written by Valerie Hesse and Stephen Pope.
Living amidst a worldwide pandemic has focused people’s attention on their immediate surroundings and generated increased discussion of sustainable communities and their role in sustainable environments. Students from high school through colleges and universities are now engaged in discussions of sustainability. They see people like Greta Thunberg speaking out and read reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and become increasingly anxious about experiencing a catastrophe that no adult seems to be concerned about. They ask, What can we do?
Sustainable design has been central to CSV’s work from the firm’s inception. We have been designing ‘green’ buildings for more than 20 years. With a full-time, in-house sustainability consultant, Stephen Pope, CSV continues to have many conversations and discussions with students from high school to universities about the built environment, the components of sustainability, and the ways that ideas about long-term activities connect across the built environment.
Students design a future zero-emission Ottawa using Minecraft
At the end of last year, Stephen was contacted by eighth-graders at Saint Francis Xavier Catholic High School. They had been given a project where they were tasked with conducting research in order to make houses in Ottawa zero-emission and more sustainable. These sustainable houses were made into a prototype on Minecraft Education Edition, where their fellow students were to design their own roads, parks, etc. in a future zero-emission city of Ottawa.
They wanted to receive an expert’s feedback on the sustainable house they designed, so Stephen discussed their prototype over a Microsoft Teams call. During their meeting they presented their design thinking process and individual contributions to the project, along with a video they had of their prototype.
Algonquin students designing buildings sustainably
Recently Stephen presented the building performance objectives and construction process for the new Multifaith Housing Initiative (MHI) Veteran’s House: The Andy Carswell Building to students for the Algonquin College Sustainable Design Seminar Course. The Andy Carswell Building was the second CSV project with high performance objectives presented to Algonquin Green Building students following a presentation of the Ottawa Community Housing HUB at 1290 Coldrey Avenue in 2019.
The presentations were a substitute for a request to give site tours to students. As a replacement for site tours the presentations made review of construction methods available without having to be at the site when the work was happening and concentrated the construction time from over a year to an afternoon. The substitution also provided accessibility during periods where COVID-19 restrictions would have prevented any group access to a site. A review of construction drawings simultaneously with images taken during the construction process helps translate the drawing to the site and build awareness of how design assumptions get modified when they meet site realities.
The Andy Carswell Building used a variety of sustainable initiatives in its design and construction to provide long-term affordable housing to veterans. Although the building was built to the international Passive House Institute standards, certification was not pursued. Unlike other owners of assisted living facilities in Ottawa MHI did not have a value for certification on its own. This may be a recognition of the unfortunate circumstance that the demand for places in the facility is such that they will never have to advertise for new tenants. They did recognize the value of performance testing for air tightness and additional commissioning to ensure the building worked as designed. This leads to questions regarding the use of building certification systems, but to take a more positive view shows that through good communication and good working relationships between design professionals and constructors ‘the hammer’ of certification may not be mandatory.
Ryerson students prepare for a sustainable future
Another opportunity arose for an interview with Stephen and a Ryerson University student in the Environment and Urban Sustainability program. Students from the Environment and Urban Sustainability program (EUS 801) took part in a research study to prepare for the future job market.
The class used the following approach to gather information from various industries about sustainability, with two main objectives of the study.
1. Insight on sustainability skills needed from various industries
The first objective is to garner insight on skills and competencies required by different practitioners in fields related to environment and sustainability, as well as to understand more generally how their organizations are structured and operate to achieve sustainable development goals. Sustainability is broadly defined, and the students therefore seek input from a wide range of professionals and sectors. There are 70 students in class who will each conduct two interviews, and the resulting database will provide a rich and valuable source for students to analyze and improve their understanding of important skills and opportunities for their future careers.
2. Experience with research
A second objective of the research project is for students to gain experience with designing a research study, conducting interviews, and collecting data more generally, as well as analyze and interpret the results. Each student will produce a report based on a sub-set of interviews and the data may also be utilized to produce a published report available for the sustainability community at large and more specific audiences like program administrators.
The interview format included 30 prepared questions and was intended to take 30 minutes. The questions were a varied mix of requests to characterize necessary skills for ‘sustainability’ as well as looking for examples of ‘sustainable behaviour’. Even with this as a framework, the conversation went 30 minutes overtime.
Sustainability in Architecture
A point Stephen stressed is that participating in projects with sustainability goals requires people to be both very good at what they do professionally or technically, but also committed to capturing a sustainable outcome for the work. There isn’t a ‘sustainability layer’ that is independent of the skills of the people doing the work.
Speaking of architecture, he suggested that there are architects for whom the sustainability discussion is of little interest. Even when it is, the time span in which one assesses sustainability in the built environment is so long that there is no immediate reward for ‘being sustainable’ arising from the work. This observation underlies the fact that sustainable design certifications promoted by the CaGBC or GBI have conventionally taken priority over certifications for existing buildings, also offered by CaGBC or GBI. A design certification shines a light on the owner and designer. An existing building certification gives the limelight to the owner and his or her operations and maintenance team.
The irony of the situation is that while designers are closer to a wider variety of information that can be used to characterize sustainable building performance, most, if not all of that information is a prediction and as such not entirely reliable. Owners and operators have real evidence of performance in utility bills and maintenance logs, but often do not have the time to gather that information into a form that could be communicated to the owner’s advantage. As a result, truly sustainable activities come from the skills and effort of people doing what they do in their day-to-day, who remain aware and open to the improvements to building performance that can be captured along the way.
We hope these opportunities to connect with students and share our vision of sustainability in architecture will help to create a future of healthy communities.
The following images are of the OCH Carlington Hub, Winner of the 2020 GOHBA Innovation Award: Green Building of the Year.
