Sustainability’s Zone Diet

By Patty Chen

May 14th, 2008

Faced with global warming, there is no doubt that the architecture and construction industry needs to find effective responses that deal with climate change.  The challenge lies in separating en vogue measures from far-reaching, long-lasting solutions that transform industry standards.

Fads come and go.  Practices that were once acknowledged as industry standards become taboo. Design professionals make the best decisions possible given the information available at the time. Such was the case with aluminum wiring which replaced copper wiring in the ’60s and ’70s: it was lighter, more flexible and less expensive. At the larger scale, it was successful. So it was manufactured in sizes small enough for home use. It was implicated in many house fires during that era, and copper regained its industry-standard status. With the current rise in copper prices, aluminum is again being looked at as an option.

This makes me think of the history of dieting. The word ‘diet’ is derived from the Latin diaeta or Greek diaita, meaning ‘way of living.’ To focus on improving that way of living, whether it’s about our shelter or sustenance, is human nature. The recommendations on sustenance have been contradictory at best: carbs are good, carbs are bad; red meat is bad, red meat is good. And then there are the multitudes of diets that describe the perfect mix of the types of food we should eat. Of course, just when you thought you were eating all the right things, you come to discover you were eating exactly the wrong things.

Sustainability decisions are just as fickle. Paper or plastic? Paper takes more energy to make but plastic is derived from fossil fuels. You lose either way. As design professionals, we face similar conundrums on a daily basis. Just change all of your lights to LEDs! They are energy-efficient, and they last forever (but please overlook the toxic chemicals that go into making that tiny bright light).

Now, when it comes to sustainability, I’m taking the Zone Diet approach. The Zone Diet is about balancing the main components of a diet: 1 gram of fat for every 2 grams of protein and 3 grams of carbohydrates. Applying this theory to sustainable building would break down to something like this: 15% innovative, 35% recycled and 50% time-tested natural materials. Innovation is essential. No net-zero building will evolve from what we’ve been doing in the recent past. But innovation is scary, especially for our clients, and inconvenient when its rollout is rocky. Recycling, on the other hand, is easy to do. It includes adaptive reuse, brownfields and materials. Because not all recycled materials are created equal and some stories don’t always check out, it takes a little bit more effort from the design professional to sift through the information.

Plastics, for example, usually end in a hung jury. That is why the largest portion in this approach is proven natural materials. Among my favorites are stone, glass and wood. Stone has the longest life-cycle of any building material: think Stonehenge or the Parthenon. Glass starts with sand, one of the most non-toxic and abundant materials. As if that wasn’t enough to make you feel good about using it, it has a long life-cycle, it provides human comfort via daylighting and views, and it’s 100% recyclable. Responsibly harvested wood has the benefit of being renewable. Not only does wood have a long life-cycle, its biodegradability means it will also serve as nutrition for other plants. The bonus is that architects continue to make new and exciting spaces with these three simple materials. You may find this ‘Zone Diet’ theory somewhat reserved right now, but in a few years when all of the specified light fixtures become taboo, at least I’ll still have the exterior cladding of my building.

It’s an exciting time for designers. We are trying new and untested materials and methodologies in the spirit of sustainability. We are reusing absolutely anything we can get our hands on. Some years down the road, a finger will wag at us for using X material or Y air delivery method or Z ‘off the grid’ power generator. However, the decision to make the exo-skeleton of stone, glass and wood seems to be a constant that is here to stay as evidenced by centuries of successful buildings still around today. My building Zone Diet is an attempt at striking that balance between new energy-saving ideas, recycled and renewable materials, and materials that will last forever but easily re-assimilate into Mother Earth. In a few years, we can decide if this is a passing fad or a formula worth keeping.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized