AIA YAF Connection 20.01 - Climate Action

Connection

The architecture and design journal of the Young Architects Forum

This issue: Climate action How do young architects and design professionals leverage the momentum of climate action to better educate stakeholders, design more thoughtful spaces, and create lasting impacts? What is climate justice, and who are the most vulnerable?

2022

Q1 Vol. 20 Issue 01

Connection

2022 Young Architects Forum Advisory Committe 2022 Chair 2022 Vice Chair 2022 Past Chair 2021 - 2022 Knowledge Diretor 2021 - 2022 Advocacy Director 2021 - 2022 Communications Director 2022 - 2023 Community Director 2022 - 2023 Strategic Vision Director 2022 - COF Representative 2022 - Sarategic Council Liason AIA Staff Liason

Jessica O’Donnell, AIA Matt Toddy, AIA Abi Brown, AIA Jason Takeuchi, AIA Monica Blasko, AIA Beresford Pratt, AIA Sarah Woynicz-Sianozecki, AIA Kate Thuesen, AIA Kate Schwennsen, AIA Karen Lu, AIA Jonathan Tolbert, Assoc. AIA

2021 - 2022 Young Architect Regional Directors Central States Florida Caribbean Northern California Middle Atlantic New York Pennsylvania Northwest and Pacific Illinois Gulf States New Jersey

Malcolm Watkins, AIA Trevor Boyle AIA Olivia Asuncion, AIA Kathlyn Badlato, AIA Christopher Fagan, AIA Anastasia Markiw, AIA Brittany Porter, AIA Holly Harris, AIA Kiara Luers, AIA Matthew Pullorak, AIA

2022-2023 Young Architect Represntatives South Carolina North Carolina Kentucky Arizona Texas Virginia Colorado West Virginia Georgia Indiana Nevada Ohio New Mexico Utah Connecticut Rhode Island New Hampshire Michigan

Ryan Lewis, AIA Shawna Mabie, AIA Terry Zink, AIA Jordan Kravitz, AIA Samantha Markham, AIA Carrie Parker, AIA Kaylyn Kirby, AIA Meghann Gregory, AIA Laura Morton, AIA Ashley Thornberry, AIA Andrew Martin, AIA Seth Duke, AIA Efren Lopez, AIA Melissa Gaddis, AIA Brian Baril, AIA Bryan Buckley, AIA Nathaniel St. Jean, AIA Trent Schmitz, AIA

Connection is the official quarterly publication of the Young Architects Forum of AIA. This publication is created through the volunteer efforts of dedicated Young Architect Forum members.

Copyright 2022 by The American Insititute of Architects. All rights reserved.

Views expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors and not those of The American Institute of Architects. Copyright © of individual articles belongs to the author. All images permissions are obtained by or copyright of the author.

2

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Contents 5

Editor’s note

6

President’s Message: Climate change and climate action Daniel S. Hart

7

Chair’s Message: ‘Design for the future with CARE’ Jessica O’Donnell

9

2022 YAF meet and greet

12 Confronting an unjust past for a healthier future: The case for climate justice Monica Blasko & Trevor Boyle 16 Co-opting: After market alternatives to affordable housing development in Miami’s communities of color Adiel Alexis Benitez 20 Water and wood: Northlake Commons, a biophilic mass timber workplace in Seattle Brittany Porter 23 Assembling a sustainable project team a net zero case study Paige Russell

28 Sustainable Strategies —Big and small — You can implement in your firm Jill Hathorn 30 The spaces we take for granted: And the essential resource for our health and wellbeing Holly Harris 32 Sustainability across generations: Exploring what each stage of the architecture profession thinks about sustainability Shawna Mabie 36 LEED, WELL … NOT an alphabet soup!

Bea Spolidoro & Julia Wattick 38 Natural disaster versus societal fractures Sharika Tasnim 40 On the move: Living car-less in Southern California Rebecca Baierwick 43 Connection and Chill Knowledge Focus Group

26 Dedicated to sustainability: When does this begin?

Meghann Gregory

3

Connection

Editorial team Editor-in-Chief Beresford Pratt, AIA, NOMA Pratt is a design manager and architect with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He co-leads multiple J.E.D.I based architecture pipeline initiatives with Baltimore, Maryland K-12 students. He is the AIA Young Architects Forum communications director.

Senior Editor Bryan Buckley, AIA, NCARB Buckley is the studio director & business development director at Signal Work in Providence, Rhode Isalnd. He focuses his efforts on both internal and external growth and is the managing architect behind most of the firm’s K-12 and urban rehabilitation projects. He serves as a director-at-large for his local AIA chapter and is Rhode Island’s young architect representative..

Senior Editor Meghann Gregory, AIA, NCARB Gregory is a project manager and architect at oysk3 architects in Knoxville, Tennessee. She is the young architect representative for West Virginia and a member of the AIA West Virginia chapter. Her professional interests include adaptive reuse, urban planning, custom residential, and sustainable practices.

Senior Editor Holly Harris, AIA, ASHE, LEED AP BD+C Harris is a healthcare architect and planner at SmithGroup in Chicago, Illinois. She was selected for the Herman Miller Scholars Program for emerging professionals in Healthcare in 2019 and recognized as a Rising Star by HCD Magazine in 2021. She is the chair of the AIA Illinois Emerging Professionals Network and serves as the young architect regional director for Illinois.

Senior Editor Shawna Mabie, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP Mabie is a project manager and associate at Hanbury in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has taught at North Carolina State University and University of Arkansas Community Design Center. She currently serves as the young architect director on the AIA North Carolina Board and is the young architect representative for North Carolina.

Senior Editor Matthew Pultorak, AIA, NCARB Pultorak is a Senior Planner/ Estimator for Rutgers University’s Planning Development and Design Team and Owner of Time Squared Architect, LLC in New Jersey. He currently serves as the young architect regional director for the region of New Jersey, Emerging Professionals Communities At-Large Director of Mentorship, and AIA Jersey Shore’s president-elect.

4

Contributors: Daniel S. Hart Jessica O’Donnell Monica Blasko Trevor Boyle Rebecca Baierwick Adiel Alexis Benitez Brittany Porter Meghann Gregory Jill Hathorn Holly Harris Shawna Mabie Paige Russell Bea Spolidoro Julia Wattick Sharika Tasnim Knowledge Focus Group Kaylyn Kirby Ryan Lewis Kiara Luers Trent Schmitz Jason Takeuchi Terry Zink

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Editor’s note:

Climate action & justice Climate action and climate justice can often have various meanings depending on the diverse lens it is viewed through. The center of climate justice utilizes 6 pillars to articulate action-oriented initiatives that address the root cause of climate change. In this quarter of Connection you will see how young architects/ design professionals discus climate action and climate justice through the lens of some of these pillars.

Pillar 1: Just transition How can we thoughtfully transition from a fossil fuel-based economies to equitable, regenerative, renewable energy-based systems: • Water and wood: Northlake Commons, a biophilic mass timber workplace in Seattle • Assembling a sustainable project team a net zero case study Pillar 2: Social, racial and environmental justice How are design professionals recognizing the disproportionate impacts of climate change on lowincome and BIPOC communities around the world?

• Confronting an unjust past for a healthier future: The case for climate justice • Co-Opting: After market alternatives to affordable housing development in Miami’s communities of color Pillar 3: Community resilience and adaptation What solutions do we have for resilience measuring a community’s

capacity to recover from a climate impact and adaptation means reducing the ongoing and intensifying negative impacts of climate change?

•Natural disaster versus societal fractures Pillar 4: Natural climate colutions What is the importance of our natural environments like forests and agricultural lands as critical ecosystems for equitable climate action?

• The spaces we take for granted: And the essential resource for our health and wellbeing Pillar 5: Climate education and engagement How do we better educate our industry and users about climate change to spur actionable change?

• Sustainability across generations: Exploring what each stage of the architecture profession thinks about sustainability • LEED, WELL … NOT an alphabet soup!

• Dedicated to sustainability: When does this begin?

• Sustainable Strategies —Big and small — You can implement in your firm Pillar 6: Indigenous climate action Indigenous communities around the world are facing some of the most severe climate impacts

Editorial committee call Q2 2022: Call for submissions on the topic of career evolution.

Connection’s editorial comittee welcomes the submission of articles, projects, photography, and other design content.

Submitted content is subject to editorial review and selected for publication in e-magazine format based on relevance to the theme of a particular issue.

2022 Editorial Committee: Call for volunteers, contributing writers, interviewers and design critics. Connection’s editorial comittee is currently seeking architects interested in building their writing portfolio by working with our editorial team to pursue targeted article topics and interviews that will be shared amongst Connection’s largely circulated e-magazine format.

Responsibilities include contributing one or more articles per publication cycles (3–4 per year).

If you are interested in building your resume and contributing to Connection please contact the editor in chief at: aia.beresford.pratt@gmail.com

Source: https://centerclimatejustice. universityofcalifornia.edu/what-isclimate-justice/ 5

Connection

President’s message:

Climate change and climate action From climate change and the continuing pandemic to senseless violence on multiple continents, to ending systemic inequality, the number and scope of challenges we face is daunting, and for many it can be overwhelming.

of the most urgent challenges of our time: the worsening climate crisis.

But as architects our natural tendency is to find ways to solve problems that others think are unsolvable: That’s our superpower.

Meaningfully and rapidly reducing the carbon emissions of the built world is a massive undertaking. We know that 40% of carbon emissions come from buildings.

That alone makes us relevant and gives us agency in addressing the existential challenge of the climate crisis.

An important first step of using our superpower is to be relevant.

You might think you, your firm, or even your city or town isn’t big enough to make a meaningful and lasting difference.

We have recent examples of how effective we can be working to achieve big goals, together.

And on an individual level that might be true, but it isn’t if we all work together. More to the point, the recent past has proved that we can achieve big goals by working together, in ways small and large.

That’s exactly what we did as the COVID-19 crisis unfolded in 2020. AIA architects went immediately into action— providing services, knowledge, and tools to help organizations and communities not just survive, but to thrive.

Countless of our colleagues contributed their time and talent to reimagining hospitals, retail, and other spaces to treat the sick and protect the healthy.

In fact, special AIA task forces worked with public officials on safely adapting existing buildings into health facilities, ultimately issuing expert guidance that was distributed by the United States Department of State.

I believe our work in 2020 will be remembered as one of AIA’s finest moments. We were relevant because we engaged where society needed us most—by showing, not just telling, how we could help. When we are relevant, we emphasize our value.

When the public and our leaders understand our full value in achieving the change society seeks and needs, we will thrive as a profession and our society will be better for our efforts and expertise.

As the next generation of architects, the lessons you learned at the start of your careers, in the past few years, will be invaluable as you help our profession tackle one 6

While you can’t single-handedly make your city carbon neutral; you can join an AIA Knowledge Community.

Or commit to using AIA’s Framework for Design Excellence, as a tool that informs your design decisions.

Perhaps, pick one project and see how you can apply principles from any or all of the Framework’s 10 measures.

Or review the policy platform on AIA’s Advocacy page on AIA.org, to see where you can lend your voice to advance important issues, including infrastructure, resilience, sustainability, equitable communities, and affordable housing. Find ways that you can use your unique talent and passion to be relevant and to make lasting and meaningful difference through the power of design.

Use your superpower –design thinking – to be relevant and to make a difference.

Daniel S. Hart, FAIA, PE

Hart is the 2022 AIA president. He is the executive vice president of architecture and serves on the board of Parkhill. He was an adjunct instructor of architectural engineering at Texas Tech University.

He was also the founding president of the college’s Design Leadership Alliance.

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

YAF Chair’s message:

Design for the future with CARE I am excited and honored to chair the Young Architects Forum this year and celebrate 30 years of YAF with our upcoming YAF Summit 30 event: Mission 2130. This application-based, in-person event is designed to explore what the world could look like in the year 2130 and distill out actionable steps young architects can take today, to help ensure a prosperous world for the future. If you think that sounds like a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal), you are correct — but how else can we catalyze change?

The year 2130 may seem impossible to imagine. Will humans live in megacities? Will we live underwater? Will we live on another planet? We may not be able to predict what the future holds, but we can do our part to ensure it is a prosperous place for all who will be here by designing for the future with CARE. C Be creative in your career evolution The world needs creative minds to find solutions to problems both large and small.

How can we use our architectural education in non-traditional ways? If we consistently utilize design thinking to creatively solve problems outside of the built environment, how would that change the role of the architect? What impact would that have on the perceived value of the architect? What if we applied design thinking to our careers as architects and ‘flipped the model up-side down?’ What would that look like? How could that change the ways our profession addresses the current and future needs of the workforce?

A Be adaptable with action We need to take action to make change, but action does not have to be on a large scale to make an impact. As the saying goes, “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.” Little wins add up and can bring unanticipated ripples of change.

