Green Building starts with Green People

The Leaders in the Local Movement

The Northwest's long reputation for environmental sensitivity may be attributed to the design professionals who have watched sustainability grow from an occasional home with passive solar in the 1970s, to the first zero net-energy home in the nation, located in Portland. Municipalities and individuals alike have raised the standards for building design and construction. Here's an overview of what still needs to be done to make sustainability truly mainstream.

Jerry Yudelson

The sustainability director for Interface Engineering in Portland, has more than 20 years of experience with renewable energy systems, building design, environmental remediation, water conservation and solid-waste management. In addition to his work with Interface, Jerry Yudelson currently chairs the steering committee for the U.S. Green Building Council's international Greenbuild conference scheduled for November in Portland.

As steering committee chair for Greenbuild, Yudelson said, "I'd like to see the conference become something that any serious green-building professional absolutely needs to show up for," He added that he hopes to attract the best possible cross-section of practitioners in the industry, and the greatest number of senior-level officials and executives.

Another recent project is a 140-page book on how to market "green" buildings. He is currently looking for a publisher.

"The market is growing, especially with high-profile design firms, but not within smaller niches," Yudelson said. For instance, public school districts don't often use sustainable practices, but universities do. Spec office space will be the last market to take the risk, Yudelson said.

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Really daring projects are able to be more innovative because the owner can work with tenants on how willing they are to accept different designs. "If the building temperature is written in the lease, then the tenants can dictate what they want to accept," he said. If tenants tolerate temperature variances between 68 and 74 degrees, instead of the standard 72 degrees all year round, then the mechanical system can be more efficient, Yudelson.

Glen Gilbert

Glen Gilbert has been the executive director of the Cascadia Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, in Portland since it opened in 1998. The second chapter of 50 around the country, Cascadia continues to "lead in the LEED process," Gilbert said.

A self-proclaimed "reformed lawyer," Gilbert turned to working for a nonprofit because he said it allowed the chance to "make a difference. I had always been interested in architecture.This allows me to be able to be involved in it."

His goal is to expand the percent of the market that qualifies for LEED from 3 percent to the other 97 percent.

"We will do whatever we can do to make it more mainstream," Gilbert added.

The main obstacle to mainstreaming is price and possible liability, but that factor is a nonissue, he said. Sustainable building allows the owner to avoid liability for mold and "sick building" syndrome, among other things, Gilbert said. It also makes the best use of natural resources and helps buildings fit in with the natural environment, alleviating the social cost of construction, he added.

"Occupants feel better in a sustainable building, and studies have also shown that workers are more productive," he said. "Since labor is the most expensive part of running a business, owners should appreciate ways to improve productivity."

He also points to many techniques that don't cost any additional money. For example, to allow for a less sophisticated electrical system, offices could be moved away from the outer walls and natural light could be allowed to flow into the inner space. Or, glass walls could delineate window office areas and still give privacy.

Gilbert said he hopes efforts to mainstream sustainability will grow through the 100 Friends of Cascadia. Started with a $100,000 matching grant from the Russell Family Foundation, based in Tacoma, "Friends" donate money at specified levels and the Foundation matches the amount.

Kathleen O'Brien

O'Brien has worked as a consultant to those interested in sustainability for close to 20 years. Owner of O'Brien and Co. in Bainbridge, Wash., she helped develop "Built Green" programs for three local homebuilding associations.

The program outlines building techniques and materials builders can use to promote environmental integrity. O'Brien has also worked on sustainable elements of commercial projects for architects and developers, including Miller Hull and Vulcan, both of Seattle.

One of her firm's most influential current projects is a pilot study that hopes to bring sustainable building construction to all schools in Washington. Currently five schools are enrolled, and O'Brien's firm will track cost savings and efficiency of different systems.

Public education is important to O'Brien on several other levels as well. She teaches the Sustainable Building Advisor Certificate program at Seattle Central Community College, a nine-month certificate program.

Many of her projects also stress education for the general public. Her firm designed the signage at the Bainbridge City Hall to resemble an outdoor marketplace, including many displays that explain the green features of the building. The building won the national AIA Earth Day award in 2000 from the Committee on the Environment.

Bert Gregory

Bert Gregory

The architectural community has recognized Mithun, a Seattle-based architecture group, as one of the forerunners in sustainable building design. Its CEO, Bert Gregory, has seen environmental awareness in the architectural business go from eccentric to commonplace, or from "green" to "sustainable."

"Sustainable is a much more aggressive idea," Gregory said. "It involves much more - how long the building will last, how efficient it is to maintain and operate, in addition to the design and materials used."

