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Architecture

Making it look Easy in Toronto and New Orleans

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Making it look Easy in Toronto and New Orleans

The three-step Dowsett design system

One: Start with conservation to reduce the energy demand of a building. Two: rely on passive sources of energy, supplied freely by nature. Three: consider active technologies to provide the balance of the renewable energy required. It’s as easy as 1-2-3.

At least that’s how Paul Dowsett, Principal Architect at SUSTAINABLE.TO, explains it. He is one of those larger-than-life Torontonians who works hard at making things look easy. Last month he was honoured under the CMHC Healthy Housing Recognition Program; in September he was nominated for a Heritage Toronto Award and last May he won the coveted first prize in the international competition to design a Passive House for New Orleans. Dowsett has been in the green building business for about 25 years; and we all know it’s not actually easy.

Sustainable technologies can have 40 or 50 years of performance under their belts and still be obsessively scrutinized for payback and described by the unenlightened as ‘unproven’ or ‘new.’ Renewable energy generation, the world’s fastest growing business and currently the most popular investment opportunity, is routinely described by myopic politicians as damaging to the economy even as they subsidize economic fossils like fossil fuels. In Canada it would be generous to describe progress on green building regulations as a bit like a roller coaster.

ENTHUSIASM

Meanwhile Paul Dowsett and many others persevere and even flourish, because they believe strongly in what they are doing. Standing in front of his project in Willowdale, Ontario with CMHC officials and the obligatory framed certificate, Dowsett seems restless to complete the photo-op. Moments before he was full of life, enthusiastically leading the assembled journalists and industry representatives through the building, pointing out each thoughtfully planned feature that conserves energy and optimizes efficiency.

In 2010 he completed the restoration, renovation and additions to David and Kate Daniels’ 1935 “eco-deco” (Art deco) mansion in Toronto’s South Hill neighbourhood.

Mechanical systems were replaced with a geothermal radiant heating and cooling system that employs highly efficient zoned heat pumps, reducing reliance on fossil fuels in winter and the municipal power grid in the summer. Says Dowsett: “There is enough thermal mass under a single house to heat a city block and geothermal offers an energy co-efficient of 3.9:1, compared to 1:1 for electric heat.” In other words it is about 4 times more energy efficient.

A solar thermal panel system was added for radiant heating and domestic hot water pre-heating. The building is also solar-photovoltaic-ready, which means PV panels can be easily added in the future to reduce reliance on the municipal power grid.

High albedo white roof reflects sunlight, minimizing solar gain and reducing cooling load.

Solar shades on the south facing windows reduce summer solar gain. Interior reflective light shelves increase natural daylight penetration in winter.

Existing windows were replaced with high efficiency, Low-E, argon filled, double pane, non-glare windows. Windows for the addition were bigger and even more efficient, triple pane and made from vision and translucent glass to increase natural daylight penetration.

Existing brick, wood studs, joists and flooring were re-used, reducing landfill waste and project manufacture and transport energy. The existing plumbing and light fixtures were salvaged by Habitat for Humanity. Some of the original steel frame windows were salvaged for re-use in the interior of the building

A rainwater system will collect rainwater from the roof and terraces into underground cisterns for landscape irrigation, reducing stormwater runoff and demand on the municipal water supply. A green roof is designed, again to reduce runoff as well as cooling loads. On the roof and surrounding the house, native vegetation was planted which relies mostly on rainwater and does not require the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

Energy efficient interior and exterior lighting includes LED, metal-halide, xenon and compact fluorescent. Kitchen and laundry appliances are Energy Star rated.

Plywood sub-floor material is urea-formaldehyde-free and Forest Stewardship Council certified. Stone terrace slabs from a local Ontario source reduce transportation energy. Other materials sourced within 800 kilometres of the project include fly ash and slag in cement and concrete, industrial waste wood chips in block foundations, mineral wool insulation made from industrial waste slag, waste sugarcane-based spray foam insulation, 33% recycled drywall and new floors made of upcycled crushed walnut shells, a commercial waste by-product, cast in water-based epoxy resin.

BRAD PITT DIDN’T WIN

Similar features and philosophies have been incorporated into many other Dowsett buildings along with wind power, straw bale walls, rainwater re-use, and community features.

His competition-winning Passive House design for New Orleans  was also airtight, thermal-bridge free and super-insulated, with passive shading in the summer and solar heat gains in winter. He included a concrete floor topping for thermal mass to radiate the heat into the space, the corrugated galvalume wall and roof cladding; and a balanced energy recovery ventilation system and split-zoned high-efficiency heating and cooling units with an ultra high-efficiency on-demand water heater and supplemental radiant floor heating. As per the post-Katrina building codes the house is raised 7 feet above grade, securing its safety during flooding and providing shaded parking, storage, and outdoor living spaces.

Brad Pitt and his team are also designing and building houses in New Orleans, but Dowsett thinks they might not be quite as affordable, nor as sustainable in the long-term. “They might be focusing on sexy new high-tech energy systems, rather than on what can be done with conservation and passive principles.”

In other words if you want it to be as easy as 1-2-3; start with 1 and 2.  GB

 

Uncategorized

The Power of Content Marketing

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The Power of Content Marketing

By  Marylene Vestergom

With so many marketing options available to target B2B customers, how do you effectively employ your advertising dollars to reach your audience?  How can you ensure you’re having a dialogue with your target, the decision maker?

Consider the power of content marketing.

“Content marketing aims to build a relationship of trust and loyalty with the sponsor’s customers, so they regard the sponsor as the vendor of choice when they make purchases. This is accomplished by providing information and, often, advice that meets the needs and suits the preferences of the sponsor’s target market. It serves the interests of the audience, rather than overtly plugging products and services the way ads do. “(Wilkipedia)

Content marketing is networking in writing. Instead of the one-size-fits-all solutions like radio, television and other types of advertising, engaging in a targeted approach using custom content is a way that you can convey your unique story in a non-interruptive forum. Imagine being able to have a conversation within the context of peer-generated content.

The key, of course, is delivering content that is relevant and current to your target market. In return, your vehicle becomes a trusted resource that will be recognized as a voice of authority. By using narrative content to communicate a new product, an innovative idea or a case study, the content marketing vehicle quickly becomes a reference tool. You begin as a source of information and continue as a source of roducts and services.

Content marketing is actually the best thing to happen to the marketing profession in decades. Instead of creating ads, consider communicating impactful ideas to your audience using content marketing with articles that are underwritten with an editorial presence, positioning your business as an authority on the subject covered. Remember, most people read magazines not for the ads but for the content.  So why not create what they really want — content that can be trusted and targeted to your customer.

“Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that provides industry intelligence.”

Joe Pulizzi, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute

In the past, consumers didn’t have much of a choice – if they wanted more information, they were at the whim of the advertisers. Today’s consumers are in complete control, with their 24-hour-a-day electronic devices. They are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages daily. B2B marketers can now drive profitable customer action by tailoring their message within a vehicle like a custom content magazine and speak strategically to the end user.

Consider the following figures from Roper Public Affairs:

80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles instead of in an advertisement

70% say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company

60% say that company content helps them make better product decisions.

 

Content marketing is the fastest-growing and effective form of marketing after the Internet, because of its ability to deliver relevant, compelling and engaging content to a defined audience in a manner that delivers results.

How would your business be different if your customer looked forward to receiving your marketing?  If they spent between 15 and 45 minutes with your material?  If it became a resource tool that they saved and reread?

“Smart marketers understand that traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective by the minute, and that there has to be a better way,” says Pulizzi. “Thought leaders and marketing experts from around the world have concluded that content marketing isn’t just the future, it’s the present.”

Content marketing is an opportunity to deliver your personal message and build brand awareness to your customer — a targeted vehicle that you can tailor to meet your needs. GB

Uncategorized

To Heat or Not to Heat – SolarWall taps sun from Stratford to Spain

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Next time you travel to Stratford in southwestern Ontario to get your fix of Shakespeare, look carefully at the walls of the Avon Theatre. Not only does the black cladding stand out visually, but it’s tapping the sun to heat the building.

Conventional fuel-based heating systems pipe in cold outside air and then warm it up. On the other hand, solar air heating systems like the one lining the Avon Theatre convert solar radiation into hot air before it enters the building and reaches indoor heating and ventilation equipment.

It’s designed to reduce fuel consumption and energy costs, it’s used in buildings around the world, and it’s Canadian.

“Solar air heating offsets the heating load on a building and is used primary in commercial, industrial, institutional and agricultural applications,” says Victoria Hollick, vice-president of operations with Conserval Engineering in Toronto.

Conserval is credited with inventing the technology back in the 1990s and holds various patents under the trade name SolarWall.

While the name implies a wall-mount, SolarWall systems can also be placed atop a roof. In either case, it needs a metal exterior panel to allow the heated air to travel inside.

Systems can even be combined with photovoltaic panels to create a hybrid system generating both heat and electricity.

SolarWall systems have seen duty in more than 33 countries, with end users as diverse as Toyota, Wal-Mart and the U.S. military. However, it makes perfect sense that SolarWall was invented in Canada – indoor space heating represents the largest chunk of energy used in buildings in our northern climate, at between 40 and 60 percent, according to Hollick.