If a client does not want to entertain the idea of LEED or sustainable features as a whole, collaborate with the design team to find other methods of using building resources efficiently or specifying water-efficient fixtures. These adjustments may seem inconsequential compared to a netzero building, but this is still change that will make a difference.

R Be responsibly revolutionary You (yes, you — the person reading this) have the power to make change happen. You do not need to be a principal at a large firm or the architect on a multimillion-dollar

hospital project. Great ideas can come from anyone, and your perspective may unlock other ideas that had not been thought of yet. There are still times when sustainable elements of projects are considered revolutionary ideas. I encourage everyone to continue to bring up these ideas with co-workers, firm leaders, and clients until they become a standard practice.

E Be empowered by empathy Change for the sake of change can have negative consequences and even well-thought-out ideas can have unanticipated impacts. I will never forget hearing Renee Cheng, FAIA, talk about bike lanes and how this common sustainable design strategy was perceived negatively by a community.

We cannot assume something will be good for a community simply because it is successful by our standards. Our work as architects directly affects the daily lives of people living in and around our buildings. By taking some time to better understand the communities we are working in, we can create a valued sense of place.

During 2022, the Young Architects Forum will continue to explore innovative ways the practice of architecture can help our environment and build a welcoming sense of belonging within our profession. I hope you will join us as we work together to design for a future with car Resources:

YAF 2022 Priority Overview YAF Mission 2130 BHAG

Jessica M. O’Donnell, AIA

O’Donnell is a project architect at Kitchen & Associates in Collingswood, New Jersey, where she specializes in multifamily housing. She is a 2022 AIA Young Architect Award winner and the 2022 chair of the YAF.

7

Connection

The Young Architects Forum is the voice of recently licensed architects and a catalyst for progress within the Institute.

2022 Priority Areas

2022 marks the last year under the 5-year Strategic Initiative of ‘Practice Innovation, Redefining Purpose.’

CLIMATE ACTION:

CAREER EVOLUTION:

BELONGING + J.E.D.I. :

• Connection Q1 theme is “Climate Action: Environment, Sustainability, and Practice.”

• Connection Q2 theme is “Career Evolution: Outgrowth of Practice Innovation”

• Connection Q3 theme is “Belonging + J.E.D.I. - Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion”

• Feature the work of diverse young architects whose work has a focus on environmental justice and its role in climate action.

• Foster opportunities to create space for discussions on Mental Health in Architecture.

• Create space for growth and learning opportunities, inspire initiatives, and partner with those who have been deep in this equity work.

• Spotlight ways recently licensed architects can build a career on sustainable design.

• Amplify existing initiatives and new resources to help young architects to advocate for action.

• Partner with the Small Firm Exchange on webinars focused on business topics for young architects.

• Amplify the diverse perspectives of young architects through the continuation of our ‘Becoming Visible’ series.

• Explore the ‘new’ workplace psychology.

• Share resources for young architects to advocate for more equitable office environments, profession, and communities.

OUTREACH & SUMMIT 30:

MENTORSHIP & FELLOWSHIP:

CONNECT WITH US:

• Foster strategic partnerships internal and external to AIA to strengthen collective goals.

• Empower young architects to advance their careers by making notable contributions to the profession and their communities.

• Issuu: issuu.com/youngarchitectsforum

• Partner with COTE to strengthen existing synergies and identify untapped opportunities.

• Celebrate 30 years of the YAF committee’s existence by highlighting milestone achievements and events.

• Broaden engagement through ‘Mission 2130 Code Red Charrettes’ to crowd-source risks and opportunities related to the built environment’s connection to planetary and human health.

• Reevaluate the needs of young architects and push boundaries to propel the profession forward at the ‘Mission 2130 YAF Summit 30’ event in Q3.

• Identify the YAF Strategic Initiative for 2023-2027.

8

• Collaborate with College of Fellows and Large Firm Round Table to incentivize the creation and proliferation of innovative practice models.

• Partner with the College of fellows to propel mentorship through the official rollout and next phases of the YAF + COF ALIGN Mentorship Program.

• Build community within the YAF through virtual happy hours and a YARD buddy system.

• Strengthen existing collaborations with AIAS, NOMAS, and NOMA. • Host a series of Fireside Chats with Fellows to increase the accessibility of pathways to Fellowship for young architects.

• KnowledgeNet: tinyurl.com/ yafknowledgenet • Instagram/Twitter: @AIAYAF • Facebook: AIAYAFNational • Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/ company/aia-young-architects-forum/ • Connection: YAF’s quarterly digital publication is produced by young architects with practical takeaways for all members of our profession.

• Toolkits: Resources for young architects and AIA components, past toolkit topics include: ‘How to Facilitate the Emerging Professional Friendly Firm Program,’ ‘How to Start or Grow an Emerging Professional Committee,’ and ‘How to Facilitate a Practice Innovation Lab.’

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

2022 Young Architects Forum meet and greet Adcom

Jessica O’Donnell Chair

jessica.mae.odonnell@gmail.com

Abigail Brown Past chair abi@jambcollective.com

Matt Toddy Vice chair matt.toddy.arch@gmail.com

Sarah Woynicz-Sianozecki Community director swoynicz@hksinc.com

Jason Takeuchi Knowledge director jasontakeuchi@gmail.com

Kate Thuesen Strategic vision director kthuesen@dlrgroup.com

Kate Schwennsen College of Fellows liaison kschwen@clemson.edu

Karen Lu Strategic council liaison karen@snowkreilich.com

Monica Blasko Advocacy director monica.blasko@gmail.com

Beresford Pratt Communications director

aia.beresford.pratt@gmail.com

9

STATES

Connection

Shawna Mabie North Carolina shawna.m.mabie@gmail.com

Terry Zink Kentucky terry@pickarch.com

Jordan Kravitz Arizona jordan.kravitz@smithgroup.com

Samantha Markham

Carrie Parker Virginia carrieleeparker.aia@gmail.com

Kaylyn Kirby Colorado kkirby@semplebrown.com

Meghann Gregory West Virginia archmegh919@gmail.com

Laura Morton Georgia lmorton@ssoe.com

Ashley Thornberry Indiana amthornberry@gmail.com

Andrew Martin Nevada martin.andrew.design@gmail.com

Seth Duke Ohio seth.duke0626@gmail.com

Efren Lopez New Mexico efrenlopez1992@gmail.com

Melissa Gaddis Utah mmgaddis055@gmail.com

Brian Baril Connecticut bbaril@a-zcorp.com

10

Texas samantha.markham@stantec.

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

STATES

Ryan Lewis

South Carolina rlewis@rosenblumcoe.com

Bryan Buckley Rhode Island BBuck3114@Gmail.com

Nathaniel St. Jean New Hampshire stjean.nathaniel@gmail.com

Trent Schmitz

Brittany Porter

Holly Harris

Michigan Region tschmitz@neumannsmith.com

REGIONS

Anastasia Markiw

Malcolm Watkins

Pennsylvania Region amarkiw@designgroup.us.com

Central States Region mwatkins@sjcf.com

Christopher Fagan

Olivia Asuncion

New York Region cfagan.arch@gmail.com

bporter@weberthompson.com

Illinois Region holly.harris@smithgroup.com

Kiara Luers

Matthew Pultorak

Northwest & Pacific Region

olivia_asuncion06@yahoo.com

Gulf States Region kiara@modusstudio.com

Trevor Boyle

Kaitlyn Badlato

Florida-Caribbean Region

Middle Atlantic Region kbadlato@hksinc.com

Northern California Region

trevorboylearchitect@gmail.com

New Jersey Region matthewpult@gmail.com

11

Connection

Confronting an unjust past for a healthier future: The case for climate justice From environmental racism to environmental justice In the United States, the purposeful shaping of cities in favor of more “desirable” people (to quote the 1930s Home Owners’ Loan Corporation discriminatory redlining maps) has led to underserved communities and disparate health outcomes within those communities. Black Americans are more likely to live near hazardous facilities, lack access to safe drinking water, and endure “higher rates of poverty, shorter life spans and higher rates of chronic diseases including asthma, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and kidney disease.” 1, 2

Communities deemed EJ areas by the EPA have a greater exposure to rising temperatures and pollutants, are more vulnerable to natural disasters and disease, are at a greater risk to increases in energy and food prices, and are at a greater risk of displacement. The OEJ develops collaborative programs and policies to support and engage minority, low-income, tribal, and Indigenous populations and partner with other federal agencies to advance the principles of environmental justice. 4 As Bullard states, “America is segregated, and so is pollution.”

Your Zip code is the best indicator of your health and wellbeing.6 Efforts in environmental justice strive to eliminate this indicator and achieve healthy outcomes for all, no matter your address.

Above Pittsburgh Home Owners’ Loan Corporation map, 1930’s.

These disparities were given the name “environmental racism” in 1979, when professor Robert Bullard formed a research group to support his wife’s lawsuit against a landfill in a middleclass Houston neighborhood where 82% of the residents were Black, citing racial discrimination in its environmental practice [Source 3] . Bollard became known as the “father of environmental justice,” and eventually the movement was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1992 with the formation of the Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ). 4 According to the OEJ, “Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. This goal will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards, and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.” 5

12

Above Pittsburgh Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool.

Climate change at the intersection of race + class While the devastating effects of climate change will hurt populations across the globe, those effects will not be felt equally, a fact that is already evident. The climate justice

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Photo credit : Hugo Duchesne

Photo credit : Hugo Duchesne

movement “work[s] to address the many practices that are harming communities nationwide and worldwide ... [and fights for] the policies needed to rectify these impacts and advance a society that fosters sustainable, cooperative, regenerative communities that uphold all rights for all people in harmony with the earth.” 7 The lasting legacy of redlining and presentday NIMBY, or “Not in my backyard,” zoning decisions in the U.S. have relegated vulnerable populations to low-lying areas and exposed them to greater health hazards from highways and polluting industries. In addition, disinvestment and a lack of resources that allow communities to be healthy and thrive, such as parks, green space, access to fresh food, and infrastructure funding, put these communities at an even greater risk for experiencing the harms of climate change.

on their own, even being a small part of this greater network of voices can create lasting, real change. From volunteering your time and expertise, attending community meetings and becoming more engaged in local politics to exploring the EPA EJScreen or EJAtlas to learn more about disparities in your region [Source 9, 10], educating yourself and getting involved at the local level are the first steps toward real impact.

According to researchers who conducted a study on the link between redlining and climate burden, “many of the nation’s historically redlined districts ‘now contain the hottest areas’ in the United States,” and “air pollution and extreme heat are killing inner-city residents at a higher rate than almost all other causes … and as average temperatures continue to rise … death and illness from the effects of climate change are expected to rise further [Source 8].” Vivek Shandas, a study co-author and professor of urban studies and planning, recognized that “the relationship between once-redlined neighborhoods and today’s elevated climate risk ‘suggests a woefully negligent planning system that [benefits] hyper-privileged richer and whiter communities.’” 8 From rising temperatures and waters, persistent threats of extreme weather events, and displacement due to mining for new energy resources, climate justice and civil rights are inextricably linked. As young architects address climate change, it is important to acknowledge past environmental injustices and discrimination in conjunction with the disproportionate effects taking place today.

Getting engaged At first, it may look like a daunting task to tackle these issues that are so ingrained in the foundation of our built environment.

However, there are many organizations that are taking on the challenge at local and national levels, by focusing on specific issues, raising awareness, and advocating for change.While one person may not be able to address and fix all the challenges

Above Environmental Justice Atlas Map

Start by learning more about some of these groups and their efforts: • 350.org: Named after the safe parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 350 provides networking, tools, and resources for those interested in being a part of the greater climate actio.

• Blackmillennials4flint.org: A program with a very specific mission that reflects its name, this group advocates and seeks justice for Black and Latino communities who are dealing with lead exposure in their water supplies.

• Weact.org: With teams in New York and D.C., We Act seeks to call attention to environmental racism and the creation of fair policies and practices in the city with participation from affected residents.

• crpe-ej.org: The Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment is based in California and addresses the disproportionate effect that issues like climate change and toxic-waste dumping have on low-income communities.

13

Connection

“A vibrant, fair, and regenerative future is possible, not when thousands of people do climate justice activism perfectly, but when millions of people do the best they can.”— Indigenous youth activist Xiye Bastida, “Calling In” essay featured in “All We Can Save”

Case Studies on climate change as a climate justice issue The following case studies are a representation of the devastation various communities across the United States have or are currently enduring. Explore more examples of climate and environmental justice, from wildfires to improper waste management, using the Environmental Justice Atlas. 10

residents to the now less desirable, but more affordable lowlying areas threatened by climate change. [Sources 11, 12] Thus far, insufficient efforts have been made toward improving the resilience of Miami’s vulnerable shoreline, and of the few projects that have been initiated, the majority are concentrated in wealthier, albeit low-lying neighborhoods. 11 Hurricane Sandy’s acute aimpact in New York and New Jersey While Hurricane Sandy’s effects were felt along the Atlantic coast in 2012, the devastation disproportionately affected lowincome and minority residents in New York and New Jersey.13 The low-density neighborhoods zoned for single-family residences with resiliency planning and white, more affluent populations fared much better than the large, high-density public-housing developments along the at-risk coastlines with majority Black and Latino populations. These residents endured flooding and sewage backups, weeks without power, and arduous, years-long processes for repairs.

Beyond public housing, predominantly minority communities hit by the storm were uninsured or underinsured. “In damaged areas of Brooklyn with predominantly African-American residents, only 14 percent of homeowners were insured. Those without insurance had to await FEMA or New York state grants, which often took years to arrive.” 14 New York and New Jersey are now addressing resilient design and preparedness for their most vulnerable coastal communities as climate change threatens storms of increased intensity and frequency. 13

Above Case Study Map

Development and displacement in Miami, Florida “Miami’s vast racial and economic divisions have been shaped

by Jim Crow laws, discriminatory redlining of residential real estate, race riots, and freeways built over bulldozed Black neighborhoods. This created a city where the brownfield sites and urban heat islands are disproportionately concentrated in Black neighborhoods” [Source 11] and kept Black citizens away from the highly desired beachfront property.

Today, however, these Black residents are in danger of being displaced as developers move toward the previously undesirable inland territory. With sea levels rising and threatening to erase the current shoreline in southern Florida, developers are looking toward higher ground to build on. Affordable neighborhoods are being eyed for demolition to make way for high-density development, often with a luxury price tag. The resulting gentrification is causing a reversal — pushing the displaced

14

Climate refugees evacuate Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana The Houma people settled on a lush island of 22,000 acres after being ousted from their homeland during the Indian Removal Act of 1830. They sustained themselves through farming, hunting, and gathering, but today, the Isle de Jean Charles has lost over 98% of its land mass due to rising waters, and plans to restore or protect the remaining land have proved futile and been abandoned. 15 While many residents have resisted uprooting their homes and losing their history and way of life, they now have little choice but to evacuate and are the first officially recognized climate refugees in the United States. “Thirty-seven of the island’s 40 families — mostly members of the United Houma Nation tribe and the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees — have elected to move to New Isle, the new $48 million HUD-funded village, located on 515 inland acres. Yet at a cost of more than $1 million per household moved, New Isle is not a viable precedent”.15 Consider that cost when multiplied to relocate the millions of Miami residents living in threatened locales.

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Historically, emergency funds from FEMA and HUD have been used after the devastation and trauma of an acute disaster has occurred, but this instance of preemptively addressing climate concerns and learning how to account for a different type of trauma from a “slow-moving” disaster will present a new set of challenges.

Threats to sacred lands in Thacker Pass, Nevada As America attempts to break its reliance on fossil fuels to address the effects of climate change, electric vehicles have surged in popularity. Electric cars rely on lithium batteries and are leading to a new set of environmental and humanitarian challenges to meet demand and supply this so-called “white gold.”

Lithium is a metal that naturally occurs in clay, and the largest known deposit in the United States is in Thacker Pass. “To the Paiute people, however, it’s [known as] Peehee mu’huh, or rotten moon, for its crescent shape and ugly history. It’s one of the few remaining places where tribal citizens can still gather traditional foods … and medicines … or honor their ancestors at the site where 31 Paiute people were massacred by government soldiers in 1865”. 16 A proposed open-pit lithium mine in Thacker Pass would encroach on sacred lands, and its fast-tracked approval process has faced criticism from the tribe and environmental groups that say “the mine would wreck their land, resources and culture, depleting or poisoning water supplies, destroying sacred sites, degrading wildlife habitat and leaving behind hazardous waste.” While supporters of the mine cite investment in alternative, green energy, new jobs and tax revenue, support for local business, and investment in Thacker Pass community services, proponents say the benefits are “short sighted” and a “false solution to climate change”. 16

FOOTNOTES: 1. https://www.npr.org/sections/healthshots/2020/11/19/911909187/in-u-s-cities-the-healtheffects-of-past-housing-discrimination-are-plain-to-see 2. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/21/thesiege-of-miami 3. https://www.vox.com/2021/12/10/22826247/robertbullard-environmental-justice-vox-conversationsinterview 4. https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-09/ documents/epa_office_of_environmental_justice_factsheet. pdf 5. https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice 6. https://slate.com/podcasts/a-word/2021/08/i-cantbreathe-racial-justice-and-the-environment 7. Environmental & Climate Justice 8. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/past-racistredlining-practices-increased-climate-burden-onminority-neighborhoods/ 9. https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen 10. https://ejatlas.org 11. https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-miami-keeps-buildingrising-seas-deepen-its-social-divide 12. https://www.wlrn.org/news/2019-11-04/as-seas-risemiamis-black-communities-fear-displacement-from-thehigh-ground 13. https://ejatlas.org/conflict/hurricane-sandy-and-lowincome-residents-usa

Monica Blasko, AIA

Blasko is a project architect at Mary Barensfeld Architecture, serves as the AIA Young Architect Forum advocacy director, and is involved with Women+ in Design Pittsburgh.

Trevor Boyle, AIA

Boyle is a design architect at HuntonBrady Architects in Orlando and is the Florida and Caribbean young architect representative.

15

Connection

Co-opting: Aftermarket alternatives to affordable housing developments in Miami’s communities of color Our current global health crisis has rendered more clearly how care, housing affordability, and the climate crisis disproportionally affect our most vulnerable communities.

Within this context, Miami presents itself as a vulnerable coastal city exemplar. A growing and rapidly changing city, Miami is struggling with a widespread housing affordability crisis and an existing housing stock that is at risk to rising seas.

Despite palpable climate change, construction continues along the Miami waterfront, and the cost of living continues to rise along with sea levels. Miami is often portrayed as a tropical oasis, but it has slowly progressed to being regarded as one of the country’s most inequitable cities.

Overtown, and Allapattah, all predominantly communities of color, are at risk from these development pressures.

Today, the Miami waterfront is being developed to cater

to wealthy foreign investors who park capital in high-end real estate. Some vacation seasonally or rent out their luxury waterfront apartments, but a large percentage lies vacant for most of the year. Almost half of the residential properties in Miami Dade county? do not have a homestead exemption, further supporting that a large percentage of residential properties serve as second homes. Meanwhile, many locals are struggling for housing stability. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development categorizes households that spend more than 30 percent of their monthly income on housing as rent-burdened. In Miami Dade, 60 percent of renters fall within this cost-burdened category.

A predominantly tourism driven economy keeps wages low, intensifying the city’s affordability crisis.

While building continues along the city’s most lucrative waterfront properties, development pressures have begun to move westward, away from the coast and toward higher elevation. Previously, urban renewal and the discriminatory redlining practices in the second half of the 20th century pushed African American and Afro-Caribbean communities out of Miami’s growing, predominantly white central business district and burgeoning waterfront. These lower-income communities now find themselves on the city’s highest elevations, situated along Miami’s limestone ridge. These communities are now at risk of a second wave of displacement, as climate change begins to motivate development away from more vulnerable coastal areas like Miami Beach. Today, Miami’s historically diverse neighborhoods are being slowly gentrified and their communities displaced. Households in neighborhoods such as Liberty City, Little Haiti, Little Havana,

16

Above Redlining Map, Miami, 1935 - “Redline Map for Miami, Florida,” Digital Public Library of America

Many of these lower-density, primarily residential communities are now being targeted for new development as sea level rise and climate vulnerability worsen. This relationship between elevation, speculative development, and gentrification can be summed up by the term “climate gentrification.” This concept offers a simple “elevation hypothesis,” arguing that real estate at higher elevations in cities at risk for climate change and sea level rise appreciates at a higher rate than elsewhere. As these development trends continue, residents will have little agency to respond. Miami, a traditionally “rent-over-own” city, leaves its residents, especially its low-income residents, vulnerable to market-based spikes and gentrification. The city’s long history of inequity and racialized urban development has compounded with the adverse effects of contemporary development and increasing climate vulnerability.

There’s a dire need to rethink how housing can be developed in Miami, to respond to the phenomena of climate gentrification and to reclaim agency for the city’s most at-risk communities.

One approach is to reconsider housing solutions outside of the traditional market, specifically not-for-profit housing cooperatives. Cooperative models have a long history in the U.S., and despite their lack of prevalence, they have been leveraged to address economic challenges for marginalized communities in times past. In her work “Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice” political economist Jessica Gordon Nembhard details examples of these cooperative models. “Cooperative business ownership, cooperative financial institutions, and coop housing have been solutions to past economic challenges, such as debt peonage under Jim Crow and lack of food, affordable housing, and financial services during the Great Depression.” Cooperatives can be leveraged, not just as a development model, but as a strategy with which communities can reclaim agency and take control over their homes in response to the pressures of climate and market speculation.

In times past, cooperatives have been able to “satisfy an economic or social need, to provide a quality good or service (one that the market is not adequately providing) at an affordable price, or to create an economic structure to engage in needed production or facilitate more equal distribution to compensate for a market failure.” Miami’s surplus of luxury real estate and lack of affordable housing options are indicative of “market failure.” Luxury development continues, despite several years’ inventory of existing luxury real estate. Many reports quantify that it would take several years to sell the inventory of luxury housing, taking into account those units already on the market. This surplus is in fact much larger when you also consider the many units under development.

In addition to enabling a strategy to work against climate

gentrification, cooperatives also provide residents greater control over how they live, on their terms. Housing cooperatives are jointly owned and democratically controlled organizations in which community members share both power and responsibility. Additionally, nonprofit cooperatives typically operate “at cost,” meaning rent is calculated without the incentive of profit and the goal of the cooperative is to simply meet its financial obligations. The intention is that over time, the cooperative can be financed and managed in a self-

Above “Price out of Paradise” - Miami Herald Cover Image

Connection

supporting manner in the long term. As the loan is paid down, the monthly charges will also decrease. As such, housing costs will gradually decrease, making the cooperative more affordable in the long term. This long-term model, while requiring more of the residents, as both stewards and co-

the long term. Collectives can thus leverage the cooperative as a development model, wherein they can garner agency over the design, programming, and management of their homes.

While governmental intervention may be necessary to allow for access to land or loans, there are many foreign examples in which policy enables cooperative access to market-rate loans with limited equity upfront. In Switzerland, for instance, housing is guaranteed under the constitution, and co-ops have long existed as a development model that has received both community and governmental support. Many of this cooperative housing stock is in increasingly expensive cities.

Cities such as Zurich have seen a resurgence in cooperative housing development in response to rising housing costs.

Housing costs in co-ops are often as much as 20% lower than average rents in the private market. In the development of new cooperative housing, the co-op will often work closely with architects, offering input on design and intended use.

Cooperatives can address the aforementioned market failure and in turn enable communities that have been systemically oppressed or that have suffered from lack of opportunity to operate with more autonomy. They allow for greater agency, control, and self-sufficiency.

Single-family homeownership is often considered the primary means of building wealth in the United States. Policy has worked in favor of this belief, and studies comparing homeowners to renters quantify that homeowners do have substantially more wealth. Yet the relationship between homeownership and wealth building is not so direct, especially for lower-income households, which might end up losing wealth as a result of homeownership.

Above Luxury Housing Surplus - Miami New Times Cover Image Photo credit Flicker

managers, also works to create a stronger sense of ownership and responsibility. Residents tend to be more invested and care more for both their units and their cooperative’s shared spaces.

Collaborating with governmental agencies, cooperatives often lease public land (which lowers development costs) for affordable housing and work to make sure it stays that way in

18

“While direct investment in equity may be positive, the literature suggests low-income homebuyers generally realize less appreciation than higher income households, dedicate a greater percentage of their income towards mortgage payments (and away from potential investment vehicles, such as 401Ks or mutual funds), and are more likely to depend on high-risk financing, which increases their exposure to foreclosure.”

While arguments against collective ownership may point to the wealth-building potential of single-family homeownership, what they may neglect is the greater risk potential for lower-income households. Cooperatives can instead offer

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

education without the pressure of meeting rent. Additionally, cooperatives have been shown to address not just the cost of housing, but other forms of social capital, as well. The cooperative community can offer other forms of support, such as child care, elder care, financial safety nets, and food security.

alternative means of building wealth and ensure stable housing.

Cooperatives, while perhaps offering a more modest return on investment, may offer much greater returns in quality of life.

Lower monthly housing costs could mean more money toward savings or the freedom to pursue a career change or higher

FOTNOTES: 1 Marisa Moran Jahn and Rafi Segal, “CarePod: Designing for Care, Building Community,” NewCities, March 17, 2020, https://newcities. org/the-big-picture-carepod-designing-care-building-community/ Rene Rodriguez, “Miami Is in Dire Need of Housing That’s Affordable.

