SUSTAINABILITY AND THE MODERN HOME

Sustainability and the Modern Home

by Patrick Warren of Frits de Vries Architect Ltd.

Almost every client we meet with these days has questions about sustainability. Most people would like to make some contribution to preserving our natural environment, but aren't sure where to start. Many homeowners also don't realize the enormous benefit that they will enjoy from going green, both in the comfort of their home and in the savings they will generate over time. The question of sustainability is not a separate design question, but is part of the design of the whole building, contributing to a comfortable, low maintenance, high performance home.

Last year we completed a home in Vancouver on West 21st Avenue that became the first Platinum Certified LEED home in British Columbia, and was recently awarded the national “Green Home Award” for 2010 by the Canadian Homebuilder's Association. Certified by the Canada Green Building Council, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program is a green building rating system, designed to take into account a broad range of “Green” criteria. The West 21st home provides a great case study to demystify the different aspects of Sustainable design in the modern home.

Project Goals

A successful green building project depends on your project team, but first it requires commitment from the homeowner, as there can be extra time or cost involved in building green. Define your goals in collaboration with your architect at the outset of the project. Our client for the West 21st home, Nick Kerchum, the owner of Natural Balance Homebuilders, was looking for a home for himself and his fiancee, but also a show-home for his building and development company. With its focus on green homebuilding, Natural Balance would build the home, and use the project to develop and demonstrate their expertise in the field.

Mr. Kerchum came to us with the intent to build a green home, but he hadn't yet defined exactly what that would mean for the project. Our discussions didn't start with lists of technologies and options, rather we defined what his goals were for the project. Knowing his goals we were able to move forward, defining the key elements that would form his home design.

We determined that the West 21st home would be a modern, clean lined home, with a focus on entertaining. The owners, a young couple, wanted a home that suited their energetic and social lifestyle, but realized that the home should also be flexible to accommodate children in the future. The owner identified the primary goals for the home as being a healthy, non-toxic home environment and energy efficiency. Also, since it was intended as a demonstration home for his building company, it would also need certification from a third party to quantify his achievements.

These early conversations defined the project goals of green building without compromising the exciting modern aesthetic of the project.

Certification

A green building certification program lays out categories and targets that can act as a guide to building green. Certification can be useful for the consumer so that they know what they have achieved, or what they are about to purchase. It is the difference between a developer's assurance that your project is “green”, and a developer's proof of achievement.

Certification can also act as a roadmap for achieving your “green” goals. Programs like LEED and Built Green provide you with categories and assessment criteria that assign value to various sustainable features. If you don't know how to start the conversation of building green on your next project, the rating systems may be a good place.

Certifying a sustainable home doesn't make it any more sustainable. Green rating systems have the huge benefits that I just mentioned, but they also involve administrative time and cost. Some homeowners would like to incorporate sustainable features “a la carte”, and since they will be working closely with an architect and builder they trust, do not require certification. In some cases an owner may choose not to pay for certification despite being eligible, and in other cases a homeowner may have an interest in only one or two particular aspects of green design.

It was important for the owner of the West 21st home that his home be certified by a Green Rating system, as the home was intended to serve as a demonstration home. In the initial stages we determined which rating system was best aligned with the project goals. The owner selected LEED certification for two main reasons: it is well-regarded both in and outside of the industry, and it is comprehensive in its approach. Other rating systems are more limited in their scope.

Green Building Stratagies

As a prospective home builder, it is important to set priorities. In other words, you need to decide what are your green home goals. Some of the main green home goals to consider are:

• Certification requirements, if any
• Energy Efficiency and energy cost savings
• Healthy indoor air quality
• Low carbon footprint
• Water Use and Efficiency
• Longevity and durability
• Sustainable site development
• Recycled, reclaimed materials

As the West 21st home progressed the owner became increasingly committed to making this project a high-performance green home. We incorporated strategies from a broad set of criteria.

Energy

Energy efficiency itself involves multiple strategies. Passive solar strategies are integral to the building design, allowing 90% of winter sunlight to penetrate the home, but blocking 90% of summer sunlight from entering the home. This strategy goes a long way in tempering the indoor environment, naturally warming the house in the winter, and keeping the house cool in the summertime.

This home is airtight, requiring high performance building details and construction. This allows the insulation to do its job without drafts and leaks undermining the heating and cooling systems.

