elemental

Yesterday, May 31st, commemorated Walt Whitman’s 191st birthday. His modest birth-home, a farmhouse,  is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Our design of the adjacent interpretative center was conceived to shelter the farmhouse and visitor experience from the bustle of twenty-first century Long Island; the natural and built environments are joined with the presentation of cultural history through a curving cedar wall time-line that starts within the exhibit space and leads across the grounds to a point directly in front of the house where Walt Whitman was born.

The Interpretive Center brings together several design aspects that have characterized the work of elemental – environmentally sensitive, energy efficient architecture. The use of passive solar gain and thermal storage, and gravity ventilation — both characteristics of nineteenth century vernacular building design — can be seen in the large, south facing windows of Whitman’s house.  Similar features have been incorporated into the Interpretive Center.

The new facility serves three interpretive functions: the building is a gateway from the modern world to the historic site; it includes the exhibit space which encourages the visitor to experience Whitman’s life, writings, and philosophy in an environment that reflects the poet’s lifelong concern with the interrelationship between humankind and nature, and in full sight of the birthplace building. Once the visitor has passed through the gateway onto the historic site, the building and the extended cedar wall establish a peaceful precinct, shielding the view of cars, trucks, signs and neon lights.

To learn more about the Birthplace Association, click here.

In the May 19th issue of the #NYTimes, Alec Appelbaum writes a well positioned Op-Ed piece on the question of green, LEED-rated buildings potentially loosing their luster once in full operation.  Mr. Appelbaum essentially promotes the idea of a creating an incentive program for buildings to go beyond LEED certification, a benchmark that many new construction projects can achieve, and that those buildings should receive credits/subsidies to maintain and promote further energy and resource conservation – a position we fully support.

While we’re fully in support of LEED and the sea change it has created,  Mr. Appelbaum’s view and critique of where LEED certification leaves off is one we also maintain.

Read the full piece here.

In recognition of Earth Day, the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (COTE) annually recognizes the Top Ten Green Projects in the profession. The COTE Top Ten Award is considered by many as the best recognition program for sustainable design excellence. In 2000, the South Jamaica Branch library was honored to have been selected as a winner of this prestigious award. It is one of only five such projects in New York City. It was also the first building designed under the NYC High Performance Building Guidelines.

Among the building’s many features, the library reduces the embodied energy and embodied pollution through the use of low energy and recycled materials and provides enhanced indoor environmental quality through the use of chemically and physically stable materials and special filtration systems.

The “saw-tooth” shape of its roof not only introduces sunlight into the main reading room, but also promotes hot air stratification, concentrating at the peaks. The building has two return/exhaust air systems; one collecting air at the peaks and one collecting air near the floor.  In the winter, the hot air from the peaks is recirculated throughout the building, its heat being stored in the slabs and masonry walls.  Exhaust air is taken from the cooler air near the floor.  In the summer, the hot air from the peaks is exhausted and the cooler air is recirculated.

The building established goals to consume significantly less energy than that allowed by the New York State Energy Code: 48% less for lighting; 62% less for heating; and 34% less for cooling. Unsurprisingly, the actual electric meter readings after two years of operation demonstrated that the building has out-performed these goals: by 30% for heating and 50% for electrical (lighting & cooling).

For more information on the COTE Top Ten and to see the other winners, click here..

Carl Stein, FAIA will speak as part of the “Modernism by Choice: The Economy, Politics, and Sustainability of Preservation” symposium this Saturday at AIANY Center for Architecture.

The symposium is in conjunction with the World Monuments Fund’s “Modernism at Risk” exhibition on view at the Center through May 1, 2010. See here for more information on the exhibit.

Panel 1: Advocacy for Vacant Structures

Case Study 1: Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, IL
Speaker: Graham Balkany, Director, Gropius in Chicago Coalition
Case Study 2: Miami Marine Stadium, Miami, FL
Speaker: Jorge Hernandez, Architect, Co-Founder, Friends of Miami Marine Stadium
Case Study 3: Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
Speaker: Michael Calafati, AIA, Principal, Historic Building Architects, LLC, Trenton, and Chair, AIA-NJ Historic Resources Committee
Moderator: Theo Prudon, DOCOMOMO US
Respondent: Frank Sanchis, Senior Vice-President, Municipal Art Society