These New Solutions Could Help.,” miamiherald (Miami Herald, July 14, 2019), https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estatenews/article231551978.html 2

Richard Florida, “ ‘Climate Gentrification’ Will Deepen Urban Inequality,” Bloomberg.com (Bloomberg, July 5, 2018), https://www. bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-05/-climate-gentrificationwill-deepen-urban-inequality

Jerry Iannelli, “Miami Has a Four-Year Backlog of Overbuilt Luxury Condos Amid Affordable-Housing Crisis,” Miami New Times (Miami New Times, July 24, 2019), https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/ miami-has-a-four-year-luxury-condo-backlog-amid-an-affordablehousing-crisis-10218908 7

“Switzerland Archives - Co-Operative Housing,” Co, accessed January 11, 2021, https://www.housinginternational.coop/co-ops/ switzerland/ 8

3

Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice (University Park, PA, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014). Page 15.

Meagan M. Ehlenz, “Community Land Trusts And Limited Equity Cooperatives: A Marriage Of Affordable Homeownership Models?,” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2014). Page 8.

9

4

Ehlenz, “Community Land Trusts And Limited Equity Cooperatives: A Marriage Of Affordable Homeownership Models?” Page. 4.

10

Nembhard, Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice. Page 2.

5

Hillary Hoffower, “NYC Has a Penthouse Problem, LA Has a Mansion Problem, and Miami Has a Condo Problem,” Business Insider (Business Insider, July 7, 2019), https://www.businessinsider.com/miami-condosurplus-nyc-penthouses-los-angeles-mansions-real-estate-2019-7 6

Adiel Alexis Benitez

Benitez is a first-generation Salvadoran American designer. He is a recent graduate of the M. Arch program at MIT. His interests lie at the intersection of urbanism, art, architecture, and social engagement. He resides and practices in South Florida.

19

Connection

Water and wood:

Northlake Commons, a biophilic mass timber workplace in Seattle Seattle is a city of water. The Puget Sound and Lake Washington bound the city’s eastern and western edges, and a canal connects both bodies of water into the city’s geographic center, the heart, Lake Union. The lake provides an expansive visual connection between the varied and distinct neighborhoods surrounding it. The lake itself is home to several houseboat and floating home communities, public small-watercraft recreation, and even a seaplane airport.

Seattle is also a city of wood. The forests are a short drive away and facilitate a culture of outdoor recreation that permeates into the urban lifestyle. Like many other non-Indigenous settlements in the Pacific Northwest, timber milling and logging were the original backbones of industry. In fact, a lumber company has existed on the north end of Lake Union since 1931: the Dunn Lumber Company. Dunn Lumber is a successful, family-owned, local business that believes in supplying craftspeople with the highest-quality wood products.

The Dunn family teamed up with local real estate developers Hess Callahan Grey Group and architectural firm Weber Thompson to transform their original lumber yard into its fullest potential. Currently under construction and coming in the fall of 2023, Northlake Commons will be a four-story, mass timber, mixed-use workplace building above a two-story concrete podium that will house the new Dunn Lumber warehouse.

This innovative project will bring new energy to a previously sparse industrial area with an improved park space that engages with Seattle’s appreciable Burke-Gilman bike trail and an expansive public plaza looking out over Lake Union.

In respecting the project site’s proximity to the Lake Union shoreline, stormwater management and restoration became vital design goals. Currently, stormwater sheds down a significant hill from the neighborhood to the north and into the lake untreated. However, after the Northlake Commons project is completed, new stormwater infrastructure will divert the

Above Rendering showing Northlake Commons in situ overlooking Lake Union and beyond to downtown Seattle.

20

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Above Rendering showing Northlake Commons in situ (left) and DunnLumber’s existing retail and warehouse location (bottom left).

water into a swale capable of filtering up to 5 million gallons of stormwater before it continues its path to the lake. A generous building setback at the shoreline-adjacent property line created this significant restorative swale area. The design team also prohibited using exposed galvanized steel on the project because it leaches zinc, which is harmful to aquatic life.

Implementation of this holistic, beyond-the-project-site, green stormwater swale infrastructure is a reoccurring ambition for this development team that has seen much success (Link). Part of its success is that it provides both functional water-quality benefits and provides the urban public street with much-needed green space. Functional green spaces like the swales facilitate biophilia, or the innate human instinct to connect with nature and other living beings (Link).

are significant and documented in several valuable resources.

The design team referred to and conducted a design charrette based on the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design by Terrapin Bright Green (Link).

One of the most direct examples of connection to nature at Northlake Commons is the exterior breezeways, which the design team dubbed connectors. These connectors are not only intended as a means of circulation, but are 40 feet wide and intended as legitimate outdoor office space. They are outfitted with overhead cover, lighting, electrical outlets, and capacity for outdoor heaters to keep them functional all year long. There are two such connectors at each level. The connector to the north has views of the bike trail and park, the connector to the south has views of the lake, and both overlook the landscaped courtyard below.

The sensory interaction provided by these connector spaces is likely to offer people improved cognitive function and reductions in systolic blood pressure and stress hormones (Link).

The ability to have a space where one can seek reprieve from their indoor environment has excellent psychological value, especially in today’s context of a pandemic.

Above Stormwater swales designed by Weber Thompson’s landscape architecture team at the Watershed Office Building. Two images comparing the quality of water before and after filtration.

I believe that the strongest foundation of sustainable behavior is a love and admiration for nature. Biophilic design recognizes this and strives to create opportunities within our built environments and communities to connect people to nature.

The human health and wellness benefits of biophilic design

The true biophilic heart of Northlake Commons is the mass timber structural system: comprised of cross-laminated timber floors and glue-laminated timber columns. Mass timber is highly regarded for its reduced embodied carbon impacts, and studies find mass timber to take 25% less carbon to create the same structural system as a concrete building (Link). Low embodied carbon is an important reason to investigate and advocate for mass timber on any project. However, there are values to be touted beyond the carbon footprint. Northlake Commons elected to use mass timber for its structural system early in design. Despite the supply chain issues and materials escalation of the past two years, a different structural system was not considered by the ownership and development team.

The commitment to mass timber stems from the development

21

Connection

and ownership team’s recognition of the value of differentiating themselves in the commercial-office market. There is genuine market value in wood’s aesthetics and biophilic human health and wellness, especially when comparable buildings are steel and concrete construction. There are also savings in designing a lighter building structure that requires less significant foundation design and therefore lower costs. I find this win-win reality of mass timber very encouraging. Whenever a solution can function well on many unique fronts, it rises to the top as a viable answer to come back project after project.

Above Northlake Commons courtyard plaza south end showing views out to water beyond and south connectors above.

Above Outdoor office space on the Northlake Commons connectors.

It was, for this reason, that the building’s design concept was able to revolve around wood reliably. The design concept is inspired by a walk in the woods and the distinct layers of the forest. The forest floor, the understory, and the canopy. The multistory timber columns and bark-like building cladding represent the understory. A sunken garden represents the forest floor. The overhead connectors act as the canopy. True to the patterns of biophilic design, there are sensations of refuge, mystery, risk, and prospect throughout the plaza experience.

Walking along a path, moving between tall timbers, crossing a bridge, and ending with an expansive view of the water. The connection to nature is not only referential but, instead, an authentic experience replicated in an urban environment.

Weber Thompson Team: Principal in Charge: Kristen Scott Design Principal: Cody Lodi Project Managers: Myer Harrel & Todd Mayne Project Architect: Brittany Porter Project Coordinator: Jiao Mei Landscape Architecture Principal: Rachael Meyer Landscape Designer: Shoshanah Haberman Consultant Teams: Structural Engineering: DCI Engineers MEPEnergy/Sustainability: Glumac Civil Engineering: KPFF Consulting EngineersBuilding Envelope: RDH Building Science Inc. Landscape Architecture: Weber Thomspon Interiors: Weber Thompson

To learn more about this project, please visit: Link.

All images courtesy of Weber Thompson

Brittany Porter, AIA

Above Northlake Commons plaza courtyard north end with a bridge over the sunken garden and multistory timber columns.

22

Porter is a senior associate at Weber Thompson in Seattle. Porter is the AIA young architect regional director of the Northwest and Pacific Region and acts as a liaison to the national AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE).

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Assembling a sustainable project team

A NetZero case study

A J Sustaita, AIA Sustaita has over 20 years’ experience in architecture leading design, documentation, and construction administration on a wide variety of project types including renovation, new construction, historical preservation, and sustainable design. Additionally, Sustaita contributes to the profession of architecture by serving as the president-elect of the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Recently, he was honored with the Ben Brewer Award from AIAH, which recognizes excellence in ability and contributions to architecture in Houston.

Designed by the Corgan education studio, the new Fort Bend ISD Middle School #16, will become the largest net-zero school in the United States. Through solar and geothermal renewable energy solutions, the 240,657-square-foot building will produce as much energy as it consumes. The design of the building focuses on how best to serve the middle school’s future 1,600 students, through dedicated learning pods, instructional and collaborative pullout spaces, outdoor learning courtyards, and multipurpose labs to support the district’s STEM curriculum.

PR: Are there any specific certifications the district is wanting to achieve?

AS: We’re going for LEED Gold as well as the LEED Net Zero certification. There are a few different levels of net zero you aim towards. We’re designing for net-zero site energy, which means that the building will produce at least as much energy as it uses in a year.

Above Aerial view of FBISD MS 16 showcasing the solar-energy solutions. Image courtesy of Corgan.

Above Front entry rendering of FBISD MS 16. Image courtesy of Corgan.

Paige Russell (PR): Was the goal of achieving net zero one that Fort Bend ISD had from the onset of the project?

A.J. Sustaita (AS): The FBISD school board has a member, Jim Rice, who is an MEP Engineer. He is very focused on sustainable design and responsible design for climate change. He’s been on the board for eight years now and has been really promoting LEED initiatives, especially before this current bond election. When our firm was hired, the goal was already established to deliver a netzero building. When we interviewed, having heard of this goal, we really showcased our firm’s previous net-zero project, Lady Bird Johnson Middle School [in Irving ISD], to show our experience.

PR: What are the challenges of a project with such high sustainability goals, such as net zero, that you’ve experienced with this project?

AS: In the Houston area, there aren’t many buildings in the greater metro area that have achieved net zero, which means there is no precedent for us to go and tour with the client. Also, we originally proposed to use Insulated Concrete Form on this project. The big challenge is that ICF is common in the Dallas Fort-Worth area here in Texas, but not at all common in Houston, which means there isn’t a subcontractor market in Houston to perform the work.

If we elected to do the ICF construction, we would have to hire crews from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In today’s market climate, we’re all concerned with escalation, cost increases, and schedule delays. The project team therefore chose to go with a different envelope assembly, the same used at Lady Bird Johnson, an insulated infill CMU assembly.

23

Connection

PR: On the opposite side, are there any pleasant surprises you’ve had?

AS: Yes! The accelerated technology of solar has really been a surprise throughout the process. Through design, the engineers have been able to reduce the footprint of solar panels on the roof from 85,000 square feet down to 60,000 square feet.

Even better, they’re telling us, by bid time, we’ll be able to see an even larger reduction in area needed because we’re seeing an increase in efficiency so quickly.

PR: Is this new technology more expensive?

AS: No, we’re continually seeing the prices decrease. It doesn’t make them more expensive, just more efficient and economical.

We’re only seeing upsides in solar.

Above The 60,000 square feet of solar panels helps create as much energy as the building consumes. Image courtesy of Corgan.

PR: From what we’ve talked about so far, it’s apparent that MEP engineering is very important when it comes to net-zero buildings. How did you prioritize choosing which consultants to work with for this project?

AS: As you can imagine, the net-zero design piece is very specialized. In the Houston area/Gulf Coast, the water table is higher, and to utilize geothermal, we needed an engineer that’s done this in coastal regions before. We have a partner in Dallas, IEG, that worked on Lady Bird Johnson with us. So when it came time for another net-zero design, we turned to them to see what they’d been up to. Since we worked with them last, they had done geothermal facilities in other coastal regions similar to our own in terms of soil conditions. They have a lot of expertise in solar design, as well, and proved to be the right choice for this project. IEG has been working alongside us since the original kickoff meetings to guide us through some of the more technical items that maybe we aren’t as familiar with.

PR: Having done Lady Bird Johnson, IEG’s experience with schools seems important, as well.

AS: It was! It allows us to deliver an economic building that functions very well in terms of maintenance and operations. All those things were factored when we chose IEG. Do they know K-12 sector design? Do they have experience in renewables? We checked the boxes on all of those, and it’s worked out really great.

PR: Did you have any specialized consultants you may not normally have on a project?

