is SEED taking the place of LEED as the best way to measure sustainable environmental design?

The 5 guiding principles of SEED serve as the basis for measuring sustainable practices for housing, real estate development, and other building projects.

Most people in the architecture and sustainability world know about Leadership in Environmental and Environmental Design – better known as LEED. Achieving LEED certification is a great way of proving sustainable practices in housing and other building development. The LEED system is based on a 100 point baseline, and projects are evaluated based on various criteria.

SEED, however, is the newest way to measure sustainability. As economic fluctuations and social justice issues have proven to be an important part of sustainability, SEED – which stands for Social Economic Environmental Design – tries to incorporate these other factors in addition to environmental and energy concerns. Instead of basing the system off of a point system like LEED, SEED qualitative and quantitative measures are context-dependent, but are developed around their five core principles and mission statement. Their philosophy is that a bottom-up, context-dependent measure is a more effective way of evaluating projects rather than “a numerical measurement based on a top-down pre-determined set of rules.”

The question is: Will companies start to turn to SEED now rather than LEED? The subjectivity of the context-dependent evaluation may make it difficult to create an even playing field for all projects. Also, keeping up with all of SEED’s 5 principles may be harder than it looks. However, I feel optimistic about SEED certifications, as their website seednetwork.org links to many promising case studies, one of which is in the Bay Area! Seeing the SEED principles in action makes me feel positive about these new standards for sustainability.

Happy sustainable living!
- Emily

Hello from Caroline, a New Contributing Blogger

Hi, all! I’m Caroline, a new contributing blogger at KSDG! I’m from Los Angeles, and am currently studying Architecture at UC Berkeley. When I’m not in the Architecture studio, I’m writing, playing tennis, or attempting some exotic recipe in my friend’s kitchen. I keep an unreasonable number of Moleskine sketchbooks, and love exploring Berkeley and San Francisco for architectural inspiration.

For an “Archie” (lingo for “Architecture student”) like myself, sustainable architecture and design represent incredible, fascinating frontiers. The entire scale of green design – everything from reusable consumer products to plans for greener cities – is something that stimulates and inspires me daily.

It’s an amazing opportunity to be interning with Kevin Stephens Design Group, and to be gaining so much exposure to sustainable development and design. Look forward to articles on green architecture and design as well as on anything and everything else going on at KSDG.

-Caroline

Cut your daily water usage by 1,213 gallons!

So if you’ve been keeping up with my posts about water use and how you can cut down, you may be thinking “This is great
and all, but are there any small things I can change in my daily life to help cut down on my water usage?” The answer is YES!

Check out this short video by GOOD.is that gives you a few tips of what you could do throughout the day. In the end you could be left with 1,213 gallons of water saved. As the conclusion of the video says, image how much we could save in a year!

Composting Toilets – An Alternative to Flushing Away Our Water!

In my last blog, I talked about how water use is a huge problem in our society. Water from toilets is an especially large chunk of our water consumption. So what is a solution? Compostable toilets are one way that we can reduce the amount of water we use.

These toilet systems are water-less,  and use composting methods to turn human waste into a reusable soil additive. Some say that compostable toilets would be like old-fashioned outhouses, but modern designers are doing a lot to develop very advanced compostable toilet systems that don’t resemble (or smell like) outhouses at all!

Left: composting toilet... Right: the hidden parts

The best part of compostable toilets is that not only do they help save water, but they turn our waste into a safe, useful product that can be used to enrich our soil. Many people who already compost and think about sustainable farming – agree that this is the next step. Instead of flushing away our waste into the water supply, it can be returned to the land and made much safer. Let’s work to reuse and revitalize our world with compostable toilets : )

Here are some FAQ’s about composting toilets.

Happy sustainable living!
- emily

Flushing Away the Environment: How Much Damage Do Toilets Cause?

How much water do we each day day, each year? This graphic gives you the answer, and break it down by specific use (Shower, faucet, toilet, clothes washing, other)

Hello Everyone!

The other day in the KSDG office, we were chatting about water use and how crazy it is that we can use so much water so quickly! Things like toilets, showers, and sinks use way more water than necessary. And there’s not a lot of clean water left on the planet.

After thinking about the thousands of gallons of water we waste each day, I decided to look into researching exactly how much water we really do use during our day-to-day activities. Using the data I found, I made the below graphic to illustrate how dependent on water we are for various daily activities.

Who would think that a simple flush could cause so much water to literally go down the drain? The most astonishing part of this graph is the fact that we use so much water for our toilets!

It’s not something we like to talk about or think about–toilets are a taboo subject, but if we’re going to really make a difference environmentally, we have to be willing to face each piece of the equation in sustainability. When building sustainable homes, KSDG is faced with the challenge of ensuring that every part of the home meets sustainable standards – and green-friendly toilets are definitely something KSDG considers when designing homes. We’re on the lookout for the simplest, most aesthetically pleasing solutions to these issues.

