Green Architects

Green Architects

Green architects and global warming and maybe what we can do about it.

Welcome to Green Architecture and green architects. Almost everyone has heard something about this current popular subject. Why is it so interesting? What is it?

(C) Copyright 2009 Rand Soellner AIA.  You are allowed to copy this article in its entirety, including the copyright notice, for informational, non-commercial purposes.

Definition of Green and Greeness:

Who cares about being Green?

It appears that many scientists evidently believe that Earth seems to be warming some each year. The 1998 through 2007 timespan is among the 25 warmest eras on record for the United States, per the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. It may be that a 7.2 degree F increase may occur during the 21st century. The polar ice caps and large glaciers are melting.  This is alarming, and downright frightening, as this is also raising the height of the World’s shorelines.  This doesn’t sound like anything to be particularly concerned about according to some people, but it may be, especially if you happen to live near an ocean. And there appears to be substantial climate change consequences related to elevated oceans and warming temperatures.  Scientists believe there are other dire issues related to Global Warming.

What are humans doing that is contributing to the creation of greenhouse gases? The main villain is carbon dioxide. Where does this come from? Mainly from burning oil, gas and coal. It appears that all scientists agree that this is true. Before the Industrial Revolution, carbon dixoide levels were around 280 ppmv (parts per million by volume). These days this level is about 380 ppmv. It appears to be increasing at quickening rate: 1.9 ppmv per year since 2000AD.  During the last 650,000 years, the normal amount created by Mother Nature has been between 180 to 300 ppmv.  This could become 490 to 1,260 ppmv by 2199, which is 75% to 350% higher than normal, natural levels of greenhouse gas in our atmosphere. What would happen?

Global Warming Consequences

Worldwide food production decreases due to lack of water.  There was a substantial drought during the period from 1999 through 2002, one of the worst in the previous 4o years.

Warmer water in oceans inserts more energy into storm cells, making them stronger, as evidenced by the increase in category 4 and 5 hurricanes during the last four decades, and increased ocean temperatures. 2005 Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst in history. Drought is the result of Global Warming in some areas, other locations have substantial floods created by heavy rains. This destroys housing and displaces people and infrastructure.

Fire fighting costs have substantially increased to well over a billion dollars every year.

Environmental heat in 2006 contiributed to the death of more than 225 people in the USA. In 2003, heat led to the deaths of approximately 70,000 people. Temperatures increased to 104*F.

Scientists believe that increasing levels of carbon dioxide contribute to allergy weed growth, leading to asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

Diesel exhaust particulates combine with pollen, planting them deeper into humans’ lungs.

Increasing temperatures increase ground level ozone smog, which is a substantial health hazard.

Heavy rainfall in certain locations (and not in others) frequently result in mosquitoes carrying diseases such as malaria, which is infectious.

Some species face extinction if Earth’s temperatures exceed 2.7 to 4.5 *F change (such as polar bears who are now drowning due to lack of ice on which to live).

Bermuda’s mangrove forests are vanishing.

The oceans are increasingly acidic due to carbon dioxide emissions. A 3.6 *F increase may kill 97% of the World’s coral reefs, which are an integral link in the ocean’s ecosystem.

Remember Sean Connery’s popular movie “Medicine Man”? Perhaps mankind’s hope for a cancer cure now lives in some plant in a Tropical rain forest that is being cut down or burned to make room for development in those developing areas.

Greenland contains about 10% of the World’s ice. If global temperatures melt it, ocean levels could rise by as much as 21 feet in height.

Much of the above  information was provided from the National Resources Defense Council.

Why is our planet warming?

 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that there is a natural Greenhouse Effect, which makes our Earth 57*F.  This is a good thing, because without it, our world would be a freezing 0*F. 

It occurs because particular gases in our atmosphere absorb and trap heat in our lower atmosphere, re-radiating downward some of the heat. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. Next comes carbon dioxide and trace gases. Nothing is bad about the greenhouse effect. The problem is that humans are creating additional greehouse gases that are contributing to the natural gases to an extent that the Greenhouse Effect is increased and this is making our planet too warm.  This is the theory proposed by scientists.

Global warming is not uniform everywhere on our planet. For instance, in the southeastern United States, it has actually slightly cooled.  The majority of the planet has, however, increased in temperature about .13*C per every 10 years during the past half-century.

What can green architects do to help slow down or stop Global Warming? 

How does this impact home design & architecture?

For now, green architects can try to use less energy.  In the future, hopefully improved, cleaner energy sources will be available.  

