Sustainability

Transitioning from President to the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, Mike had the opportunity to re-imagine his role within our Design Collaborative to focus on Bergmeyer's goals of serving the greater public good.

For the first time, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) is participating in the UN Climate Change Conference as a Non-Governmental Organization and COP observer by sending a delegation of four design leaders.

A form of social anxiety, it’s that compulsion to know what other folks are doing just in case they might be having more fun than you. Anyone with a smart phone and a Facebook page has experienced it. There are real psychological drivers behind it, too. Check out Henry Murray’sExplorations in Personality and his list of psychogenic needs. FOMO is right there in between cognizance and sentience.

Why is it so hard for architects and engineers to communicate? One of my sustainability gurus, Barbra Batshalom, describes the typical architect/engineer relationship as pretty much dysfunctional. But as we have pledged to meet the energy efficiency goals of the AIA 2030 Commitment, never before has a good, productive relationship between architects and engineers been more important. And yet.

If you’re an architect or designer working in the built environment, I’d guess science wasn’t your favorite subject in high school. Acutesqueamishness was an impediment for me. Forget cutting frogs open, I still can’t even look at a needle. My career in the biological sciences was over before it began.

One of the hardest things about the AIA 2030 Commitment is just keeping the faith. After getting your architectural firm to sign up, completing three or four years of reporting and enduring as many setbacks as improvements, sometimes you want to put your head down and just do your work.

To be honest, most of what I read now is in the social media stream. Although I still drop everything for a new print copy of The New Yorker (thanks, Katie!) and do plow through an actual book now and then (just finished The Metropolitan Revolution by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley, just started On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno), architecture magazines pile up on my desk and trade papers go right to the recycling bin.

Recently ranked among the top three universities for campus food, UMass Amherst is committed to delivering healthy and sustainable dining options. Now, the recently renovated Hampshire Dining Commons on campus can boast its own sustainable accolades after achieving LEED Gold certification.

Developed as part of our participation in the AIA 2030 Commitment, the 2014 Sustainability Action Plan details our current actions and our future goals for further incorporating sustainability into all areas of our operations and our design practice.

Architects have not begun issuing sustainability reporting nearly as decisively as they have adopted CAD or BIM transition, but Barbra Batshalom is working to speed the transition. As founder of the Boston-based Sustainable Performance Institute, Batshalom teaches design firms and real estate owners to institutionalize sustainability. In her interview with Green Source, she noted Bergmeyer as having an “effective approach to systemic sustainability.”

Today I’m blogging live from the 2014 AIA Convention in Chicago. A trip to Chicago is always fun, but truthfully, I enjoy the AIA Convention wherever it is. I come for seminars that expand my mind. I attend to see friends and colleagues from across the country – including people I never get to see in my hometown. And I show up for the parties. But not necessarily in that order.

Whenever someone says the word “feedback” I become momentarily distracted. I mentally flip into “air guitar” mode and imagine that I’m Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock playing the Star Spangled Banner . . .

What do you dream about when you’re designing? The thrill of seeing your brilliant ideas built? The joy of receiving thanks and praise from your clients? Maybe you dream of getting some publicity or winning a design award? Or feeling deeply satisfied from knowing you’ve made the world a more beautiful place?

Do you have a favorite recreational activity? Does it involve equipment? Golf clubs? A tennis racket? A bicycle, perhaps?  I’m a skier. Skiers are serious equipment geeks! But the phrase you hear around the lodge is: Good skis don’t make a good skier.

Why LEED matters for future generations, a primer on LEED from our sustainability team, in the latest issue of New England Real Estate Journal.

The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) is working to change the culture of the building industry so that women’s work is acknowledged, respected and valued. I was honored when the BWAF invited me to be a guest blogger. Fully aware that women arewoefully under-represented in the field of architecture, I looked instead at the many thought-leaders I have come to know in the world of sustainable design. A re-posting of my BWAF blog follows:    

For tonight’s State-of-the-Union address, I’d like to share a vision with you all. A vision of a world where people work together to assure that fresh air, clean water, wholesome foods, and free, bountiful energy will be available for future generations as long as humankind exists.