She adds that SolarWall systems typically save between 20 to 50 percent of a building’s heating costs.

“Any building that has a heating demand has potential application,” Hollick says. “The capital costs are significantly lower than any other renewable energy technology out there, and we’re able to convert up to 80 percent of the solar resource into energy.”

Conserval was formed in 1977 with a view to conducting energy audits for large industrial buildings such as those owned by auto manufacturers. Solar technology had begun to flourish in the early 1980s, thanks to government incentives, but the programs ended and Conserval responded by looking at issues associated with indoor ventilation. This led to a precursor to the SolarWall technology, and the rest is history.

Over the years, Conserval has built its Canadian user base, looking to unconventional markets such as agriculture. “Animal barns have high ventilation, high air turnover, so we’re helping to heat that air and, in turn, reduce their propane costs,” Hollick explains.

Multi-residential buildings such as apartments and public housing are also prime candidates, especially if they need to be reclad. “Instead of putting up regular metal siding which has no energy benefits, they can put up a SolarWall system,” Hollick says.

At the Avon theatre in Stratford, Solar walls cover the south, west and east-facing walls. The 2010 installation, part of an overall building upgrade, is projected to reduce more than 28,000 cubic metres of natural gas consumption annually, reduce heating costs by $7,000, and save 59 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, according to Conserval.

Other recent projects include the Canadian Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology building at McMaster University in Hamilton, which is seeking LEED Platinum certification through the Canada Green Building Council, and Goodyear Tire in Medicine Hat Alberta, where manufacturing operations boost high ventilation requirements and, consequently, heating needs.

While Canadian-based, Conserval Engineering has taken a decidedly international approach. In 1990, it opened Conserval Systems, a subsidiary based in Buffalo, N.Y., and in 2009 formed SolarWall Europe, which operates from Paris and manages the company’s direct sales and dealer network across the pond.

This past year, Conserval completed two projects for Toyota in Europe – a roof-mounted system to help heat a car dealership showroom in Spain, and a project for Toyota Manufacturing in France.

“They’re bringing in air and then exhausting it,” Hollick explains. “They’re large users of energy, and they have a corporate mandate to undertake these types of initiatives.”

The ongoing drive to reduce costs and carbon emissions stands to help technologies such as SolarWall.

“People think of automobiles as being the Co2 polluters, but in the developed world the bulk of Co2 emissions come from heating, cooling and powering buildings,” Hollick says. “The most efficient way to help buildings tackle Co2 is to help them reduce their carbon footprint, and heating is a huge part of that.”

For more information about Conserval Engineering and SolarWall please visit www.solarwall.com.

 By Saul Chernos

 

Ideas

BREEAM Comes to Canada

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News that a four-storey, 40,000-square-foot multi-tenant medical office building, planned for construction in Stouffville, Ontario, will seek certification through the BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) marks a milestone for the international standard.

Established 21 years ago by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) as a tool to measure the sustainability of new buildings, BREEAM measures the sustainability of the built environment using local knowledge and standards and has been a mainstay in the United Kingdom. However, green building proponents have adapted and adopted it in various forms around the world.

BREEAM is widely credited with inspiring Green Star in Australia, Haute Qualité Environnementale (High Environmental Quality, or HQE) in France, and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in North America, among many others.

There are key similarities and differences between BREEAM and LEED. BREEAM certifications range from Pass to Outstanding, while LEED’s range from Basic to Platinum. BREEAM trains assessors to evaluate completed projects, which are then checked by BRE. BRE then then issues certifications when warranted. LEED, meanwhile, operates through national green building councils, and their assessors evaluate projects.

BREEAM director Martin Townsend says his organization currently lists more than a million buildings as assessed or registered.

“Our key objective is to build buildings that people want to live and work in, as well great communities to live, whilst improving the performance, functionality, flexibility and durability of the building itself,” he says.

Operated by an independent board representing industry stakeholders under the wider governance of BRE Trust, a not for profit organisation, BRE Global is looking to further involve international experts and the global BREEAM community.

“I see BREEAM as a movement for sustainable development, with local schemes, processes, science and governance cooperating internationally under an overarching framework defined by core standards, core science and metrics” Townsend says.

He adds that BRE Global is currently seeking nominations for experts from countries such as Canada to join its Standing Panel for Peer Review and to participate in regular BREEAM Conferences on research and practice.

 

“We hope, as we develop our network in Canada, that experts will come forward so that they can also play an active role in ensuring that the tools and standard are the correct ones to drive the improved performance of new communities, buildings as well. If we are to quicken the debate about building better buildings we need to do so by sharing our knowledge and experience.”

