As the 93 Nevins project works its way through the summer, the building is starting to emerge through its cocoon. Having finished the restoration of the original two-story building, we were able to take off the outside support structure that had stabilized it during the construction, which revealed the old parapet and brickwork from the street.

The rewards of this work extend far beyond the building’s enhanced street view. A 9^th grade science class from the School of the Future, a Manhattan public high school, invited us to attend an evening celebration of student work in the field of environmental science. The students presented projects – entries in an exciting contest in green building design run by their teachers Alison Godshall and Allison Murray. The assignment had been based upon the footprint of the Nevins project site and project specifications. The students’ challenge was to design and spec a green and sustainable project within our footprint.

In April, the project’s architect and I, with support from Green Depot, visited and presented to the four environmental science classes at the School of the Future, comprised of nearly 120 students. We described the 93 Nevins project in detail to the students, and after we left they were given the assignment to work on in small groups. The students’ final presentations detailed twelve green features of their project, and included renderings and specs that defined the sustainability of the program for their project.

Allison Godshall and The School of the Future kick-started their environmental sustainability initiative in 1999, with the installation of roof gardens at the school. That initial project has grown to include an extensive green roof, greenhouse, wireless weather station, and live still webcam. The green roof at the School of the Future uses rainwater barrels similar to those we will be using at Nevins Street, which capture water for irrigating the various forms of greenery. It was the first public school green roof in the NYC system, and all of the work was part of an ongoing and developing science curriculum. The roof has developed into a living breathing, filtering, rainwater-capturing classroom.

Our participation in this school’s innovative curriculum has now added us the 93 Nevins team to their roster of supporters, which includes the American Institute of Architects (AIA), NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Earth Pledge, CUNY’s GreenProofing.org, GreenApple Corps, Trees New York, SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Fujifilm, HurricaneTrack.com, and the Hall Farm Center.

So what did the budding architects come up with? Their projects had various schemes, some of the most interesting of which were: a foster home, sound recording studio, and hotels & residences.

In considering their final work, we were reminded of the reason that education is a central part of our mission, in building sustainable buildings. Our goal is to see this momentum build, fostering opportunities for the next generation to work towards a more sustainable life on our fragile planet. It’s extremely exciting and very humbling for us to work with the young professionals that will bridge the way to the future.

We would like to thank Allison Godshall at the School of the Future, and acknowledge the following students for their excellent work: Green Hotel: Yazmin Pena, Nikki Sherman, Kirosa Myers, Damian Danzinger, Itzel Gomez, Megumi Matsumoto; Green Pacific: Arden Haselmann, Stephanie Fogarty Yee, Yarelyn Mena, Bryanna Wright, Amber Mujeeb, Richard Diaz; Yoshi’s Home: India Menuez, Conor Sinnott, Naima Noguera, Ean Moreira, Devin Morgan.

Now that the old parapet has been rebuilt, we have moved our attention to the limestone façade of the new parts of the building. Having started from the bottom, we are a quarter of the way up in the courtyard on the Nevins side. Why limestone? Working with Tony Daniels, 93 Nevins’ architect, we had suggested limestone as a material that had historic context – it’s part of the vernacular for brownstone Brooklyn. The blocks are thick, almost 3-5/8ths inches, and the face is 12’x 24’, and they are being installed in a brick pattern. We are using cavity wall construction – which allows for air space between the limestone façade and the next layer of insulation. There are two benefits to this kind of wall construction: The first is that the one inch air space between the blocks and the thermal mass of the blocks contribute to the wall’s thermal insulation, making for a home that will be cooler in summer and warmer in winter. The second benefit is the sound attenuation. The thick blocks, the air space and the insulation should make these homes a quiet sanctuary.

As the spring green of flowering trees, budding flowers, and general leafiness of the neighborhood has emerged over the past few months, I have also realized how the views from the various windows and terraces provide wonderful views of green. I can’t wait to plant our street trees, and the trellised grape vines on the decks. They will enhance the neighborhood’s quotient of green, while improving air quality and the connection with the natural world. We have been researching different way to capture rain water for watering the plants. We will try to install water retaining tree pits that will help the trees grow. We are also looking for rain barrels for the large decks that have spigots to water plants on the decks, thereby saving water and the sewers from excessive run off.

