From radical ecology to consumer-oriented
market approaches?
Kirsten Gram-Hanssen and Jesper Ole Jensen
Gram-Hanssen and Jensen explore the development of green buildings in Denmark over
the last three decades, identifying differences in design philosophies and techniques.
They look at four approaches to green buildings: as energy-saving devices, as ecological
grassroots alternatives, as subsidised large-scale urban projects, and as consumer
products in a market approach. Using detailed case descriptions, the chapter asks to
what extent it is possible to define some buildings or some approaches as more ‘green’
than others. The authors suggest that in order to more fully understand sustainable
buildings we must account for the social structuring of both the identification of environmental
problems and their resulting embodiment in built form.
Introduction
Green buildings in Denmark vary widely with regard to all aspects of physical and social
solutions as well as ideological rationales. Sometimes this has led to controversies
among different actors in respect of the definitions and content of green buildings. We
present these different rationales and describe how each in its own way has contributed
to a general development of green buildings. We argue that a common definition of
green buildings is not necessarily needed and that many different approaches to such
buildings might be more useful than one.
Wew use the term ‘green buildings’ as a unifying and neutral notion of what different
actors in different contexts have described as ‘sustainable’, ‘resource-saving’, ‘ecological’,
‘self-supplying’, ‘natural’, ‘healthy’, etc. However, in some of our case descriptions,
when describing the rationales of actors we use some of their own words. The chapter
looks at four approaches differentiated by different understandings or concepts of
green buildings and by different actors:
• Green buildings as energy-saving devices: after the oil crisis in 1973, strong efforts
were made to develop building technologies to improve energy performance, as
well as regulations for implementing these technologies.
• Ecological alternatives emerging from the grassroots: as a radical critique of
modern society, a number of alternative and green rural settlements grew up in the
1980s and 1990s, emphasising community, self-sufficiency, alternative technologies,
lifestyle and spirituality.
• Subsidised large-scale urban projects: commitment to the 1987 Brundtland
Report created a public drive towards green buildings, aimed at testing, approving
and institutionalising alternative technologies, with ample public funding, primarily
in impressive building projects under the Urban Renewal Act.
• Green buildings in a market approach: in recent years we have seen a trend
towards considering green buildings as individual market-driven consumer products.
Here green labels and life cycle analysis (LCA) tools aim to give consumers a
central role in the development of such products, based on the market and on
ecological modernisation rather than on public subsidies.
The different approaches partly follow a historical path. However, it is important to
note that these approaches and their actors coexist at the same time. A key question is
how far technological development in green buildings has been a matter of interaction
between the physical and the social contexts. As a background to this way of analysing
and presenting the subject, the chapter starts with an introduction to social theories of
technological development, especially in relation to environmental and urban issues.
Very different aspects of green buildings have been emphasised in different historical
periods and by different actors. An actor-oriented approach may ask whether
different notions of green buildings are just a matter of different social constructions or if
it is possible to define them independently of the actors by measuring their degree of
sustainability. In the conclusions we try to answer this question, maintaining on one
hand that we need to measure ‘greenness’ or sustainability but on the other that every
way of measuring it is problematic and limited.
Theoretical approaches to technological development
Different theories help in understanding how technologies develop in relation to the
social environment: the theoretical field known as the social construction of technological
systems (SCOT theories); the theory of ecological modernisation; and new urban
technological studies.
SCOT theories

The zero-energy house of 1975 garnered major national and international attention.













SCOT is a research area that is based on the view that technology is socially
constructed, in opposition to technological determinism, which sees technology and
science each as autonomous and separate from society. This area can be divided into
three approaches (Bijker et al. 1987).
First is the social constructivist approach, which claims that technological artefacts
are open to sociological analysis, especially with respect to their design and technical
content. This approach looks at the social structures behind the growth and assimilation
of a technology. It introduces the concepts of ‘interpretative flexibility’, ‘closure’ and ‘relevant
social groups’, and Bijker’s study of Bakelite is one of the core examples (Bijker
1987).
The second approach treats technology as a ‘system’ metaphor and stresses the
importance of focusing on the links and relations between technology’s physical
artefacts and institutions and their environments. In his study of the electrical system
Hughes argues that technological systems are socio-technical, because besides their
technical elements they also comprise organisation, legislation, knowledge and
financing, woven together into a ‘seamless web’ (Hughes 1987). He distinguishes
between radical and conservative innovations in relation to the existing systems. The
success of the new radical technologies depends on, among other variables, how the
innovators tackle the ‘reverse salients’ – the weak parts of new systems – so that the
166 Alternative design new technology can compete with existing systems. The aim of the ‘system builders’ is
to shape a system by excluding other systems and components and, if successful, by
adding momentum to the system, giving increased stability over time.
The third approach takes the system metaphor a step further, developing ‘actornetwork’
theory, which breaks down the distinction between human and non-human
actors (Callon 1987; Latour 1987). According to this perspective, to create new technology
is to persuade, seduce and motivate actors to participate in a network around
the new technology. One of the studies using this approach looked at electric cars,
an area in which the successful engineer has to combine consumers, ministries and
the battery electrons, convincing them all of the roles they have to play (Callon
1987). A key controversial element in this approach is the consideration of nonhuman
actors, such as electrons, as belonging to the same network as consumers and
engineers.
These SCOT approaches focus on technological development in general, with no
specific emphasis on green or urban technology. We supplement the approach with
insights from theories that follow the same lines but with a more specifically green or
urban viewpoint.
Ecological modernisation
The notion of ecological modernisation brings together discussions of society, ecology
and technology, though it is difficult to say if it is actually a social theory, a political
programme or a broader discourse in the public debate. Hajer distinguishes between
different approaches – or ideal-typical interpretations – to ecological modernisation and
to the reactions against it (Hajer 1998). According to Hajer, a central element in ecological
modernisation is the rationalising of ecology so that it can be built into programmes,
politics and institutions. Another element is about ‘technicalisation’ of ecology, whereby
some of the big international firms, helped by non-governmental organisations (NGOs),
are changing moral and ethical concerns into technology and market issues. In opposition
to this trend, one critic of ecological modernisation questioned: ‘Why try to resolve
the ecological crisis by drawing on precisely those institutional principles that brought
about the mess in the first place?’
Ecological modernisation is often associated simply with more effective production
methods and win–win situations where companies can earn money on cleaner technologies.
According to Spaargaren, however, the central point in ecological modernisation
is not that greening of production can bring profit but that a process of monitoring and
guarding of all the major substances and energy flows follows modernisation, through
the introduction of instruments such as LCAs and environmental performance indicators
(Spaargaren 2000). In this approach, the objective of ecological modernisation is
to bridge the gap between the technical and social environmental sciences, by bringing
real material flows into the over-socialised social sciences and to bring social systems
and human behaviour into the under-socialised natural and technical sciences. Furthermore,
the task as outlined by Spaargaren is to introduce a more consumer-led perspective
into the theories to make an effective tool for analysing domestic consumption of,
say, water and energy. The question that Hajer and other more radical social ecologists
ask is whether ecology is primarily a question of material flow management or whether it
is a cultural task of redefining society. As the case studies demonstrate, questions like
this are prominent in the debate and in the technological development of urban ecology.

