Beyond LEED:

The future of sustainable design

Kip Richardson - Ankrom Moisan Architects

 Imagine the future…

…by understanding how we got to the present

 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
Primitive reality:
we were embedded in
the natural world and we
lived in harmony with
nature.
Then along
came
Sir Isaac….
The reality of classical
Newtonian physics:
The universe is a machine
 The beginning of the

disintegration
of our relationship with nature
 The beginning of the

Dis - integration
of man and nature
The industrial
revolution:
The rise of the
machine age
 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
 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.
 Reality is merely
an illusion, albeit a
very persistent
one.“

- Albert Einstein
The reality of
Quantum
Physics

The universe is
a living system

A web of life
 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
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
Solar panels on the Carter White House
The state of sustainable design in hospitality:

November 2005 – Green? Who cares?

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

recycled chairs electric cars

 Every magazine in the country does a green issue

Town & Country Vanity Fair Elle Fashion

Green design literature is everywhere
 The Stars Align

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Edward Norton

 Green cuts across demographics

from millennials to boomers, from conservatives to liberals

 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

 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
 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

Social Responsibility
 Why did
Green
reach the
tipping
point?
 Crisis?
10 years to reduce global
greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions in order to
avoid catastrophic
climate change.
 A crisis of perception:

The source of all suffering is

not understanding the true nature of reality
 The Chinese symbol for crisis
wēijī

jī: incipient moment; crucial

wēi: danger point when something
begins or changes
 The nature of change:
transition

neutral
ending beginning
zone

creativity, renewal, development

 The mindset shift

The
now The solar
industrial
age
age

creativity, renewal, development

The rate of change:
Consumer perceptions

Development
 “We can't solve problems
by using the same kind of
thinking
we used when we created them."
- Albert Einstein
The future of sustainable design
21 LEED projects certified or registered
LEED Platinum

senior housing
 sustainable design:

"Development that meets the

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

not just less bad, not even

net zero, but net positive
“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
 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.

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
generates all of its own energy with renewable resources

Integrated solar panels that track the sun

generates energy with renewable resources

Geothermal energy
Captures rainwater and treats it on site
vertical farms:
Toronto, New York, Paris (approved design)
20 stories = 15,000 fed
Buildings that consume waste

Richard Meier’s smog

eating church in Rome
Regenerative Design
Cradle to cradle:
Waste equals food
Metolian
Positive impact
Development
Metolian
• Off the grid
• Restore the
environment
• Integrated design
 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

Biomimicry
 Biomimicry
• Self assembly
• Green chemistry: doesn’t use heat, beat and treat
• Carbon dioxide as a feedstock
• The power of shape – color without pigments
consider the spider
Pigment-free Color
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
Design: consider a tree
Design: A new kind of city?
 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)
Are we up to the challenge?
“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
 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
 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
 Beyond LEED:
The future of sustainable design

Kip Richardson – kipr@amaa.com

Ankrom Moisan Architects - www.amaa.com