Beyond LEED:

The future of sustainable design

Kip Richardson - Ankrom Moisan Architects

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 Imagine the future…

…by understanding how we got to the present

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 Green is not a trend

We are in the middle of a transition in human evolution comparable

to the shift from the middle ages to the renaissance

Green is not a trend. It is an essential part of a long term change in how we think
about the world.

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 Primitive reality:
we were embedded in
the natural world and we
lived in harmony with
nature.

In the beginning we were a part of nature and we had a deep respect for all that
eco-systems provided for us. Nature was seen as a living entity, our mother, and it
was taboo to violate her by cutting her hair (deforestation) or mining (use your own
metaphor). Unfortunately, much of our understanding of nature was steeped in
superstition and myth. If there was a natural disaster, we sacrificed a virgin to
appease Mother nature. Not a good response.

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 Then along
came
Sir Isaac….

Then along came Sir Isaac Newton, who said, “enough of this superstitious
nonsense, let’s get scientific here.”

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The reality of classical
Newtonian physics:
The universe is a machine

According to Newton, the universe is broken down into separate, discreet parts (atoms). Man is seen
as separate from nature and nature is no longer seen as alive in the sense it once was. As Biologist
Janine Benyus puts it, “once nature was demoted to a dead and soulless assemblage of atoms, it
became socially acceptable to exert our dominion over her.”

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 The beginning of the

disintegration
of our relationship with nature

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 The beginning of the

Dis - integration
of man and nature

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 The industrial
revolution:
The rise of the
machine age

This new way of thinking gave rise to the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, which
originally referred to the developments that transformed Great Britain, between
1750 and 1830, from a largely rural population making a living almost entirely from
agriculture to a town-centered society engaged increasingly in factory manufacture.

The new field of Economics was born. Economies were measured by “throughput,”
or how many resources they transformed into products each year.

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 Natural Capitalism:
Eco-systems services
life support that natural
systems provide humans

air – carbon sequestration

water – quality & control
photosynthesis – pollination,
food production, energy
storage
climate balance
biodiversity
toxin & waste absorption

There were two fatal flaws in the Industrial revolution. First, the new field of
Economics didn’t include the services our eco-system provides for us as part of the
balance sheet: clean air, carbon sequestration, water quality & control,
photosynthesis, pollination, food production, energy storage, climate balance,
biodiversity, toxin & waste absorption, etc. These were considered “externalities,”
and not accounted for. However, it’s estimated that nature does about $35 trillion
dollars a year in services to mankind. To put that in perspective, all of the
economies of the world add up to about $18 trillion dollars. In current economics
this is not part of the equation. So, for example, if we were to charge the actual cost
of gas, both in terms of its production and its cost to the environment, it might be
more like $12 a gallon, with more than half of the price going to clean up the
damage that CO2 from cars is doing to the environment.

“I think what has proved successful in determining the value of eco-systems

services is cases where services are valued in comparison to a set of policy
options. The most famous example would be New York City's water supply. Instead
of building a $8 billion water purification plant as initially proposed, New York City
decided to spend $1.5 billion to restore the watershed in the Catskill Mountains,
which provided the same amount of clean drinking water as the purification plant.
This isn't to say that the watershed is worth $1.5 billion; the project provides
additional services such as carbon storage and recreational and cultural services at
no additional cost. The point here is that decision makers saw that the Catskill
watershed, if managed appropriately, could provide the same water purification
services as the planned filtration plant, but at much lower cost.” – Karen Bennett,
World Resources Institute
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 Sustainable?
Worldwide, for every truckload of product with lasting
value, we produce 32 truckloads of waste. We cannot
continue to dig up the earth and turn it to waste.
- Ray Anderson, industrial engineer, head of Interface, Inc.

The other fatal flaw of the industrial revolution: it was now possible to produce more
waste than the earth could easily absorb.

