LEED vs. The Living Building Challenge

I just read (and earned 1 CEU) Architectural Record's "Live | Build | Sustain" article which discusses an alternative sustainable scoring system. I'd recommend you check it out for yourself.

Basically, to summarize, the Challenge is similar to LEED in that it is a system for certifying a building for sustainability. That is about the only similarity. Whereas LEED awards points for using certain green technology, the Challenge requires certain levels of sustainability. It's an ends vs. a means approach, which I think is pretty cool. The point of the system is to have an awesome earth-friendly building. LEED may be intended similarly, but you can have a LEED certified building that draws from the grid, or uses materials with VOCs, etc. The Challenge is more intense tree-hugging, essentially.

Anyway, check it out. I thought I would share this with you since I know our experiences in sustainability tend to be LEED-biased. It's always good to see what's out there. Plus, I was trying to think of other sustainable/green point systems outside of LEED the other day... and I could not think of one. Therefore, I am pleased to have stumbled upon this little ar-tickle!

http://continuingeducation.construction.com/article.php?L=5&C=705

Commander, tear this building apart until you find those plans! And bring me all passengers, I want them ALIVE!

This Thanksgiving, my brothers and I were driving back from our Aunt's home near Gettysburg, PA. As the dark oil of night seeped in over the sugar-covered hills, and finding that we had exhausted all the other typical talking points (#1. History #2. Food #3. Videogames) we eventually asked each other what were grateful for in our lives.

In his typical fashion my twin brother gave a masterful and heartfelt speech about being an adult and finding that, as he grows older, the people he cherishes the most are the people who first cherished him.* My younger brother chimed in, saying sometimes the people who know you the best are the ones whom you see the least and then wondered out loud about whether or not that was intentional. When it turned to me and knowing I could not top their rhetoric, I decided to punk out: "I am grateful for, I guess, you losers and ...uh... Architectural Theory....and...oh! Star Wars."

Then there was a general agreement that Star Wars is probably the best thing that ever happened, ever. We spent the rest of the ride fighting over the radio station.

Writing this, I am trying to combine the three things on the forefront of my gratitude.

#1 Family (CHECK)

#2 Architectural Theory (SEE BELOW)

#3 Star Wars (SEE BELOW)

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_phillips_creative_houses_from_reclaimed_stuff.html
She'll make point five past lightspeed. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of special modifications myself.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bjarke_ingels_3_warp_speed_architecture_tales.html
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed; the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

http://www.ted.com/talks/liz_diller_plays_with_architecture.html
Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them.

http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_prince_ramus_on_seattle_s_library.html
That's no moon. It's a space station.

http://www.ted.com/talks/nathaniel_kahn_on_my_architect.html

The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.

*I learned later that he had stolen this quote from Thomas Jefferson and paraphrased it for his own meaning.

Boston: Retly Corm’s Fort Necessity

Ahh, Boston: the city of my great defeat. If you read the blog post from about a year ago, I made a quick reference to what was maybe one of the worst nights of my entire life. I’m not going to tell the entire story, but I learned a few important life lessons:

1. NEVER challenge someone to a Vodka Drinking Contest without establishing a finishing line.

2. A quick way to convince someone you are drunk is insisting that “dammit, you (I) a sro freickin shober, you (I) could dude their taxhes.”

3. When you wake up, covered in bruises, smelling like a gallery of disaster, wedged between a wall and a nightstand, it’s just best to assume that your friend hates you.

4. Buy them an apology gift, they will have peed on a public building because of you.

5. A baby shower is a rough place to get through a hang-over.

But like George Washington at Fort Necessity, I was destined to return to Boston and recover myself at the setting of my great naiive failure. Thus was the case here. When Johenwarter said Boston, I said "Yes" when she said that The Host was in, I said "ASAP". Traveling with intellegent people is the best thing in the world.