Townsend adds that BRE Global hopes the Canadian market will integrate its own data on the actual performance of existing buildings into the work it is undertaking with the International Sustainability Alliance (ISA). ISA was launched at Expo Real in Munich in 2009, and its membership represents an estimated $196 billion in real estate ownership and management, according to Townsend.

“BREEAM is ultimately a tool through which sustainability goals can be measured and improved on an international level,” he says.

“Up until this point, although many of us have wished to improve the buildings we live and work in, we have felt inhibited by the financial implications,” Townsend says. “The environment and the economy have long been pitted against one another, and many feel that they must choose between their pocket or the planet. BREEAM offers a realistic, cost-effective solution to this and supports the notion that these old sparring partners need not do battle after all.”

For more information about BREEAM please visit www.breeam.org.

By Saul Chernos

Style

Modular Construction: Prefab Reduces Residential Footprint

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Hush: Seeing green through the customer’s eyes

By Saul Chernos

Hush and its president Naheel Suleman have enjoyed early success building luxury houses in the Toronto area.

The Ontario Home Builders’ Association decreed one of the company’s projects, at 6920 Second Line in Mississauga, best model home of the year in 2009. Then, just 12 months later, the OHBA named The Avalon and The Gardens in Oakville project of the year and The Brownstone on Birch best new townhome.

Born in Tanzania, he was one year old when his family moved to Canada in the early 1970s. His father is a chartered accountant, and Suleman followed in his footsteps. Over time, as he worked with developers, Suleman developed an appreciation for architecture, and gradually shifted into home-building. Married with two young children, he’s decidedly private. It’s his business and the methodological, customer-conscious approach he takes to it that he wants to talk about. He founded Hush in 2005 as a builder of high-end, custom houses, and he keeps busy, with 10 to 20 low-rise residential projects on the go at any given time.

“I wanted to change the way business was done in our industry,” explains Suleman, Hush’s sole owner and founder. “The idea was to create a new type of home-building company that was focused not on houses or the buyer but, instead, on the buyer’s experience.”

To that end, Hush has come out with what Suleman and his own marketing materials call the Hush Methodology. This literal branding of the company’s approach seems like common sense, and no doubt it is.

However, it’s also a philosophical positioning. Suleman insists he doesn’t want to put down other builders. Yet, he acknowledges that the time he spent in building circles before launching Hush taught him that houses are more than just a product and that people don’t buy homes just to live in them but, rather, that homes are central to peoples’ lives.

“A house to a home-owner is very different than a house to a builder. For the owner it’s their everything. It’s where they live, it’s family, it’s personal. The home is the by-product – it’s how we make our customers happy.”

The Hush methodology plays out, then, in the nature of the relationship the company and its personnel set out to form with each customer. The first step with any potential customer is to meet with them, and learn about their lifestyle, and then to work with them to determine what they want in their new dwelling.

As far as environmental features are concerned, Hush is reluctant, as Suleman puts it, to “shove green down their throat.”

Hush doesn’t seek independent, third-party environmental certification through bodies such as the Canada Green Build Council. However, the company devises and presents potential attributes, including environmentally-minded components, from an experiential point of view.

The company’s literature includes a green glossary, with basic information about options such as air-source heat pumps and paints and stains that are low in volatile organic compounds. But this information is presented in terms of benefits such as health, safety and long-term savings – in other words, a home that heats and cools efficiently and respects the health and wellbeing of occupants.

“To us, green isn’t about saving the world, it’s about having a better built home that contributes to a buyer’s health, comfort and economics,” Suleman says. “That’s how we jump to green.”

In order to give customers what they want, and yet maintain organizational sense and consistency, Hush breaks its green home offerings into categories, each with an array of features. But, one of the categories is à la carte. Suleman says Hush is flexible. If solar panels or geothermal systems are desired, Hush will provide.

The methodology continues as work proceeds. From initial planning and design through to construction and completion, there’s frequent walk-throughs and meetings with Hush’s in-house personnel, including the architect, engineer, interior designer and Suleman himself, with thought and consideration to what life will eventually be like for the occupant.

“If we follow that process properly it will ensure that the buyer receives the best-in-class experience,” Suleman says. “We want our home buyers to tell us that this is a house they want to live in as opposed to us telling buyers that this is the home they should live in. The look and feel has to be about who lives in the house.”

Hush employs a client concierge, who liaises directly with customers and is available as a key point of contact should any questions or issues arise, and to ensure consistency and continuity in the flow of information.