Our Nevins & Pacific Street homes are pushing towards the finish line. The old brick façade of the building has been fully restored as planned, using a combination of the old and new bricks. Seeing the finished façade reminds me of our original goals; we simply wanted to build the best homes possible using what the site and nature provided as a starting point, while developing a new model for building practice. Every choice made along the way was towards building homes designed to bring comfort and pleasure to those who would live there, in balance with the need to show consideration for the world’s resources. These homes will be healthy, efficient and comfortable for the people that live there and for the community and world they live in.

Reducing the Carbon Footprint:
“A typical American Single family home is responsible for more than 11 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year through its energy use.” -The New York Times, 4/20/08

The homes at 93 Nevins Street and 453 Pacific Street mitigate the carbon footprint in ways big and small. Following are typical problems found in homes today, along with ways in which ours are different:

Home Heating and Air conditioning:
- Typical heating and air conditioning systems produce well over half of the carbon emissions of a home, or 6.7 metric tons. The typical home is free-standing.

Our homes – as many in the urban environment – present an efficiency advantage in that they are generously-sized 2,800sf residences with three bedrooms, but are situated side by side. Thus, they share common walls with each other and with neighboring buildings, thereby exposing less of the building to the elements.

- According to AHRAE 90.1, a national energy standard developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, the exterior walls of a typical building in our climate zone must achieve an insulation rating of R13. Existing buildings often are far less insulated.

Our exterior walls will achieve an average rating of R27. We paid careful attention to the building envelope, making sure to insulate the existing shared walls and create a high performance shell for the new walls. The new wall system starts with limestone masonry blocks, then a cavity airspace, then a hard insulation, then Densglass sheathing, and finally Nu-Wool blown-in insulation on the inside.

In our climate zone, typical building windows under ASHRAE 90.1 have a U-factor of 0.67 (U-factor measure the rate of heat loss). For our homes, we installed windows with thermal breaks and insulated double panes, with a U-factor of 0.32 – or more than double that required by code.

The above measures ensure that our systems do not need to operate at full capacity to heat and cool. We also used zones to further control usage.

- A typical home uses three different pieces of equipment to create heat, air conditioning, and domestic hot water.

We use one machine – a gas-fired heat pump, in combination with a solar hot water system, to meet all needs for heating, cooling and domestic hot water.

- A typical heating system heats water to 120 degrees, then delivers it through radiator systems which distribute heat unevenly, and use valuable floor and wall space.

We designed our system around the efficient delivery of the Warmboard radiant subfloor system. This system evenly distributes heat using only 88 degree water to heat the space quickly and efficiently.

On the cooling side, a typical home’s air conditioning unit uses ozone-depleting chemicals to create cool air; it also uses electric power. Our homes are outfitted with Robur gas-fired absorption heat pump units which use ammonia, a non-ozone-depleting chemical. In the urban environment, electricity is costly and is susceptible to great transmission loss – especially in the summer months, when heavy loads lead to blackouts and higher pricing, and when the oldest and dirtiest electrical power plants are brought on line. In contrast, the Robur units burn a small amount of gas on site, which is far more efficient and will cost the owner far less.

For more than seven months of the year, solar heating will meet most of the domestic hot water needs, and will contribute a portion of both the heat and domestic hot water for the rest of the year.

Other Live Loads
- Typically, the balance of a home’s electric usage adds up to another 4.3 metric tons, used for things such as appliances, televisions, computers, and microwaves.

The Nevins and Pacific Street homes use only Energy Star appliances, chosen for their efficiency in terms of overall electric and water usage, and cleaning efficiency. We also will install 2.2 kilowatt per home of solar PV panels, which will reduce the draw on the grid, as well as the overall carbon footprint of these homes.

Materials: Building Practice and Reducing, Reusing & Durability
- In a typical home, the building practice is wasteful.

With our homes, we were determined to develop and follow a path of less waste.
That began with saving the façade, the existing two-story structure. Had we torn it down, it would have all had to be sent to landfill, and then replaced with loads of new material. We carefully removed the bricks and rebuilt what was necessary. We used as many of the old bricks we could, and mixed in both new and other recycled material.

Supplied by Green Depot, our construction materials were chosen for their recycled content, local manufacture, and overall durability.