According to Sir Nicholas Stern, Economic Advisor to her majesty’s government of

England, 20% of global GDP (Gross Domestic Product) could be lost due to global
warming and its effects if we don’t act soon. The good news is we could avoid the
worst at a cost of only about 1% of GDP annually if we change our accounting
systems now to include eco-systems services.

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 Reality is merely
an illusion, albeit a
very persistent
one.“

- Albert Einstein

The machine model of the universe – our understanding of reality - was the
dominant paradigm for centuries. Then along came Albert Einstein, Nels Bohr and
the Quantum Physicists.

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The reality of
Quantum
Physics

The universe is
a living system

A web of life

Einstein and his fellow physicists determined that the universe is not a machine, it
is, at its most fundamental, a web of interconnected and interdependent
relationships. In the subatomic world things cannot be understood as isolated
entities, but only as integrated parts of the whole – a living system, a web of life.

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 The paradigm shift:
• The old mindset: looking at the world as a machine,
separate and distinct from ourselves.
• The new mindset: looking at the world as a living
system in which we are an integral part

This shift in understanding gave birth to the current environmental movement.

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 The environmental movement

“The conservation of natural

resources is the fundamental
problem. Unless we solve that
problem it will avail us little to
solve all others”
– Theodore Roosevelt

Now that’s my kind of conservative Republican.

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Solar panels on the Carter White House

The movement continued to gain momentum during the 20th century, although
OPEC attempted to undermine this new way of thinking by cutting the cost of oil
every time green got close to the tipping point of taking hold of our consciousness.

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 The state of sustainable design in hospitality:

November 2005 – Green? Who cares?

Until very recently, many people still were operating under the old paradigm of the
industrial revolution. I attended the AHLA conference in November, 2005. There
was a panel of hospitality industry leaders on the first day, CEOs of some of the
leading hotel brands in the world. Very intelligent people who really understand the
industry. They talked at length about the cost of energy and how it was undermining
the bottom line, but there was absolutely no mention of green or sustainable design.
I got up and asked if any of them were considering adopting green strategies. They
looked at me like I was an alien. I might as well have asked, “are you planning on
building any hotels on Venus?” Their answer was a curt, “there’s no consumer
demand and it doesn’t make sense financially.”

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 Green gets hip
G-living: the Contemporary Green Lifestyle Network

recycled chairs electric cars

Shortly after that, Green hit the tipping point.

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 Every magazine in the country does a green issue

Town & Country Vanity Fair Elle Fashion

Nearly every magazine in the country has done a green issue.

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Green design literature is everywhere

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 The Stars Align

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Edward Norton

Movie stars have raised Green’s visibility.

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 Green cuts across demographics

from millennials to boomers, from conservatives to liberals

One reason for Green’s rise to the forefront of people’s consciousness is that it is a
universal concern. The environment effects everyone.

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 Green is the new color
hotel visitors are searching for*

A recent survey:
• 65% of travelers want to know
what companies are doing to
protect the environment
• 96% think hotels should be
responsible for protecting the
Sorting food for composting
environment

*Portland Business Journal headline, April 2007

And contrary to those CEO’s observation, there is significant consumer demand and
it is growing rapidly.

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 Green + Social Responsibility

That same survey:

• 75% of travelers think hotels should be responsible for helping
relieve poverty in the local community
• 70% would pay more to stay in a hotel that contributes to the
community

Green and Social responsibility are two aspects of the same issue. If we are
embedded in a web of life, then not only do our actions effect the natural
environment, they directly effect the human population. We are quite literally “all in
this together.”

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 Social Responsibility

*the hotel you choose can make the difference between …

• A child going hungry or being fed

• A wildlife habitat being protected or destroyed
• A woman giving birth to a healthy child or one infected with
HIV

*May 2007 Traveler Magazine

As a result, the travel industry is beginning to tackle social issues from poverty to
health care.

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 Social Responsibility

The national press and social watchdog organizations continue to move social
responsibility into the forefront of national consciousness.

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 Why did
Green
reach the
tipping
point?

