What it means to build 'green'

There is more to building "green" than conserving natural resources and energy.

A green building makes its occupants comfortable, protects their physical health, promotes a sense of well-being, and facilitates the activities it is designed to house - for example, by helping occupants maintain alertness in areas designated for work. It succeeds as a building not only by being aesthetically pleasing and using space creatively, but also by providing excellent air quality, natural lighting, and effective climate control. All of this requires good design.

Architects have enormous potential to accelerate the creation of green buildings, so they carry a special burden for helping society move toward sustainability. They can effect big changes in the building industry and in their clients' perceptions of what is desirable in a building, because they specify all the materials that go into the buildings they design. When they call for flooring fabricated with minimal CO2 emissions, for energy-saving artificial lighting or for recapturing rainwater, in addition to saving resources, they create demands for green products and services, which eventually lowers costs.

The long-term benefits of green design are likely to be overlooked or underestimated, especially when conventional materials are cheap and easy to find, so it is necessary for architects to look at the big picture as they seek to use renewable energy and recyclable materials in their designs.

Green buildings provide much more than their face value. Case in point: the extremely green Genzyme world headquarters in Kendall Square, Cambridge, an architectural gem completed in 2003, is already paying handsome benefits to the company in the form of a big increase in worker productivity - that translates directly into increased profits.

Rick Ames, of Next Phase Studios in Boston, the Genzyme building's architect of record, knows that design solutions to problems are more humanistic and cost-effective than mechanical solutions. For example, mechanical heating and cooling systems, no matter how "state-of-the-art," are not necessarily the optimal way to achieve air exchange or to keep people comfortable - even in tropical climates. Indeed, modern engineering, while it ingeniously solves many problems, also creates new ones, such as health-threatening (sometimes life-threatening) mold problems associated with standing water; fixing those problems can be very expensive.

Educational productivity cannot be priced the way a corporation measures employees' productivity. But as our community proceeds with plans to build a new high school, we stand to reap enormous benefits if the building is designed to enhance learning and maximize students' and teachers' creative energies. Although there is no universal code that defines a green building - only broad principles and guidelines--there are criteria for High Performance Schools, schools which "improve the learning environment while saving energy, resources, and money" (www.epa.gov/iaq/schooldesign/highperformance.html). Newton has a High Performance Schools Task Force, ably led by Kevin Dutt and Brooke Lipsitt, working to ensure that construction materials used will be certified as coming from renewable sources and that the building will qualify for certification from LEED (a national group setting standards for sustainable buildings).

Architects of a public building offer technical and design expertise in the context of ongoing input and feedback from the community. Designers must acquire an appreciation of the social and cultural context of the space they are being asked to create. Thoughtful answers to the most basic questions: Where will the building go? Who will use it? How it will be used? provide the basis for good decisions regarding size, configuration, materials, energy sources, use of light and water, air circulation, climate controls, acoustics, even texture and smells.

The Genzyme building is flooded with natural light- enhanced with mirrored surfaces, especially dazzling in the 12-story atrium. As Ames points out, "light is all important in architecture." Buildings capture, reflect and distribute light in many ways, and the maximization of natural daylight is a sine qua non of successful green architecture. Indeed, humans require a certain amount of light to function optimally. When light exposure is inadequate, particularly in the early part of the day, many people suffer mood changes that can be debilitating and their body clocks can be disrupted. This can cause sleep disorders and is the root cause of seasonal affective disorder, which usually becomes manifest during the high school years. Buildings designed to maximize light exposure are not only more appealing, they also facilitate efficient work and effective learning; nowhere is this more important than in a school.

Citizens can empower architects to create spaces that stimulate learning. While the planning process for a building project in which so many people have a stake can be tedious and lengthy, the success, and ultimately the cost, of the final product will depend on how well the community articulates expectations and engages in an open dialogue with the designers.