As early as the 1970s the firm designed homes with passive solar systems. Its first large commercial project was the REI headquarters in downtown Seattle, built in the 1990s. The project was named one of the Top Ten Green Buildings by the National AIA. "REI is a very resource-efficient building with careful use of materials," Gregory said. The design uses many recycled materials, natural ventilation and materials with low volatile organic compounds.

Mithun now has several LEED certified projects to its credit and several in the registration process and in the planning stages.

Even though he is a strong proponent of sustainability, Gregory said his job as an architect is to offer choices to owners and developers. "You have to balance many different things and weigh the economies and each site," he said.

Sustainability was a natural for him because he was always artful even as a child and always interested in the outdoors.

Peter Dobrovolny

Dobrovolny is the sustainable building coordinator with Seattle City Light, the longest-running energy conservation program in the country. The agency spends $15 million to $20 million per year advancing the principles of energy conservation.

An architect by training with a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Washington, Dobrovolny's experience reveals several reasons that owners and designers shy away from sustainable building.

"One is liability," he said. Engineers tend to be leery of natural ventilation, for example. "They tend to overdesign systems instead, to make sure everything works in all circumstances," he added.

For Dobrovolny, the bottom line does not rest with the cost to the building owner but the energy cost of a building. "Building construction and operation use 50 percent of our energy and 30 percent of our water resources," he added. "The fact that buildings are so inefficient is a real problem."

Environmental awareness aside, constructing a LEED building makes more and more sense as more and more LEED buildings come on line, according to a recent study done in California. The initial cost adds about 2 percent to construction, but maintenance costs and operation costs are 20 percent lower.

Dennis Wilde

Gerding/Edlen Development Company has become a recognized champion for sustainable development in Portland, but the company didn't start out that way. According to Dennis Wilde, Senior Project Manager at Gerding/Edlen, it grew as a natural extension of the firm's philosophy.

"Bob Gerding, Mark Edlen and I all feel that for our projects to be successful there has to be a contribution to the community. The built environment creates a huge drain on our resources and we wanted to do our part to minimize those effects," said Wilde.

Concerned about the environment since the late 1960s, Wilde became involved in the first Earth Day efforts while in graduate school and his interest expanded over time. But it wasn't until the late 1990s when he heard a speech by Karl-Henrik Robert, founder of The Natural Step, that his commitment to sustainability in development became galvanized.

"That presentation was an epiphany for me," said Wilde. "It showed me how we could integrate these concepts into our business practices. Bob and Mark were also interested in the idea, so I set out to create a workable business model that included sustainability."

The first project that got the firm thinking about "green" building measures was the Pacific Gas Transmission's (PGT) building at Riverplace. Given the nature of their business, the client wanted an energy efficient building and that gave Gerding/Edlen the opportunity to learn about this aspect of sustainable development.

Subsequent projects like Wieden and Kennedy's headquarters, the City of Portland's Development Services Building and the CNF Inc. building became steps to a higher level of environmentally responsible developments.

"We explored the broader palate of what we could do with features like underfloor air distribution systems. We also started looking very seriously at energy considerations and showed our clients the advantages of working toward the state's Business Energy Tax Credits," Wilde explained.

With the inception of the Brewery Blocks, a five-block development in the Pearl District adjacent to downtown, Wilde said they began to incorporate the US Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system in a rigorous way. As a real metric system for evaluating projects, Wilde believes LEED offers great benefits.

"A lot of people were frustrated with the piecemeal approach of trying to build sustainably and LEED gives you a fuller framework. It also prevents people from 'greenwashing' their projects because the building's performance has to be documented."

The individual projects within the Brewery Blocks development are pursuing the range of LEED ratings from certification to platinum awards.

Two new Gerding/Edlen projects located at the South Waterfront redevelopment will also seek high LEED goals. The company is building an apartment tower that will work toward a LEED gold award and a clinical office and research building for Oregon Health and Sciences University that will potentially achieve a LEED platinum rating.

The company was surprised to discover that there's a very receptive market for green buildings. According to Wilde, this interest in living and working in buildings that incorporate sustainable measures is most prevalent in the Pacific Northwest.

"There's a tremendous acceleration of interest in environmentally responsible development here," Wilde said. "I think some of that comes from a cultural ethic - people choose to live and move here because of the way we view things."

As a result of Gerding/Edlen's commitment to sustainability and its success, the company has become a resource for others the community.

"We proved it can be a successful part of a serious business strategy and we aren't afraid to talk about that. There's no secret to it, just apply the right kind of motivation and amazing things can happen," said Wilde.