A modern home makes use of large areas of windows. It is desirable to blur the boundaries between the inside and outside living environments, and also to give a sense of space and lightness. However, windows are a potential weak spot in the continuity of the insulated envelope. In this case triple glazed, aluminum-clad wood windows provided us with the insulating values that we needed, and also with the architectural effects that we were looking for.

The heating system is primarily in-floor hot water radiant heating. A solar-preheating unit is installed on the roof to reduce the initial heating load. Even in cloudy Vancouver the solar pre-heating makes a significant reduction in the energy required to heat this home.

Every home needs to breathe, but as discussed this home is air-tight, so where does the fresh air come from? Of course there are plenty of openable windows and large sliding doors, but in the cold winter months these are all closed against the cold. The home has a mechanical ducted air system, but all fresh air coming in is passed through a heat recovery unit. This means that heat from exhausted air is “extracted” before the air leaves the building and transferred to incoming fresh air. This technology controls air exchange so that fresh air doesn't come with a loss of heat.

Heating and cooling are only one part of energy use in a home. All appliances in the West 21st home are Energy Star rated appliances. Lighting is primarily LED lighting, which is a technology that is developing extremely quickly right now. LED lighting is now dimmable, comes in a variety of colours, including both warm and cool white, and is extremely long lasting. The cost of LED lighting is coming down all the time, and will continue to do so as consumer volume increases.

Water

Water efficiency is less complex than energy efficiency, but also involves multiple strategies. All fixtures are low-flow fixtures, including the dishwasher and washing machine, toilets, showers and faucets.

Landscaping is designed with drought-tolerant plants, and rain-collection barrels are used to harvest rain-water. Regulations are slow to change, and in the City of Vancouver, where this house is located, we were not allowed us to use grey-water for our toilets or for the garden.

Grey water is water that has been used for showering or sinks, and is still relatively clean, but not suitable for drinking.

This water can be used for flushing toilets, and garden irrigation.

Green roofs are also part of the strategy for dealing with water, but in a different way. They actually hold the water on the roof so that there is less run-off into storm sewers. The water is held in the roof and then released back into the atmosphere. This reduces the “heat island effect” of developments, and reduces load on stormwater management. The green roofs on this home are beautiful and functional, and also provide additional insulation.

Indoor Air Quality

A healthy home must have fresh, healthy air inside. Materials that were specified for the West 21st home are non-toxic. Walking into this home when it had just been finished was completely unique, as there was no smell whatsoever, just fresh air.

All kitchen, bathroom and other cabinets are free of formaldehyde glues and resins. Most people don't know that wood, veneer and melamine can all be sourced without toxic glues at very little extra cost.

Longevity and Durability

Selecting durable materials and careful detailing of your home seems obvious, but many buildings only 15 to 20 years old are requiring major maintenance because they were not built correctly or were built with the wrong materials for the climate or location. This is an important consideration for sustainable building, since something that lasts doesn't need to be replaced.

Another consideration in the longevity of a building is the ability of the building to be flexible. This home was designed with flexibility in mind. Spaces that were left open and interconnected could be partitioned off later to make bedrooms. A lower floor with a courtyard was designed with the potential of becoming a secondary suite in the future. Already, since the home was completed, this young couple has had their first child, and has divided one of these spaces into a bedroom nursery.

Design Considerations

The West 21st residence is an example of a home with an integrated design approach. There is nothing in the home that explicitly announces it as a Green Home, because the design integrates all elements into the whole. Sustainability considerations are not separated from other design considerations, or treated differently. The home accommodates all functions, from social and aesthetic considerations, to practical ones, to arrive at a single design. Some sustainable design elements are small and easy to integrate, while others are more challenging. For example, selecting an Energy Star dishwasher with low water consumption is easy to integrate into the design. Passive solar heating has a larger impact, and affects the placement of rooms, windows, and roof overhangs.

By approaching all of the challenges in the design of this home with the same Modern point of view, all of the functional requirements of the building, including the sustainable features, are integrated into one home. The result is a comfortable home, with clean, healthy air, even temperature, low maintenance, low energy bills, conservative water usage, and a beautiful, light and airy feel. This isn't just a “green home”, but a high-performance, livable Modern home.

About Author

Patrick Warren is an Associate with Frits de Vries Architect Ltd. Frits de Vries Architect Ltd. is a Vancouver-based architecture firm with an interest in integrated sustainability, and with projects completed in the Lower Mainland, Okanagan, Gulf Islands, Sunshine Coast, Whistler and Vancouver Island.

 

 

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