Sustainability

We asked the UMass Amherst Dining Services team to share their thoughts, feedback, and statistics on the modern-day Hampshire Dining Commons.

How can retail brands seize the moment and reinvent themselves?

The passionate locals of Petaluma called upon us to help them achieve their goal of becoming a more accessible “15-minute city,” where every resident can access most of their daily necessities within a 15-minute walk or bike ride.

A new social responsibility mission statement that reinforces giving forward as a core part of our design collaborative.

Building waste accounts for a staggering 35-40% of worldwide waste in landfills, and carbon emissions from both building erection and deconstruction are increasing. These factors can be daunting when considering whether the design profession is an active or passive player- in the unending game we play each day with environmental management.

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.

Sustainable design is no longer just a desirable expertise, it is a necessity and an integral part of everything we do together. It is no longer an option for designers - it's an ethical imperative.

Senior Associate Rachel Lanzafame discusses options for improving food waste management, as our team is working together to collectively share business strategies for coping with the COVID-19 crisis, recovering from it, and planning for the future beyond it.

This post is part of an ongoing series from Principal Mike Davis, FAIA on our progress toward the AIA 2030 Commitment.

This post is part of an ongoing series from Principal Mike Davis, FAIA on our progress toward the AIA 2030 Commitment.

This post is part of an ongoing series from Principal Mike Davis, FAIA on our progress toward the AIA 2030 Commitment.

Everyone’s talking about infrastructure these days. It has somehow become our national “common ground” topic. Hard to argue against fixing roads and bridges, right?

My partner and I recently spent four days knocking on doors in Charlotte, North Carolina working to get out the vote just before the 2016 Presidential election. And you know how that story ended. But what’s relevant here is what happened along the way.

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say ‘thank you’. In between, the leader is a servant.”

Here’s a fun fact for you: According to the 2014 AIA Firm Survey report (sorry, no hyperlink, you have to buy it), 79% of AIA Member firms have less than 10 employees. Recognizing this, the AIA has a Small Firms Roundtable knowledge community and a whole online Small Firms Resource Center with practice tools, contract and insurance information, and links to sustainability resources to serve these members.

If you have commitment issues, the thought of going “all in” with another person could give you the shakes. For some peripatetic people, the grass over there always looks greener. Some sorry folks have torched a few too many bridges in their lives.

“It’s great that the firm’s senior leaders are so committed to sustainable design. But it’s hard to see how I connect to that mission in my day-to-day work.”

I started writing this blog just over four years ago on a dare. I accepted a challenge, and my part of the bargain was to write regularly about my design firm, Bergmeyer, and our adoption of the AIA 2030 Commitment. Seventy-two posts later, I’m still volunteering for big, hairy, audacious challenges. Still haven’t learned.

Greetings from Herring Cove Beach, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The only place in the Northeast USA where you can watch the sun set in the west over the ocean. Or something like that.

Were you in Atlanta for the 2015 AIA Convention? About 18,000 people attended, plus exhibitors. It was huge. I coulda missed you.

This was the title of a recent article in the Washington Post. The story included a chart of 100 different college majors ranked by median lifetime earnings in millions of dollars. Architecture was around number 26, just ahead of Political Science. The top nine majors: all Engineering.

I own a small car. It’s a 4-cyilynder with a 6-speed standard transmission and front-wheel drive. And a roof rack for my skis.

Bergmeyer’s commitment to sustainable design and environmental stewardship drives our desire to track energy and water use data in order to provide feedback on our existing projects and to increase the performance of future projects. Data tracking allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of the project’s design elements and sustainable strategies. This post occupancy evaluation focuses on the Eustis Street Fire House, a historic structure from 1859, comparing its predicted performance with actual data measurements in energy, water, and GHG emissions.

A Neil Armstrong moment: That’s when you realize that some unremarkable event is actually the result of a long, arduous, and purposeful process.

I am frequently reminded of the difference between skepticism and cynicism. A certain amount of skepticism is necessary to form an honest critical evaluation. Be skeptical when you must. But avoid cynicism. It erodes objectivity.

Here it comes again. New Year’s Day. Time to press the reset button and set noble and ambitious goals for 2015.

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.

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.

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.

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?

When I say “risky business”, what comes to mind? Tom Cruise dancing without pants to Bob Seger? Oh, please. Such foolishness.

Imagine this: The lobby of your office building is flooding with water. It’s rushing in through broken storefronts and will soon be over your head in depth. Something in the basement explodes, rocking the whole structure. The power goes out, and you scramble up a fire stair seeking safety.

Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m the 2013 President of the Boston Society of Architects. This voluntary one-year position is of course by no means comparable to the truly awesome office to which you were just re-elected. But we both serve with the hope that we can do lasting good.

If your life is anything like mine, the holidays hold the potential for exquisitely painful conversations with friends or relatives that don’t exactly share your world view. Climate-change deniers tend to seek me out at parties with eggnog on their breath and confrontation in their eyes.

I’m not asking what YOU know about sustainable design. What you know is between your ears. What an organization “knows” is different.

The man standing at the microphone made a scribbling-across-his-palm gesture to signify writing and paused for us to feel the impact of his impassioned and imploring expression. We – speakers at a panel presentation – squirmed in our seats waiting to see which of us would address this “question” from the audience.

I’m writing this post from Burlington, Vermont, at the 2012 AIA New England conference. I love Vermont, it’s my getaway state. Like a second home. My blood pressure always goes down when I’m in the Green Mountains.

I love Chicago. Great city. Millennium Park, the Art Institute, the Drake Hotel, all that fabulous Sullivan and Richardson. And the blues at Buddy Guy’s. And the boat tours.