Urban technological studies
Ecological modernisation discusses ecology in relation to social and technical questions,
but urban and housing issues have not yet become significant in this area.
Recent studies have rectified this lack. Guy and Shove have used the SCOT
approach, among others, to understand the development of different paradigms for
energy efficiency in buildings (Guy and Shove 2000). Graham and Marvin combine
SCOT theories with spatial political economy to describe recent developments in
urban technologies and state that cities are the greatest ‘socio-technical hybrids’ of
them all (Graham and Marvin 2001). One of the inputs for a spatial or geographical
political economy is Castells’ theory of how urban structures (as well as everything
else) are changed in the new, integrated, globalised society of networks (Castells
1996, 1997, 1998). Castells describes how new information technologies are some
of the prime supporters of global networks of everything from criminals to NGOs and
big international companies. As some of the old structure of the capitalist society fades
away, for example the nation state, new structures built on the power of identity emerge.
Before 11 September 2001, Castells had already described the strength of global
networks of religious fundamentalists and had also described the influence of the global
green movement.
Four paradigms of green building in the Danish context
Using these theories of technological development in an urban and ecological context,
we describe four different paradigms that can be found in the Danish development of
green buildings.
Green buildings as energy-saving devices
The first period of sustainable building in Denmark began in 1956, when the Suez crisis
threatened the country’s oil supply. Denmark was heavily dependent on imported oil for
heating in buildings as well as for all its other energy-consuming activities, so the crisis
gave strong support to researchers’ ideas for increasing the energy efficiency of buildings.
However, the first attempts to gain the attention and support of authorities in regulating
energy efficiency in buildings and to begin research studies in energy efficiency
failed, as the Suez crisis faded and oil prices fell to their lowest point ever. Thus the
development of the first low-energy houses was largely the result of a few visionary and
ambitious people. One such was Professor Korsgaard at the Danish Technical University.
The professor and his colleagues at the Thermal Insulation Laboratory were ready
and able by 1975 to build the zero-energy house, the first solar heated house in
Northern Europe (Fig. 10.1). This gained major national and international attention,
making the zero-energy house one of the most renowned examples of low-energy
houses of its time.
The zero-energy house’s aim was to show that it was possible to build a house at a
reasonable cost with already existing technology and that it could be heated and
provided with hot water simply through the use of solar heat, efficient insulation and
recycling of heat from ventilated air. Theoretically the only external energy supply would
be electricity for normal domestic consumption and for pumps and ventilation. The 120-
square-metre house was supplied with a 42-square-metre solar collector, and hot water for seasonal heat was stored in a 30-cubic-metre insulated water tank, the first of its
kind in Denmark. The house was built with insulation (mineral wool) as the prototype
constructive element, reducing the cold bridges. Other elements included switches to
turn off the convector fan when the windows were opened and a ventilation system with
heat exchangers, a feature widely used today in low-energy buildings. A two-year monitoring
period showed that the house had very low heat consumption, although not quite
zero – one main reason for this was that the heat loss from an underground storage tank
was much higher than expected.
An important factor in the attention given to the zero-energy house was that in the
1960s and 1970s Denmark experienced strong economic growth and the construction
of more than a million new detached houses – an extremely high number, given the
population then of approximately five million. These houses were all built with ample
space, and little consideration was given to energy consumption, and therefore half of
all imported oil was used to heat buildings, making oil a heavy burden on the national
budget. Given this, it is no wonder that the first low-energy buildings were also
designed as detached houses.
The zero-energy house was the first of a series of several other types of low-energy
building in the following years, the most remarkable of which were the Hjortekjærhusene
(six low-energy buildings built in 1978–9) and Skivehusene projects (1977, 1979 and
1984) (see Box 1). These buildings demonstrated potential for energy savings of up to
70 per cent, but with large variations among them. The amount of energy consumed for
heat, although considerably lower than in traditional houses, was often higher than
calculated. Surveys showed that the main source of this was the heat distribution
system and furthermore that the question of heat storage was crucial (Byberg 1984).

This indicated a lack of development of other technical components and the necessity
for a parallel development of the local infrastructure. Moreover, at the end of the 1970s
it was clear that diffusion into the market of the concept of low-energy building was
slow. The whole building market had declined, and low-energy buildings cost more than
traditional buildings, largely due to the fact that anything developed from a prototype will
be relatively expensive (Byberg 1984). On the other hand, findings from these pioneer
low-energy buildings have to a large extent been incorporated into Danish building
regulations and consequently have had a major impact on the construction of new buildings
(Saxhof et al. 1988).
The oil crisis of the 1970s also led to a fundamental restructuring of Danish
energy policy. The Ministry for Energy was formed in 1975, and in 1976 the
Programme for Energy Research was launched, leading over the next 25 years to
massive research and development projects concerning energy efficiency in buildings
and renewable energy (Energistyrelsen 2000). These projects were strongly
influenced by the people who were behind the first low-energy buildings. The development
of low-energy buildings in Denmark can therefore be described not just in
terms of technical development, but also in terms of its basis in an ‘infrastructure’
consisting of political and financial support, institutional security (the Thermal Insulation
Laboratory was established in 1959) and access to influential legislators.
Energy research in Denmark can be characterised as a ‘closed community’ (Guy and
Shove 2000), with close relationships between researchers, ministries and industry
enabling, such influence.
The researchers’ efforts are to some degree parallel to Thomas Hughes’s notion of
‘system builders’ (Hughes 1987). A moot point is whether their low-energy buildings
are to be seen, in Hughes’s terminology, as radical or conservative technology. On
one hand, the ideal was to establish a system that is based on low-energy buildings
and a renewable energy supply, which would mean a radical break with the existing
energy infrastructure. Furthermore, potential ‘reverse salients’ (such as problems with
heat storage) reduced the economic competitiveness of the low-energy buildings. For
those making low-energy buildings it was also a problem to get integrated effort from
the rest of the actors in the building industry. On the other hand, low-energy building
has, in Hughes’s terms, to a large extent been institutionalised, as basic concepts
have now been incorporated in building regulations, and must accordingly be considered
a conservative technology. This viewpoint also reflects a certain flexibility in the existing system (in spite of the momentum, according to Hughes), allowing change
and adaptation to new demands, rather than requiring the substitution of a whole new
system.
Although the low-energy building approach peaked, in terms of public attention, in
the 1970s, the funding, research and influence on building regulations have remained
until today, and there has also been a major diffusion of technologies to other types of
sustainable buildings. Recently, however, funding for energy research has, for the first
time since the energy crises in 1973, been drastically reduced, which implies a radical
change for low-energy building and research. But from 1985 ‘sustainability’ widely
replaced ‘energy saving’ as the key term in green buildings. This was due to the
Brundtland Report, which made possible a much broader interpretation of the themes
and technologies relating to green buildings.
Grassroots alternatives
A very different approach to green buildings is found in grassroots and citizen-initiated
projects (Box 2). The catchwords for the technology of this approach are closed cycles
and self-sufficiency, with inspiration coming from similar actors all over the world. Water
and waste should be recycled, energy locally produced from renewable resources and,
very importantly, the technologies should be organised in neighbourhoods to
strengthen and revitalise local social life. The ecological vision is followed by a social
vision of a more holistic everyday life – a life that is not split between work, family and
home. In this sense the urban ecological movement follows in the footsteps of the
collectivist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and is a reaction against the lifestyle of
detached suburban houses. Furthermore, for some at the grassroots there is a spiritual
dimension to the relationship between humans and nature; for others there is an ethical
concern for future generations. Common to both groups is that human–nature relationships
need to be reconsidered.
Green buildings in Denmark 171
Box 2: Examples of grassroots or citizen-initiated projects
Projects in existing neighbourhoods
Baggesensgade 5 (Copenhagen) 1983
Hyldespjældet (Albertslund) c.1988
Vestergror (Copenhagen) 1988
BO-90 (Copenhagen) 1992
Øko-byen (Copenhagen) 1984
New-build eco-villages
Bofællesskabet Sol og vind (Beder)1980
Dyssekilde (Torup) 1990
Andelssamfundet (Hjortshøj) 1992
Munksøgård (Roskilde) 2000
Friland (Djursland) 2002