So since last time we covered Copely Place, with its Cerberus of Architecture (Hancock Place, Boston Public Library, Trinity Church) let’s try broadening our horizons. Shall we say CHRONOLOGICALLY?

Paul Revere House (1680)

So while called the “Paul Revere House” (and yes it was owned by that dude referenced in that poem about that thing, you know, the resolution or something like that) the house was about 20 years old before Paul Revere moved in. The PR House was originally built in 1680 as part of a larger three-house complex, while the other buildings burned down, this house stood up. (And that’s what you’ll get my’ boy, the strongest house in all these aisles) While not particularly grand or awe inspiring, it is probably the best example we have of what homes would have looked like in that day and age.

For me, the most interesting part was the evolution of the parts. Take the materials; you can see that they were just as much subject to fad as houses are now. Structure exposed and then covered only to be exposed again. Older and more utilitarian elements covered up by the more expensive. While I sincerely doubt anything major will be done to the structure now (Preservation Society and all that) for about 200 years this building was a work-in-progress.

P.S. Nice fire place.

Old North Church (1723)

Speaking of Paul Revere, let’s move on to the climatic setting of Longfellow’s poem. That is the Old North Church. The Church dominates the local area with the curt self-importance of a kid-knapped king. Clearly it was intended to be the tallest building in Boston for all eternity, but sir, architects will be having none of that. Most of the structure is Christopher Wren-esque enlightenment dynamism rolled up in an all-American package. All white interiors, tall windows, exposed brick exterior. It’s sturdy, tough, minimal and self-righteous; the kind of place John Adams would like.

If you ever visit, make sure to look at the wooden angel statues. The figures were a gift to the parish from a well meaning, if not entirely moral, parishioner who also happened to be a privateer.

Faneuil Hall (1740) & Massachusetts State Hall (1798)

These two are being rolled together because they have a common factor: That is Charles Bulfinch (for a love letter to him, http://toscaleornottoscale.blogspot.com/2010/04/dear-insert-name-here-william-levitt.html ). Faneuil Hall was originally designed to be akin to an English market, but in 1800 it was vastly expanded by Chucky B. around 1800.

Faneuil Hall is interesting because its plan is so basic it can serve multi purposes, essentially it is a very well designed warehouse with a kickin’ grasshopper weather vane.

Charles got to show his real chops at the Massachusetts State Hall. Mostly he interpreted ideas from the ongoing English Enlightenment vs. Romanticism battle that to this day silently rages on in places like Derbyshire. However, unlike in the European style, the American interpretation was done in wood and brick instead of sandstone and marble. So it’s the same speech, except with an accent.

The Gibson House (1859-60)

After a great fire consumed much of the city of Boston, part of the Mud Flaps was filled in with the wreckage so that the area could be made suitable for housing; this area became “Back Bay”. Soon after its completion, this dumping ground became one of the most sought after neighborhoods in Boston. Why? Robber Barons/Captains of Industry were a little tired of the austere and modest homes of their forbearers and wanted something a little more sophisticated, a little more showy, a little more…French. Thus the Brownstone Victorian houses of Back Bay came into vogue. Walking around a place like this you can see how one might say “Ahh, you mean of the Boston Gambles?” A good example of this is The Gibson House. As one of the earlier houses in the ‘hood, the Gibson house has the ability to say “they did it before it was cool” which with 1860’s hipsters is like currency. The textiles, furniture arrangement, kitchen, pantry, etc. are all pretty close to the original layout from150 years ago. It’s extraordinary to think that while this house in all its wrappings and layers was enveloping itself, there was the great Western wilderness.