Nothing like a crisis to get our attention. “What changed in the US with Hurricane
Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences” – Al Gore

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 Crisis?
10 years to reduce global
greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions in order to
avoid catastrophic
climate change.

Until recently, the demand for cheap energy has outweighed people’s concern
about global warming. That has changed.

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 A crisis of perception:

The source of all suffering is

not understanding the true nature of reality

There is a saying in Eastern Wisdom traditions that “the source of all suffering is not
understanding the true nature of reality.” At its heart, this is about fully
understanding the paradigm shift in our relationship to nature and each other.

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 The Chinese symbol for crisis
wēijī

jī: incipient moment; crucial

wēi: danger point when something
begins or changes

We are at the proverbial fork in the road. The Chinese recognize that within crisis
there is the opportunity for great change.

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 The nature of change:
transition

neutral
ending beginning
zone

creativity, renewal, development

We are in a period of transition, which is a time of creativity, renewal and

development, and a time of tremendous opportunity…

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 The mindset shift

The
now The solar
industrial
age
age

creativity, renewal, development

… a transition from the dark skies of the Industrial Age to the light filled potential of
the Solar Age.

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 The rate of change:
Consumer perceptions

Development

One of the challenges to taking advantage of these opportunities is the rate of

change. It takes 3 to 5 years to develop a project. Given how much consumer
awareness has changed in the past 3 years, how far will we need push the
sustainable design envelope to anticipate consumer needs and preferences 3-5
years from now? Not to mention the fact that global warming is occurring at a much
faster rate than scientists predicted. I believe the time is right for bold action.

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 “We can't solve problems
by using the same kind of

thinking
we used when we created them."
- Albert Einstein

The biggest challenge to accomplishing this lies within us.

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 The future of sustainable design

There is a spectrum of sustainable design strategies that can be integrated into a

project. LEED is just the beginning.

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 21 LEED projects certified or registered

Working in the Northwest we have had the opportunity to work with developers who
are pushing the sustainable design envelope. We currently have 21 projects that
are either LEED certified or registered for LEED.

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 LEED Platinum

senior housing

Our projects include Mirabella, a senior housing project under construction that is
LEED registered with a goal of Platinum.

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 sustainable design:

"Development that meets the

needs of the present without
compromising future
generations’ ability to meet their
own needs.“

We are quickly getting to the point where we can achieve what has traditionally
been considered the definition of sustainable design.

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 sustaining design:

not just less bad, not even

net zero, but net positive

We think we can and must do even better. As architect William McDonough puts it,
“If your marriage is just ‘sustainable,’ I feel sorry for you. Why choose a meager,
limiting diet when we can create real sustenance with designs as safe, nutritious
and productive as those nature gives us.”

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 “In 5 years our projects will
produce more energy than they
consume and consume more
waste than they produce.”
- Mark Edlen,
Gerding Edlen Development, 2007

Some of our clients are moving beyond LEED into Living Buildings. Mark Edlen is a
serious Portland developer and businessman who sees the potential in sustainable
design. He believes that when his projects produce more energy than they consume
he will be generating a significant income stream from the production of alternative
energy – primarily solar and wind – that he can sell back to the grid.

The project shown is Elleven, the first LEED Gold condo in California, designed by
Ankrom Moisan and developed by South Group, a partnership between Gerding
Edlen and Williams and Dame Development.

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 The Living Building Challenge

1. Harvest all water and energy needs on site.

2. Are adapted specifically to site and evolve as conditions change.

3. Operate pollution-free and generate no wastes that aren't useful for some other
process in the building or immediate environment.

4. Promote the health and well-being of all inhabitants, as a healthy ecosystem does.

5. Have integrated systems that maximize efficiency and comfort.

6. Improve the health and diversity of the local ecosystem rather than degrade it.

7. Be beautiful and inspire us to dream.

We believe we have to completely rethink design.

