FEATURE:
The New Green U

Design educators are choosing different paths for guiding tomorrow’s architects toward a carbon-free future.

By B.J. Novitski

...that couldn’t be replicated affordably.” Since then, Quale and his students have engaged in other design/build projects, dubbed ecoMOD. Their goals, in addition to giving students the intensely instructive experience of designing some-thing they actually build, are sustainability and affordability in modular designs that manufactured housing companies can replicate realistically. EcoMOD4 is in construction during the summer of 2009, and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville is considering construction based on the ecoMOD3 prototype.

Compared to design-only studios, Quale thinks design/build gives the students an opportunity to take their intentions to the next level. “Students today are excited about sustainability, and they want to be sophisticated about this issue once they graduate. But intentions only go so far. You can say, ‘I want to use this passive design strategy,’ but when you’re building something, you have to do the simulation that proves the strategy makes sense.” Importantly, Quale’s teaching paradigm is design/build/evaluate, so students monitor performance data in occupied houses and send their drawings to modular builders to assess affordability. In ecoMOD4, they expect to realize zero-net energy, thanks to a geothermal system and photovoltaic panels.

Another of the few sustainable design/build programs in the country is in Lawrence, Kansas. Architecture students work with Professor Dan Rockhill under the umbrella of Studio 804, a nonprofit corporation. Most of their projects are houses and, over the years, have become increasingly green. The 2008 project was the 5.4.7 Art Center for Greensburg, Kansas. The town had been devastated by a tornado on May 4, 2007, and the town leaders had decided to rebuild as the greenest town in the United States. The students achieved LEED Platinum by using recycled timbers, installing a green roof, harnessing the sun and wind for heating and cooling, and more.

Rockhill emphasizes that he’s not interested in training students to become builders; he wants this experience to make them better architects by demystifying construction. Even though his students are near the end of their schooling, they’re constantly surprised, he says, at how little they really know. “The way architects normally teach and practice has been diluted by a detachment from any comfort with building,” he remarks. “This experience gives students an opportunity to confront their demons.”

Rockhill has always been proud of the design awards his students’ work has received, and he believes design excellence has remained high even in buildings that earn LEED certification. This is critical, he says, to show the world that good design and sustainability are not mutually exclusive.

Next Steps

Some professors teaching sustainability are breaking new ground. One of them is James Wasley, who teaches in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has recently tackled carbon-neutral design, which he sees as both a subset and an extension of sustainable design.

“With carbon-neutral design, the conversation is getting more nuanced,” Wasley says, “but the fundamentals are the same: efficiently shaping form, orientation, aperture, envelope, and internal loads.” He suggests the first 80 percent of carbon neutrality is contributed by these factors, which lower the loads to the point where the needed energy can be provided by on-site renewable sources.

Wasley’s students see LEED accreditation as a vital job skill. One way he gives them real-world experience is to have them challenge renovation projects underway within the university system. When there are plans to build or remodel a campus facility, the students conduct analyses and simulations and offer alternate design proposals to show how the project could be greener.

Wasley and colleagues are currently working on a project, sponsored by COTE and the Society of Building Science Educators, to develop and publish a set of carbon-neutrality resources for students, teachers, and practitioners. In the first phase, they’re focusing on the carbon emissions related to building operations. If these emissions can be lowered, they will be reduced for the lifetime of the building. Future research will look at emissions related to the embodied energy, such as that used in manufacturing materials.

The Future of Change

One obstacle to a quick adoption of sustainability in schools is the lack of teachers. Many of today’s professors were educated before sustainability awareness was common. Those who can teach these subjects are in high demand, according to Alison Kwok, who teaches in the Department of Architecture at the University of Oregon. She examined ACSA-advertised job openings between 2001 and 2009 and found that 60 percent of schools were looking for faculty in the environmental area.

When in graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, Kwok worked with professor Cris Benton on a project called Vital Signs. They assembled a lending library of equipment—light meters, sensors, data loggers—to analyze physical spaces and conduct post-occupancy evaluations. The packages were loaned out to other architecture schools, along with guidelines for using the instruments to compile instructive case studies.

Kwok took a similar approach with her Agents of Change project, with the goal of “training the trainer.” With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, she conducted workshops to train faculty and students interested in becoming teachers. A generation of students now has hands-on experience in producing hard data on the results of design decisions. The hands-on work is more effective than lectures and book-learning, she says, because, “it’s more fun, and the ideas stay in your head longer than traditional ways of learning. Also by doing case studies, you create a stronger ‘need to know.’ ”

In 2003, Margot McDonald, AIA, with colleagues at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, proposed a model curriculum for sustainable environmental design education. They advocated fundamental changes to existing professional schools, which now support specialization among faculty. But sustainable design requires interdisciplinary integration and a holistic approach to teaching. How schools take this challenge will, as always, vary nationwide depending on the dedication of individuals. But some change is needed to educate the architects who will make sustainability universal. As Wasley notes: “It seems like it’s now or never.”

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