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Learning from green buildings that teach
Kathryn Janda and Alexandra von Meier
Janda and von Meier investigate two ‘green’ academic buildings: the Environmental
Technology Center at Sonoma State University and the Adam Joseph Lewis Center at
Oberlin College. Both are designed for use as teaching tools and both demonstrate
sustainable architecture. Both employ a variety of passive and active systems to achieve
their goals. Both have ‘epic’ stories to tell about the evaluation of their performance. As
self-proclaimed exemplars of sustainable architecture these buildings were set apart
from standard construction practice by a heightened degree of ‘inspection, assessment
and expectation’. But did the measures adopted by engineers and critics reflect the
intentions of the builders or did they quantify something different? What was it that the
buildings were designed to teach? The authors argue that the quantitative data
collected ‘may raise more questions about building performance than they resolve’.
Noting that ‘numbers rarely change our notions of what we already believe to be true’,
Janda and von Meier thus bring into question the use of quantitative data taken at a
particular moment in time as the sole criterion for the ‘goodness’ of buildings.
Introduction
Buildings present a significant challenge for the natural environment. Roodman and
Lenssen (1995: 5) claim, for instance, that buildings account for 16 per cent of the
world’s water use, 20 per cent of its wood harvest and 40 per cent of its material and
energy flows. Although new buildings can be constructed in a more sustainable fashion,
quite often they are not. What can we learn from those constructed to be sustainable?
Technical lessons are often sought from such exemplars. Did the argon-filled, doublepaned
windows in this building save energy? Did using paint low in volatile organic
compounds in that building reduce off-gassing? While such questions are important
stepping stones to ‘better’ designs, each green building example contains a set of
social lessons as well. David Orr (1993) has coined the phrase ‘architecture as pedagogy’
to describe the concept that we learn from buildings, not just in them. Similarly,
W. J. Rohwedder (2003) extends this idea to describe ‘pedagogy of place’.
To explore the lessons learned from specific architectures in particular places, we
investigate two ‘green’ academic buildings: the Environmental Technology Center
(ETC) at Sonoma State University, California, and the Adam Joseph Lewis Center
(AJLC) at Oberlin College, Ohio. Both are designed to be used as teaching tools and
both demonstrate sustainable architecture. Both employ passive and active systems to
achieve these goals. Both also have ‘epic’ stories to tell about the social structures and
institutional values that resulted in the adoption of some architectural strategies and the
rejection of others. Finally, each author has first-hand knowledge of and daily experience with one of these buildings. Our own participation with these structures and our observation
of other uses and users helps to frame our understanding of the differences and
similarities between them. Through our comparative analysis, we hope to raise new
questions concerning the social and institutional context in which sustainable buildings
are constructed, used and evaluated.
These buildings were designed to be far better than average, but by what measure
are they better? Are there ways in which they are worse? Despite much public critical
acclaim, people involved with both buildings are frequently called on to prove that the
pedagogical, architectural and environmental theories behind them are working in practice.
Among many dimensions, we focus on the presence, absence and use of ‘data’,
looking at several factors with respect to data gathering, use and evaluation. First, we
examine how the presence or absence of quantitative data enhances or obscures
stories of building performance. Second, we describe how institutional requirements
shape the desire for and impact of ‘hard numbers’. Finally, we discuss who learns what
from ‘buildings that teach’: students, faculty and the academic institutions themselves.
Background
Although both the ETC and the AJLC have ample amounts of glass on the south side
and use thermal mass for passive heating and cooling, these buildings do not shout
‘sustainability’ to passers-by. Neither structure relies visually on elements that the
general public would likely identify as ‘green’: a biomorphic shape, obvious photovoltaic
arrays or windmills, or a garden on the roof.1 Instead, both building designs share a modern aesthetic and a geometric vocabulary typical of today’s commercial and institutional
structures (Figs 3.1 and 3.2).
The Environmental Technology Center at Sonoma State University (SSU) is a 2,200
square foot (204 square metre) building with one large seminar room that functions as
an auditorium, classroom and laboratory. It is situated on a site internal to the SSU
campus, which is located about an hour north of San Francisco. Funded in part by
grants from the National Science Foundation and the California Energy Commission
and completed in 2001, the ETC was conceived as a ‘building that teaches’
(Rohwedder 1998), offering an immediate hands-on experience of high-efficiency technology
and green building to general audiences as well as an abundance of real-time
data for building science buffs.
Use of the ETC comprises university classes – including technical courses on
energy, environmental studies courses and selected courses from other departments –
and classes and events involving outside agencies and the general public. These
include, for example, meetings by the local chapter of the Green Building Council,
training workshops for energy auditors, work meetings for Sonoma County’s Climate
Protection Campaign and public events such as the Green Building Expo, with lectures
and vendor exhibits. The ETC has also become a favourite classroom for two other
departments: the Psychology of Yoga class appreciates the warm floor in addition to
the light and spacious feel, and the a cappella Chamber Singers enjoy the acoustics.

The ETC was the subject of Congressional testimony before the House Energy
Subcommittee by its director (von Meier 2001), at the invitation of Congresswoman
Lynn Woolsey (Democrat), who had supported the ETC since its inception. Representative
Woolsey subsequently arranged for an Energy Subcommittee field hearing to
take place at the ETC, chaired by Congresswoman Judy Biggert (Republican, Illinois).
Nationally recognised energy experts testified at the field hearing (US House of Representatives
2002), with the space of the ETC serving as a concrete example of the
concepts of energy efficiency and renewable resource use they advocated.
Like the ETC, the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies serves many
purposes. The AJLC is a two-storey, 13,600 square foot (1,260 square metre) building
with three classrooms, a library, an auditorium, six offices, a conference room and a
kitchen. It also houses a ‘Living Machine’ that treats and internally recycles wastewater
from within the building, which is sited on the edge of the Oberlin College campus, near
Richardsonian Romanesque academic buildings and down the street from Victorian-era
homes. Like the ETC, it was designed as a building that teaches. In the words of David
Orr, the chair of Oberlin’s Environmental Studies Program, the project team wanted a
building that would ‘help redefine the relationship between humankind and the environment
– one that would expand our sense of ecological possibilities’ (Reis 2000).
The AJLC has enjoyed considerable critical acclaim. It has received architectural
awards from the American Institute of Architects, construction awards from national and
state contractors’ organisations and an Ohio governor’s award for energy efficiency and
has been named one of the thirty ‘Milestone Buildings for the Twentieth Century’ by the
US Department of Energy. An early model of the building is included in an architectural
textbook on the interactive effects of buildings and the environment (Fitch and
Bobenhausen 1999: 336), a diagram appears in a popular environmental science
textbook (Miller 2001b: 537), and it has been the subject of numerous articles in the
press. Part of its notoriety has to do with its star architectural team, William McDonough
and Partners, which is famous for several sustainable buildings as well as a book on the
topic of sustainability (McDonough and Braungart 2002). Part also has to do with the
dedication and eloquence of its on-campus champion, David Orr, who is a prolific writer
and a dynamic speaker and has published several articles about the AJLC’s design
process (Orr 2002, 2003a, 2003b). Orr also plans to use the AJLC as the basis of a
book on the subject of design and organisational learning.
Equally the AJLC has been the subject of much controversy. At the centre of this
debate is a contested statement that one of the goals of the AJLC was to be a ‘net
energy exporter’. An Oberlin faculty member outside the Environmental Studies
Program has argued that the building consumes far more energy than the photovoltaic
(PV) array delivers (Scofield 2002a, 2002b, 2002c). Proponents of the building do not
deny that it currently uses more energy than it generates; early documentation indicates
that the goal of net energy exportation was a long-term one, intended to be reached only
as PV efficiencies improved beyond the 15 per cent that is common today.
We believe that the stories surrounding these two buildings – including the range of
perspectives on how ‘efficient’ or ‘consumptive’ they are, as well as how their performance
is accounted for and by whom – have much to say about how expectations for
sustainable architecture are shaped. Although framed in technical terms (such as air
changes per hour or Btu per square foot) these goals have social implications as well as
technical bases.