Jason Frederick McLennan, head of the Cascadia Chapter of the USGBC and an
architect with BNIM Architects puts it this way:
“For too long now the machine has been the primary metaphor for our buildings,
which implies a relationship with nature that is exploitative and relies on brute force
combined with great amounts of energy to solve problems. It is a nineteenth-century
model that has been carried forth into the twenty-first century. I found myself
searching for a metaphor that would replace the machine. I found it in a tiny flower.
Here was a thriving plant that not only had evolved perfectly to suit its environment,
but also enriched it, retaining soil, providing habitat, and storing rainwater as
needed. It was a perfect metaphor for the building of the future. Bucky Fuller once
said, "We do not seek to imitate nature, but rather to find the principles she uses."
By following these basic principles we can imagine whole cities operating like
complex ecosystems, processing water and waste while generating energy. I
decided to call the future of architecture a future of living buildings. Like their
flowering counterparts, living buildings operate from seven simple principles.”

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 A living building
• generates its own
energy with
renewable resources
• captures and treats
rainwater on site
• uses resources
efficiently and for
maximum beauty
• generates no waste
• Improves the
ecosystem

A client in Seattle asked Ankrom Moisan to design a condo hotel that would
incorporate the living building challenge principles. This is the concept we
developed.

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A key attribute of the project was the building’s form. In order to capture the energy
from the high winds that blow through the urban high rise environment, the
building’s shape helps funnel wind through a diverter and into a large wind turbine,
which transfers the wind energy into the building’s core for storage.

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 generates all of its own energy with renewable resources

Integrated solar panels that track the sun

This is a net positive building design for a project in Independence, Oregon, which
would generate more energy than it consumes and consume more waste than it
produces. It’s primary source of energy would be from solar panels that track the
sun.

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 generates energy with renewable resources

Geothermal energy

This hospital remodel and expansion, Sky Lakes Medical Center in Klamath Falls,
Oregon, uses geothermal heat for a large percentage of its energy needs.

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 Captures rainwater and treats it on site

Sustainable design can be playful as well as effective. The courtyard of this housing
project in Portland features a green roof (above the below grade parking) that
captures, conveys and creatively displays storm water run-off. Three copper
downspouts channel rainwater into detention basins and a cistern in the courtyard.
The water is then re-circulated across sculptural metal boxes pierced by glass
buttons and illuminated by interior lights, creating a playful visual display and a
soothing sound for residents. Rainwater can be detained for 30 hours after a storm,
allowing time for sediments to settle out and the water to be cleansed naturally.

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 vertical farms:
Toronto, New York, Paris (approved design)
20 stories = 15,000 fed

This project, designed by SOA architects, layers together levels of organic farms
and housing, with a farmer’s market on the ground floor. The farmer can live on site,
plant and harvest the crops and then take them down an elevator to sell them at
street level.

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 Buildings that consume waste

Richard Meier’s smog

eating church in Rome

In this project by Richard Meier, titanium dioxide particles were added to the cement
as the church was being built to ensure it stayed white, and clean, by resisting
Rome's notorious smog. But then the company that made the cement for the church
made a startling discovery. As research went on they discovered it destroyed
pollutants in the air. When the titanium dioxide absorbs ultraviolet light, it becomes
powerfully reactive, breaking down pollutants that come in contact with the
concrete.

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 Regenerative Design
Cradle to cradle:
Waste equals food

This way of thinking about design goes beyond buildings and extends to products.
Cradle to Cradle is a term coined by John Stahel, which means to develop cyclical
systems that eliminate waste by design. Architect William McDonough asks: “Why
not shift the focus of green design from managing the environmental impact of a
destructive system to creating buildings and materials that generate wholly positive
effects for people and nature? This changes the entire context in which design
decisions are made. Rather than asking, 'How do I meet today's environmental
standards?' designers would begin to ask, 'How do my design decisions make
sense in the overarching context of the natural world?'"

One way to do that is think of waste as food. For example, people breath oxygen
and exhale carbon dioxide. Trees take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. A
simple zero waste system.

As part of this thinking it is critical that we stay within our current solar income,
which means to live within the energy currently provided by the sun. The sun
provides 5000 times the energy we currently need. We just have to find a way to
use it efficiently.

The earth has always, and will always, run almost entirely on solar energy. With the
exception of nuclear energy, which has a number of problems, it’s all we have.
Fossil fuels are merely animal remains that contain embedded solar energy, which
we process and then burn to release the energy. Burning wood releases its
embedded solar energy. By burning natural resources for energy we are going into
solar debt – not staying within our current solar income. 49
Metolian
Positive impact
Development

This is an Ankrom Moisan project in Central Oregon in which our client asked us to
design a resort that would be completely off the grid. The land had some previous
development that had compromised the natural environment and our project scope
includes repairing the site’s environmental degradation through the design and
development process.

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Metolian
• Off the grid
• Restore the
environment
• Integrated design

We are currently developing the master plan and sustainable design strategies to
help achieve the client’s goals, using regenerative principles as the guiding force.

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 To integrate human aspirations

with natural systems

we must model our work

on the greatest designer of all –

nature itself.

- Anthony Brown, director, ECOSA Institute, Prescott, AZ

To come full circle, as our relationship with the natural environment has
changed, we have realized that there is much to learn from nature.

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 Biomimicry

Biomimicry is a developing science that studies nature for lessons we can apply to
human endeavors.

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 Biomimicry
• Self assembly
• Green chemistry: doesn’t use heat, beat and treat
• Carbon dioxide as a feedstock
• The power of shape – color without pigments

Just a few of the lessons we have learned from nature:

The power of self assembly; for example, the way crystals form in a super-saturated
solution
Green chemistry, which doesn’t use heat, beat and treat
The notion of no waste systems; for example, using carbon dioxide as a feedstock
The power of shape – color without pigments.

In nature, life tends to optimize, not maximize. Maximization is an addiction based

on the mistaken thought that more is better. More is not always better. Balance is
what we should be seeking, which is optimization. Diet is the perfect example. One
glass of wine may be good for your digestion, but 20 glasses of wine will make you
fall on your face because your life systems will shut down.

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 consider the spider

According to Janine Benyus, co-chair of The Biomimicry Guild: “How we make

things in our industrial process is a 180 degrees different from how life makes
things. To make Kevlar for example, our toughest material, we take petroleum, heat
it up to about 1400 degrees, boil it in sulfuric acid and then pull it out under
enormous pressure. This beautiful orb-weaver spider is taking flies and crickets
and transforming them in water in its abdomen at room temperature and what
comes out is a material that’s five times stronger than steel. If you were able to
scale up this spider web it would stop a 747 in flight. That’s how strong it is. This is
the kind of manufacturing process we envision for the future”

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 Pigment-free Color

Butterfly-inspired Pigment-free Color

The feathers, scales, and exoskeletons of iridescent birds, butterflies, and beetles
have structural features that cause light to diffract and interfere in ways that amplify
certain wavelengths. This creates brilliant colors to the viewer through the use of
structure rather than the addition of a chemical pigment. Imagine, instead of
painting a product, simply adding surface layers that play with light. Thin-film
interference of this sort can create color that is 1) four times brighter than pigment,
2) never needs repainting, 3) avoids the toxic effects associated with pigment
mining and synthesis. The first products from this research include Morphotex, a
pigment-free fiber produced by Teijin (Japan), and a low-energy, sunlight-readable
PDA screen from Qualcomm (USA).

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 Offset bricks of calcium
carbonate and protein, a
combination of hard and
elastic layers, gives it
remarkable strength;
twice as tough as man-
made, high-tech
ceramics
Red Abalone

On the underside of the Red Abalone shell is a remarkable iridescent ceramic that
is twice as tough as our high-tech ceramics. Mother-of-pearl, also called nacre, is
composed of alternating layers of calcium carbonate (in a special crystal form called
aragonite) and Lustrin-A protein. The combination of hard and elastic layers gives
nacre remarkable toughness and strength, allowing the material to slide under
compressive force. The “bricks” of calcium carbonate are offset, and this brick-wall
architecture stops cracks from propagating. Several groups have mimicked nacre’s
structure, using materials such as aluminum and titanium alloy to create a metal
laminate tough enough for armor.

Inspired by the shell of Red Abalone, Dr. Jeffrey Brinker’s group at Sandia National
Laboratories used a self-assembly process to create mineral/polymer layered
structures that are optically clear but much tougher than glass. Unlike traditional
“heat, beat, and treat” technologies, Brinker’s evaporation-induced, low temperature
process allows liquid building blocks to self-assemble and harden into coatings that
can toughen windshields, bodies of solar cars, airplanes or anything that needs to
be lightweight but fracture-resistant.

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 Design: consider a tree

From architect William McDonough: Think about the tree in terms of design. It’s
something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water,
provides a habitat for hundreds of species, accrues solar energy, makes complex
sugars and food, and creates micro-climates. So, what would it be like to design a
building like a tree? What would a building be like if it were photosynthetic?

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 Design: A new kind of city?

And what would a city be like if it was designed like a forest?

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 The 2030 Challenge

Fossil fuel reduction standard for all new and renovated

buildings will be 50% today, and increased to:
60% in 2010
70% in 2015
80% in 2020
90% in 2025
Carbon-neutral by 2030 (using no fossil-fuel GHG-emitting
energy to operate)

Developed by Ed Mazaria and the AIA, the 2030 challenge is a road map for
incrementally reducing the carbon footprint of the built environment until we are
carbon neutral by 2030. Most developments and buildings can be designed to use
only a small amount of energy at little or no additional cost through proper planning,
siting, building form, glass properties and location, material selection and by
incorporating natural heating, cooling, ventilation, and day-lighting strategies. The
additional energy a development or building would then need to maintain comfort
and operate equipment can be supplied by renewable sources such as solar
(photovoltaics, hot water heating, etc.), wind, biomass and other viable carbon-free
sources.

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 Are we up to the challenge?

A quote from R. James Woolsey, former director of the CIA: “This country can move
awfully fast when it wants to. Keep in mind that after December 7, 1941, Roosevelt
went to Jimmy Byrnes and said, “You’re my deputy president for mobilizing the
economy. Anybody crosses you, they cross me.” Within 6 months, Detroit was
completely retooled, not making cars anymore, making military trucks, tanks, fighter
aircraft and in 3 years and 8 months we had mobilized and together with the British
and our other allies we defeated Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
Three years and eight months.” I’m optimistic that we can come together once again
in a common cause, this time to save the human race.

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 “Hope is a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either
we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of
the soul and it’s not dependent on some particular
observation of the world or estimate of the situation.
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out
well, but the certainty that something makes sense,
regardless of how it turns out.”
-Vaclav Havel

We have a lot of work to do, but I believe we are up to the challenge. I choose to be
hopeful. My actions are inspired in large part by my children. I don’t want them to
come to me in 20 years in a world that is collapsing around them and ask me, “How
could you let this happen? Why didn’t you do more?”

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 Bibliography
• Biomimicry - Janine Benyus
• Design for Life - Sim van der Ryn
• The Turning Point, The Web of Life – Fritjof Capra
• Deep Economy – Bill McKibben
• Blessed Unrest – Paul Hawken
• Natural Capitalism – Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins
• Cradle to Cradle – Bill McDonough, Michael Braungart,
• An Inconvenient Truth – Al Gore
• A Whole New Mind – Dan Pink

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 Web sites
• mcdonough.com • web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/house
• biomimicry.net • Usgbc.org
• architecture2030.org • climatecrisis.net
• gliving.tv • stopglobalwarming.org
• verticalfarm.com • carbonfootprint.com
• fritjofcapra.net • ClimateProtect.org
• cascadiagbc.org/lbc • Ted.com
• greenblue.org • worldchanging.com

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 Beyond LEED:
The future of sustainable design

Kip Richardson – kipr@amaa.com

Ankrom Moisan Architects - www.amaa.com

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