Buildings That Breathe

By Richard Lacayo

At first glance, you might not suspect that the Philip Merrill Environmental Center in Annapolis, Md., is as Earth friendly as an old windmill. The headquarters of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, it displays more wood construction than the typical large building these days. But to understand what the designers, SmithGroup, did to make it truly different, you would have to know that one-third of its energy comes from geothermal heat pumps that utilize the earth's warmth and photovoltaic building panels that convert sunlight into electricity. Or that rainfall collected on the roof can be channeled into huge holding tanks for reuse in irrigation. Or that its sunscreen overhangs are made from recycled pickle barrels. Whole platoons of enforcement lawyers for the Environmental Protection Agency could not be more ecologically effective than its waterless composting toilets, bamboo flooring and timber cut from sustainably harvested wood.

The Merrill Center epitomizes the new wave of "green architecture," a catchall term for design and construction practices that take into account a whole checklist of environmental goals. How a building is sited, how well it reuses its wastewater, how efficiently it is heated and cooled--those are all questions green architects examine closely. To answer them, they have access to a new generation of supplies that include nonpolluting paints, low-flow toilets and windows glazed to admit sunlight but reduce heat radiation. The Adam J. Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College even has a state-of-the-art disinfectant system that cleans toilet water for re-use. (No, not in drinking fountains.) But green design is not all about high tech. One simple idea: windows on high-rises that actually open. That facilitates natural air-ventilation systems, also known as breezes.

The thing about buildings is that they are, par excellence, the very thing nature is not. Ever since people moved out of caves, which were pretty much all natural if you didn't count the paintings on the walls, structures have been the prime markers of human settlement, a process that often comes with unhappy consequences for the environment. John Denver's Rocky Mountain High--"More people, more scars upon the land"--is not a song you hear much at architecture conventions.

No one can deny that when it comes to the environment, buildings are right up there with automobiles as polluters. Homes, schools, office towers and shopping centers dirty their own little rivers of water every day. With their air-conditioning and heating systems, they waste large amounts of electrical and fossil-fuel power. Toxic ingredients leach from building materials and foul the air. Thirty years ago, only a few environmentally minded architects cared about such things. "Classic Modernism didn't even think about the environment," says James Wines, founder of SITE, a pioneering green-design firm. "The Modernists worshipped industrialism and industrial material because that was the future."

That began to change in the 1970s with that decade's oil shocks, which produced a short-lived vogue for alternate heating technologies. The simultaneous rise of environmentalism also inspired what you might call hobbit architecture, cottages crowned with listless greenery and the odd solar panel. Paolo Soleri's ecotopian settlement, Arcosanti, began to take shape in the Arizona desert. But it wasn't until the 1990s that green architecture gained a foothold in mainstream building. That was partly the result of a growing realization that "sustainable" buildings have lower long-term heating and cooling costs. States began offering tax incentives for construction that put less pressure on power grids or water supplies. Coming of age at the same time was a generation of architects who were knowledgeable about environmentally conscious construction materials and techniques.

Four years ago, the U.S. Green Building Council, an association of architects, builders and other green specialists, adopted the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system, which sets out standards that a building must meet to qualify as environmentally friendly. The council estimates that today at least 3% of new building starts each year have some Earth-friendly features. "The growth of green building is driven partly by energy efficiency and other cost savings," says council president and CEO Christine Ervin, "but also by the need of businesses to attract the best employees. These buildings can make very attractive workplaces."

Some of them turn up in unlikely places. In Manhattan's Times Square, the 48-story headquarters of the Conde Nast publishing company produces nearly 10% of its electricity with photovoltaics and hydrogen-powered fuel cells. In what was once the derelict B&O railroad site on the riverfront in Pittsburgh, Pa., you now find the PNC Firstside Center, with many of the standard green features plus eight electric-car recharging stations to encourage the use of energy-efficient cars.

Some of the most prominent names in architecture have turned green, at least for selected projects. The three-sided Commerzbank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, is a major work by a renowned British architect, Sir Norman Foster. At 53 stories, it was until recently the tallest building in Europe. It is also one of the leafiest. All around its triangular interior atrium are gardens in the sky, set at different elevations, so that no worker is more than a few floors away from a sizable patch of greenery. "Building allows us to explore nature in a different way," says Jeremy Edmiston, of System Architects, who is conducting research on green-design principles for the Lindbergh Foundation. "We're looking at ways to put parks into high-rise buildings."

Natural air circulation is a preoccupation of green architecture. With the widespread adoption of air conditioning after World War II, the typical office building was constructed to be more airtight than a mummy's tomb. Now designers are rediscovering principles of ventilation and air circulation familiar to builders of the 19th century. The Rocky Mountain Institute took part in an environmental upgrade of the White House and the vintage Executive Office Building nine years ago. "We discovered that the old office building was already designed with a natural ventilation system--a fairly brilliant one," says William Browning, the institute's senior consultant for green development. Parts of that system, which once linked chimneys and other air passages, are now back in operation.

Not everything green is rosy. To provide sunlight that reduces reliance on electrical lighting, environmentally conscious designers tend to favor open-plan workplaces over offices with doors that close. That can be good for nature, less good for quiet and privacy. And big suburban residential developers are not piling in yet. Reduced long-term energy costs, for instance, are not an important incentive to builders who plan to sell off the homes they build right away.

Some green architecture is literally green. Dwellings that nestle directly into the landscape like caves, with carpets of earth and grass rolling over them as roofing, were among the first and most thoroughgoing examples of green architecture in the 1970s. Buildings like those take their inspiration from such time-honored examples as Bronze Age settlements that were dug into the earth. But they operate on principles that can be adapted to modern midtown high-rises. For the past year, Chicago's City Hall, a 1911 Classical Revival building, has been topped by a "green roof"--a 20,000-sq.-ft. garden that was planted as a climate-control mechanism. Built from a blend of compost, mulch and spongelike materials that hold water more effectively than regular soil, the low-maintenance garden of 20,000 plantings is intended to reduce City Hall's air-conditioning and heating costs by as much as $6,000 each year.

In summer the garden helps keep the building cool by shielding it under a layer of moist material. In winter it insulates against cold. In both seasons, it reduces the storm-water runoff that occasionally overflows the Chicago sewers leading to Lake Michigan. Though the garden has yellowed a bit this summer, it still provides its cost-cutting benefits. Not incidentally, it also provides a habitat for birds, butterflies and grasshoppers. But not yet for people--the garden is closed to the public. Sometimes nature needs to work in peace.