Separately, Hush also offers a virtual concierge, whereby all customers have password access to a private, dedicated web portal that contains up-to-date and ongoing information about the home, including legal documents, owner manuals, floor plans and a schedule of meetings with Hush personnel. Photos capture and document the entire construction process, and Hush uses the portal to offer post-occupancy services.

Providing this degree of customization might, at first glance, seem uneconomical. However, Suleman says Hush restricts itself to approximately 50 projects a year. All are in the million-dollar-plus market, and in an area largely bounded by Toronto, Mississauga and southwest Oakville, so the economics work for Hush.

“We are an elite home-builder that limits the number of homes that we build, and we allocate staff to properly handle that load,” Suleman says, adding that the sub-trades Hush works with come from the custom world and are used to this level of work. As well, he adds, Hush also wants its partners also enjoy a positive experience and feel respected.

At the end of the day, all the pieces fit together for Suleman. “We want to be forefront,” he says. “We know it’s important to be ahead of the curve.” GB

 

Sustainability

Fifthshire Homes

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The Sultan of Steel

Even after decades of award winning projects under his belt, Joe Vella doesn’t easily relax. He is in a hurry. He has site visits to complete, estimates due and customer meetings to attend. He doesn’t really have time to help with this story, but he will make time because the message is important.

“In terms of sustainability,” says Vella, President of Fifthshire Homes, “…steel is the ultimate.” He explains that with a durable life of hundreds of years, compared to the considerably shorter expectancy for wood frame buildings, steel makes sense both economically and ecologically.

Most of his projects today are framed in steel. “This steel has a recycled content as high as 87% and can be credited with the maximum number of points for the material and resource credits aspect of the LEED Rating System.” It minimizes health problems and investment decline caused by mold and rot, termites, shrinkage, expansion and warping. It doesn’t move or will not contribute fuel to the fire, and creates a straight surface for finishing. With steel there is very little waste. The joists, studs, lintels, and so on are all pre-cut and the few waste off-cuts we have are picked up and recycled.” Vella says it’s about the same labour cost for framing, and about 20% more for material that lasts about four times as long. Within the total project budget, the premium for steel usually amounts to just 2%. The return on investment with repair issues and reduced insurance costs will soon mitigate the additional costs.

Vella loves steel and sustainable architecture. He started building R-2000 homes in the 1990s and was named Central Ontario Builder of the Year back in 1998. Some people might have relaxed, but Vella kept going strong. He won an R-2000 Hall of Fame award in 2000, in 2001 EnerQuality Pioneer Award for the First Certified all Steel Framed R-2000 Home in the World, an Award of Excellence in 2006, two CMHC EnviroHome Designations in 2008 and R-2000 Builder of the Year again in 2009, after completing more than one hundred and fifty R-2000 certified homes.

PORT CARLING SUSTAINABILITY

“I say save the trees and build it with recycled steel. It would take more than an acre of trees to build this home if it was made from wood.” He is referring to a four-bedroom+ 5600 square foot house (and outbuildings) just completed in Port Carling. It was designed by Boyd Montgomery and built into the rock with heavy structural and lightweight steel framing from Bailey Metal Products in Concord, Ontario.

It’s an R-2000 energy rated home with R-34 insulation in the exterior walls and Loewen

Triple-glazed, low E argon-filled windows; with spectrally selective window glazing technology called Heat Smart T Glass. When the sun hits it in winter, the low angles increase solar gain, but higher angle summer rays are reflected away, keeping things cool inside.

Thermal bridging is minimized by insulated exterior sheathing; and most of the windows are operable for natural ventilation when appropriate. The house also features Sylvania LED pot lighting and a top quality custom Altima Kitchen.

The design has been warmed up with elegant 10” wide oak pre-finished engineered Hardwood flooring over in floor radiant heating system. Exterior finishes feature low maintenance Cape Cod siding and is made from Canadian Lodgepole Pine with a factory applied, low maintenance finish. The wood is slowly kiln dried and then two coats of fine quality acrylic are applied (in any of a range of colours). It comes with a 15 year warranty against peeling, chalking and blistering.

RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

The Port Carling project is heated and cooled using renewable energy technologies. These include geothermal and solar thermal. The building site in Muskoka consisted of granite bedrock. The geothermal wells were drilled over 300 feet deep into the bedrock. When the piping had to be run from the wells to the building mechanical room, the pipes had to be protected with clean imported sand. Foundation footings involved blasting requiring the use of special rubber blast mats to protect workers and the surroundings.  Footings are quite irregular in their configurations to accommodate the peculiarities of the geography. Blasted rock from the site was processed locally into crushed product and used as slab fill for the foundation and the larger boulders used to construct retaining walls on site.