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Competing models by industry, government and NGOs

Steven A. Moore and Nathan Engstrom
In 1992 the city of Austin, Texas, was the first in the country to create a residential
green building programme and by the end of the century about 26 similar ones
emerged in 16 different states. Moore and Engstrom argue two related points. The
first is that ‘green building’ reflects the latent fusion of two powerful late-nineteenthcentury
ideas, preservation of the natural environment and protection of the public
health. These two concepts were so ideologically opposed at the turn of the twentieth
century that it took a full century of changing conditions to reconcile the opposing
assumptions that motivated their respective supporters. Second, the authors hold
that, once reconciled under the broad umbrella of ‘sustainable development’, green
building programmes foreshadow North American building codes of the twenty-first
century. Some US green building ‘programmes’ are departments within municipal
governments, others are the products of homebuilder associations, and at least two
are non-profit non-governmental organisations. Taken collectively, these
‘programmes’ reflect a changing cultural horizon with regard to public health and the
built environment. Taken individually, however, they reflect contradictory social values
that vie to redefine how a private house embodies a public ‘good’. The authors’ project
is not to predict how these conflicting social values will become resolved, but to better
understand the social construction of green building programmes as antecedents of
twenty-first-century cultural values that will ultimately become realised as standardised
building codes.
Green building as good building
Building codes in the United States derive principally from English precedents. Their
adoption can be understood as acceptance by mid-nineteenth-century Americans of
those utilitarian values which made it possible to restrict some individual freedoms, like
shoddy building practices, in favour of general health, safety and welfare. The political
will to pass such legislation was, no doubt, strongly influenced by a series of devastating
fires that damaged or destroyed eleven nineteenth-century American cities and
the chronic outbreaks of typhus, yellow fever and smallpox that plagued many other
cities (AIA 1990: 9). These crises were inevitably followed by legislation and the
founding of institutions intent on eliminating those building practices that would most
obviously contribute to repeat fires and epidemics. Historians generally refer to this
phenomenon as the era of ‘sanitary reform’ or the ‘public health movement’.
If we accept this dialectical relation of crisis and reform it is tempting to interpret the
appearance of ‘green building programmes’ in the US, not as a new phenomenon, but
as a continuation of two nineteenth-century social movements: the public health movement
and the environmental movement. The environmental crises experienced by contemporary city dwellers are, after all, not different in kind from those experienced by
nineteenth-century urban dwellers. Poor air quality, fouled water and general environmental
degradation are the unintended consequences of industrial development that
are shared by both periods. It does not really matter if the sources of pollution have
shifted from smokestacks to tailpipes – the threat is the same. What is different in our
current situation is that the dramatic fires and epidemics of the nineteenth century have
been replaced by more subtle and pervasive effects that derive from long-term industrial
development. Energy scarcity, water scarcity, climate change and chemical sensitivity
are environmental conditions that even the economically comfortable can no longer
avoid by moving further out of town. It is now solidly middle-class citizens, not only the
industrial proletariat, who experience the crisis of environmental degradation and seek
environmental security from government, industry or third-party experts. The risks associated
with environmental degradation have, then, been somewhat democratised. And
with the democratisation of risk has come economic and political controversy (Beck
1992: 191–9).
The production of environmental programmes and building codes is, of course, not
entirely a matter of science. Rather, it is a highly social and contentious process in which
some interests are suppressed and others are reinforced. The presence of competing
interests is reflected in the confusing array of codes and green building standards that
have emerged in response to contemporary environmental conditions. Commercial
construction certification schemes like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design), BEES (Building for Economic and Environmental Sustainability) and BREEAM
(Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) are just a few
examples. Such conflicting standards tend to frame problems and propose solutions in
ways that define opposing ‘goods’. All manufacturing standards are, in this view,
socially constructed agreements that favour a particular set of actors because they
contain the interests of the standard-makers (Latour 1987: 201).1
Beginning with the sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920), many have argued that the
history of modernisation has been synonymous with standardisation (Weber 1958:
181–2; Feenberg 1995: 4). Weber understood that the institutions of modern
commerce are better able to optimise exchange value by imposing a single structure on
diverse populations and spaces. This logic suggests that those outside an emergent
technological network run the risk of being excluded from certain exchanges. If your
locomotive is of the wrong gauge, your motor of the wrong voltage or your software of
the wrong operating system, you are excluded. The mechanisms of commerce, then,
favour dominance by a single technological standard. It does not really matter what that
standard is – DOS versus MAC, for example – so long as it is commensurable with the
endless array of local conditions. If we apply the logic of modernisation to the homebuilding
industry, it suggests that the emergence of multiple green building
programmes and model environmental codes are competing attempts to standardise
the many variables of ‘good’ building to include ‘green’ building practices.
On this basis, we hypothesise that standards designed by industry, government, and
non-governmental organisation (NGO) environmentalists will differ. This hypothesis is
based on the assumptions that these organisational types generally represent opposing
political interests and that with authorship of a building code comes the power to regulate
the social and technical constitution of the artefact. We also assume that, in practice,
standardised codes represent, to one degree or another, the negotiated interests
of industry, government and environmentalists. Building codes can, then, be understood as the temporary resolution of social conflicts that are, in turn, materialised
as buildings. The establishment of codes, by any means, pushes the building industry
down a particular technological path. Green building codes will, for example, push us
away from paints that rely on volatile organic compounds to those that do not and from
harvesting old-growth timber towards substitute technologies such as engineered
wood products. In these and other similar cases some technological networks will
benefit and others will necessarily suffer.
Green building programmes intend to challenge existing building codes and seek to
redefine the agreements that shaped them on the grounds of the general welfare.
According to this utilitarian logic, private dwellings contribute to or detract from several
kinds of public resources or public goods. With regard to the construction of private
houses, two types of damage to public resources can be assessed by environmental
accountants. The first are those negative environmental impacts that derive from gathering
building materials and energy from distant locales. Water pollution caused by
timber ‘clear-cutting’ or strip mining is an example of this type, where costs are borne by
downstream citizens reliant on access to clean water. The second is the public cost to
maintain the health and welfare of those citizens who build badly, either out of ignorance
or malice. An example of this type is personal injury and property damage derived from
building on a flood plain, where costs are borne by taxpayers. In the eyes of utilitarians,
the loss of either type of public good trumps private property rights because such
ruinous acts increase the public cost to maintain the ‘civic economy’. If we agree, then,
that the general welfare is promoted by green building we have also agreed in principle
that green building is a necessary if insufficient condition for good building.
The balance of this chapter is in four sections. The first section establishes the early
linkage between building codes and the public health movement and the delayed linkage
of building codes to the environmental movement. The second section examines how
changing technological standards both reflect and attempt to resolve cultural conflict. To
make these arguments concrete, we will, in the third section, empirically examine three
cases that demonstrate how government, industry and environmentalists infuse technological
standards with opposing values. Finally, our conclusion will argue that through a
process of crisis, reform, codification and standardisation today’s green building
programmes foreshadow the social construction of twenty-first-century building codes.
Building codes, public health, environmental preservation
In this section we argue that the long-term development of building codes related to
human health is rooted in nineteenth-century utilitarian thought and becomes fused with
the environmental preservation movement at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
The codification of building standards, as all architecture students learn early in their
careers, begins with Article 229 of the Code of King Hammurabi (Mesopotamia 1780
BCE) (Sanderson 1969: 5). The Greeks and Romans certainly contributed to the establishment
of construction standards, but it wasn’t until 1189 in England that a building
act representing municipal legislative power was developed. Five hundred years later, in
1676, a document resembling a modern building code was created through an Act of
Parliament to regulate the rebuilding of London after the devastating fire of 1666 (AIA
1990: 8). These pre-modern codes were, in emphasis, fire-prevention ordinances. The
emergence of the industrial revolution and rapid urbanisation in the nineteenth century,
however, created new conditions that catalysed the codification of building standards.
The idea that there is a collective or ‘public’ health, and that it is linked to environmental
conditions, emerged in mid-nineteenth-century England as ‘the sanitary idea’.
Most historians attribute the first or most prominent articulation of this idea to Edwin
Chadwick, son of James. The elder Chadwick was a devotee of the revolutionary Tom
Paine and had sufficient status among radical thinkers of his day to gain his son a position
as the personal secretary to Jeremy Bentham, a progenitor of utilitarianism. It was
Bentham who argued for the ‘greatest happiness principle’, that ‘the end of life, ethically
speaking is “the greatest good for the greatest number”’ (Reese 1980: 53). Although
the younger Chadwick was profoundly influenced by the utilitarians in philosophical
matters, he is remembered, not as a thinker, but as a civil servant and man of action. At
the behest of Parliament, he published in 1842 his Report on the Sanitary Condition of
the Labouring Population of Great Britain, which proved to be as historically influential
as it was then controversial. Chadwick’s report was considered radical because, first, it
relied on rigorously gathered empirical data rather than deductive logic, and second, it
employed such methods to reject the commonly held idea that disease was the fatalistic
imposition of God’s will. With equal temerity, Chadwick challenged the received
wisdom that held poverty to be the main cause of ill health. Chadwick argued the
reverse, that ‘the attack of fever precedes the destitution, not the destitution the
disease’ (Chadwick 1965: 210). For Chadwick and his fellow ‘sanitarians’, disease was
not an outward sign of moral depravity, but the misfortune of those subjected to
degraded environments. In the eyes of historian William Luckin, Chadwick was a ‘protoenvironmentalist’
because he identified an environmental cause of disease before there
was any scientific understanding of pathogenic organisms (Melosi 2000: 46). It was not
until some 20 years after the publication of Chadwick’s report that ‘germ theory’, based
on the work of Pasteur and others, would begin to supplant the then dominant ‘miasma’
theory of disease.
Chadwick’s medical logic might have remained simply prescient were it not for the
political implications of the sanitary idea. Beginning with the utilitarian formula of ‘the
greatest good for the greatest number’, he reasoned that true ‘civic economy’ required
‘preventative measures in raising the standard of health and the chances of life’
(Chadwick 1965: 246). It was a short mental step from advocating the economic value
of public health to advocating the creation of a general building code backed up by a
strong central government capable of enforcing such standards (Chadwick 1965:
339–47). The utilitarians were, then, precursors of the modern welfare state.
In recent years utilitarianism has been much criticised for its easy disregard for the
civil rights of minorities. Bentham, Chadwick and their followers constructed an attitude
towards social order that we now regard as highly authoritarian and technocratic. They
were not predisposed to trust in the ability of common citizens to make sensible choices
concerning much of anything. Rather, their idea of ‘civic economy’ relied on an educated
elite to manage efficiently the interests of society, which they conceived to be essentially
economic in nature.
Such an efficiently managed or sanitised society was the nightmare of Michel
Foucault (1975). In Foucault’s view, the institutions of public health constructed by
nineteenth-century utilitarians were little more than the illegitimate mechanisms of the
modern bureaucratic state through which social deviancy might be eradicated. The
ethical dilemma posed by the doctrines of public health, then, is characterised by a
confrontation between two seemingly rational desires. First is the desire of those who,
like Chadwick, wish to minimise the waste of resources associated with environmental