AS: While IEG was our design engineer, we hired another engineer, EMA, to do the energy modeling. So, while we went through schematic design, design development, and so on, we were turning over our BIM model to EMA, and they would do these complex energy models and tell us if we were on track for achieving net zero, taking into consideration factors like the

24

Above The project has over 600 geothermal wells, coupled with ground-source heat pumps, to aid in the heating and cooling of the building. Image courtesy of Corgan.

systems, our envelope, and our site orientation. We’ve been checking our designs against the energy models throughout the design process, and this was especially critical when we shifted from ICF to the grouted CMU. PR: Doing these energy models, looking at the envelope and the water table, do you think the location of Houston has posed its own challenges on the project?

AS: To get to net zero, you obviously want to minimize the loads, but being in such a humid climate, there’s more of an outside air requirement. Some of the systems had to be upsized, where in drier climates, that wouldn’t be the case. Also, we must always stay conscious of flooding. After Hurricane Harvey, resilience is really a big part of how we design here in Houston. We had to be very conscious of maximizing open space, limiting impervious cover everywhere we could.

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

PR: When you’re staffing a sustainable project, is there anything you consider that you normally wouldn’t for one without these goals?

AS: On the architectural side, the envelope is really the most important thing. So, when we began putting the building together, it was important to have someone who was really well-versed in technical building sections, wall sections and assemblies. While it may be small differences from a typical project, those small differences make a huge impact in our energy models when it comes to sealing and flashing our building.

PR: Are there any skill sets that you believe young architects can bring to be integral members of a project team?

Above Internal rendering of FBISD MS 16 sixth-grade classroom pod featuring collaboration zones, multipurpose classroom, and vertical circulation up to CTE. Image courtesy of Corgan.

AS: The technical aspects of the building assemblies are important, but honestly just bringing the enthusiasm for sustainability and the ability to suggest creative solutions is vital.

When we had to move away from ICF, it wasn’t logical what to do instead. We ran through plenty of iterations, and those came from young architects that had researched and were passionate about sustainability, bringing innovative ideas to the table.

PR: How should young architects express their interest in sustainability, or wanting to work on specific projects, to their managers?

AS: I think at a firm like Corgan, it’s easy because we have initiatives in place, such as being aligned with the 2030 Challenge. If you’re in an environment where the young professionals know that there are larger goals the firm is pursuing, then I would recommend just having a brief career conversation or touch base to express that sustainability is a passion and something you’re interested in working on; that way, when these opportunities arrive, it is known who is going to be enthusiastic about delivering the building. The reason I think this is so important is because I’ve been posed with a lot of questions of how we’re going to do this, because we don’t have a lot of precedent in town, and I think having a team where people are not focused on the problems but focused on finding solutions is very critical. This disposition is a huge boost to a team when tasked with a project that has unique design challenges.

Above Internal rendering of FBISD MS 16 main corridor, looking at the maker space, library, and vertical circulation up to the eighth-grade classroom pod. Image courtesy of Corgan.

AS: We want this school to be a teaching tool. I hope the lesson it teaches these kids is that the future of energy production comes from renewables and not fossil fuels. As these students start in sixth grade and move through, it will become obvious to them that how we run our homes and schools is through systems such as solar and geothermal. We hope this helps set a new generation in place that will battle the effects of climate change. As architects, what we do has a major impact on our world. It is incumbent on us as architects and engineers to take up this responsibility and answer the call to action. When we build schools, we want to set a precedent and example for future generations. It needs to be expected in the future, and not unusual as it once was when we kicked off design.

PR: With this project being a school, how do you hope this project’s sustainability goals inspire the future students at this middle school?

Paige Russell, AIA

Russell is an architect in the education studio at Corgan in Dallas. She serves on the AIA Dallas Emerging Professionals Committee and in her local A4LE chapter.

25

Connection

Dedicated to sustainability When does this begin?

During a discussion between young architects, the question arose as to when sustainable design practices and methods are introduced. Does the concept of sustainable design for our future begin during the professional practice mindset, at the elementary learning level, or undergraduate teachings at university?

At what stage in a career do sustainable design methods become the standard practice and no longer need to be a separate category? Schools, universities, and professionals around the world work to modify the traditional mold and find ways to implement more environmentally friendly solutions in our daily lives.

K-12: Some elementary schools are starting children early on the paperless track with portable electronic means of learning and connectivity to around the globe. Environmental awareness is one thing that teachers are implementing inside and outside of their classrooms.

1. Environmental awareness projects (NatGeo) 2. School gardens 3. Recycling 4. Natural Disaster prep 5. Water consumption

Above Scott Cornelius, AIAS national president

College: Where, with the more digital life of an architecture student, are PDFs taking over the “mark-up” industry, or are expensive sheets of plotter paper still making their way into studio critiques? Even miniscule methods implemented campuswide in recycling and textbook purchasing formats can make a significant impact on awareness of the climate crisis.

Professional: In the professional world, many have adapted to a work-fromhome production method and have taken social distancing to a new level with adapted square footage amounts in office spaces, or removing the office space altogether.

Scott Cornelius (SC): AIAS conferences and programming typically feature sustainably focused sessions; we want to ensure that students have the knowledge to incorporate sustainable practices into their chapters, their schools, and their projects. We also offer a couple of resources dedicated to making our chapters and the AIAS as a whole more sustainable. Our 2019-2020 Sustainability & Resiliency Best Practices Guide, which focuses on school-wide efforts to increase sustainability and tools to integrate sustainable technologies and design practices and studio projects. This year, our Technology and Sustainability Committee is currently working on the AIAS Green Guide, which will focus on the sustainable tools and practices at the local and national levels.

AIAS Discussion During a discussion with AIAS national president, Scott Cornelius, an Oklahoma State University graduate of 2021, we learned ways that current architecture students are making a difference. Cornelius focuses on programs and guides to be

We’re excited for the impact this research will have on our chapters and the national organization, and our hope is that as more students learn about these practices and get interested in sustainability, schools and universities will also adopt these practices.

26

shared within all AIAS chapters in the hope of having a more mainstream outcome from their hard work. Read some of the interview below: Meghann Gregory (MG): In AIAS, what types of strategies are in place to encourage sustainable practices in chapters? How can AIAS add more sustainable practices to their local chapters and universities?

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

MG: What do you want emerging professionals and young architects to know about the importance of climate action? Do we need to do more as emerging professionals and young architects (or EP and YA throughout the discussion)?

SC: Emerging professionals and young architects need to know that current students are fully dedicated to sustainability! They want to integrate sustainable design practices into every aspect of their work and are working toward a future where we don’t even need to talk about sustainability anymore; it’s inherent to architecture. For many students, this is going beyond the use of special sustainability technologies or tools, and they have begun to question the entire structure and general viability of our profession.

In a world under immediate threat from climate change, is it responsible for us to dedicate our careers to new construction when there are billions of square footage of building space that is unused in the United States, especially in the wake of the changes made during the pandemic? Students are looking to emerging professionals and young architects to help answer these questions and lead this charge.

At the individual level, mentorship is everything! Take time to teach new graduates and summer interns about the sustainable practices your firm has adopted, and advocate to your alma mater to integrate sustainability fully into the curriculum.

Many universities offer courses on sustainability and net-zero construction and even offer a specialty or minor in sustainable practices. Scott graduated from Oklahoma State University, where he says “the Department of Design, Housing and Merchandising offered a sustainable design minor with several related classes. The School of Architecture has been working to integrate sustainability into the studio curriculum and into each project, as opposed to creating optional electives focused on sustainability.” Some university courses prepare each student so that at course completion, they have acquired the knowledge to sit for the course-specific sustainability credential exam.

FAST FACTS Resources: https://www.aias.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ GuidetoArchCareer.pdf https://studyarchitecture.com Starting young! AIA resources to share with your children at any age 2019-2020 Sustainability & Resiliency Best Practices Guide Chapter One has been released and can be found here: Green Meeting Guide Make an impact How are you able to contribute to continuing knowledge growth throughout the early industry years? Here are some easy steps to contribute: Reach out! Share the aforementioned links with your …

• AIA and local AIAS chapters. Many of these AIAS resources can assist with meeting efficiency and even encourage new ideas on how to be more sustainable during meetings.

Make sure the students are aware of the resources they can implement in their meetings to make a brighter step toward climate action.

• Alma mater. See whether they know about the available resources for their students. Encourage the AIAS chapter to reach out to their class president, facilities services, and the university president.

• Local planning and city officials. Host a workshop or even a small meeting during one of their scheduled meetings to introduce (or hopefully reiterate) the importance of the daily steps we take toward climate action.

Meghann Gregory, AIA, NCARB

Gregory is a project manager and architect at oysk3 architects in Knoxville, Tennessee. She is the young architect representative for West Virginia and a member of the AIA West Virginia chapter. Her professional interests include adaptive reuse, urban planning, custom residential, and sustainable practices.

27

Connection

Sustainable strategies:

Big and small — You can implement in your firm •

As architects, we know sustainability in design is our ethical responsibility, both as major contributors to the built environment and thought leaders in running the business aspects of practice. While we understand the weight of our responsibility, the question remains: How? At Duda|Paine, this question is and will be ongoing, and the answer is ever evolving. Taking on the task of becoming more sustainable can be overwhelming for an architectural firm. What’s important is that the firm begins to make steps, big or small, to move their practice to a more sustainable future. Many firms take different approaches and can offer valuable lessons on what worked for them in their unique circumstances. Strategies based on our experiences strengthening sustainability within the practice include: •

Assemble an employee group to brainstorm ideas and implement sustainability protocols. In the words of Margaret Mead, “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” This group should ideally be composed of employees with diverse levels of experience.

Recent graduates offer fresh perspective and unbridled passion for sustainability. Upper management offers the leadership skills to usher through and implement new ideas.

When we approached the leadership of our firm, we found they were very supportive of becoming involved in the AIA 2030 challenge, the highest levels of LEED certification, and even investigating the WELL Building Standard for our future projects. To generate well-rounded strategies, we included perspectives from design, marketing, and administrative staff members. Sustainability is imperative at the building scale and in daily firm operations. Your team won’t feel confident about designing an energyefficient building when they see glaring discrepancies in the sustainable practices of a firm’s workplace.

•

Gather ideas, big and small. First, seek to understand the motivations and interests of the group. Understanding why each person cares makes an enormous difference in fostering a sense of purpose. Then, implement a “no bad ideas mentality” to get the conversation flowing. Whether the idea is switching to local coffee purveyors or investing in full-time sustainability staffers, make a list of anything and everything group members bring to the table.

•

Subdivide goals. There are many ways to think about sustainability. For our efforts, we split goals into two categories: firm operations and architectural design strategies. From there, the process became all about deciding what to do first and getting buy-in from employees to make it happen.

28

•

Firm operations example. For years, we had a recycling system that wasn’t living up to our aspirations and expectations. Simply put, too many recyclables ended up in the landfill. To fix this broken system, we first switched from a private recycling company to the city of Durham’s program so recyclable materials could be commingled. We coordinated with a newly trained cleaning staff about what to recycle and the city’s schedule. We then purchased and distributed additional recycling bins.

Implementation of the program took significant effort and coordination among several groups. The bonus?

The monthly cost saved from switching to free city recycling allowed us to invest in a monthly composting service as a new sustainability goal.

Prioritize goals. Another aspect of goal setting is to consider what is accomplishable in the short term versus the long term. With busy project schedules, we don’t have the opportunity to do everything all at once. So, we asked, how can we take incremental steps to improving our design practice? Having a priority list provides the firm a plan of action to make ongoing progress.

•

Long-term priorities example. One of our most critical and ongoing goals is to increase awareness of building energy use in our clients’ projects and to mitigate energy use in our designs. To chip away at this key priority, we decided five years ago to adopt the framework of the AIA 2030 Challenge. In our first year of implementation, we identified one project to submit, the Emory Student Center. Emory got our feet wet and gave us the knowledge to continue the firm’s efforts and expand our project submissions year after year. We have now developed a simple, easy-to-follow framework for enabling project managers to record their project data, which allows us to record the energy model data for all our active projects. Some projects meet the goals of the AIA 2030 Challenge, and others are simply recorded. Either way, we deepen everyone’s knowledge of the energy use of our buildings, share the results firm-wide, and see how different buildings stack up against one another. This comparative data enhances our efforts to create more finely tuned energy-efficient buildings.

Other strategies to consider: •

Have employees host in-house lunch-and-learns to distribute sustainability knowledge gleaned from project work.

•

Create shareable/editable resource spreadsheets to capture ideas, identify goals, etc.

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

•

Research the sustainable properties of materials commonly specified by your designers. Create an internal “red list.”

Example: We researched wood veneers and removed threatened species from the material library, shared knowledge with firm staff members and leaders, and created a new veneer library.

•

Research and test software to simulate energy modeling.

Create in-house experts who can train and implement energy modeling.

•

Create solar study methodology to research effectiveness of overhangs, fins, and frit by using simple shadow studies in Revit and distribute information via in-house lunch-andlearns.