Happy sustainable living!
- Emily

Turning Abandoned Schools into Urban Food Centers

Urban Food Center Proposal

We’ve all seen them – old buildings left in our cities and towns, vacant and stagnant due to cuts in budgets and funding. Abandoned schools in particular are sites that website GOOD.is has challenged people to find alternative purposes for and solutions to. The winning idea for the mini-competition put on by the website came from Caroline Hadilaksono, and proposed a “food to table urban food center.” The project essentially creates a platform for the following things …

1. The production of food: Through urban gardens, agricultural labs, rooftop farms, and vertical gardens.
2. The preparation of food: Using the schools old cafeteria, a kitchen environment is created to prepare healthy, wholesome meals. Cooking classes and nutrition labs also provide food education for the community.
3. The distribution of food: A small neighborhood grocery store sells the produce grown within the building and a farmer’s market provides a center for other local growers to flock and exchange.
4. The consumption of food: A cafe and community kitchen provide a common ground for eating fresh, healthy, and local food

-Emily

Sources:
“Repurposing abandoned schools project winner: A Farm to Table Urban Food Center” – GOOD.is
A GOOD Idea: An Urban Food Center – Caroline Hadilaksono’s Blog

Plant a tree, “green” the city

Urban Forest Cover in Philadelphia

We all know that trees are great – they are critical to the natural state of our world, since they play a key role in the carbon cycle. But making sure that trees populate our urban areas is even more crucial!

The city of Philadelphia has done a lot to ensure a plentiful population of trees on their streets. The Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Sustainability has created a specific program to increase the urban canopy, an initiative that allows residents to request trees to be planted outside of their residencies at no charge.

The USDA has done a thorough report on the impact of urban forests, using Philadelphia as a case study. One of the most succinct ways that the report explains the impact of urban forestry is through the acronym “TREE”:

Temperature reduction and other microclimatic effect
Removal of air pollutants
Emission of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and tree maintenance emissions
Energy conservation in buildings and consequent power plant emission
Taken from the USDA “Assessing Urban Forest Effects and Values” report

If this doesn’t convince you to go out an get a tree planted in your urban environment, I don’t know what will! Let’s bring some green to our cities by following Philadelphia’s model and making a conscious effort to increase urban forestry.

Sources:
“Assessing Urban Forest Effects and Values” report by the USDA
Fairmont Park, Philadelphia’s Park System – Street Trees Program Website

Live near a levee? Build a FLOATing house!

A photograph from the outside of FLOAT house

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, not many predicted the magnitude of damage that this natural disaster would cause. Homes were destroyed, people stranded, and New Orleans as a whole was left in shambles. Still today, people are trying to find solutions to make our cities more resistant to disasters like these.

Morphosis Architects, UCLA Professor Thom Mayne, and graduate students from UCLA have worked with the Make it Right Foundation to built what they call “The FLOAT House.” By situating the foundation of the home on a chassis that functions like a raft, this structure is capable of rising as high as 12 feet when a major flood occurs. Designed to generate its own electricity through solar and to collect its own water, the FLOAT House is also a “green” model. This awesome innovation is a step forward in green design and disaster planning!

More Information:
Time lapse video The FLOAT House being constructed
Project description from the Morphosis Architects website
Make it Right NOLA Webpage

What effects will global warming have on the Bay Area? Part II

Areas of the SF Bay region that are at risk of inundation.

In Part I, I talked about the issue of global warming as it directly relates to the Bay Area, particularly in the context of sea level rise. So what does the APA suggest we do to prevent catastrophe, or to at least mitigate the effects?

One category of preventative measures is related to structures. The APA discusses building levees, barriers, tidal barrages, and seawalls to manage tidal flux and to situate the coastline in its current place. When it comes to building new structures, the APA suggests either building at higher elevations, or considering floating structures that can withstand floods and adjust to tidal changes. Bans on allowing new development to occur in places likely to be inundated is also strongly encouraged.

The second category of global warming mitigation relates directly to the natural environment. “Flooded development” is a term that describes areas that are environmentally designed to withstand the often disastrous effects of flooding, or sometimes also having the ability to retain stormwater. Another environmental design possibility are “living shorelines,” whose landscapes are built to absorb the effects of flooding and erosion while creating new environmental habitats.

Source:
“Climate Adaptation and Sea-Level Rise in the San Francisco bay Area” by Laura Tam

What effects will global warming have on the Bay Area? Part I

Global warming presents a complex issue for our society, and the uncertainty surrounding the phenomenon is troubling to many. Being proximal to water causes worries to soar even higher, since the risk of inundation is increasing. According to an article by the APA,

In the past 10 to 15 years, the rate of global sea-level rise has increased by about 50 percent and is now averaging three millimeters per year. Human-induced global warming is a major contributor to this accelerated rise. In California, we are likely to experience a sea-level rise of about 16 inches by 2050 and about 55 inches by 2100 — and much more after that.

Imaging what these 16 to 55 inches of sea level rise will do to the San Francisco Bay community is a bit of an abstract concept. Planning predict that these rises could most drastically affect four areas: electric-grid reliability, energy demand for cooling, hydroelectricity supplies, and energy infrastructure.

See Part II to learn about what the APA suggests we do to prevent and/or minimize the impact of these potential problems.

Source:
“Climate Adaptation and Sea-Level Rise in the San Francisco bay Area” by Laura Tam