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Changing Government Policy
An important consultation document was issued by the UK Government in 1998.1 Part of a wider
consultation exercise on sustainability, it discussed some principles of sustainable construction and current
practices in the industry. Following the consultation process, which brought in a relatively small number of
responses, a Government strategy based on this consultation process will soon be published, though it is
likely to fall well short of the standards advocated in this volume. While the government approach is hardly
radical, recognition of the subject is a huge step forward and is to be greatly welcomed.
Other steps have also been taken, in particular the establishment of a scheme to provide one day’s free
design advice to anyone planing to build a green building over 500 square metres. The Design Advice for
Greener Buildings scheme is funded by the DETR and administered by BRECSU.2 This scheme
demonstrates recognition of the importance of an holistic approach to consider all aspects of green building
rather than simply focusing on energy efficiency which was previously the only area where financial help was
available.
The construction industry has been under a great deal of scrutiny following the publication of the
“Latham” report and more recently the “Egan” report.3 Both these reports recognise the inefficiency of the
construction sector and the need to be more competitive and better managed. It is only in this economic
sense that sustainability is usually referred to and the debate about the nature of building construction in the
future largely ignores questions of environmental impact. Indeed the word sustainability only appears once,
in the Egan report (paragraph 58) with a call for greater priority to be given in the design and planning stage
to “flexibility of use, operating and maintenance costs and sustainability.”
While the UK lags behind, in some European countries, much higher standards and working practices
have been adopted. These include the careful separation of waste on site into separate skips so that it is then
recycled, the greater use of recycled materials in place of newly quarried aggregates and the elimination of
many toxic and non environmentally friendly materials to improve building worker safety and improve
indoor air quality. Most of these measures are covered by European directives and then enforced in
particular countries by building or local regulations

Demand for green materials?
At present most of these sustainability measures are barely on the agenda of the building regulation
formulation process in the UK and there are strong industry lobbies to maintain the status quo for as long as
possible. Many environmentally friendly products are now available in Europe, but few of them are sold in
bulk in the UK. This is surprising in that many producers and distributors of building materials and products
are multi national companies. Akzo Nobel, the Swedish company (of Nobel peace prize fame) for instance
own many of the paint companies in the UK and are in the process of marketing these products under the
name Akzo Nobel but it isn’t clear whether we can look forward to the introduction of Sweden’s higher
environmental standards into the UK paint industry5
One argument that is used by building companies, designers and suppliers in the UK is that clients are
not interested in eco products and so market forces continue to dictate that we continue to use materials that
are not so environmentally friendly as they could be. There is some evidence of this in that when
“Construction Resources” was set up in Southwark in London, the UK’s first eco builders merchants,6 many
of their suppliers in Germany and Holland were unwilling to invest in the centre because their market
research had told them there was little interest in the UK. In Germany, where there is even a federation of
eco builders merchants, green materials have a significant share of the market.7
However this is something of a chicken and egg situation. Clients are frequently not told about green
materials and even when they are interested, most materials cannot be sourced in normal ways, so if
builders cannot obtain them from their normal suppliers they won’t use them. If designers promoted green
materials and builders merchants stocked them, there would undoubtedly be greater use.

The public sector could give a lead in this respect so that local authorities, hospitals trusts and central
government could adopt green specification standards and because of the bulk of materials which they
order, the market would have to change to meet this demand. The Greening Government Section of the
DETR has produced an excellent report which gives guidance on how to achieve greener buildings.8 Apart
from covering most topics, under 38 headings, including indoor air quality, it has an excellent and
comprehensive set of appendices giving sources of information and useful contacts. Needless to say, the
Green Building handbook gets mentioned throughout. This document, which contains a Green Code for
Architects (based on BREEAM),9 would be very useful to anyone trying to persuade a sceptical public
sector client that green building is not a strange and hippie activity but quite normal and sanctioned by
Government.

Read more!

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is an important issue for architects, specifiers and building managers in the UK.
Materials manufacturers will soon have to publish data on what contribution their materials make to IAQ,
following what is now becoming standard practice in Scandinavia. It is a critical issue when considering
ventilation. This is a short note drawing attention to the issues. The subject is a huge one, justifying a full
issue of the Digest in the future.
After a great deal of interest in ‘Sick Building Syndrome’21 in the mass media in the late 1980s, public
interest appears to have declined somewhat, though the fashion for solid wooden floors instead of carpets is
a result of a partial understanding of such issues among consumers. However the problem has not gone
away. As most of us spend 90% of our lives inside buildings, certainly in colder climates, the internal air
that we breathe is laced with a huge cocktail of chemicals and ‘natural;’ pollutants that can seriously affect
our health. Good ventilation is a key factor in reducing the impact of indoor pollution, but reducing the
chemicals at source is the most effective solution for green designers. Specifying green and ‘natural’
materials with low toxicity would appear to be one of the most effective ways, when coupled with an
effective ventilation strategy, of ensuring good IAQ.
Surprisingly there is little medical research into the impact of IAQ on health. Bodies such as the Medical
Research Council and the National Asthma Campaign do not appear to have given it sufficiently high
priority. A great deal of medical opinion links allergic and respiratory problems to genetic rather than
environmental causes. When environmental causes are blamed, these are largely attributed to external
pollution such as from traffic rather than IAQ. There are also powerful vested interests in the pharmaceuticals
world to promote the sales of inhalers and anti allergy remedies, one of the most lucrative sources of profits
for the drug companies.
It is possible that the lack of sufficient medical evidence has been one of the reasons why IAQ has not
been accorded a high priority in the construction industry. However research at the University of
Strathclyde in Glasgow is investigating the links between domestic environments and the increasing
prevalence of asthma.22 They attribute many of the problems to the reduction of ventilation rates, higher
levels of humidity and the air tightness of modern constructions. Recently an American authority in the
field, Hal Levin said, at the International Indoor Air Quality Conference in Edinburgh, that the weight of
scientific evidence demonstrates clearly that indoor pollution (rather than external) is one the main
influences on our health.23 A large amount of scientific work in the IAQ field is slowly beginning to
influence building regulations and manufacturer of building products, particularly in more progressive
countries such as Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.24 The International IAQ conference in Edinburgh
in August 1999 had over 600 scientific papers, but it was stated that there has been a failure to transfer
much of this knowledge to a wider audience. Much of the research has been pre-occupied with developing
methods of measurement and analysis (which are crucial) rather than the effects of indoor air pollution on
building occupants. This failure to communicate was recognised at IAQ 99 and a workshop specifically
discussed linking IAQ research with the wider sustainable construction movement.
The main sources of Indoor Air pollution are;
building materials, paints, varnishes etc., technical equipment (printers, photocopiers etc.), cleaning
fluids, polishes etc., common products that are used indoors, body effluents, ambient air quality, including
pollution from outside and smoking.
Standards do exist for acceptable levels of some of these pollutants but they do not always take into
account the problems of people who are allergic or hypersensitive to certain materials. However building
codes in various countries tend to focus mostly on CO2, CO and NO2 and pay less attention to the levels of volatile organic compounds.25 This can largely be attributed to pressure from commercial interests that do
not want to see further controls on toxic emissions from their products.
While levels of pollution from tobacco smoke and cleaning materials can be controlled, VOCs and other
chemicals are concentrated into the actual fabric of buildings and this means removing the use of such
materials at the specification stage. Emission levels can vary widely depending on the finishes in buildings
and at different times in the life of a building. Studies at the Building Research Establishment have
identified 254 Volatile organic compounds emitted from building materials in the first year of the life of four
newly built houses and 71 during the second year.26 Other listings show a much larger range of toxic
materials found in buildings and clearly these will vary depending on the materials used in construction.27
Paints and flooring materials are the main sources, but other products can also be significant.28 Higher
temperatures, during the summer or from winter heating, lead to higher emission levels and while the
highest release is in the early life of a building many chemicals can linger for much longer. A wide range
of chemicals which are suspected of causing health problems including Toluene, Naphthalene, Xylenes,
Formaldehyde, Lindane and many more can be detected in conventional houses. Many of these chemicals
have been referred to in past issues of the Green Building Digest, particularly the issues on Paints for
Joinery, Adhesives, Interior Decoration, timber preservatives and so on and more information on them can
be found in the relevant digest. Many people are also sensitive to natural pathogens such as pollen, dust
mites and mould. It is important to ensure that the remedies to this do not introduce new VOCs into the
indoor environment. Also many anti fungal and mould treatments use biocides which in themselves are
toxic to humans.
Many of the environmental assessment systems for buildings did not include IAQ and toxic emissions in
their categorisation though the BRE Environmental Standard, Homes for a Greener World,29 introduced
measurements of Formaldehyde, Wood preservatives and Paint with lead in 1995 and has been largely
ignored. Much tougher standards are likely to be introduced in the future when the new BRE environmental
profiling system30 is widely adopted and ventilation standards in the building regulations will eventually be
related to the effect of materials on our health.