•

Encourage staffers to become LEED Certified by offering reimbursement for testing fees.

While no “one size fits all” approach exists for making an architectural practice more sustainable, incremental efforts are well worth a firm’s time and energy. Big or small, every effort is cumulative in moving our industry toward a better future. The path isn’t always clear or easy, but we must challenge ourselves and our peers to prioritize the responsibility we have as leaders in the built environment.

Jill Hathorn, AIA Hathorn is an Associate at Duda|Paine Architects in Durham, NC. She has a passion for designing environmentally responsive and energy efficient buildings. Jill envisions the experience and emotions of occupants to create rich experiences aesthetically, socially, and functionally.

29

Connection

The spaces we take for granted: And the essential resource for our health and wellbeing Let’s talk about water – it is one of the primary resources through which climate change noticeably impacts us. Increased temperatures and variable weather patterns are affecting water availability and distribution across the globe.

Water is vital for our ecosystems, infrastructure, and human use. But humans need water for more than just consumption; it provides environmental and recreational benefits that influence our wellbeing. I recently reflected on how water affects the built environment and began to understand why water should be an integral variable in the conversations architects and engineers have on the topic of sustainable and resilient design.

I have always gravitated towards being close to water. I grew up on a lake, attended a college whose campus embraced the Tennessee River, and now live in a city that boasts about having both lake and river resources accessible to the public.

Studies have found that being “near, in, on or under water for any amount of time is good for our mental health,” 1 which could be the reason why I am joyful when I am at the water’s edge. But when it comes to climate change, the water’s edge is vulnerable, and the land we inhabit at that edge is continually threatened by the rise and fall of sea, lake and river levels.

“Water is, in fact, why Chicago exists... But the same waters that gave life to the city threaten it today.”

- Dan Egan, author of “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes”2

and fatigue experienced from quarantining due to the threat of Covid-19. From this, I learned that the availability and accessibility of outdoor spaces, especially those adjacent to water, should not be taken for granted.

Water levels on Lake Michigan have been experiencing record highs and lows. It was not until a severe Chicago winter storm in early 2020 that I witnessed the destructive power that water can have on our shoreline. The lakeshore path that I often use

Chicago, Illinois, flanks Lake Michigan - one of North America’s five Great Lakes and the largest freshwater system in the world. The Great Lakes Basin is home to nearly 14,000 miles of shoreline, and Chicago claims home to about 28 miles along Lake Michigan. I moved to Chicago in 2015. As a resident without a car living north of the river, I often spend the warm summer months within an eight-mile path between the Adler Planetarium and Montrose Avenue Beach. Being new to the city, I was surprised to learn that Chicago had beaches. In fact, there are approximately 26 sandy, public beaches sprinkled between the lakeshore path, harbors, and parks along the water’s edge. “Let’s go to the lake” or “Let’s go to the beach” are common weekend plans with my friends once Chicago temperatures climb above 60 degrees.

Most importantly during the summers of 2020 and 2021, when bars and restaurants were closed, the lake and surrounding parks were critical resources to alleviate the emotional stresses

30

Above: Damage to the Chicago shoreline south of Belmont Harbor before the 2004 and 2008 shoreline projects, courtesy of Chicago Department of Transportation.

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Above: Chicago lakeshore south of Belmont Harbor,before the 2004 and 2008 shoreline projects, courtesy of Chicago Department of Transportation.

Above: Flooding in the parks along Chicago’s lakeshore path, courtesy of Chicago Department of Transportation.

for running or biking had been violently dissected into boulders of concrete and asphalt, and buildings close to the water’s edge experienced harmful flooding. “Was this a new crisis incident for Chicago?,” I asked myself.

FOOTNOTES: 1. Sparks, Hannah. “Living Close to the Water Is Good for Your Mental Health: Study.” New York Post, New York Post, 1 Oct. 2019, https://nypost.com/2019/10/01/living-close-tothe-water-is-good-for-your-mental-health-study/ 2. Egan, Dan. “A Battle between a Great City and a Great Lake.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 July 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/07/ climate/chicago-river-lake-michigan.html

In recent conversations with Mark Wagstaff, a leading expert in Great Lakes coastal resilience and senior waterfront engineer at SmithGroup, I learned that water levels in the Great Lakes have cyclically risen and fallen for many decades but reached unprecedented high levels in 2020, exacerbated by climate change and increased variability in rainstorms. Additionally, the City of Chicago and Chicago Park District have long invested in on-going projects to help protect against future shoreline damage. I had never questioned the massive concrete steps bordering the lake along the parks and beaches east of Lakeview, an area my friends and I frequently visit. But I now realize these spaces are more than outdoor gathering areas. They are strategic, engineered environments that aim to preserve and protect Chicago’s shoreline while still allowing public access to the water.

For architects and engineers to address climate change issues, it requires more than the systems and materials we choose when designing new buildings and infrastructure.

We must also focus on the preservation and protection of existing resources and environments, such as the Great Lakes’ shoreline, especially as coastal conditions become less predictable and more prone to extremes. If we do not act in protecting areas along the water’s edge from this growing vulnerability, then erosion and/or flooding will consume the spaces we take for granted. The history and evolution of how water has, and continues to, impact the City of Chicago is fascinating. I encourage other young architects to think about the spaces they may inhabit near bodies of water, to reflect on the significance of those spaces to their wellbeing and the environment, and to anticipate how our design work can help preserve them.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: • After the flood: How Chicago is coping with the effects of climate change | MPR News • Lessons in Sea-Level Change Impacts from the Great Lakes | Marina Dock Age • Great Lake Cities: Blue-Green Infrastructure | SmithGroup • Climate Change and Water (IPCC Technical Paper VI) | Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Holly Harris, AIA, AHSE, LEED AP BD+C Harris is a healthcare architect and planner at SmithGroup in Chicago, Illinois. She is the young architect representative for Illinois and chair of the AIA Illinois EP Network.

31

Connection

Sustainability across generations:

Exploring what each stage of the architecture profession thinks about sustainability How has (or has not) sustainability evolved across the last few generations of architects? Do students coming out of college believe sustainable practices in architecture are just a given? Or do they realize that, in reality, we still have to sell many of our clients on sustainable design and strategies by showing them the inherent value in holistic design? We asked the diverse group of 2022 AIAS Board of Director Liaisons what sustainability means to them to better understand how sustainability is defined across our profession.

Kristine Annexstad Harding, FAIA, NCARB, AIA Board of Directors NCARB Liaison Harding, FAIA, NCARB, is an architect and principal at KPS Group, where she leads the firm’s Huntsville office. In addition to her demanding role at KPS Group, she has held numerous leadership positions in professional organizations, and was named to the Alabama General Contractors Hall of Fame in the fall of 2017. Kristine received her Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University, where she was also a scholarship athlete. Kristine is only the third woman architect in Alabama to have achieved AIA Fellowship distinction.

Shawna Mabie (SM): From your experience, what do you believe sustainable design is? What does it aim to accomplish?

Kristine Harding (KH): Sustainable design aims to set standards in building systems, materials, construction practices, and environmental site solutions to protect our planet and sustain life. Sustainable design also addresses the life-cycle of neighborhoods, cities and society.

SM: What did your college teach you about sustainability?

Was sustainable design ingrained in the curriculum?

KH: I attended architecture school in the 80’s and sustainability was not even a term we used. Environmental design was all about passive solutions and siting buildings to take advantage of solar orientation and prevailing wind conditions.

KH: End-users and clients, as a whole, are not pushing for sustainable design and feel that it is cost prohibitive. Architects can use sustainable design responsibly if it does not impact cost, however, the only true way to enforce sustainable design is to create building codes that address the larger issue. We have seen newer editions of the IBC include code requirements, however, when municipalities can choose to cherry pick the editions that they adopt, it does not achieve sustainability.

SM: What is your favorite sustainable project?

KH: Birmingham Shuttlesworth Airport. It doubled in scale and maintained the same utility costs.

SM: How has the evolution of sustainable design impacted you and the design industry as a whole?

KH: Architects are keenly aware of the tenets of sustainable design and that we can make the largest impact in our building solutions. The industry needs to lead the discussion and enforce solutions.

SM: Where do you think this movement is going - what’s next?

32

Above Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport by KPS Group

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Bethany Lundell Garver, AIA, NCARB, AIAS Board of Directors ACSA Liaison Garver, AIA, NCARB, is dean and faculty of Practice and Director of Applied Learning at the Boston Architectural College.

She holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design with distinction from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, along with a Bachelor of Architecture and a Bachelor of Interior Architecture from Auburn University. Garver co-founded the Professional Practice Education Library launched by NCARB and ACSA, which is a growing library of video lessons covering foundational and emerging topics in architectural practice.

Shawna Mabie (SM): From your experience, what do you believe sustainable design is? What does it aim to accomplish?

Bethany Garver (BG): Sustainable design secures a lifegiving future for our people, planet, and ecosystems. It is not merely a subject or sector we choose to study or practice.

Sustainable design is like oxygen – a given, an imperative, a true commitment to health, safety, and welfare for humanity.

SM: What did your college teach you about sustainability?

Was sustainable design ingrained in the curriculum?

BG: More than twenty years ago, my environmental controls instructor Professor Norbert Lechner, author of the invaluable tome Heating, Cooling, Lighting, taught me about the integral relationship between building design, performance, site, orientation, and climate. The whole curriculum at Auburn (my alma mater) honored these concepts and has only broadened and deepened their approach to sustainable design since then.

SM: Where do you think this movement is going – what’s next?

BG: What I think and what I hope are different. I think people will be distraught and overwhelmed with despair when climate change is broadly understood to be irreversible, and it is accepted that future generations will know “natural disaster” and be hurt (at best) by it. Design leadership needs to be rooted in empathy, communication, collaboration, and community. I hope the architectural profession lets go of (and perhaps for some, grieves) old traditions that do not work, like the designbid-build project delivery method to start.

SM: What is your favorite sustainable project?

BG: I have keen admiration for Placetailor, a Boston-based urban design build firm that demonstrates a paradigm shift through their approach to architecture, firm finance, and practice-based research and development. Placetailor’s projects and processes demonstrate replicable climate design leadership and serve as a striking model for our field.

SM: How has the evolution of sustainable design impacted you and the design industry as a whole?

BG: At the Boston Architectural College, the academic leadership group has been reading The Ministry of the Future

by Kim Stanley Robinson. For me, Robinson’s jarring novel profoundly illustrates how the climate crisis is at its heart a leadership crisis. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson’s book All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis asserts this thinking and expands upon climate justice. The two key concepts; climate leadership and climate justice, have significantly impacted my approach to sustainable design as an architect, educator, administrator.

Above CLT apartment block by Generate and Placetailor

33

Connection Ricardo J Rodriguez, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, ACI AIAS Board of Directors AIA Liaison Fascinated by the intersection between “bytes & mortar,” Ricardo’s 15-year career includes 2M-sqft of projects, and he has been a speaker at 35 events worldwide. An AIA|DC’s Emerging Architect of the Year awardee, BuiltWorlds also recognized him as a national Top-50 Con-Tech Adoption Leader. He has served in the AIA strategic council and is currently an AIAS board member. Lately, Ricardo has been focusing on AI-generated art, is an ArchiDAO contributor, and mentors four startups.

Shawna Mabie (SM): From your experience, what do you believe sustainable design is? What does it aim to accomplish?

Ricardo J Rodriguez (RR): Sustainable design is both a philosophy and a framework. When practiced, it aims to establish a responsible relationship between our work, the natural environment, and the community that surrounds us.

SM: What did your college teach you about sustainability?

Was sustainable design ingrained in the curriculum?

RR: In college, the very little that I was exposed to came from teachings on tropical modernism and our Caribbean climate’s role in colonial architecture and urban planning. This is an unfortunate fact, as climate-related challenges embattle the island nation of Puerto Rico, where I am originally from, that in nearly every direction and scale, our institutions, education, and professional practice are woefully unprepared to cope. In many cases, these challenges aren’t even acknowledged. The few exceptions are fiercely committed and push forward their grassroots efforts admirably and against all odds.

SM: Where do you think this movement is going – what’s next?

RR: I’d rather discuss my hopes on where it should go, namely accountability and action. Our professional institutions should start “walking the walk” and switch from advocacy to action. Adding sustainable values and goals to our member code of ethics, our contract documents, providing real tools to members, and lobbying for sustainable legislation are all needed next steps. I’m also encouraged by the next generation of architectural leaders, as they will be much more invested in climate action since it will directly impact them. These emerging leaders have access to a broader digital skillset, knowledge, and drive to enact change, where we’ve been timid in the past.

SM: What is your favorite sustainable project?

RR: Locally, in the Washington D.C. area, the African American Museum is a very successful example. The powerful content in the exhibition, the sense of place is empowered by its architectural design, and its sustainable strategies all converge elegantly with this project.