Boston City Hall (1969)

The easiest and most incorrect thing to say is “then nothing happened for 100 years”, but as that time period is out of the scope of this Blogpost, let’s move on to Boston City Hall. To date, one of the most controversial buildings in Boston, this structure has been deemed either one of the ugliest and/or most brilliant. Dominating the huge plaza, City Hall feels like an 8bit video-game background, with a brutalist theme. Having grown up in Washington D.C., I have a nostalgic admiration for frank solid Government building, and this one in particular reminds me of the FBI head quarters in DC. In the city of perpetual display that is the district, something like this would be right at home, because it carries with it a certain kind of aesthetic power. But here in Boston, it’s a fish out of water. Boston City Hall is not only aesthetically different from everything around it; it makes no attempt to harmonize with the surroundings in any way. The building is eye catching, certainly, but does the setting make it ugly as well? It seems more and more that is a matter of opinion.

The New ICA building (2006)

I was really prepared not to like this building, from the pictures I had seen of it, it looked like a lazy, bulky, dull-colored Lego-house run amok. However, once inside I realized what the material was doing. Like the shade on a flash bulb, the lightness of the material makes the art inside pop which makes the colors brighter and the materials contrast one another to a greater depth. Unlike a Ghery design for a museum, this architecture does not seek to rival the art it houses, but to enhance it. The layout is something akin to, if not a direct reference to FLW’s the Guggenheim. Elevator up, work your way down.
Personally, I have never liked this idea of progression through a museum with a set agenda. In small museum, I can see why it’s necessary, but still, it seems a little too choreographed. (More like its CHORE-ographed, amiright?! *goes for high-5*)
It’s important to note that the architects who designed the new ICA building (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) also designed the Blur building at Expo .02 in Yverdon, one of the best examples of surreal phenomenology in the world.
However, to play Devil’s advocate, Phillip Nobel called this building a “botched box”. What do YOU think?

So there you have it, a little less than 350 years of Architecture in the frigid north all wrapped up in a tight little package.

There were many other buildings we visited that will be touched on later.
Special Thanks to the friend who hosted us in Boston, why don't we call him Thoreauffman.

Happy 502nd Birthday Palladio!

Palladio turns the big 502 on November 30th.

Still looking good after all these years.

It Struck Me That The Two of Us Could Run.

It was the beginning of the century; I was in my early mid-twenties and decided, after exhausting other agendas, to travel with Habitat for Humanity Global Villages to Zambia, Africa. This was in order to build houses in the village of Kaoma, located centrally in the Western Province. It was made clear that there would be no electricity, no running water, no bathrooms and no communication with the outside world.

It happens every so often, an event is so strange that the only logical solution is that it didn’t actually happen. That’s how I felt the week before I left for Africa, the time I was in Africa and the week I came back, making it a full month before any sort impact began to find its way into my acknowledgement. It’s not as if I didn’t know I was going to go. Packing bags, putting in paperwork for my visa, buying the plane ticket, whatever the prep-work happened to be that day; it seemed that there was a cool kind of recognition and absolutely no fear.

I was not trying to be blasé about the work, but in my mind there was nothing but a frank acceptance of facts: I was going to build houses in Africa. It was a non-negotiable.

The only kind of anxiety came from two possible scenarios I had considered:

1. There is no toilet, there is a hole in the ground and I don’t know what to do.
2. I am trying to make the best of not having any kind of toilet, I am bitten by a Black Mamba and while in a compromising position, fall into the hole, no one finds me for three days. My last known photo is shown on the Today Show. It’s the one from Facebook that makes me look fat. I didn’t de-tag it before I left.

Spoiler alert: One of those scenarios happened. The other one didn’t.

After an 18 hour flight we touched down in Lusaka, a surprisingly westernized city. The group consisted of ten women and one man. We left in the morning for an 8 hour bus-ride to an area of the world that was unlike anywhere else I had ever been to. It was so beautiful, I was struck speechless. This is only significant because it is significantly against my nature.

I once had a work evaluation in which the only comment was “avid communicator” which is the most polite way of saying “never shuts the eff up” ever written.

I tried very hard to think of what it seemed like, which is typically pretty easy. For example:

Scotland (looks like) = The Pacific Northwest
Switzerland (looks like) = Colorado
Nevis (looks like) = Florida

But nothing was quite right.