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Building characteristics
Whatever the climate, a building, such as a house, can be thought of as a mixture
of mass materials (e.g. brick wall, mud brick vault, concrete slab) and insulation
materials (e.g. fibreglass batts in the wall, thatched roof, expanded polystyrene
sandwich cladding panel). How a building performs depends upon the mixture of these materials, but it can be simply thought of in the following way. For the cave
dweller, who lived in a mass building with no insulation, the internal temperature
would settle at the annual average temperature. ForNew Zealand that was 13.1C
in 2005, the fourth highest such annual average on record1 and in the UK it is
8.5–11C2. This explains the old adage that a house with thick stone walls always
felt warm in winter and cool in summer, since that was what it was relative to the
outside temperature, even if the actual indoor air temperature around 10C or
even 13C did not represent comfort. Thus, having a lot of mass in a building
means the internal temperature will tend to be stable. The presence of insulation in
combination with mass will tend to raise the stable internal temperature above the
average annual temperature. The experience with Hockerton houses in the UK,
which have no space heating system apart from the gains from solar energy, the
occupants and the equipment inside, suggests that a 7–8C temperature rise above
the annual average can be achieved with a very high mass construction with
300mm of insulation to walls, roof and floor, and with the best available offthe-
shelf windows. The latter consisted of plantation-grown softwood frames with
triple-glazed units, along with krypton gas filling and low-emissivity coatings on
two of the glass layers (Vale and Vale 2000: pp. 187–194).
Conversely, the temperature inside a house that has minimal mass and insulation
will follow the outside temperature unless energy is put into the house in the form
of sunlight, or from the people and equipment housed in it. Temperatures over a
day are lowest in the night and highest around midday. In a lightweight house,
insulation will lift the internal temperature above the outside temperature.
However, the temperature in the house will still go up and down, following the
track of the outside temperature but a number of degrees above it. The level of
insulation will determine how much the temperature inside is lifted above that
outside. For an unheated house in New Zealand with 150mm of insulation in
walls and floor, and 200mm in the roof, the temperature was lifted about 7C
above that outside when the outside temperature was at its lowest. This meant the
minimum indoor temperature recorded in a bedroom was 14C (Vale and Vale
2001). The windows in this instance were double-glazed with one low-emissivity
coating in aluminium frames with no thermal break.
Although it is true to say that in New Zealand the majority of houses are of the
lightweight model, in many countries houses are a mixture of mass and lightweight
materials, often having masonry walls (mass), concrete slab ground floor
(mass), timber joisted upper floor (lightweight) and a timber frame roof (lightweight),
and hence their characteristic performance, if they are unheated, will
also be somewhere between the two extremes. It is important to have a basic
understanding of how buildings might behave. This is because it may fall to the
user to attempt to correct any shortcomings in the original design at points of major refurbishment in the building lifetime. During any refurbishment it is
unlikely that mass will be added to the building but it is often possible to add
insulation. However, before discussing this subject further, it is also necessary to
consider the behaviour of small buildings in hot climates and the behaviour of
large buildings.
In a hot climate, whether hot wet or hot dry, the aim is usually to keep the
building cooler than outside, although in some desert climates where the nights
are cold it is also desirable at times to try to raise the inside temperature above
that outside. From this it can be seen that in the hot dry desert climate with a
large swing in temperature between night and day, the very high mass building
is a good solution as it will maintain the annual average temperature. For
example, the mean annual temperature in Egypt is 20–25C3, which would
provide a good comfort temperature in a building. The classic high mass
building for this climate was made of mud brick, had few openings to keep
out the sun and formed part of a cluster of buildings to keep as much exterior
surface as possible shaded from exposure to direct sunlight. In a hot, humid
climate the temperature swing day and night and summer to winter is often less,
so there is less need of the tempering effect of mass, and the traditional building
was often lightweight, and open as much as possible to any cooling breezes to
help keep the occupants comfortable. In all hot climates the roof is an important
element in keeping out the sun. Often, ventilation paths would be open
under the roof in order to keep air flowing over its underside, with the aim of
channelling away any heat coming through. Roofs would also be insulated
against heat gain. In all warm climates a light-coloured roof is also an advantage
to reduce the solar gain into the building.
A small building is dominated by the performance of the surface, walls, roof and
floor, as the volume of space enclosed is relatively small. However, a large
building has less surface area for the volume enclosed, so its thermal performance
tends to be dominated by what happens in it – the gains from people and activities
– rather than by the skin, although large areas of glass cladding exposed to the
sun will have an effect on internal performance. Large buildings, with one
exception, also differ because they tend to be used during the working day and
so there is no necessity to maintain comfortable conditions during the night, the
time of lowest external temperatures in climates that need heating. The exception
is the apartment block, which, especially in Asia, is becoming the norm. The
improved performance of such buildings lies more with the designers and constructors
as the improvements to the life cycle impact that can be made by the
users are limited. Because this chapter is about the effect of the building user, the
remainder of the discussion will be centred on the home and the small-scale
building.

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Guidelines on dealing with the issues
This section aims to suggest guidelines and priorities for the users of buildings to
help reduce life cycle environmental impact.
1 As operating energy is the largest component of life cycle energy, its reduction
should be the priority, rather than worrying about embodied energy.

2 Insulation is generally the key to reducing operating energy and refurbishment
should see insulation as a priority. It is generally easiest to insulate the lightweight
elements of a building first and, for a heated building, this will reduce
energy use. Mass elements must also be adequately externally insulated even if
heating is used.

3 To make a comfortable building that needs no heating requires adequate mass
with adequate insulation on its external face.

4 Once the fabric of the building has been insulated, the windows should also be
upgraded. Adding layers to windows in the form of blinds, shutters and
curtains is a simple approach to improving window performance.