SM: How has the evolution of sustainable design impacted you and the design industry as a whole?

RR: When in the 2010s, LEED was all the rage in corporate architecture firms. During that time, LEED credentialing was a way to set yourself apart during the hiring process, which turned out to be essential when being laid off during the Great Recession. From the industry’s perspective, much advocacy and awareness grew during this period. Still decades later, most architecture practices, predominately the smaller ones, lack any frameworks or tools to assist them in climate-action goals.

Above: National Museum of African American History and Culture by David Adjaye and Phil Freelon

Montre’ale L. Jones, NOMAS, AIAS, AIAS Board of Directors NOMA Liaison Jones, a native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Design’s B.A. Architecture (2020) and M.S. Urban and Environmental Design (2021) degree programs. And is a graduate of the esteemed UK Gaines Fellowship for the Humanities program (2020), UK Lewis Honors College, as well as a graduate of the Harvard Design Discovery program (2021). Jones works in New York City at Bjarke Ingels Group as a Design Assistant and enjoys being part of an array of riveting projects.

Shawna Mabie (SM): From your experience, what do you believe sustainable design is? What does it aim to accomplish?

34

Montre’ale L. Jones (MJ): From my experiences I believe sustainable design to be not just an application and implementation of green into our urban cityscapes and architectural designs, but I consider it to be beyond that, which

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022 is a transformation in existing systems and practices that involve a deeper conscious consideration for the processes of the built environment. With that, the decisions, and sources of materiality; the longevity of builds and their reusability of waste after deconstruction; carbon footprint data and mitigating extreme levels of harmful emissions; and innovating how we design driven by eco-driven mindsets at the forefront.

What I believe sustainable design achieves to accomplish in today’s society is peace among the built and natural environment – a co-existence between the two. Whereas the needs and demands for intentional spaces and curated places to be designed for people and professions are no longer consequential in further declining the Earth’s beauty and life and sustainment.

SM: What did your college teach you about sustainability?

Was sustainable design ingrained in the curriculum?

MJ: As a student at the University of Kentucky (UK) and a degree recipient of a B.A. in Architecture and M.S. in Urban and Environmental Design, I was not taught much about sustainability, especially amongst the built environments.

Though, I did take it upon myself to learn more about the topic and concerns of sustainability that I had heard mentioned from extra-curricular organizations and other spaces that I had occupied by being present in lectures and enrolling into courses offered at UK that delve deeper into the concentration.

An example of this was course ENS 602: Environmental and Sustainability Policy and Governance. This course specifically was an introduction for me into environmental realizations of the processes of wanting to take an idea and or concept into implementation and the political hoops and wider challenges to consider when wanting to reform parts or our society as a whole into a regiment that is revitalized completely on ecofriendliness. This was a course I decided to take on my own that I believe to have strengthened my master studies, and it did just that.

combat many practices that perpetuate what would lead to a dying world, but without the fight of the majority the fight becomes staggered. The issue is twofold (1) educating the public of the facets of our living and how each sector of our existence and how much of those sectors are contributing to the greater sum of our harmfulness towards the planet (2) the parallelism of raw data correlated with the happenings, changes, and experiences that are realized in real time so that what we are feeling and seeing are storyboarded and that people know exactly where we are and where we are headed so that they may be part of the narrative instead of having it explained. I am currently an intern too at BIG and I have come to discover that LEED certifications and sustainable implementations into builds takes some convincing and enlightenment with clients too to show the benefit. Most times these extra parameters do cost additional money towards a project, and it is up to the clients to forgo these steps towards sustainable builds or not. It is also in the best interest of any architect or designer to make a case on behalf of the design practice and on behalf of the environment to relay the importance of attaining sustainability in builds. I had recently completely my master thesis entitled, Catalytic Urban Voids: Phoenix Park A Summit for Community, Climatic, and Celebratory Intervention, and amongst this research the next big immediate move for sustainable, I believe, is found in advancing the urban void spaces amongst the urban fabric of our cities.

SM: What is your favorite sustainable project?

MJ: At this time, I would say that I have not come across my favorite sustainable project to-date.

SM: How has the evolution of sustainable design impacted you and the design industry as a whole?

MJ: The evolution of sustainable design has impacted me and the design industry as a whole because it has come to be a challenge intended for the architects and designers of my generation to ratify an existing world that corrects the doings of the designers before us and innovate to sustain a better world for tomorrow and generations to come. There are more talks about sustainability than ever, which is great, though, because change in the built environment and in design take so long naturally because of construction and processes the things we want to see fixed must start their process now.

SM: Where do you think this movement is going – what’s next?

MJ: In truth, I see this movement of sustainability moving as moderately at pace as in parallel with as much concern and awareness and investment that the public has in this issue.

There are a number of people who are diligent in their fight to

Above CopenHill by BIG

Shawna Mabie, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP, NOMA

Mabie is a project manager and associate at Hanbury in Raleigh, North Carolina. She serves as the young architect director on the AIA North Carolina Board and is the young architects representative for North Carolina.

35

Connection

LEED, WELL… NOT an alphabet soup

Being competitive in the marketplace is fundamental, particularly for young architects. You may have considered getting yourself some credentials to make up for the limited experience. However, please look beyond the “alphabet soup” of credentials you could add after your name. Choose a program that truly suits your personal interests!

Sustainability Credentials (Wattick) There are multiple scales to sustainability — at the personal level, at the building or project level, and at an organization or company level. Most sustainability credentials focus on the building or project scale. In terms of building performance, sustainability encompasses many facets — site, energy, carbon, water, indoor environmental quality, materials, etc. In the next section, we’ll address the “wellness” factor to sustainability (i.e. human physical, mental, and social well-being).

Above S’Park Railyards Neighborhood Redevelopment, Colorado.

LEED ND Silver certified. BranchPattern served as MEPT Engineering consultant on this project. Rendering by SopherSparn Architects

A sustainability credential can set you apart from your peers, but which one should you choose? To help answer that question, consider how a sustainability credential can influence your professional projects, your role as a designer, and your impact on the community and the environment.

Sustainability certifications challenge project design teams, contractors and owners to go beyond any code minimum requirements. A credential can help you stand out as a subjectmatter expert on your project pursuit or project team. Even when a project is not chasing a certification, professionals often refer to credits within various certification programs as a benchmark or guide.

On my professional journey, I first chose to pursue a LEED Green Associate credential (cost: $200 for USGBC members, $250 for non-USGBC members). After becoming a registered architect, I was looking for a position in the sustainability field. Since LEED is often considered the “standard” for green building certifications, obtaining a LEED Green Associate is a common starting point, covering many of the areas of building performance mentioned earlier. There are many LEED AP specialties you can choose from, such as Building Design + Construction, Operations + Maintenance, or Neighborhood Development. Recently, I’ve earned my LEED AP ND (cost: $400), which aligns with both my personal interests and passions (community development, alternative transportation, smart growth, etc.) as well as supports my current projects. The intent is for the LEED AP ND credential to serve my professional growth alongside my company’s project pursuits.

While LEED still acts as the common standard, there are many other green building certification programs. One

36

Above Pikes Peak Summit Complex, Colorado. LEED Silver certified, pursuing Living Building Challenge certification. BranchPattern served as Net Zero, Sustainability, and Green Building Certifications consultant on this project. Rendering by RTA Architects

such program is the ILFI Living Building Challenge and Living Community Challenge. To show your expertise in the areas of development, energy, carbon, materials, water, and biophilic design, you may consider obtaining a Living Futures Accreditation (cost: $615 for foundational, $50-$100 per general course). LFA requires 20 foundational and 16 general credits within the first year of enrollment. As a fast-track alternative, you can apply your current credential (such as LEED, WELL, PHIUS) to fulfill the 16 hours of general credits.

An LFA credential shows your commitment to some of the highest certification programs and to creating an equitable, sustainable future.

Many credentials require continuing education in the form of coursework and/or project experience. (Every two years, LEED Green Associate requires 15 hours, LEED AP requires 30 hours, and LFA requires 16 hours). This requirement can be seen as an opportunity to build upon your chosen credential and customize it to suit your interests and needs,

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022 plus stay relevant in the sustainability field.

Wellness Credentials (Spolidoro) If your approach to design is more “humanistic,” you may look into accreditations that focus on the wellness and wellbeing of building occupants. The major project certifications in this sense are the WELL Building Standard1 and the Fitwel Certification2. The LEED certification touches only on limited aspects — such as indoor air quality, daylight, materials, and acoustic performance — and in general terms.

The WELL Building standard is part of the GBCI3, which administers the LEED program. It was launched in 2014. This standard is rigorous and can be expensive, with the project owner having to hire accredited professionals to certify WELL concepts.

The Fitwel certification was developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the General Services Administration. It was launched in 2017, and it is promoted as a more relaxed certification, easier to achieve than WELL.4 A Fitwel project certification is usually cheaper to the owners too.

You could become a WELL Accredited Professional (AP) or a Fitwel Ambassador. Both certifications require studying. It will cost you about $300 to become a Fitwel Ambassador, against the $660 ($299 when discounted) for the WELL AP. For the WELL, you will also need to maintain your credentials by paying $125 and collecting 36 hours of continuing education every two years.

To become a Fitwell Ambassador, you have to take a course that includes a 60-minute pre-recorded training video, access to the Fitwel reference guides, and a follow-up 50-question multiple-choice online exam. Study materials are available by building typology, for about $100 each.

To become a WELL AP, you will have to study the WELL Building Standard and then take a 150-question exam. The official WELL AP preparation guide costs a little more than $100. The standard can be studied for free, concept by concept5.

When it comes to enriching your résumé, comparing costs and exam intensity is important. However, deepening your understanding of how the built environment truly affects the human body, at a physical and mental level, should be the ultimate goal. You want to feel confident about your knowledge as you design a space — even if you will not pursue a WELL or Fitwel certification.

The WELL Building Standard is like “medicine for architects.”

I became a WELL AP under v1, which was heavy with public health data. The current version (v2) is also deeply rooted in scientific research but a little more relaxed.

If you have the time and inclination to study for the WELL Standard, you will get a rigorous, evidence-based understanding of what happens to the human body in unhealthy environmental conditions. I am using that knowledge every day, regardless of the project typology. I

Above Fisher ARCHitecture home and office, featuring plenty of light, plants, views to the outside, and other features that would make this space a good candidate for a WELL project

feel that I have the authority to talk, or write, about wellness.

The Fitwell could be a good way to ease into the subject before taking a big dive into the WELL. Conclusion Pursuing a sustainability credential should ultimately be a reflection of your interests and desired professional path. When considering your options, make sure that you understand the focus areas of each credential (i.e. energy, materials, wellness, etc.) as well as the applicability to your current and future work. A credential can help you become better at your current position, or it may help you find your next position, perhaps even your dream job. In any case, only you know which credential is the most purpose-fit for your own professional development. Best of luck! https://www.wellcertified.com/ https://www.fitwel.org/ 3 https://www.gbci.org/#credentialing 4 https://interiorarchitects.com/what-is-fitwel-and-whyshould-we-care/ 5 https://v2.wellcertified.com/en/wellv2/overview 1

2

Julia Wattick AIA, LEED AP ND Wattick is a registered architect in Pennsylvania, with a LEED Green Associate credential. She is a Sustainable Design Consultant at BranchPattern in the Building Science Department.

Bea Spolidoro AIA, WELL AP Spolidoro is a principal at Fisher ARCHitecture passionate about designing sustainable, healthy environments. Spolidoro is an active AIA member from leading YAF Pittsburgh and being a judge for the AIA National Honor Awards. She is the 2022 president of AIA Pittsburgh.

37

Connection

Natural disaster versus societal fractures Environmental geographers usually agree that there is nothing known as a natural catastrophe. However, whether a natural occurrence turns into a disaster is ultimately determined by its location. A major earthquake in the Himalayas may perhaps spawn no calamity, yet an event of the same magnitude in California might be disastrous.

prepare beforehand and absorb natural disasters, and how they can/should rebuild afterward. Nevertheless, even among climatic disasters, socioeconomic factors are not divorced from natural causes. Earth has lately witnessed rapid warming, which scientists are increasingly attributing to carbon emissions in the atmosphere. An unusual tornado outbreak late in the season, even events as strong as Hurricane Ida, are not definitive proof of human-caused global warming. It would, however, be irresponsible to disregard such signs. Recent natural calamities such as tornado outbreaks, Hurricane Ida, landslides, and flooding are largely regarded as proof of socially driven climate change.

The ability of an individual or household to foresee, oppose, cope with, and recuperate from the effects of natural disasters is primarily dependent on their adaptability and resilience. Davis (1983) explained in his research that to integrate innovations in danger-resistant construction and architectural designs, disasters habitually operate as agents of change.

Above Most vulnerable groups to natural disasters. Image created by Sharika Tasnim

The boundaries of catastrophe and the distinction between who survives and who dies are to a greater or lesser degree a communal calculus in all phases and facets of a disaster — causes, susceptibility, preparedness, effects and reaction, and reconstruction. This places an emphasis on how communities

38

Conversely, in many climates, the affluent prefer to grab the higher ground, leaving the poor and working-class people with property that is more prone to environmental plagues and flooding. For example, oceanfront property is a notable exception, and La Paz, Bolivia, wealthier populations dwell in the cooler valley below 13,000 feet. Topographic gradients, on the other hand, increase as race and class gradients in New Orleans. The relationship between elevation, race and class grew more pronounced as natural disasters struck. Elevated areas were reserved for the privileged and flat areas for the vulnerable ones. Furthermore, as the Hurricane Katrina evacuation disconcertingly showed, those who were well-off had automobiles to evacuate, financial resources for hotels, access to close family with presumably financial resources to enable their evacuation, and insurance plans to recoup losses and/or reconstruct damaged property. This left the deprived populations of New Orleans the most vulnerable by both the market and successive political administrations, from the federal to the municipal level.

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

In Guatemala, where considerable global relief was sent, many resources were not intended for the most harmed and needy victims. The country’s underprivileged labeled this catastrophe a “classquake.” Correspondingly, the outline of effect and rebuilding have re-carved the early community class and racial fractures in greater and broader ways in areas bordering the Indian Ocean, wrecked by the tsunami in December 2004.

Rather than re-establishing the livelihoods of the affected fishermen, “reconstruction” there refers to forcibly seeking to safeguard the coastline for tourists. The privileged were granted access to the cities through military assistance. And trailer parks in Florida disappointingly continue to be a common dwelling for several underprivileged evacuees, affected by Hurricanes Ivan and Charley in 2004. To be clear, disasters are simply scenarios that appallingly highlight the social disparity of expelled and marginalized communities.

Just like a house shelters its occupants, a city is for the people, with safe, quality, and reasonably priced social housing. It can be relatively difficult to visualize anything other than a gold rush of developers, with the mindset of some current administrations. The present rebuilding system after a natural disaster is clearly aimed at exacerbating and deepening inequities in society.

One of the great examples of coping with natural disasters might be Cuba, as highlighted by the United Nations. When Hurricane Ivan slammed into the Caribbean in September 2004, many people perished in Florida and Granada. Yet no one died in Cuba. What can be learned from this is that evac-

uation, as well as preparation, should be controlled by both local communities and the central government, with a great emphasis on social community initiative rather than relying on the private sector.

The aftermath of any natural disaster and the reaction to it are necessary to document so that the unprocessed details of what is uncovered are not erased effortlessly by historical rephrasing. Thousands of lives have been lost unreasonably, billions of dollars in assets have been ruined, and local economies have been wrecked,and this addresses only half the narrative.

The existing inequities in society and the natural disaster were neither exceptional nor unanticipated. The racial and socioeconomic characteristics of who escaped and who was afflicted by this undeniably unnatural calamity might have been foreseen and were, but this is true for an extended record of similar occurrences.

FOOTNOTES: 1.

Smith, N. (2020, March 18). There’s no such thing as a natural disaster. Items. Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https:// items.ssrc.org/understanding-katrina/theres-no-such-thing-asa-natural-disaster/

2.

Otto, I. M., Reckien, D., Reyer, C. P. O., Marcus, R., Le Masson, V., Jones, L., Norton, A., & Serdeczny, O. (2017, February 27). Social vulnerability to climate change: A review of concepts and evidence — regional environmental change.

SpringerLink. Retrieved April 30, 2022, from https://link. springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-017-1105-9

Sharika Tasnim, Assoc. AIA Sharika maintains a lifelong passion for architecture, having been involved with diverse professional and learning experiences across the U.S., U.K., and other countries. She is serving as a managing director at EcoArchitect & Technology Limited.

39

Connection

On the move:

Living car-less in Southern California

Above Sunset in Costa Mesa

Above A beautiful day in the neighborhood

“Sometimes it’s like another planet,” I told her.

up explanation, I’ll add: “I don’t have a car yet.” Other times, I’ll go on: “I only have a bike.” These five words baffle, concern, and even inspire pity in most listeners.

I moved to Orange County just two months ago, so the picture I painted to my old architecture school roommate was new to us both. “It’s not like being surrounded by space,” I went on — “it’s like being on top of it.” Space is reduced to a rippled surface eternally baked by the sun. Asphalt launches toward the horizon, blurred by heat mirage. The forests we had grown up with were light-years away. Here, there were only palm trees, scraggly bushes and cacti: spiky, blooming aliens that had steeled themselves for centuries to withstand apocalypselevel conditions. They feed off of the sunlight, so incessant that the landscape almost hums.

I remember my first time flying over this bizarre terrain, fascinated by the suburbs spreading like a rash over the low, dry hills, between office parks and strip malls the size of small towns. It was clear at first glance, and it is even more clear to me now: like many “cities” in the U.S., the suburban sprawl between Los Angeles and San Diego was never constructed for humans. It was made by humans to exchange capital: to drive our energy-thirsty steel pets to one destination, one strip mall, one suburban paradise at a time. Space is what flies past the windshield.

It was made so successfully that the phrase “I don’t have a car” immediately invites questions. Sometimes to avoid any follow-

40

I don’t blame them. By the laws of Southern Californian culture, the notion that a resident would actively choose this lifestyle doesn’t make sense. I should be deterred by the prospect of waiting for a bus, but not by waiting in constant traffic. I should not be able to traverse the city practically for free, or at least without paying for gas, tolls, parking, auto insurance, repairs, etc. The urban planners, politicians, etc. who created this city thought so as well. Nevertheless, I am learning to traverse this new landscape on two feet, two wheels, and one underrated public transit system. The process has sculpted my perception of space, accessibility, and the agency that both residents and design professionals have to be the change they want to see in their built environment.

On this planet, as in all my previous ones, I walk more than most people I know. Usually for business, often for pleasure.

But getting around Orange County on foot can feel less like a mode of transportation or pastime and more like an endurance sport. I navigate the shade-less sidewalks with a baseball hat and squinted eyes, grateful for the vitamin D but not for the slight headache that catches up with me after a long day on my feet. In the many “neighborhoods,” where every other street is a six-lane highway, I can spend just as long walking

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Above Morning commute

Above Thanks, OCTA!

as I do waiting at crosswalks. I wait lengths of time that, on a particularly cold or hot or glaringly sunny day, seem cruel.

Steel creatures roar past me, belching and gasping. Mammoth SUVs driven by tiny women. Tourists in vintage camper vans.

Mac trucks. Teslas. Somebody programmed these stoplight timers. Somebody designed this elaborate intersection with too few crosswalks. Nobody thought anyone would be using this sidewalk much anyway, at least no one worth considering when designing.

my most treasured possession and my oldest “local” friend.

Together we roam the OC’s extensive network of bike paths and bike lanes. They never quite feel extensive enough, but they’re plenty for the weekend bikers, on roads and paths funded by taxpayers with the Blue Lives Matter flag emblazoned on their matching father-son biking jerseys. Monday through Friday, they are used by kids going to and from school, and in the evenings, there are a few delivery bikers bringing my neighbors their takeout. I pedal along thinking about blue collars and white collars and how sweaty my T-shirt collar will be by the time I get to work and change.

I am gradually training myself to appreciate these long treks and obligatory pauses. While I walk and wait, I fixate on the palm trees’ reflection in the office parks, on the way the green construction fencing glistens and breaths in the wind. I stop and crouch down to photograph every captivating new alien plant or creature I see. I stream a podcast or a playlist and let the roar of traffic fade away entirely.

Especially in Orange County, I don’t expect to get anywhere particularly fast; I couldn’t if I wanted to. The most ancient form of human transportation is the way I feel most present.

It’s the simplest, cheapest, and most immersive way I know of to understand “place” and the varied ways my animate and inanimate neighbors move through it.

For added efficiency, exercise, and fun, the weather here is nearly always perfect for a bike ride. My bike has become

When my own two legs or wheels won’t suffice, the bus system has been a lifesaver and a pleasant surprise. I hear time and time again, exclusively from car owners (many of whom have never boarded a bus themselves), about the shortcomings of the public transit system in Southern California. However, Orange County has the cheapest, cleanest, and most reliable public transit system I have experienced in any city in the U.S. Without it, my car-less existence in the OC would be impossible.

I board the bus with a full collapsible cart of groceries in hand, which typically seems to surprise and confuse onlookers. A gentleman waiting at the bus stop with his sleeping bag asks whether I am all right. I say yes, sir, I’m doing just fine, have a good night, and haul the day’s winnings onto the bus.

41

Connection

Carting my groceries home from the bus stop, I realize I am almost the only human in sight, or at least the only one not jogging or walking a dog. I strongly suspect that the neighbor driving past me in her minivan saw me and shook her head thinking, “We really have to do something about the homeless problem in this neighborhood.”

Often as I walk, bike, or ride, I find myself craving urban spaces that welcome all varieties of human movement. Remember mixed-use neighborhoods? Walkable streets? Tangible public life? I daydream about densification right here in suburbia.

Imagine: increased availability and lower cost of housing, increased demand for and eventual access to public transit, decreased dependency on cars, less demand for parking spaces and car-related infrastructure, more dedicated bike lanes, more pedestrian-friendly and vibrant streets, more affordable and accessible communities … is it science fiction, or is it part of my responsibility as a design professional to push toward such a future?

If there’s any possibility of the latter, the least I can do is support and celebrate existing infrastructure. Even in quintessential Californian suburbia, there are opportunities to not just enjoy movement, but to “walk the walk” toward a more inclusive and humane city. To inhabit with joy spaces that at times feel actively hostile to those outside of a vehicle is to reject SoCal’s exclusionary, gas-guzzling playbook.

I try to tickle the edges of its hostility as I trek through my new home. There, along the hard concrete borders, are little bursts of life, including some of the most gorgeous succulents and wild herbs I’ve ever seen. Sometimes going against the status quo looks like stopping to smell the native rosemary — even crouching down to bring a sprig home with me. Sometimes it involves being irritated. Being patient. Boarding a bus. Walking down the street with a cart full of groceries. Flying by rush-hour traffic in the bike lane.

I am immensely privileged to be able to live comfortably, especially without a car, and am reminded every day that many of my neighbors are not so lucky. For all of us, moving against the formidable current of “car culture” means recalibrating notions of comfort and convenience. It’s claiming this spaceless space as our own and finding little ways to love it.

42

Above Intersection

I once heard happiness described as moving through space with relative ease. The “ease” part is a work in progress. But nothing, not even this alien planet I have always called home, can stop me from moving forward.

Rebbeca Baierwick, Assoc. AIA, Baierwick is a designer II at LPA Design Studios in Irvine, Calif. Her interests include hiking and chocolate.

Vol. 20, Issue 01 2022

Connection and Chill

Cocktails and streaming content for the casual consumer

Each quarter, the YAF Knowledge Focus Group curates streaming video content and a cocktail recipe to salute each Connection issue theme. In Q1, we highlight climate action through provocative shows and a drink recipe.

Cocktail recipe: “global warming: A high proof dark and stormy” Global warming may be an imminent threat to our world as we know it and is causing weather patterns and superstorms that we have never witnessed. However, this is the 21st-century version of a Dark and Stormy: a Dark and Super-Stormy, where it may be best to take shelter and ride out the storm. For the high-proof rum, though, any of our seafaring friends should be at the helm against this superstorm; Captain Morgan, Sailor Jerry, and Admiral Nelson are all well-seasoned in climates like this!

Ingredients 4 oz High Proof Rum 4oz Alcoholic Ginger Beer Lime Wedge Ice Instructions Fill a highball glass with ice Pour in 4 oz of alcoholic Ginger Beer over ice Pour in 4 oz of High Proof Rum over ice Garnish with the lime Sit back on a comfy chair and ride out the storm

Enjoy!

Global warming cocktail served on ice with lime

Streaming recommendations (available on Netflix):

The following recommendations range from fictional series to documentaries, exploring natural resources, environmental activism, and our future.

Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things (2016) Brave Blue World: Racing to Solve Our Water Crisis (2020) Seaspiracy (2021) Kiss the Ground: Regenerative Agriculture (2020) Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014) When Two Worlds Collide (2016)

AIA YAF Knowledge Focus Group (Kaylyn Kirby, AIA, NCARB/Ryan Lewis, AIA/Kiara Luers, AIA/Trent Schmitz, AIA, NCARB, LEED Green Associate/Jason Takeuchi, AIA, NCARB, NOMA/ Terry Zink, AIA) The YAF Knowledge Focus Group is dedicated to identifying important issues of recently licensed architects and the creation of knowledge resources to enable young architects to advance their careers.

43

Connection

44