Mechanical consultant David Gallagher notes that the 7-ton geothermal system consists of four wells drilled 325 feet through bedrock, and Geosmart Q series multi-function all-season ground source heat pumps; water-to-water for DHW, radiant floor heating and water-to-air for cooling. The compressor can either reject heat to the water side or absorb heat through the air coil. Two Viessmann Vitosol 200-F solar thermal collectors supplement the geo system and a high-efficiency Viessmann Vitodens 200 propane-fired condensing boiler serves as an emergency backup, season-startup supplement and domestic hot water (DHW) top-up.

Radiant is used on all levels, slab on grade for the main floor and high mass slab down below. A 120-gallon SME60 Smart-Multi-Energy tank by Triangle Tube for the hydronic system contains an internal coil for heat exchange and a 60-gallon stainless steel DHW preheat tank. During heating season the Ground source pumps maintain supply to the SME tank at about 40oC (105oF) which supplies the radiant floors during the heating season and preheat the internal DHW tank.

The DHW preheated inside the SME60, then moves into a Viessmann Vitocell-V 300 79 gallon solar storage tank, which can  boost the water to about 70oC (160oF) on a good solar day. DHW then moves through the final Viessmann Vitocell-V 300 79 gallon indirect DHW tank fueled by the Viessmann Vitodens 200 propane condensing boiler. The propane heated DHW load is substantially reduced by the solar and ground source contribution.

Two zones of coils are used for cooling. One serves the master bedroom lower level, great room, dining room and kitchen. The other air zone serves the family’s bedroom area and a loft guest room over the garage.

Building systems are managed by Uponor CCN controls, with web server-based access that allows for remote monitoring via computer and mobile devices, troubleshooting and alarms to trades.

“David’s mechanical systems are wonderful because they are based on renewables, but they don’t have to work too hard,” says Joe Vella. “That’s because we start with a very solidly built, well insulated steel building.”

“I’d like to talk more about this, but I have another meeting,” he says on his way out the door. Joe Vella is in a hurry.

Architecture

Slow Down, Breathe Deeply, Build to Live: Martin Liefhebber

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Sitting down with Toronto architect Martin Liefhebber to discuss his work and his outlook on sustainability, I find myself imagining the occupant of a building as one of its material components, and of the building as an extension of the person living within.

The notion of mutual dependence, of building and occupant as a single organism, seems absurd in today’s harried world where interaction between prospective homeowners and the myriad of building tradespeople and professionals is at best fleeting and harried. At the frantic pace condominiums, green or otherwise, are filling out the cityscape, how can there possibly be time for anything more than impersonal, tightly scheduled meetings with clients?

From his storefront studio nestled within a residential offshoot of Chinatown East, Liefhebber could walk to Bay Street to do lunch with developers. Or, conversely, they could take the streetcar to visit him. But neither happens terribly often. Not that his firm, Breathe Architects, is hurting for work in these tough economic times. Design posters and blueprints abound, and it isn’t long before I’ve memorized Liefhebber’s ringtone.

“I have a big problem with green building,” he tells me, with just enough smile to suggest a love-hate relationship. “The hubbub around LEED, new glazing systems and everything else is really to facilitate the construction of high-rise buildings, because that’s where most of the money is sitting.”

This seems harsh from someone whose curriculum vitae is replete with green projects of assorted shapes and sizes. But then, again, these projects aren’t generally mainstream. Sure, there’s Calumet College at York University, built in 1990, and the high-profile Toronto Healthy House off-grid project of 1996. But there’s also The Roost, a garden studio measuring a scant 100 square feet, and buildings made in part with discarded tires and pop cans. But Liefhebber, who teaches environmental design at the Ontario College of Art and Design, says he’s more concerned about an occupant’s lifestyle than he is with building size, and sees a greater need to consider how materials function than rely on machines.

A 900-square-foot house Liefhebber designed is currently under construction in Meaford and is centred around his client – a woman, recently retired, who wanted simple, low-cost, active country living. “It’s very efficiently laid out and has a fairly steep steel roof that collects rainwater to flush the toilet and water the garden,” Liefhebber says. A cistern beneath the kitchen floor supplies potable water, and his client is considering breeding tilapia, a fish species in the carp family people pay for in supermarkets, in an outdoor pond and indoor pit that are interconnected. But it’s the lack of a furnace or other heating and cooling equipment that stands out.

“It’s designed on passive principles,” Liefhebber says, explaining that gobs of Roxul and vermiculite insulation will help en

sure comfort even during the coldest weather. A greenhouse that will add warmth on sunny days can be closed off at night or when it’s cloudy. However, it’s a third component to the home’s heating plan that stands to make all the difference – the occupant, and the various activities such as cooking and making tea, that occur within. “The whole idea of PassivHaus, as I interpret it, is that the house is heated because someone is living inside.”