5 Avoid having a very ‘wet’ lifestyle, to avoid damage from moisture in the home.

6 If it is not possible to ventilate the house in the daytime by opening the
windows, some other form of deliberate ventilation system should be used to
remove moisture from the interior of the house.

7 Switching off a light when it is not needed is the simplest way to save energy.

8 Compact fluorescent lamps, although more expensive to buy, do make sense in
life cycle terms both for life cycle energy and life cycle cost.

9 Taking shorter showers is the quickest way to save the energy used to heat
water.

10 If a hot water system needs replacing, a solar water heating system with an
adequate storage tank might be an option to reduce the life cycle environmental
impact of a hot water supply.

11 Install Energy Star and European A-class rated appliances where these are
available.

12 Turn off appliances at the wall whenever possible.

13 Use natural finishes rather than those based on petroleum products.

14 Use of second-hand or antique furniture will reduce the overall life cycle
environmental impact.

Conclusion
None of the issues presented in the guidelines above should be a surprise as they
will be found in many discussions on how to make houses and other small
buildings use less energy and have less impact on the natural environment.
What life cycle analysis allows is the chance to set priorities, as it is possible to
see precisely what contributes to the making of the life cycle impact and the
relative size of the constituent parts. If there is one thing life cycle analysis
confirms, it is the importance of insulation in reducing life cycle energy use and
life cycle impact. Insulation is a boring subject, as the money spent on it is
generally not visible in the way money spent on a state-of-the-art kitchen is.
Nevertheless, at every stage of a building’s life its environmental performance
will be improved by the addition of insulation. Perhaps it is the case that building
designers as well as users have to learn to love increased levels of ‘invisible’
insulation within their homes.

Read more!

Green Building Design Competition

USGBC's Natural Talent Design Competition provides applied learning experience in the principles of integrated design, sustainability, and innovation, all of which are components of the LEED® Green Building Rating System™. Participants compete in local competitions, and the top winner of each moves on to compete for a national award at USGBC’s annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo. Awards include green building scholarships, as well as travel and registration to Greenbuild, where finalists’ entries are displayed and final judging occurs. Now in its sixth year, the next Design Competition will take place November 11-13, 2009, at Greenbuild in Phoenix.
2009 Registration

Register for your local 2009 Design Competition and download the required Image Use Form.
2009 Local USGBC Design Competitions
Atlanta, GA
Boston, MA
Cascadia Chapter (Portland, Seattle, Vancouver)
Charlotte, NC
Chicago, IL
Cincinnati, OH
Colorado
Tampa, FL (Florida Gulf Coast)
Houston, TX
Idaho Chapter
James River Green Building Council (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, VA)
Kansas City Chapter
Los Angeles, CA
Michigan (West Michigan Chapter)
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
New York, NY
Philadelphia, PA (Delaware Valley Green Building Council)
Puerto Rico (Caribbean Chapter)
Raleigh/Durham, NC (NC Triangle Chapter)
Sacramento, CA
San Antonio, TX
San Diego, CA
San Francisco, CA
South Florida Chapter
Upstate New York Chapter
Washington, D.C. (National Capital Region)
Wisconsin (Wisconsin Green Building Alliance)
2008 Winners
Started six years ago by USGBC’s Emerging Green Builders, the Natural Talent Design Competition is an annual contest for students and young professionals to practice sustainable design concepts around local community projects. Each year, participating USGBC chapters, affiliates, and host committees hold local competitions which each group’s winning project team participating in the national competition. The winners are selected at Greenbuild by a jury of distinguished design professionals. The awards are presented during the closing plenary.

2008 Competition
This year, 17 chapters hosted local competitions and sent their winning project teams to Boston to compete for the national prize. This year’s jury included: Bill O’ Dell (HOK), Ralph DiNola (LEED faculty and chapter leader), Chris Klehm (LEED faculty and chapter leader), and Bahar Armaghani (LEED faculty and chapter leader). USGBC awards 1st and 2nd place prizes as well as honorable mentions.

National 1st Place Winner received $5000
National 2nd Place Winner received $2000
Honorable Mention was announced at the discretion of the design jury

2008 Honorable Mention: Boston EGB, Team Redo_Rudolph,
Project: The Erich Lindemann Building
Members: Priya Jain, Dana Ozik, Matt Morong, Marta Morais Storz, Dana Ozik

2008 National 2nd Place: National Capitol Region EGB, Team Greensmith
Project: Urban Nomadic Shelter
Members: Arnold Smith and Arvi Sardadi

2008 National 1st Place: Cascadia EGB, Team Webber Thompson
Project Name: Eco-Laboratory
Members: Myer Harrell, Dan Albert, Brian Geller, and Chris Dukehart

Click Here for Previous Design Competition Winners

Read more!

2009 Design Challenge

Detailed information about the 2009 NCSBDC Design Challenge is available for download.

Please note: When you click on some of these links a dialogue box will open. It will ask, "Do you want to open or save this file?" Click on save. By not saving this file, you may lose your work. These files must be submitted with your team's design entry on the day of your school's local competition. Please read the Requirements document for official guidelines.

Required Files

• Design Challenge
• Requirements [download document]
• Summary Sheet for Binder [download document]
• Return on Investment template [download document]

Additional Files

• Frequently Asked Questions for 2009 [download pdf]

Competition site

The lot at 1725 Poole Road, is 0.96 acres and borders an existing CASA development project, Hope Crest.

Photo of the lot at 1725 Poole Road with neighboring building, Hope Crest.

Site plan for 1725 Poole Road

You can also view a site plan here.

Visiting the site
Design Competition students are strongly encouraged to visit the site. There will be several opportunities to tour the site with Griff Gatewood, Housing Developer at CASA during the semester. Two tours have been scheduled for January 21st and February 7th. To participate in these tours, please contact Griff Gatewood via email (ggatewood@casanc.com) or by phone (919-754-9960). If you are unable to make the scheduled tours, you are welcome to visit the site at your convenience.

Read more!

Upcoming events

April

April 27 - 29, 2009 - Paris, . France
Energy Efficiency Global Forum & Exposition (EE Global 2009)

April 27 - May 01, 2009 - Kansas City, MO
ACI Home Performance Conference 2009
The national ACHI Home Performance Conference returns to Kansas City, Missouri (Hyatt Regency Crown Center)

April 28 - 30, 2009 - Chicago , Illinois United States
Decon '09- The BMRA Biannual Conference
The National Conference of the Building Materials Reuse Association

April 28 - 29, 2009 - Phoenix, AZ
2009 National Apartment Association Green Conference & Exposition
At the The Phoenix Convention Center – LEED Certified.

April 28 - 30, 2009 - Shanghai, . China
EPTEE 2009 - The 10th China EPTEE Show for Water, Air, Waste, Energy and Recycling
The 10th China EPTEE Show for Water, Air, Waste, Energy and Recycling

April 30, 2009 - Boston, MA
An Evening Fundraiser in Support of Alternative Grad School
Please join us on Thursday, April 30 (6:00 - 8:00 pm) at the NEXUS Green Building Resource Center

April 30 - May 02, 2009 - San Francisco, CA
AIA 2009 NATIONAL CONVENTION AND DESIGN EXPOSITION
THE POWER OF DIVERSITY: PRACTICE IN A COMPLEX WORLD

May

May 03 - 07, 2009 - Houston, TX USA
Clean Technology Conference & Trade Show 2009

May 05, 2009 - Washington, DC
Living Green ˆ A Conference on Sustainable Urban Planning and Green Building
Swedish and U.S. experts will share their experiences and views from both countries on developing greener living spaces.

May 05 - 08, 2009 - Salt Lake City, Utah USA
2009 Natl. Mitigation & Ecosystem Banking Conference
Learn how the New Rule on Mitigation Banking is impacting the industry

May 06 - 08, 2009 - Portland, Oregon USA
Living Future '09: Cultivating Leadership
The Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s annual signature event focused on cutting-edge green design solutions. This year’s theme is “Cultivating Leadership.”

