Not me. I guaranty that I incurred the least amount of expenses (whether or not your participation was paid for by your company) and had the shortest, carefree commute and I welcome any challenges to this. Six months ago when I closed my business,
MoCo Market in Madison, I blissfully dove into the Internet(s) and was happy as a clam turning my brain off to indulge in blogs, news,
youtube,
facebook… In addition to my addiction with the election, I stumbled upon
Greenbuild’s website about the expo being in Boston this year. I was a little excited because 1) I was about to move to Boston to live with my husband again and 2) my architecture friends have previously hyped the event up to me. Volunteering for the expo was conditional on whether I was under 25 (not) or whether I could show proof of being a full time student. So I dusted off the University of Wisconsin student id and registered as a volunteer.
Moreover, my husband and I just started renting a house in South Boston, which yielded a 5 minute door-to-door bicycle commute. While everyone complained about the cold, I relished bundling up in my Sunday best to hop on my bike every morning.
So, how was my experience at Greenbuild? A few moments were fantastic and a couple were duds.
Fantastic moments:
1) realizing that 29,000 (more than the DNC in ’04) people attended the expo from backgrounds in architecture, engineering, design, urban planning, product development, marketing, public health and others were there because of one thing – the environment.
2) Volunteering to usher attendees into a workshop entitled “
LEED for Retail”. After all the attendees were seated and the educators began their instruction, I was able to participate in something that normally costs an extra 0 for FREE! A little background – my best friend,
Mary Ostafi, is an architect and she designed the commercial interior for my store,
MoCo, where we planned for
LEED-CI Silver rating. Because the construction expense exceeding our budget by K, we were unable to apply, but designed to the standards regardless. During the workshop, I found myself nodding constantly at the instructors…especially throughout the Alternative Transportation portion because without this initiative, my business would have never been
conceived. I started
MoCo because I
genuinely wanted to change the transportation habits of America – less car, more life. Needless to say, I was was
giddy with the new
LEED point system for retail that promotes my self interests. Malls be damned!
3) Session – Why Diversity Matters: Sustainability Depends on Inclusion and a Commitment to Design for All. Very inspiring session including moderator, Kira Gould and speakers, Betsy Hands of
William McDonough + Partners, Brandy Brooks of
Community Design Resource Center in Boston, Valerie Fletcher of
Adaptive Environment and Susan
Szenasy of
Metropolis Magazine. I was mainly interested because of Ms.
Szenasy being the editor in chief of one of my favorite magazines. But I was caught off guard by content that previously wouldn’t have been given a second thought to concerning sustainable design and construction. Three biggest takeaways were:
- Szenasy’s commentary regarding a eco-boutique hotel in South America that was originally slated to become a luxury golf course resort. Her brutal rhetoric confronting the idiotic idea of placing a golf course in the middle of the rain forest was hilarious and refreshing. She then went on to plea to us to consider staying at boutique hotels, local b&bs or vacation rentals instead of the monotonous and “I don’t know what city I’m visiting” chains like Marriott and Sheraton. Brilliant!
- Brook’s summation about the role of the designer in poorer communities including how it doesn’t matter how many million dollar LEED buildings are constructed in a neighborhood where vacant garbage lots, condemned housing and slums still exist. The failure or success of a project is measured by the ‘health’ of all buildings in a neighborhood.
- Fletcher’s summation about the role of the designer in adaptive environments and accessibility for handicapped individuals saying that you cannot measure the impact on a disabled person’s dignity regarding rolling their wheelchair through the main entrance or having to proceed through a side alleyway and enter through a ramp in the back, but you can imagine how they would feel and design accordingly.
4) Session – Green Blogs and the Built Environment. Moderator was Leigh Stringer with HOK and the speakers were Willem Maas of GreenHomeGuide; Lloyd Alter of Discovery Network: Treehugger, Planet Green; Stephen Del Percio of Green Buildings NYC; and Preston Koerner of Jetson Green. As someone who blogs somewhat frequently, I found it pretty cool that all these gentlemen (excluding Leigh) write for largely read sustainable design blogs and also have full-time jobs. What a dream life they have!
The charts they showed regarding readership stats like what blogs were read most, demographics and such were effective, but I mostly enjoyed that this session mimicked an online forum in that the speakers candidly spoke to one another instead of the normal question, answer, next timetable. They were humorous with dry wit and poking intelligence and I loved it.
My question of them was “did they think that the reason blogging has become such a contagious phenomenon may be in part due to the doom and gloom of the Bush administration?” like the avoidance of the national media to report on controversial subjects in the early 2000s like global warming, misconduct of the war, torture, etc. My reasoning behind this question is that I think people wanted answers and solutions for the tom-foolery that was occurring. Since the media was not providing coverage nor was the administration providing solutions, the average person took it upon themselves to step into this role and I’m so glad they did.
And now for a couple sessions I did not exactly enjoy:
1) Affordable & Green: What Difference Does it Make?
2) Taking it Mainstream: Pioneers of Green Apartment Communities
Both of these had great potential for wowing me. I was envisioning community organization, urban farm-to-table gardens, docking stations for alternative fuel cars, collaboration with local mass transportation planners. However, we were bombarded with economic statistics about feasibility and payback of energy efficiency. To give the affordable housing session credit, they are answering to the government, so I understand the need for ‘proof’. But, the green apartment community session was less than inspiring for title that included the word ‘pioneer’ as a precedent. I found one of the developers /speakers smug and very uncomfortable with his presence at Greenbuild. You see, it’s not in his best interest to develop green rentals because this benefit helps the renter save money, not them. I wanted to run on stage and squeeze his ear. They spoke of changing light bulbs and installing programmable thermostats when I wanted to hear about urban, density, historic rehab projects. The man sitting next to me felt the same and whispered his discontent, ‘this is going to be about economics!’ Not inspiring, so I left within 15 minutes.
So I thought I’d offer an example of what I wanted to hear about – a nicely packaged sustainable, affordable, apartment bundle in one: The Hollander Foundation Center. They used an existing historic bank building in downtown Hartford and are in the process of transforming it into affordable rentals. Oh, and by the way, they are applying to be the first LEED certified residential building in Connecticut. Now, that’s a cool project. You can read more about it in this article here.
Jackie Douglas and Charlie Dennison have offered me the position as Blog Ambassador for Livable Streets. I gladly accepted. I will be responsible for connecting with other Boston and National bloggers to create awareness about our events and efforts. Additionally, I’ll use my PR talents to generate press for Livable Streets. This should be fun!
My personal blog is also going to take a different focus. Because of my interest in LEED certified (and designed to standard) buildings in Boston and the mayor’s request that all new large construction be designed to those standards, I will be writing about existing and future designs in Boston. The sub-focus will be residential. I will still write about urban planning, alternative transportation and other aspects of sustainable design, but hope to be the ‘LEED Girl’ for Boston.