Liebheffer considers the use of machinery to heat and cool buildings antithetical in sustainable building and says his client’s interest in farming tilapia speaks to the relationship between home and occupant. “The idea is not to go out to Starbucks and pay $3.50 for a latté, but to make your own latté at home, or to invite friends over for warm wine. The whole thing is like the slow food movement, a slow way of life. It works with no energy and by keeping our imaginations strong.”

While the countryside might seem idyllic for active, PassivHaus living, Liefhebber is convinced it can also work in cities. “We have a social problem, not an engineering one,” he says, tying modern building to a lifestyle built around consumption, excess and waste. “You need a lot of money to maintain that. Instead of buying fossil-fuel-based energy, we need to be a little bit more active, walk to work, wear a sweater and close our drapes at night.”

Liefhebber says he sees little merit in designing green buildings if their occupants spend little time in them and commute long distances to work, or if energy-efficient heating and cooling systems require ongoing maintenance and replacement within scant decades. He’s particularly outraged that green buildings are so dependent on pricey components. Drawing on the recent Occupy protests, which laid bare the fact that less than one percent of the people control the world’s wealth, he says it’s high time the sustainability industry pays attention to the bulk of the population. “A glazing sandwich that allows sunlight or direct light to come in, and passive solar to heat buildings – they’re wonderful and I do many of them, but they cost a lot of money and are for very well-off people.”

The answer, Liefhebber suggests, lies in going back to basics and planning more thoughtfully at the neighbourhood and community level – for instance, locating jobs and services within walking distance rather than in designing cars that use less gas. He says LEED for Neighbourhoods “comes close to the mark” but calls for a more fundamental shift in attitude. Walking to work and shopping in one’s immediate neighbourhood would undermine certain sectors of the economy, but others would thrive. Instead of big-box stores and massive, central factories, there would be increased emphasis on local jobs and sustainable communities. “When something destabilizes it creates new opportunities. Everything would just shift a little bit,” he explains.

Many of Liefhebber clients fall within the 99 per cent bracket he’s concerned about. Some are on fixed incomes; others work in creative areas that don’t pay well; a few prefer to grow their own food and be as self-sufficient as possible rather than being tied to jobs to pay utility or mortgage bills. So, when it suits his clients, he sources materials that are inexpensive and whose reuse constitutes an environmental virtue. He’s built several straw bale houses over the years and even crammed discarded pop cans and rubber tires with earth and placed them inside walls to support buildings, much like pillars.

The Knell Tire House in Price Edward County, near Belleville Ontario, is a perfect example. Designed by Liefhebber, the occupants built the house themselves. The building has a pitched roof, increasing the capacity for storage and roof insulation, but does not have any central heating or cooling, and uses rainwater wherever possible. More to the point, Liefhebber salvaged the tires and cans from the recycling bin and redirected them to what’s considered even more environmentally virtuous – re-use.

Most of Breathe’s clients are low-rise residential, but he’s incorporated his green ideas into a daycare, a veterinary clinic and a cultural centre. In 2001, he designed a housing project for people with chronic fatigue syndrome in Clarkson, a Mississauga neighbourhood. Four households pooled their money and each got independent 1,200-square-foot apartments inside a building with straw bale insulation and a solar photovoltaic system that supplies one-third of the power. “They shared an allergic reaction to chemicals in the air and were thinking of renovating,” Liefhebber says.

Pop cans, tires, straw bale and huge wads of insulation aren’t the stuff which condos are made of. But then, again, towers aren’t what Liefhebber and his associates want to work on. “I don’t have a big thriving office with tons of people working here, just a handful of colleagues. What drives all of them is the search for alternatives. They don’t want standard jobs, and our clients don’t want a standard product.”

For more information, please visit www.breathearchitects.ca.

By Saul Chernos

Architecture

Let Mother Nature In

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Light. Air. Earth. Sun. Water.  Harmony.

At the celebration to mark the unveiling of 27 Farnham Avenue in Toronto, soft-spoken Architect William Dewson made a respectful speech, thanking the owner, the general contractor and many other building partners. It felt unforced, modest and natural, yet he had designed and realized an outstanding creation; a home that brings together many of the ideal elements of contemporary house-building.

Dewson works on dream homes and cottage properties, and he loves the outdoors. This is obvious when he describes his practice. “The symbiotic relationship between the natural environment and our projects is inspired by organic architecture and sustainable solutions to shelter.” They aren’t just words.