However, for the sake of comparison, I’ll say the landscape was something akin to Ohio. It’s a lie, but it’s the lie that’s closest to the truth. Like when I say ‘Impala tastes like Venison’.

For days we labored in the brutal sun. Building two homes and digging a foundation without drawings, power tools, a grasp of the native language or, for better or worse, other men. As an aspiring architect, I have never felt closer to the material. The smell and feel of cold mortar, sun baked brick, the grit you clean out of your mouth, the cuts and bruises from bricks continually rubbing against your skin, it all was endless agony and excruciating ecstasy.

Finally, Louis Kahn made sense. He wrote “you have to ask the brick what it wants to be and the brick says ‘I want to be an arch’.” It means the material can become something more than the sum of its part, but in the end it will only ever be a brick, to be anything else is against its nature. A man can be a great and powerful, but in the end he will only ever be blood, bone and flesh. A home can be the jewel box for the soul, but it will only ever be cement, wood and brick.

It filled me with a kind of stern pride on the last day “American Women, they are brought up to do anything, how useful you all are.” My god, did I love the people of that Village.

I wanted to feel like what we did was significant, like it had solved a great problem. Maybe it did, but it probably didn’t.

Maybe this group of white women (or as we were known there ‘Makua’) coming in and doing manual labor for a few weeks was an event to be mocked, or worse, ignored. What did it matter when there was, is, and will always be so much more to do? Couldn’t you have just done this in Baltimore, where they would at least have drywall and a flushing toilet? Was this just a selfish endeavor to put on a resume?

These thoughts are the carbon monoxide of dreams.

It may not have been much, but two families were able to own their own homes. That will have to be enough.

( Thanks to Pricilla for the pictures)

All this work was in strict contrast to another place, about 8 hours away, in Livingstone.






Built in 1904 for her royal highness of England, it was never actually visited by the illustrious monarch. The hotel looks directly onto the bridge from Zambia to Zimbabwe.





Having a place and a setting with such great disparity makes the Hotel become like Livingstone himself. Was it originated there? No. Has become an intricate and irremovable part of the culture? Yes.

I first saw this hotel as I was bungee-jumping off of the Zambia/Zimbabwe bridge. Here’s the way that went down:

“Yeah, I seem to remember my mom saying something like ‘If all the cool kids jumped off a bridge….something, something, something.’ Whatever. I can’t remember. Let’s go.”

Our last few days were spent on Safari. It was here that I fell in love with Botswana.


Somewhere in-between the vast emptiness of the western province and the opulence of Victoria Falls there were the houses and people which captured my heart. The homes were something like a baby that a ranch house and a bright-colored hacienda would have, if such a copulation and pregnancy were possible. The carved crisp forms and sharp, gallant color placed against a warm-grey-brown background reminded me of when I was young and first realized what colors went best together. It’s bold and humble at the same time. To know what I’m talking about I recommend looking into the HBO version of Alexander McCall Smith’s Books “The Number One Ladies Detective Agency.”


Now that I’m back home, working at my desk, buying groceries from CVS, picking up dry cleaning, I can’t help but think of leaning out of the top of a jeep, wind blowing your hair, watching a Leopard stalk its prey and thinking “Do people really do that? Did I?”

The answer is, of course, probably.

As the great innocent abroad once said “All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.”

Next stop. Meet Johenwarter and the Host in Boston. The City of My Great Defeat.

Safaritecture

Happy November Everyone!

Once I get my life back together, there shall be some talk of my African adventure with Habitat for Humanity Global Villages, but as I'm still nursing a: Free-wine-on-the-plane-plus-a-Xanex-so-I-was-maybe-legally-dead-hangover, it's better if we wait. In the meantime, check this link out (credit to an old friend of mine, who is known in this universe as "Professor Garbage-Face")

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/15/opinion/20101015_Lafayette.html