IGSHPA Keynote Urges Contractors to Stop Apologizing
Architect Calls Geothermal an Important Part of Reducing Energy Footprint of Buildings
Q. You say you design “living, regenerative buildings.” What does that mean?
Well, really, we follow the old model of taking nature, squashing it down, burning it, cutting it and then building a building on it. What we need to do is to not only stop that behavior because it’s not sustainable, truly, but to actually reverse it, fix some of the damage we’ve done. So, imagine a building that doesn’t take a site, clear cut it, cover the whole thing with asphalt and then build a box on it, and then that box is completely inefficient, wastes a lot of energy, wastes a lot of water and is all built with virgin materials. That’s the old paradigm. Imagine if we reversed that, and did a living building, a building that is truly living and that heals the site. So, instead of slash and burn, instead we’re looking at a building that would encourage the site to grow — potentially would grow food, grow energy, clean its own water, reuse its waste, and use heat in the most efficient way possible. Really, we’re looking at making every building a net zero building that produces more energy than it consumes.