instead of just the meat.

In addition, over 90% of our framing material will be coming from struck movie sets in the Philadelphia area. Instead of dumping the used TJIs and dimensional lumber, we have arranged to purchase and clean up the lumber for re-use. All our kitchen and bathroom cabinetry will be fashioned from local reclaimed material – milled up joists, staves from old water towers, siding from local barns.

With these moves, we have taken care of most of the framing, the cabinetry, and a large chunk of the floors – the remainder will be reclaimed from elsewhere. How much does LEED award us? Half a point for each section. We end up with a point and a half – again, half a point more for what we would get with a bike rack out front.

As we speak, in Las Vegas and California, a mini-building boom occurs. Despite extensive tracts of unused and empty housing surrounding cities, builders continue to build new. This is the most egregious example of America’s need to build, build, build. In the same way we are addicted to oil, we are also addicted to creation of new buildings.

LEED needs to present a counterpoint, and award points for it. I would like to take this opportunity to present one: SlowBuild. We have been following the tenets of this philosophy since the inception of our company. Energy and thought are expended on figuring out how best to incorporate existing building stock and material into a finished project. The act of creation engages the design mind, reclaimed material, and the environment. Sustainability, job creation, and a consciousness of the physical surrounding in which the building stands are central goals.

The United States Green Building Council has a great weight on its shoulders. Other rating systems – the Living Building Council, Passive House, Green Globes – carry little weight with the public, or anyone else. While Mr. Applebaum points out a central problem on the energy front, we need to take a step back and look at the larger picture. LEED should be considerably more aggressive in rewarding builders for a thoughtful and considered approach, using existing building stock and reclaimed material at every possible turn.

Labels: Architectural salvage, green builders, Green building, Greensaw, LEED, New York Times, reclaim, recycle

posted by Brendan Jones @ 6:19 AM 4 comments

A blog addressing the importance of re-using material, and building with existing structures. A strong emphasis on architectural salvage, as well as the people that make the difficult work possible.

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