Put yourself in your doctor’s shoes. Nice Bruno Magli loafers, perhaps. What do you think goes through your primary care physician’s head when you come in with a sniffle and say: “Doc, what’s wrong with me?”

Energy geeks. We’re the ones out there doing our holiday shopping by squinting at the lights and saying “Wow, I wonder what the lighting power density in HERE is?”

Dee Spiro, Bergmeyer’s Sustainability Manager and Rachel Zsembery, Senior Associate of Bergmeyer discuss the extensive changes to the Materials and Resources category in LEED v4 and what those changes mean to our industry. Learn more in their article “LEED v4: Materially Different” featured in the current issue of Retail Environments.

The Eustis Street Fire House, the oldest remaining firehouse in Boston, recently earned a LEED Silver certification, which recognizes the structure’s energy efficiency and environmental impact.

Did Albert Einstein really say insanity was making the same mistakes over and over again but expecting different results?  I know, it’s the most over-used cliche of all time. But gimme a break. It works perfectly here. And I promise never to use it again.

In the AIA’s 2013 Annual Report, Bergmeyer’s Mike Davis, FAIA, LEED AP and Dee Spiro, LEED AP relate the many ways in which Bergmeyer has successfully incorporated this commitment into our office as well as our work.

Last Tuesday, we had our big Mayoral primary election in Boston. First time in twenty years that Thomas M. Menino wasn’t on the ballot. Given the historical significance of this race, you’d think voter turnout would be off the charts. It wasn’t. 113,222 ballots were recorded, 31% of registered voters.

Left field for the Boston Red Sox. As major-league baseball positions go, it’s legendary. From 1940 to 1990, only three guys played left field for the Sox, all of them All-Stars. Ted Williams played it for 22 seasons from 1939 to 1960. Carl Yastrzemski, 23 seasons from 1961 to 1983. Then Jim Ed Rice, 15 seasons from 1974 to 1989. And all that was before Manuel Aristides Ramirez Onelcida.

I have a friend who’s a climate-change denier. He calls climate science “junk science”. He gets in my face about carbon dioxide. CO2belongs in the atmosphere, he says. The difference between atmospheric CO2 at two hundred something or three hundred something parts per million is infinitesimal! Why waste US taxpayer dollars on some misinformed quest to micro-manage infinitely small quantities of a naturally occurring substance?

I was in Denver last week for the 2013 AIA Convention. Denver’s a great town. Lively, walkable downtown, excellent public transit and some pretty interesting buildings. I recommend David Adjaye’s Museum of Contemporary Art up in Lodo near the Cherry Creek Trail. Nice. Libeskind’s DAM? Been there, seen that.

Urban bike sharing companies like Hubwayand CitiBike are all over American cities.Zipcar is so widely visible it’s almost a generic term. For vacationers, “Aribnb” has taken couch-surfing to a whole new level. Have you heard of NeighborGoods yet? Got a ladder? Need a ladder? How about Sidecar? “Share a ride with someone awesome”. This idea has traction.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post on leadership for the AIA 2013 Convention “blog off”. Seventeen architects contributed, many of the posts were rather good. In ways that I don’t quite understand, our collective musings will contribute to the Convention theme.

I usually write about the AIA 2030 Commitment. My focus has been architecture and climate change. And since last Monday was Earth Day, I had a rich supply of emails and RSS feeds to fuel the ever-present need for new blog material.

The Boston City Council will soon vote on a proposed building energy use reporting and disclosure zoning ordinance. If we really want to reduce our city’s energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions, we Bostonians need the City Council to approve this “benchmarking” ordinance.

This isn’t a hypothetical question. Answer for yourself. In your world – a community of design professionals focused on architecture and climate change – which is better? And what’s the difference?