May 07, 2009 - Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA
Integrated Interiors Design & Product Selection
Maximize LEED points using the latest sustainable interior products and materials

May 08 - 09, 2009 - Santa Monica, California
Alternative Building Materials and Design Expo 09
Presented by the City of Santa Monica, this event features over 150 exhibitors displaying the latest in green building technologies and practices, landscape and water conservation products and interior design products and furnishings.

May 08 - 10, 2009 - Dallas, TX
NAHB National Green Building Conference
This year's conference is focused on how to "make green by going green." Attendees will learn how a shift to a greener business can lead to more profits in the long run and get perspectives on Green's future.

May 09 - 10, 2009 - Dayton, OH
Straw Bale Construction Workshop

May 10 - 15, 2009 - Warren, VT
Strawbale Design/Build
Learn to build a strawbale structure from start to finish!

May 11 - 16, 2009 - East Charleston, Vermont USA
Solar-Electric System Design and Installation Course
A complete overview of solar-electric systems that provides participants with the skills needed to site, design, and install a PV system.

May 17 - 22, 2009 - Warren, VT
Natural Plasters & Finishes
Learn to mix and apply beautiful, non-toxic paints, plasters and finishes from natural materials and pigments!

May 18 - 20, 2009 - Boston, MA
Alternative Energy & Building Efficiency Conference & Exhibition

May 18 - 20, 2009 - Chicago, Illinois USA
CleanMed 2009

May 18 - 20, 2009 - Washington, DC
2009 Building Opportunities Conference
Join us for three days of practical tools to create successful nonprofit shared space and services.

May 20 - 21, 2009 - Santa Barbara, California United States
Santa Barbara Summit on Energy Efficiency

May 21, 2009 - San Francisco, CA USA
Brightworks LEED-NC 2.2 Exam Training Workshop!
Sign up to pass the LEED-NC 2.2 Accredited Professional Exam.

May 23 - 29, 2009 - Philo, Ohio USA
The Complete Straw Bale Building Workshop
The Complete Straw Bale Building Workshop and more

May 24 - June 12, 2009 - Warren, VT
Ecological Design in the Built Environment Certificate Course
Yestermorrow's Core Class in Home-Scale Whole Systems Design, Ecological Planning, Design and Construction

May 27 - 29, 2009 - Las Vegas, NV
National Green Builders Products Expo
Join the National Green Builders Products Expo in the #1 trade show destination city in the world...LAS VEGAS!

May 28 - 29, 2009 - Austin, Texas
Corporate Sustainability Summit
Learn How Sustainability is Revitalizing Financial Performance from The Best Minds in Business

May 30 - June 03, 2009 - Gerald, Missouri
Green Building - A Systems Approach

June

June 01 - August 14, 2009 - Warren, VT
Natural Building Intensive Course
Learn to design and build a complete, handcrafted structure of natural stone, straw, timber, and clay from start to finish!

June 03 - 05, 2009 - Seattle, Washington
17th National Conference on Building Commissioning

June 04 - 05, 2009 - Gerald, Missouri
Passive Solar Heating and Cooling

June 06, 2009 - Gerald, Missouri
Straw Bale Design and Construction

June 07, 2009 - Gerald, Missouri
Natural Plasters

June 07 - 12, 2009 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA
34th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference
Highly technical conference for the solar industry organized by the IEEE.

June 09 - 11, 2009 - Montreal, QC CANADA
Shifting Into The Mainstream: CaGBC National Summit 2009
Shifting Into the Mainstream

June 10, 2009 - Long Beach, CA
27th West Coast Energy Management Congress
AEE is your source on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and carbon reduction strategies and offers certification, seminars, conferences, books, journals, and tradeshows.

June 13 - 14, 2009 - Gerald, Missouri
Natural Building

June 16 - 17, 2009 - New York , NY
Green BuildingsNY
Greener Buildings. Greener Planet. Greener Future.

June 17 - 19, 2009 - San Francisco, CA
PCBC 2009 - PCBC at 50 + the Multifamily Trends Conference

June 17 - 19, 2009 - Warren, VT
Course in Green Development Best Practices
A practical, step-by-step tour through the world of green planning, design, construction, sales and operations.

June 18 - 20, 2009 - Beijing, . China
The International Green Building Expo

June 21 - 26, 2009 - Vancouver, WA United States
The Summer Sustainability Series - Sustainability in the Urban Built Environment
Summer Sustainability Series - fast paced , 5-day, mobile symposium

June 27 - 28, 2009 - Warren, VT
Green Home Design Course

June 28 - July 03, 2009 - Warren, VT
Regenerative Home Design Course
Learn the principles of regenerative design thinking, and gain an understanding of how to design buildings that function like living organisms.

July

July 05 - 10, 2009 - Warren, VT
Course in Designing Ecological Intentional Communities
Learn how to organize and plan your own ecological intentional community.

July 16 - 19, 2009 - Indianapolis, IN
CONSTRUCT2009/The TFM Show/CSI Annual Convention
Comprehensive Educational and Trade Show for Building Professionals

July 18, 2009 - Berkeley, CA USA
Which Shade of Green?
Select the right products and projects for an energy-efficient and sustainable remodel.

July 19 - 24, 2009 - Warren, VT
Deconstruction and Materials Re-use Class
Learn how to salvage building materials safely and effectively for whole-house deconstruction projects for fun or profit.

July 26 - August 01, 2009 - Warren, VT
Reuse: Recycle Art & Architecture Class
Look at, discuss and explore hands-on examples of materials re-use and recycling in both art and architecture as ways to work creatively with materials.

August

August 01 - 02, 2009 - Warren, VT
Green Remodeling

August 08 - 09, 2009 - Warren, VT
Efficiency by Design Course
An introduction to the principles of heat loss, heat gain, insulation and health and energy effects of materials in building envelopes.

August 09 - 14, 2009 - Warren, VT
Green Roof Design and Installation Course
Learn how to design and build green roof systems!

August 15 - 16, 2009 - Warren, VT
Green Building Materials
Learn about environmental impact, life cycle assessment, and indoor air quality ramifications for materials used in nearly all aspects of the home.

August 23 - 28, 2009 - Warren, VT
Permaculture for Home and Garden
Learn about Permaculture ideas that can improve quality of life, simplify needs, and increase family time by cooperating with ecological processes to create abundance and diversity.

August 30 - September 18, 2009 - Warren, VT
Ecological Design in the Built Environment Class
Yestermorrow's Core Class in Home-Scale Whole Systems Design, Ecological Planning, Design and Construction

September

September 06 - 12, 2009 - Warren, VT
Introduction to Cob Building Class
Learn to build an affordable earthen home out of cob!

September 13 - 17, 2009 - Syracuse, New York USA
Healthy Buildings 2009

September 14 - 18, 2009 - Washington, DC
GREAT Expo 2009: Global Renewal Energy Advanced Technologies Expo & Summit

September 20 - October 02, 2009 - Warren, VT
Permaculture Design Certification
This course covers the core Permaculture Design curriculum including applications of Permaculture in diverse settings, and techniques for meeting human needs that harmonize with ecological patterns.

September 20 - 23, 2009 - Indianapolis, IN USA
Greening of the Campus Conference VIII: Embracing Change
Bridging the culture and practices that support the commitment of colleges and universities to education for sustainability.

September 22 - 24, 2009 - Indianapolis, IN USA
Laboratories for the 21st Century (Labs21®) 2009 Annual Conference
A gathering of leaders in sustainable laboratory design and operation

October

October 05 - 09, 2009 - Las, Vegas
WaterSmart '09 Convention
Five core workshops, enabling attendees to become fully Accredited GreenPlumbers in just one workweek.

October 22 - 25, 2009 - New Bedford, MA
Bioneers by the Bay: Connecting for Change
Fourth Annual Bioneers by the Bay Conference Tackles Environmental Sustainability Crisis with Global and Local Solutions

October 31 - November 03, 2009 - Orlando, FL United States
HEALTHCARE DESIGN.08
The HEALTHCARE DESIGN conference is devoted to how the DESIGN of responsibly built environments directly impacts the safety, operation, clinical outcomes, and financial success of healthcare facilities now and into the future.

November

November 08 - 09, 2009 - Warren, VT
Trees & Wood
We will look at the global distribution of forests and their importance, the physiology of trees and wood, and the habitat and nature of trees commonly utilized in construction, cabinetry, and furnituremaking.

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