LIGHT

The LEED Gold or Platinum home on Farnham is filled with natural light as the back wall of each floor is nearly all glass, and a big central skylight spills luminescence through three floors, even into a basement apartment, through a glass floor on the ground level. There are more skylights over the kitchen and top floor rooms.

Generous windows are Canadian-made, Loewen triple glazed, low-E argon filled, with thermal edge spacers and Douglas Fir wood frames. The exception is the huge living room sliding glass wall from Bauhaus, which is eco-glass double-glaze plus reflective heat-mirror film and Krypton. This solution equates to triple glazing, achieving a 9.9 R-value, but with less weight. Heat mirror film is transparent to visible light, and reflects radiation back to the source; keeping the room cool in summer and warm in winter.

Artificial light includes LED strips and a daylight harvester which continuously samples the light levels from natural and artificial sources and adjusts control output to the fixtures, maintaining a set point. Settings can be locked in, or override dimmers can be deployed.

AIR

The big windows and many of the skylights are operable and complemented by a reductive cooling system which pumps air through a fan coil and along dynamic partitions in the ceiling toward the windows. “This allows it to float down, rather than blowing cold air on the feet and up the spine. Cooling works best from above and heat should radiate upwards from the slab,” says Dewson. In winter the house is conditioned via the geo ground source pump, through bottom-up radiant floor slabs, and also through an energy recovery ventilator, a fan coil, humidifier and HEPA air filtration.

The envelope of the building is at near-Passivhaus standards. It’s ultra-insulated exterior walls reach R-35. The insulated lowest level concrete slab is R-20. Structural framing is wrapped with exterior polyisocyanurate foil faced panels that eliminate 95% of thermal bridges (and emit zero HCFCs). Also a reverse insulation system on the rooftop below the membrane achieves R-40, because it is applied to the exterior.

Window shim and joist cavities are filled with spray foam from soy/vegetable oils and polyethylene from recycled plastic bottles. PIC joints, seams, fixture wells, filter housings, electrical and communication boxes and vent ducts are all carefully taped and caulked. Paints are low VOC. Wood flooring and Oak, Maple and Birch millwork are low or no VOC; including veneers which are locally pressed onto regionally milled non-formaldehyde boards. Polished ultra-low maintenance concrete floors require no sealers or waxes. To guard against interstitial condensation, dryers and bathrooms vent to the exterior. Plumbing is not located in outside walls. Cold water pipes and toilet tanks are insulated.

EARTH

The geothermal system consists of six 180-foot deep wells. Each well supplies one ton of Mother Nature’s heating or cooling. The water-to-water system uses organic ethanol in the below-grade section, ensuring that any leak would not contaminate the water table. During excavation and construction a comprehensive erosion and containment plan protected the soil.

SUN

On the roof of the house 25 bifacial panels work with a white roof to generate 7 kilowatts of electricity that feeds directly into the Ontario power grid. The system will pay for itself in 10 years, after which the homeowner will enjoy 10 more years on her Feed-in Tariff contract, receiving 80+ cents per kilowatt/hour generated. The white roof reflects 89% of the suns rays, which helps photovoltaic efficiency and reduces the heat island effect, cutting cooling costs by more than 20%. Bifacial panels use direct sunlight plus reflected sunlight and are considered about 30% more efficient. Electricity costs will be reduced with the use of Energy Star appliances.

The solar panel array was also designed to hang over the rear roof edge, providing window shade, and later when a planned deck is added, partial shading for the deck.

WATER

Not surprisingly, plumbing fixures are low flow and toilets are dual flush. Domestic hot water heating costs are minimized by geothermal pre-heating.

A rainwater system and cistern were considered but Dewson opted instead for drought-tolerant native plants, no invasive species, a dry well and a permeable parking pad area. The pad is pre-wired for installation of an electric-car charging system. Numerous specifications such as drip edges, sealing and extra membrane protect the house from moisture and control water flow.

 

HARMONY

Before the previous home was dismantled Habitat for Humanity inspected and recovered both kitchens, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, doors and windows. Recycling of demolition waste was more than 80% efficient thanks to fastidious organization by general contractor Southpark Design Build.

“I can’t say enough about how great Southpark was throughout the process,” says Dewson. “They took sustainability very seriously and managed all of the materials well.” Brick for the project was reclaimed from a warehouse demolition in Woodstock, Ontario at a cost of about half what it would be worth. Douglas Fir timber for trusses and steel columns and beams came from Canadian forces airplane hangars in Trenton and Ottawa. Floor joists came from a factory near London Ontario.

 

Harmony. Water. Sun. Earth. Light.  Symbiotic indeed.