Our design elements were all chosen for their low carbon footprint, efficiency in manufacture, beauty, and local manufacture –to reduce shipping as much as possible. Our plumbing fixtures were chosen to reduce water usage, without compromising on quality or performance.

Green Depot used their biodiesel fleet to deliver materials to the site.

We separated and recycled all of our material waste and packaging, and carefully tracked it to ensure that we reduced waste and material sent to landfill.

Durability
- Green building is better building.

Durability is the most important sustainability issue, as it brings the most value to a home over time. Because of the level of attention to performance over time, our homes will maintain their value for generations. They will also cost less to maintain. The insulation has a lifetime warranty. The roofing has a twenty year guarantee. Because our heating and cooling plant needs to work less, these systems will last longer.

Health and Wellbeing
Our buildings will be the first to be certified by the American Lung Association Health House program.

- A typical home is constructed using many building products that affect the overall indoor air quality.

Our homes filter the air from the outside, and allow for fresh air intake to all rooms. The building serves as a lung - the filtration cleans the incoming air, and exhausted air is actually cleaner than incoming air.

We use materials with no- or low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) content, thereby reducing off-gassing and toxins within the home. We use mold-resistant drywall, sheathing and insulation. We allow for the escape of vapors to control moisture build up. By having such a high performance building shell and dense insulation, as well as interior sound insulation between neighbors, we are able to create a more peaceful and healthful interior environment.

The urban environment is more efficient, but it is also more stressful. We have done everything possible to make our homes sanctuaries amidst the urban bustle. We designed the living spaces around the green views of Boerum Hill Brooklyn. We added grapevines which shade the windows in the summer, yet allow the sun through in the winter. We will plant trees with water-conserving tree pits around the perimeter.

Green is Beautiful
Working with our designers and Green Depot, we have achieved a extremely high level of design, while taking into consideration how these homes fit into the world at large.

Architect Tony Daniels is currently working to estimate the carbon footprint for the Nevins and Pacific Street homes, and we will publish his results here when they are available. Though we do not yet have an exact number, we recognize that all efforts to reduce carbon are important to the sustainability of the planet, and we know that if our projections are correct, these home will be economically sustainable well into the next generations.

A few weeks ago, CBS featured 93 Nevins as an “aggressively green” development, an example of ”one of the hottest new design trends.” View the video.

That same week, Rolf and I accompanied friends from Green Depot to a party celebrating the opening of Greenbelt, an exciting new development of two-bedroom homes in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Like 93 Nevins, Greenbelt is going for certification under the LEED for Homes guidelines. I couldn’t help noting that Greenbelt’s printed materials stated that the development had gone more slowly than it would have, had it been an off–the-shelf, quick and easy project – but oftentimes, innovation takes longer. The party was a scene. Hundreds of innovative, environmentally concerned designers, architects, businesspeople, recyclers, and other “Green Drinks” regulars –as well as a few very cute toddlers – checked out the beautifully-staged apartment, featuring the work of local Brooklyn designers and artists. We met the owners of Camilla Boutique, an eco-friendly micro-boutique at 355 Atlantic Avenue, just blocks from our own development. Kudos to developer Derek Denckla and architect Greg Merryweather.

So let’s talk about this “hot new design trend.” Green design is getting a lot more play than it did a few years ago. Why now? It’s not that green building is a completely new movement, but in recent years the incentives to build green – and the market for green products – have become more mainstream.The desire to live on an habitable planet provides a strong motivation for increasing our energy efficiency. Even hold-out skeptics are starting to acknowledge the reality of global warming and its repercussions. Then there’s the financial side. Oil prices hit a new record high today of $108 a barrel. In New York, utility company Consolidated Edison has reported a 12 percent increase in delinquencies on payment of oil bills. No wonder insulation is suddenly sexy. At the same time, innovative product designers are looking for ways to combat the effects of “mass affluenza,” by finding new ways to recycle what would otherwise just end up in landfill. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll see creative interpretations of “reduce, reuse, recycle” every day.Then there’s the healthy side of green building. As a society, we are becoming more aware every day of the toxins we risk putting into our bodies, from the mercury-laced salmon we once served as a special family meal to the exhaust of cars and buses idling outside of our children’s schools. Makes sense that we’re looking to keep toxins out of our homes.Speaking of keeping things out of our homes, we’re pleased to report that the roof went up, keeping out the seven inches of snow that fell shortly after.