People can reduce fossil fuel emissions from burning energy sources like oil and gas and coal.  How is that possible? Let’s try to find sources of energy other than fossil fuels that burn more cleanly and have lower greehouse gases. How does this affect architecture and green architects?

- sun energy - solar photovoltaic panels that can directly convert sunlight into eletrical power.

- wind energy- Utilizing some the World’s winds.  At about 1,000 feet above the surface of our planet, there are fairly consistent air flows.  There are scientists presently creating helium-floating blimps that have large lightweight turbines spinning in the wind, turning a generator that is attached to a mooring cable that routs the wind-created electrical energy back down to a power transformer for distribution to surrounding houses and buildings. Green architects can have a ball with this. 

- water energy- capturing ocean currents to spin turbines to generate electrical power.

There can be considerable speculation about the amazing technologies that are being developed for the future. But what can we do for Now?

That’s where today’s green architects can do things right now.  This is also what many of the existing energy and design programs are all about: Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation. These programs focus on these subjects: US DOPE/EPS Energy Star program, International Building Code’s Energy Codes, LEED and other programs. The idea is to: consume less energy, which means we burn fewer fossil fuels, which means there will be less greenhouse gas emissions we create, which should slow down Global Warming. Specifically how do green architects reduce energy consumption? Here are several methods that seem to work well:

1. Increase insulation amounts in roof and attic construction. Any mechanical engineer can tell you that this is the main source of heat loss/gain in all structures.  next: in walls, next: in floors. There are a many insulation products, with each of their manufacturers claiming to be the best.  Green architects need to make their own judgments based on actual data rather than sales persuasions. Select doors and windows with higher insulation levels also.

2. Seal ductwork and structures more tightly. Use better craftsmanship and produce tighter joinery.  Use sealants that plug the cracks and crevices to limit unplanned escape of air with heating/cooling energy from the interior side of the structure to the exterior. This method requires additional consideration of mechanical equipment for dedicated, controlled fresh air intake and possible preconditioning equipment so that properly cleaned and oxygenated air exists for the occupants to breathe.

3. Expose and Protect glass to the best advantage. Green architects can expose windows to winter sun (cover internally at night).  Cover windows exposed to sun in summer days.  This shades the glass from unwanted heat (that you will have to pay $ and burn fossil fuels to otherwise cool) in the hot season and lets in sunlight during cold months when it help heat the interior space. This sounds impossible: how to do both?  But green architects are clever and have various strategies to allow for this to happen. The sun has a higher, more vertical path, and is more north during summer and lower (more horizontal) and more southern in its daily path in winter (in the northern hemisphere).  This allows architects to understand the orientation of glass areas and to calculate roof overhangs to work with these natural cycles. There are other issues, such as views, however that often can outweigh these concerns, so it is often better to insure that main glass areas are protected under most situations rather than not. Also, use double pane insulated glass with Low-E coatings most of the time. In some very cold climates, use triple glazing. Glass companies are also developing technologies such as glass that can detect when sun is directly on it, changing itself to be more like a mirror, to reflect the heat, then change to transparent when the sun moves away.  We will continue to monitor these developments.

4. Use effective new proven technologies as they become economical to implement. It may soon be that photovoltaics may begin to become affordable. This will directly provide electrical power at the source at each home and building, without need of an inefficient, huge commercial, wide-spread power grid, through which there are presently huge losses of efficiency, resulting in the need to burn additional fossil fuels to overcome the gird’s resistance to the pushing the energy through to homes and buildings.  Power production at the source of use would be a huge advance forward in energy conservation and decrease in greenhouse gas production, especially for homes, which use more energy than all commercial buildings combined today. Some high-rise buildings are also beginning to use interesting features such as large propeller-wind-driven turbines to directly generate electrical energy for that building. There are also recent breakthroughs in lighting design that permit usage of about one-sixth of the amount of the energy as is presently used in typical desirable lighting these days.

5. Use efficient devices. Air-conditioning equipment is continuing to improve in efficiency nearly every year and specifying the most efficient will reduce the amount of power required to operate them.  This carries with it an increased capital expediture, but this reduces operational costs, so one’s monthly power bills would be reduced.

6. Use sustainable, renewable sources & types of materials and systems. This is known as Sustainable Design and involves recycling construction materials instead of throwing them into a waste dump, and using materials that have lower embodied energy levels that use less energy to produce them.  Shorter transportation with lowered energy is also part of this consideration: order materials and system from within 500 miles of the construction project.

Are there any green architects using these strategies, as an example?

Rand Soellner Architect’s firm has Green Home Architects using each of the techniques indicated herein. Go there to see some of the things he is doing to help make his home designs more energy efficient as well as to support Sustainable Design goals & being Green.