Wilde said Gerding/Edlen is a founding member of the Oregon Natural Step Network. At the Greenbuild conference, Wilde will participate in a workshop that shows how to integrate the Natural Step as a set of guiding principles for the design and construction of buildings. He will also serve on the interactive discussion panel "Collaboration Lessons Learned: Old Dogs, New Tricks."

Wilde would like to see buildings work toward a restorative outcome, where they contribute more to the environment than they take from it. He said a quote from architect William McDonough, which sets a goal to design and build buildings that consume more waste than they produce and produce more energy than they consume, keeps him focused in that direction.

"That phrase is a bit of a mantra for me," said Wilde, "and the system conditions of The Natural Step are what we use as bedrock. I believe we need to raise the bar on each new project we undertake, otherwise we're not making progress."

John Echlin

In 1992 when the United Nation's Conference on Environment and Development convened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - John Echlin, principal at SERA Architects, was working in Europe. The conference pushed the relatively new term of "sustainable development" to the forefront which became a very hot topic oversees and fueled a passion Echlin had held since he was a boy.

"I grew up in New Mexico where I was exposed to the Anasazi and Pueblo cultures. Their styles always seemed like the right way to build to me, with the land and not against it," Echlin said.

Later, he studied with Charles Moore and Lawrence Halpren at UCLA and was greatly influenced by their work at Sea Ranch, the first ecologically-sound development in the 1960s. In Europe, he taught in Italy and worked with Giancarlo de Carlo in Milan who spurred his interest in adaptive reuse of old buildings. Then he spent several practicing in Switzerland. When he decided to return to the states, he was drawn to Portland.

"There's a natural ethic here that doesn't exist in other parts of the country. It's a center of gravity for people who want to experience nature because you can get that without having to leave the city. In addition, Portland has a history of land conservation through the Urban Growth Boundary."

Echlin said SERA was the right fit for him because of the firm's awareness of environmental issues and resource efficiency, as demonstrated by a portfolio of historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects. He joined SERA as Design Director in 1997 and sees teamwork as the key to success.

"We're a collaborative firm with a lot of people interested in sustainability," said Echlin. "There are several experts in sustainable design here but no one person can really make this work - it's a group effort."

Echlin is working on The Rose House, a private Portland residence that will be a demonstration project as a zero net energy home, which should produce as much or more energy than it consumes. Constructed in partnership with the Oregon Dept. of Energy and Coho Construction, the home is designed to meet The Natural Step guidelines. In addition, the Rose House incorporates advanced framing as well as material and resource efficiency to meet Earth Advantage platinum standards.

In Corvallis, the Coho Cohousing project will provide a mix of 30 market-rate and affordable co-housing units designed according to Natural Step principles and Earth Advantage guidelines. Situated on four acres of property, the project will maintain three acres as natural habitat and harvest the natural energy and resource flows of the site. The homes will employ advanced energy conservation measures and passive solar design, and incorporate active solar and rainwater collection systems.

The Lewis & Clark College Residence Halls include three buildings designed to create a close fit between the site and the student community. Healthy indoor environmental quality was a project priority and the buildings use natural ventilation, CO2 sensors, and low-VOC emitting materials. A passive design strategy allows the buildings to be solar assisted and the buildings utilize an energy efficient baseboard hydronic system for space heating.

In addition to his professional work, Echlin is a board member of the Oregon Natural Step Network and co-chair of a construction industry peer learning group. He is also a member of the Sustainable Development Commission, an advisory board to the City of Portland and Multnomah County. As part of his work on this board, Echlin helped put together the city's green building initiative and now is working with a sub-committee to develop a phase-out initiative of persistent bio-accumulative toxins (PBTs) for the city and county.

"We need to find new ways to meet our needs without impacting the needs of future generations. Our environmental system is chronically ill and we now have to turn our attention to repairing this damage."

At Greenbuild, Echlin will present a workshop with five colleagues on "Envisioning Fully Sustainable Buildings - Using the Natural Step and LEED."

He sees LEED as a tool for market transformation but hopes that more industry professionals start to reach beyond LEED requirements in their projects.

"I'd like to see projects developed that look not only at sustainable concepts but restorative strategies. Essentially, if you do no harm, you help restore."

Echlin is concerned that American society is still unaware of its excessive consumption practices and wants to cultivate a widespread interest in conservation. He sees this as a major component in working toward fairness and equity for all people.

"We've got one generation to solve a lot of these problems before it's too late," said Echlin. "As planners and architects, we are supposed to design for the future and be continually looking ahead. It would be ignorant of us if we don't take action now."