Emily Fisher, R & E Brooklyn

Layers: that’s the word of the day on this blog. “Ogres are like onions,” as Shrek tells us, “They have layers.” So do buildings. Each layer will serve its own purpose, and together they work to keep 93 Nevins and 453 Pacific Street at a comfortable climate and water tight.

Right now, the metal stud framing is up and the roof is going up as the weather permits. Covering the frame is a DensGlass fiberglass and gypsum waterproof panel, which today was wrapped in GreenGuard® Ultra Wrap, an additional mold-resistant, water-resistant layer. Padding that out will be exterior insulation – an extruded polystyrene. Next comes air. That’s right, air. The air space which will allow for convected flow of air, and increase the insulation value of the home. It works the same as way gas-filled double-paned windows – the air space keeps the colder or hotter outside layer from touching the inside layers. And finally, the outside layer will go on: limestone.

Working our way from the metal stud framing in the other direction, into the interior, first there will be spray foam insulation made of soy. As this foam insulation expands to fill every crevice between the metal studs, it’s very efficient in creating an air-tight barrier. And it’s made of soy – an easily renewable resource. Over the spray foam comes drywall, on top of which will be the finish: paint. We will use a no-VOC paint here. That means it will contain no volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), which make most people feel queasy when they inhale – typically what’s identified as that “fresh paint smell” or “new carpet smell” (with carpet, it’s also typically the adhesives that make people feel ill) and which aggravate allergies and asthma.

Emily Fisher, R & E Brooklyn

Working together we have been figuring out the lighting pattern for 93 Nevins and 453 Pacific. We decided not to use can lights for the double height part of the living room because a) they would have to be very bright to match illumination of lower ceilinged areas and b) where do you buy not to mention where in your home do you store a ladder adequate for changing light bulbs in fixtures twenty feet overhead, as at the entry way? We plan to use drop chandeliers for that part of the living room.

Big discussion re fluorescent lighting. Fluorescent lights can use less than one third the energy incandescent lights do and they last for years and years (that’s one way to solve the problem of changing bulbs in double height living room!) Good quality 24-watt fluorescent bulbs use as much energy as 150-watt incandescent bulbs. But….let’s face it, as Rolf says, nobody wants to LOOK green just because they want to BE “green.”

Can we use these super efficient fluorescent bulbs and still guarantee a pleasing light quality? Interior designers on the project Erika Doerring and Erika Hanson reminded us that fluorescent lights have improved a lot since that flickering green effect we all remember from old-school fluorescent tubes. A little research reveals that for “overall quality of light” a study by Popular Mechanics and a teacher at Parsons The New School for Design (Note: coincidence that we are working with Parsons students, aside from an interest the school has in sustainability in design) found that subjects preferred the light of compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) to that of traditional incandescent bulbs. And it was a double-blind study…so subjects presumably had to rely on their eyes, not their consciences, in evaluating lighting quality. The Erikas are big on fluorescent lights. I’d like to be big on them too but… too many bad memories of poorly lit conference rooms?

Maybe it’s the Missourian in me talking (my mother hailed from “The Show Me State”). I think we should follow up with a trip to a lighting store and see for ourselves.

Flooring: We talked over the pros and cons of engineered wood and salvaged wood for the living room. Both options would perform well over the sub-floor radiant heat.

As for stairways– we’ve decided on closed treads for 93 Nevins and open treads for the entry way of 453 Pacific Street, then closed treads above. This reminds me of a choice that one Parsons student made in design idea for 453 Pacific – she suggested creating a wall to screen out the stairs above the mezzanine to create a more private feeling for the stairs leading up to bedrooms, to differentiate the private and more public areas of the house.

And speaking of Parsons students, it was exciting to have the Parsons New School for Design students back on the site. They each had such different but fully realized ideas for the houses. A theme that came up in several students’s works was built-ins, which is great, because we have quite a few planned already.

Finally, we are closing in on closing on the construction financing that will allow us to complete these two houses. Just “ a few more documents”… where have we heard this before?