Panel 2: Sustaining operations in a Modern Building

Case Study 1: Taliesin, Spring Green, WI
Speaker: Victor Sidy, AIA, Dean, Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
Case Study 2: Central Branch, Atlanta Fulton Public Library, Atlanta, GA
Speaker: John Szabo, Director, Central Branch, Atlanta Fulton Public Library
Moderator: Lisa Ackerman, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, World Monuments Fund
Respondent: Carl Stein, FAIA, Elemental Architecture, LLC; formerly of Marcel Breuer and Associates

Organized by: the Center for Architecture in collaboration with the World Monuments Fund, DOCOMOMO US, and World Monuments Fund, DOCOMOMO New York/Tri-State.

Price:
Free for Members
$5 suggested donation for students

Carl Stein’s article in Renewable Energy World North America ‘Defining Renewable’ segment is available in print and for download now.

As Carl concludes:

“With remarkable shortsightedness, we have come to believe that the petroleum-era paradigm which was made possible by the availability of plentiful, cheap energy represents the natural order. In fact, it is not sustainable and is tending toward catastrophic results. The shift to renewable energies as our primary resources will reconnect us to the cultural/ethical continuum of humankind; a new paradigm.”

Read the article here. or download PDF .

Principal founder of elemental, Carl Stein, FAIA, addressed a gathering of local activists, artists, designers, educators, environmentalists, and planners at the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University last Friday, October 9th. The event sparked an effective and engaging dialogue about the sustainable future of the SUNY campus.

In addition to his curation with Marc Fasanella of the visual exhibition held in the Avram Lobby Gallery, Carl addressed the symposium with the following statement on sustainability:

“In order to discuss options for sustainability, one must first decide what is being sustained.  Much of the consideration of global sustainability might actually better be called survivability.  Issues of climate change, food production, availability of clean water and air threaten the continued viability of the human species.

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Join us for a Conversation with the Community
Friday, October 9th 2009, 7:30pm-9:00pm
Avram Gallery at Stony Brook, Southampton SUNY

Curated by Carl Stein, FAIA & Marc Fasanella

Followed by a reception in the Avram Lobby Gallery introducing the exhibit:
Seeing Southampton Visually Investigating Issues that Affect the Environment of Southampton

As we close the first decade of the 21st Century, we should take stock of how we dwell upon our Earth.  In the spirit of thinking globally and acting locally, a group of colleagues are initiating a dialog with Activists, Architects, Artists, Citizens, Designers, Educators, Environmentalists and Planners who shape the township of Southampton.

The future of Stony Brook Southampton is inextricably linked to the fabric of Southampton Township, the East End of Long Island, and the global dialogue on the environment.  On the evening of October 9th we will host a symposium that brings together a diverse group of concerned individuals to canvas their notions of elements essential to the evolution of the town.  Our goal is to provoke, record, define and present a holistic set of interconnected guiding principles for evolving our community in the 21st century.  On December 13th, we will present an interim summation of this discourse.  During the years to come, we will widen our conversation to an international level.

Contribute your thoughts at this public event! Please RSVP to (631) 632-5161

invite (pdf)

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Director of long-term planning and sustainability for the Bloomberg Administration Rohit Aggarwala tells an audience at The Urban Green Council (the newly renamed NY Chapter of the USGBC) that the building community now needs to address questions that go beyond a property’s design and construction. Aggarwala cites an important example to consider how a property can be truly green if there are no leasing requirements in place to ensure it’s operated in an eco-friendly manner. At present, there is no standard in place to determine the owner’s or tenant’s responsibilities for sustainable operation. While the general perception of sustainable buildings is  new construction, “if we’re going to make our big cities greener we have to focus on our existing buildings,” Aggarwala said.

Elemental has actively engaged its commercial clients, particularly building Owners and managers, to offer leasing structures which allow ‘green’ tenants to benefit directly from the economic savings of resource conservation. Suggested measures include individually metering electricity, heating, cooling and water use – and allowing the data of their use to be analyzed/displayed in real-time – as well as  energy and resource efficient upgrades for windows and plumbing fixtures which further reduce energy use for heating, cooling, domestic hot water and circulation. Individual tenant metering means that each tenant can reap the dollar savings resulting from those energy upgrades. In short, energy conservation by Owners can translate into economic benefits for every tenant.

Read more on Aggarwala’s address here: