Power Surge: How High-Performance Design Can Ease Affordability

 

One of the most ubiquitous political buzzwords over the last few months is “affordability,” a seemingly innocuous concept that has taken on a life of its own.  When it comes to the rising costs of utility bills, particularly gas and electricity, affordability has even transformed into a successful political strategy. Recently, winning candidates in several states—including Georgia, New Jersey, and Virginia—have vowed to tackle rising energy costs as part of a broad platform of reducing living expenses.  This is a message that anyone who pays for gas or electricity can appreciate.   After all, energy costs have left most Americans turning their pockets inside out. 

According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, one in six families is in arrears on their utility bills, and household utility debt rose to $25 billion in 2025, from $23 billion in 2024. Given that cost-of-living expenses are also soaring, higher utility bills threaten the stability of lower-and-middle-class families nationally.

The average residential utility bill was 30% higher last year than it was in 2021. That grim situation promises to worsen. As the war in Iran progresses—and instability spreads in the Middle East—energy costs are sure to rise further—and this probability goes beyond the gas pump.  “Since more than 40 percent of American electricity is generated from natural gas; that means electric bills are also affected by these fluctuations,” writes Kiley Bense of Inside Climate News. “This is especially true in states that rely more on this fuel for power, like Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana.”

Among the many reasons for skyrocketing energy costs is the rapid development of data centers across the country.  These structures, built to accommodate complex technological systems for AI, consume massive amounts of electricity. Like the theme of affordability, data centers have recently become political flashpoints. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro, despite his recent alliances with the tech sector, recently criticized data centers for their omnivorous energy demands, which drive up utility costs for residents across the state. “Pay for your own power, so it’s not saddling local businesses or homeowners with higher costs,” he told Politico. 

The rapid growth of data centers also puts a strain on the ability to deliver energy. “Part of the problem is that you can often build new data centers faster than you can build new power plants to supply them,” said Geoffrey Blanford, of the Electric Power Research Institute. “And that bottleneck can really drive up costs in the short term.”

Other reasons for higher fuel and energy costs include inflation, lower supplies of natural gas due to increased exportation, infrastructure repairs, and weatherization upgrades to existing equipment. “Our grid is getting old,” said Charles Hua, executive director of PowerLines, a non-profit organization focused on energy. “We’re not using it efficiently, so it costs a lot of money just to replace and repair and modernize our grid infrastructure." 

Weatherization highlights a critical issue. Unexpected cold snaps, such as the one that gripped the East Coast last month, and long-lasting heat waves, which seemingly hit the country every summer, have unexpected economic consequences for utilities. One of the keys to minimizing utility costs associated with extreme weather events is futureproofing.  Designing with futureproofing in mind essentially means anticipating evolving climate patterns and economic fluctuations and mitigating their impact down the line. High-performance buildings combine sustainability and indoor air quality with resilience and thermal comfort, two important bulwarks against rising utility costs.

A recent Studio St. Germain project, the Wilkinsburg Residence, is a model of energy efficiency and a potential case study in how to check runaway costs. As the first single-family home in Pennsylvania to earn an EnerPHit certification, the Wilkinsburg Residence boasts an airtight envelope, thermal insulation, and triple-glazed windows.  These elements combine to produce an EUI (Energy Use Intensity) of 16, which is 80% less than the established baseline figure.  Designed to maximize natural light, the Wilkinsburg Residence also reduces electrical use—simply by virtue of its planning.

High-performance design, a Studio St. Germain specialty, fuses the Passive House principles found in the Wilkinsburg Residence with sustainability, health, and productivity.  Part of its importance as an economic investment lies in its use of resilient materials for thermal resistance, which lessens lifecycle maintenance requirements.  Not only does high-performance design minimize the impact of extreme weather events, but it also promises stability with respect to financial unpredictability.  While homeowners and prospective homebuyers continue to grapple with sticker shock, stiff mortgage rates, and a supply shortage, they are also faced with burdensome day-to-day expenses from unchecked operational costs.  

With the increasing costs of materials and labor in the construction industry, a Passive House stands out as a potential cost-effective option in the long run. Its design focuses on minimizing energy consumption by preventing heat loss, drafts, and thermal bridges. This means that a  building  requires much less energy for heating and cooling, resulting in lower utility bills compared to conventional building.  Because a passive house is designed for optimal temperature control, the reliance on air conditioning and heat is significantly reduced. Although a high-performance building costs more than standard construction, the money saved on energy costs helps to balance out the initial investment in quality design and materials. 

If current energy trends continue, a high-performance residence may become a necessity in the future, a future whose economic outlook promises continued volatility. 

 

The American Dream in a Box: Unpacking the Legacy of the Sears Kit Home

 

Honor bilt Modern Homes. © Sears, Roebuck and Company, Chicago.

It may come as a surprise to some that more than 100,000 kit homes—precut and fitted houses ready for assembly and shipped to clients–-were sold and built in the United States between the early 1900s and the 1940s. A typical Sears kit home, for example, had thousands of parts—everything from nails, to doorknobs, to millwork, to hinges—and could be assembled far quicker than the average standard house. (While Sears is the most famous brand name associated with kit homes, several other companies manufactured them as well, including Gordon-Van Tine, Aladdin, Montogomery Ward, and Fullerton.)

These mail-order homes, which suggest the add-to-cart convenience of Amazon.com, were made possible by the advancement of the Industrial Revolution and the development and expansion of the continental railroad system in the 1860s, which allowed oversized freight to be transported across the country. But kit homes really boomed after World War I, when a shortage of building materials eased and when returning veterans joined the housing market. Kit homes brought low-cost housing to tens of thousands of American dreamers.

Given the substantial costs of construction today, it is worth noting how kit homes were affordable for lower-and-middle class homebuyers. Rebecca L. Hunter, in her book Mail-Order Homes: Sears Homes and Other Kit Houses, outlines the economic particulars: “Prices shown in catalogs typically included only the building materials; the cost of the finished house, including the materials, lot, foundation, and construction labor was usually at least double the catalog price. Prices for Sears materials ranged from $146.25 in 1911 for a two-room cottage to $9,990 in 1920 for a ten-room, two-and-a-half-story design.” Factoring inflation into the home-kit formula highlights just how affordable these DIY homes really were. That 10-room house retailing for $9,990 during the Jazz Age now equates to a price tag of roughly $167,000—a bargain in 2025.

One reason mail-order houses were so cheap is that their production was (essentially) vertically integrated: design, engineering, manufacturing, and transport were often handled in-house by the company, with outsourcing minimized. To keep their costs low, Sears purchased and operated its own factories, plants, and lumber yards to avoid subcontracting. Once delivered, a kit house was ready for assembly—its blueprints and thousands of meticulously packed parts, like a large-scale Ikea project. Only construction remained. At that point, a buyer would either risk assembling the house by themselves (along with some friends and family), or they would hire a local builder.

Honor bilt Modern Homes. © Sears, Roebuck and Company, Chicago.

Sears kit homes were distinguished by their use of quality materials (including Southern yellow pine and cypress) and as time went on they offered an aesthetic experience unmatched by current budget housing. What began as generic single-story residences soon developed into a broad range of models, with Sears eventually offering nearly 450 styles to choose from. Although most were based on the popular architectural fads of the day, several of the Modern Homes series borrowed from the Arts and Crafts movement as well as from historical styles such as Tudor, Cape Cod, and Dutch Colonial, to go along with the standard American Foursquare. Even Frank Lloyd Wright designed several precut homes for his ambitious if short-lived American Built-Systems venture, which produced mail-order kits based on his Usonian theories. In fact, a few Sears kit homes were modeled on some of the revolutionary Prairie Style designs that Wright (inspired, in part, by Louis Sullivan) pioneered in the early 1900s.

Unlike so much new construction, the Sears models adhered closely to their inspirations. Today, as exemplified by the McMansion craze of the last forty years, many popular suburban homes are a hodgepodge of existing styles (including classical ones) thrown together without aesthetic rhyme or reason. The typical McMansion is a mismatched patchwork designed without regard to scale, taste, or cohesion, and, more often than not, they are planned without the input of an architect.

Honor bilt Modern Homes. © Sears, Roebuck and Company, Chicago.

Until recently, prefabricated and modular housing had long been considered déclassé, sparking images of vinyl siding or, worse, the fragile and often flammable trailer homes that became popular in the 1970s, before stringent regulatory codes were applied to them. Due to the housing crisis and skyrocketing costs, trailer homes have seen a dramatic spike in sales recently. And what are now called “factory-built homes” have also exploded in popularity, with even Habitat for Humanity building them as an alternative to overpriced construction materials. But contemporary kit housing has lagged, possibly because it is largely pragmatic: designed for sustainability, economic viability (for the manufacturer), or ease of shipping, with an emphasis on a limited footprint. For example, Reframe Systems, based out of Massachusetts, focuses on net-zero homes, while EFFEKT Architects in Denmark experimented with a flat-pack system for its Urban Village Project.

Despite these specializations, and despite the current affordable housing shortage, kit homes are no more an option than they have been since the early 1940s, when Sears finally dissolved its Modern Homes department. This is reflected by the fate of Katerra, a Silicon Valley start-up which specialized in modular design, which went bankrupt a few years after its founding in 2015.

What the history of Sears kit houses reveals vis-à-vis contemporary architecture is a general loss of aesthetic standards for smaller-scale projects and, especially, construction standards. Sears homes were sturdy and if they did not necessarily stand out as modernist masterpieces, they at least retained a unity of design and were vastly superior to the McMansion trend that has produced thousands of tacky, cheap, and ill-conceived structures. Similarly, the desperate need for housing does not–and perhaps never will—galvanize the market. At one time, however, the needs of a growing middle-class and the corporate interests overlapped, creating what was colloquially known as “the American dream in a box.”

As technology advances and composite materials such as mass timber improve, producing affordable kit houses that are elegant and durable remains a tantalizing possibility, one whose time has come again.

 

Building Equity: The Economic Benefits of High Performance Design

 

Wilkinsburg Passive House. Studio St. Germain. © Ed Massery

Economic uncertainty has sent construction costs in the U.S. skyrocketing. A recent report from NBC outlined the rising costs of construction and the uncertain prospects ahead: “An NBC News analysis of building materials and import data found that the total cost of building a mid-range single-family home could rise by more than $4,000—an estimate that industry experts who reviewed the analysis called conservative. An April survey from the National Association of Home Builders estimated tariff impacts at $10,900 per home.” (Notably, these two figures do not include another spiraling expense: labor; nor do they take into account the standard construction used and the code-minimum quality of the buildings.)

But even higher costs are possible. Due to the start-and-stop nature of the Trump Administration tariffs over the last eight months, the effects of tariffs on the construction industry remain unclear. What is clear, however, is that home-building is getting more expensive by the day.

Given how expensive average materials are, it makes sense, in this economy, to invest in quality, the kind of quality associated with high-performance design. To be clear: high-performance construction is costlier than standard construction. But while upfront costs for a high-performance home may be daunting to some, the fact remains that this design option offers a return on investment that, over time, can offset initial expenditures and increase asset value. This optimistic financial projection applies not only to homes but to larger developments and even for office upgrades as well.

With its focus on resilient materials, energy efficiency, and airtightness, high-performance design is an economic asset for any prospective homeowner. A whole house water filtration system, for example, not only offers health benefits by removing pollutants from the water, but it also strips hard water of its harsh mineral content, which can cause limestone build-up, damaging pipes and faucets. That translates to lower maintenance costs in the future and a longer lifecycle for infrastructure. Similarly, the airtight construction of high-performance homes keeps materials from rapid deterioration caused by interstitial condensation and air leaks. The airtight construction also decreases the possibility of mold, which, if untreated, can become a financial headache.

Renewable energy, in the form of solar panels, can make some homes net-zero, but even the basic design principles of high-performance architecture provide significant savings on heating and cooling.

If the financial returns of high-performance design are important for homes, then they are paramount for businesses, where, after all, the bottom line is central. One of the most underpublicized aspects of high-performance design is how it can benefit developers, owners, and companies as well.

400 Beaver. Studio St. Germain. © Ed Massery

A developer who invests in a high-performance building instantly differentiates its property from those of standard construction. Sustainability and wellness features integral to high-performance design become attractive amenities to renters already used to longstanding on-site perks such as gyms, pools, and roof decks. This rise in consumer demand for humanistic elements underscores how high-performance buildings stand out in a crowded real estate market. A third-party performance certification—from LEED, WELL, or the Passive House Institute—also ensures high standards and enhances branding.

Another plus for developers is that, because high-performance buildings use resilient materials, maintenance costs are also trimmed, while the energy-efficient HVAC systems not only keep utilities down but also reduce operational costs. And futureproofing—the concept of protecting buildings from adverse events—mitigates financial risk and reduces insurance premiums.

Not only are high-performance buildings the standard for sustainability and energy reduction, but they also play a significant role in improving the lives of people who use them. Employees spend forty to fifty hours a week in workspaces that are rarely optimized for comfort or productivity. Joe Allen, in his book Healthy Building, details how important human capital is to businesses and how focusing on employees is imperative for a successful organization. “Because it turns out that the true cost of operating our buildings is not energy, waste, and water; it's the people inside. So when we make our buildings healthy, we make the people in those buildings healthier and more productive, and that translates into a healthier bottom line.”

These health and psychological elements have measurable benefits for its inhabitants. Improved indoor air quality and a higher ventilation rate have been proven to sharpen cognitive function, while circadian lighting has been linked to improved moods. If an employee feels better on a day-to-day basis, the chances are that the company will see less absenteeism over time and, more important, less turnover. The expense of training an employee only to have to repeat the process a year or so later when that employee leaves is an underrated financial burden to corporations. Persuading a talented employee to remain with the firm may come down to the wellness components of the workspace.

As the cost for labor and material escalate, investing in high-performance design empowers homeowners to take control over equity. Instead of years of paying for increasing utilities, a homeowner can bypass the unpredictability of escalating costs. For developers and organizations, raising market awareness, minimizing operational costs, and attracting and retaining top talent are key economic factors that boost the bottom line. These economic benefits are important, if often overlooked, attributes of high-performance design and they will likely draw more attention as prices continue to rise in the future.


 

Overreach: How Carbon Offset Strategies Hurt Sustainability

 

Populus. Studio Gang. © Jason O’Rear

A recent New York Times article focused on the Populus Hotel in downtown Denver, Colorado, particularly on whether the building—a visually striking design by Studio Gang—meets its extravagant sustainability claims. In questioning how the Populus achieves its assertions of being “carbon-positive,” the Times also highlighted dubious sustainability claims throughout the construction industry.

Because the construction industry is responsible for an estimated forty percent of carbon emissions worldwide, architects have tried to combat the negative impact that building has on the environment. For marketing purposes, developers and architects have begun branding projects with oversold phrases that, in some cases, mischaracterize their eco-friendliness. And sometimes these projects have been criticized as greenwashing.

Even a reputable firm such as Perkins & Will has taken heat for some outlandish proclamations made about their SoLo House in British Columbia, going as far as to say that “buildings can counteract their negative consequences and act as a source of repair.” Perkins & Will deemed the SoLo House “beyond carbon neutral” based on its own interpretation of embodied carbon. As long as architects are allowed to invent their own algorithms, some of them are bound to exaggerate their calculations. The result is a slew of buildings described as “beyond carbon neutral” or “net-zero” or “carbon negative.”

SoLo. Perkins & Will.

Similarly, Norman Foster has been criticized for buildings such as the JPMorgan Chase Building at 270 Park Avenue in New York, which markets itself as “all-electric” and boasts “net-zero operational emissions,” despite lacking a renewable energy component. By not producing its own power (either through solar panels or wind turbines), the JPMorgan Chase Building draws from the electrical grid, which produces carbon emissions.

While some architects make wild claims based on abstruse calculations, others oversell concepts. In the case of mass timber, for example, carbon sequestration became the exaggerated element. Even though mass timber already has a substantial advantage over steel and concrete—producing mass timber, although not without its own drawbacks, is far less carbon-intensive than producing steel or concrete—architects insisted on inflating carbon sequestration. Trees act as a carbon sink, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis, and when a tree is harvested for construction, the carbon it has absorbed throughout its lifespan remains in the wood, giving timber one of its sustainability edges. But this edge is diminished by the fact that much of the tree is not used for construction after harvesting, leaving sawdust and chips to potentially decompose.

The rise of—and subsequent backlash to—mass timber reflects how difficult it is to eliminate carbon emissions from the building industry. In fact, it is almost impossible for even the most eco-conscious project to manage such a feat. Carbon emissions are produced in two ways: by the construction process (producing concrete and steel, for example, and transporting it) and by the operations of the structure once it is built (energy usage from mechanical elements such as air conditioning). Generally speaking, the most effective way to significantly reduce both methods of emissions is by combining adaptive reuse with renewable energy strategies. Renovating existing buildings eliminates the construction process altogether and reduces material waste via recycling, while retrofitting these buildings with solar arrays and updating antiquated HVAC systems further minimizes carbon emissions. As has been mentioned on Studio St. Germain before, the exemplar for this kind of programming is The Marcel, a net-zero hotel in New Haven, Connecticut, which re-modeled a standout but desolate Brutalist structure designed by Marcel Breuer and upgraded its systems to all-electric, significantly reducing its carbon footprint.

The Marcel. Becker + Becker

No matter how friendly recycling is for the environment, however, new construction will always supersede adaptive reuse—which is why architects have adopted more roundabout ways to affirm their commitment to green design. Two murky strategies that have been used by architects and developers to burnish their sustainability credentials are carbon offsets and carbon credits.

Carbon offsets that rely on planting trees elsewhere to balance emissions produced by construction are particularly tricky. For one thing, it takes years for a tree to grow into its carbon-sequestration phase; for another, there is no guarantee that a tree will not die prematurely from either disease or from wildfire.

Even worse is the carbon credit strategy, where developers pay a third-party to take emissions-reducing actions on their behalf. This strange market has already been undercut by withering exposes in The Guardian and elsewhere. Simply put, too many carbon-trading entities are unregulated enterprises that allow major corporations to greenwash their half-hearted environmental overtures.

Ultimately, the real damage done by these carbon offset strategies is that they may convince developers and architects to view them as alternatives to legitimate sustainable design strategies.

As for the Populus, its sustainability component may not meet the standards of purists, but its carbon-mitigation program is fairly extensive. “The Populus’s approach started at construction, with a concrete mix said to emit 30 percent less carbon dioxide than regular concrete,” notes the Times. “Repurposed elements are heavily relied on, including wood from an already felled cottonwood tree for the reception desk; beetle-kill pine for some walls and bed headboards; and snow fencing from Wyoming as decorative ceiling beams. The 365 glass-fiber-reinforced concrete panels on the hotel’s exterior, inspired by the bark of aspen trees, help keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter. The hotel did not build a parking garage — instead, it uses existing lots in the area for valet parking and encourages public transit for guests.”

Its biggest drawback is its lack of renewable energy. One of the biggest challenges for hotels is allotting valuable space to sustainable measures. In the battle between commerce and commitment, the winner is nearly always predetermined. It would be an economic risk for new hotels to bypass profitable roof decks in favor of photovoltaic arrays (which, it should be noted, also produce carbon through their manufacture). That financial equation automatically means shifting carbon reduction to patchwork strategies such as those used by the Populus.

In the end, the Populus is a distinguished building imbued with good intentions and, at the very least, rises above inaction. Trying to decrease carbon emissions should be the goal of all architects, since eliminating them entirely is more fantasy than reality; pretending otherwise only leads to marketing overreach and its accompanying buzzwords.

 

Back to Bedrock: How Stone Can Help Architecture Fight Climate Change

 

Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School. Diana Kellogg Architects.

One of the latest materials touted as an alternative to the carbon-intensive dominance of concrete and steel comes as something of a surprise: stone. Despite its ancient properties and its use as shelter over millennia, stone has only recently begun to be viewed as a viable sustainable option. And while the stone comeback is negligible compared to the skyrocketing use of mass timber, it represents a promising hope for a greener future.

"We've only just rediscovered what architects have known for 7,000 years," said London architect Amin Taha in an interview with Dezeen. "Stone is versatile, has strength, longevity, is plentiful, cheap and, with zero embodied carbon, well placed for a renaissance."

The environmental repercussions of concrete and steel have long been documented; simply put, they account for a significant amount of global greenhouse gas emissions. Manufacturing concrete and steel requires three energy-intensive steps: extraction, processing, and transportation. Of these three steps, processing is by far the most damaging to the environment.

Stone, by comparison, requires only extraction (quarrying) and transportation, giving it far less of a carbon footprint than either concrete or steel. In fact, some estimates calculate that processing stone produces half the carbon of concrete or steel manufacturing. Other estimates claim astronomical differences between the use of stone and concrete and steel. (There is also the paradox that stone is a necessary element for producing concrete, albeit in a diminished capacity. "To make concrete, you take a stone like Portland stone that has a compressive strength of about 200 Newtons per millimetre square, you crush it, you burn it, you do all these processes that are really energy-intensive, and you end up with the material that is about 40 Newtons per millimetre square, ACAN Natural Materials Group coordinator Aurore Baulier explained to Dezeen.

For architects, the battle against carbon emissions and climate change has often been characterized by roundabout strategies. Stone, as well as mass timber, can help change that. Instead of hailing dubious concepts such as carbon credits or carbon offsets, architects can effect change, in some cases, simply by the choice of materials. Stone is durable, nonflammable, requires little energy for manufacturing, needs no cladding, and has the added benefit of having high thermal-mass, allowing for cooler spaces at night. It is also reusable and demands less maintenance than other materials, giving it an extended life cycle. An abundant natural resource, stone has an edge on mass timber when it comes to sustainability. While timber is, in fact, renewable, it takes years for trees to grow and replenish the supply of lumber used for construction. Theoretically, at least, stone is inexhaustible, although areas for quarrying are limited by population density.

Although stone has not taken off yet in America, several recent projects across the globe have highlighted the possibilities of stone as a sustainable and aesthetically appealing replacement for concrete and steel.

In India, the elegant Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School, designed by New York City-based Diana Kellog Architects, stands out in an austere desert landscape as a symbol of hope and progress. It was built with locally sourced hand-carved sandstone. 

Rajkumari Ratnavati Girls School. Diana Kellogg Architects.

In France, Gilles Perraudin, one of the pioneers of the recent uptick in stone construction, produced a three-story housing development in Cornebarrieu made from limestone. And Swiss architecture firm Atelier Archiplein developed an impressive 68-unit social housing block in Geneva using solid stone. Both projects have a primal elegance and alluring textures. The unfinished facades reveal the craftsmanship involved (including sedimentary seams and quarrying marks) as well as the varying shades of color, in some ways giving the structures the air of an Amish quilt. This raw look, elegant and austere, would be a welcome change from the default glass curtain walls of so many cities.

Commune de Plan les Ouates. Atelier Archiplein.

While some may not find this deliberately imperfect aesthetic appealing, natural stone provides what most glass facades cannot: character, as well as a sense of presence and solidity, aspects of the built environment that provide not just visual appeal but also some of the positive effects of biophilic design.

Like mass timber and other materials gaining popularity due to their potential for carbon savings, stone has its shortcomings, however. Because quarrying is a natural process, the quality of the stone may be variable, and must be inspected for internal fissures to ensure structural stability. Concerns about the tensile strength of structural stone are addressed by post-tensioning—drilling holes in a stone beam, for example, and inserting steel wire rods through it. As Steve Webb, director of London-based Webb Yates Engineers, noted in Architectural Review: “The steel content of a reinforced stone beam is a fraction of that of a steel beam: to produce a steel beam requires iron ore to be excavated in Brazil or Australia, a blast furnace and a rolling mill; an equivalent stone beam can be produced at a quarry near you with a diamond saw, a drill and a strand jack.”

Then there is the question of money. As stone vanished as a large-scale construction material during the age of high modernism, it found its role in architecture reduced to a decorative element; as a result of this shift, only high-quality stone is quarried for ornamental purposes, giving stone the aura—and the price tag—of a luxury resource. But using stone for construction is not necessarily cost-prohibitive. While stone is ubiquitous, quarries are not: finding, opening, and maintaining them is expensive and, in some instances, subject to municipal legislation.

Together with mass timber—and the potential advances of green cement and CO2 bricks—stone can be part of a multi-faceted approach to ensuring that construction reduces its staggering environmental impact. Because widespread use of stone in the United States is unlikely, for a variety of reasons, its future depends on being part of hybrid structures, incorporating other eco-friendly materials, where it can minimize both carbon footprints and monotonous design.

 

Affordable Housing in Pittsburgh: The Impact of High Performance Design

 

At a time when opinions about the economy are still unsettled, one issue is clear: there is an undeniable housing shortage afflicting much of the country. “Home prices are up about 60 percent over the past decade, adjusted for inflation,” noted the New York Times last March. “About a quarter of renters — some twelve million households — spend more than half their income on housing, far in excess of the one-third level that is considered healthy. Homeless camps have expanded, and ‘super commuters’ — who drive for 90 minutes or longer to work — have migrated well beyond the expensive coasts to smaller cities like Spokane, Wash., and fast-growing metropolitan areas like Dallas and Phoenix.”

You can add Pittsburgh to that shortlist of cities.

The importance of developing affordable housing in Pittsburgh cannot be overstated. At a press conference last September announcing various zoning changes to facilitate construction, Jamil Bey, director of City Planning, outlined some of the challenges facing Pittsburgh. “Our goal is to create a city where everyone has the opportunity to thrive,” he said. “And that starts with ensuring access to affordable quality housing. Right now, the odds are stacked against us when it comes to building affordable housing. The demand far exceeds our capacity to deliver, and some of our existing zoning and planning regulations make it challenging to attract the kind of development that provides affordable units close to the city’s opportunities, amenities, and public transportation.”

With office vacancy rates still hovering at about 20% years after the ravages of the pandemic, Downtown Pittsburgh is finally seeing the long-planned conversion of office buildings into apartments picking up steam. The Allegheny Building on Forbes Avenue (developed by Henry Clay Frick in 1906) and the GNC headquarters on Sixth Avenue have recently been renovated, creating 190 and 254 new rental units, respectively. These two projects, however, reflect market rates, and will likely freeze-out anyone with even an average income.

Fortunately, affordable housing has been given a critical boost in Pittsburgh by non-profit organizations, including Action Housing and Uptown Partners, and the downtown redevelopment plans initiated by Governor Shapiro and Mayor Gainey promise to alleviate a shortage of units.

Over the last year or so, several inspiring projects with an affordable housing component have made headlines. A few months ago, Beacon Communities announced that it had begun construction on The Standard on Fifth, a mixed-income development generated through a joint effort of Uptown Partners and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. The Standard on Fifth will add fifty-one apartments to the neighborhood, with the following breakdown: 78% of the units will be affordable and 22% will be market rate. Robin Wiessmann, Executive Director and CEO of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, said, “Affordable housing is necessary for helping residents of Pennsylvania achieve their best quality of life. When housing is readily available at various income levels, it brings families together, stabilizes communities, and brings economic stimulus to a neighborhood. We hope that The Standard helps Pittsburgh’s Hill District grow in vitality and aids its residents in achieving their fullest potential.”

Another notable project is the possible renovation of the John P. Robin Civic building at 200 Ross Street. Nearly 125 years old, this 13-story Jacobean Revival was originally constructed as the Pittsburgh headquarters of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company. Now, Action Housing has proposed a makeover of the building that would convert it into dozens of affordable rentals, with its lower floors earmarked for office space.

As Pittsburgh works to revitalize downtown and ease a housing crunch, the current atmosphere of civic brainstorming is the perfect time to introduce high-performance building principles to the equation. Combining sustainability, energy conservation, thermal comfort, and well-being, high-performance design is uniquely suited to serving the individual and the municipality.

High-performance buildings use photovoltaic arrays to offset electrical usage as well as air-tight construction to maintain thermal comfort. As a result, high-performance projects often achieve net-zero status. The pragmatic benefits (beyond sustainability and carbon minimization) are unambiguous: Reducing energy costs is crucial for low-income families whose Duquesne Light bill is often the deciding factor between paying for groceries or going without electricity.

Another important aspect of high-performance buildings is improved indoor air quality. Living in an apartment with fresh air means reducing the severity of chronic respiratory ailments, a critical distinction in Pittsburgh, which is routinely cited for long-term particle pollution. In addition, research has shown that breathing fresh air has positive effects on cognitive ability giving occupants a chance to flourish in an environment optimized for productivity.

Other high-performance elements include acoustic design, which can lower stress by offering a quieter environment, and water softening and conditioning systems, a crucial element for a city with moderate hard water. By prioritizing health, sustainability and energy-efficiency, developers and architects can have a positive impact on the community and the environment simultaneously. The financial savings from reducing power usage (along with sustainability imperatives) also provides long-term gains for the city.

For architects with a sense of social responsibility, designing affordable housing that is sustainable, energy efficient, and healthy is vital. After all, the built environment has a significant impact on the physical and psychological well-being of the community, and architecture, if it is to reach its ideal, needs to balance art and the public good.

 

The Roberto Clemente Bridge and the Revitalization of Downtown Pittsburgh

 

In June, civic leaders unveiled their Vision Plan, outlining an ambitious program that would revitalize downtown Pittsburgh, which is slowly recovering from the pandemic years. “I knew that our path toward a reimagined downtown depended on collaborating with everyone who has a stake in its vibrancy,” Mayor Gainey said. “My team worked to forge new partnerships, and we have been successful in bringing a broad coalition of people together so we can make sure that the downtown Pittsburgh of tomorrow is a downtown that is safe, welcoming and thriving for everyone who lives, works or plays here.”

While the Vision Plan is forward-thinking, underscoring both commerce and community, there is no provision in it regarding the Roberto Clemente Bridge. And why should the Clemente be considered part of the design to revive downtown Pittsburgh? Because converting the bridge into a pedestrian crossing or a linear park could spark rapid growth for the city, bringing in tourists, establishing a cultural attraction, encouraging mobility and social interaction, and providing an economic boost to the area.

Shown on nearly every telecast of a Steelers or Pirates game at PNC Park, the Roberto Clemente, one of the nearly identical Three Sisters bridges that span the Allegheny River, has become an iconic symbol of Pittsburgh. By converting the bridge into a public space, a major piece of infrastructure shifts its purpose and, more importantly, its recognizability, from a utilitarian one to an experiential one. While some Pennsylvanians may not mind driving across the Clemente, they might not use “enjoyment” as the best way to describe their commute.

Another reason to consider repurposing the bridge is that, recently, the Clemente has often been a part-time route. For years, the bridge has been closed to traffic during home games for the Steelers and the Pirates, allowing it to function as a pedestrian crossing, and, in a sense, acting as a proof-of-concept for its potential conversion into a car-free environment. At other times, the Clemente has been closed to traffic for special events (including, among others, Picklesburgh and Unity Walk), highlighting its potential as a vibrant public space. In the past, road repairs and inspections often closed the bridge, until, finally, the Clemente underwent a two-year rehabilitation upgrade that ended in early 2024.

Although the bridge is not necessarily underutilized, its usefulness has, to a certain extent, diminished. For the first three decades of its existence, the Roberto Clemente split local traffic with the Andy Warhol and the Rachel Carson bridges when Pittsburgh had an average population of more than 650,000. With fewer than half that number of people today, it stands to reason that converting the Clemente into a pedestrian bridge will have a negligible effect on road capacity.

Given the fact that the shots on Pirates and Steelers broadcasts routinely feature jolly crowds milling on the bridge, re-imagining the Clemente is hardly a far-fetched proposal. Indeed, several cities across the country have repurposed bridges and constructed pedestrian crossings to create dynamic public spaces and promote social interaction and connectivity.

In Dallas, the Ronald Kirk Bridge (formerly the Continental Avenue Bridge) comes close to what the Clemente might look like as a pedestrian crossing. With a meditation labyrinth, a rock wall, and a playground, the Ronald Kirk is a bridge that acts as more than just a crossing: it brings the community together to interact in a serene, scenic environment.

Almost a decade ago, Portland opened the elegant Tilikum Crossing, a pedestrian bridge designed and constructed to encourage transportation options. The Tilikum Crossing is an unusual hybrid, featuring a light rail and a bus lane, expanding mass transit options while avoiding haphazard vehicular gridlock at peak hours. This multi-modal approach reduces traffic congestion overall in Portland by offering dependable alternatives to driving.

In New York City, the High Line stands out as one of the most commercially and aesthetically pleasing bridge transformations of all. Formerly a freight train rail, the High Line is now a lush, elevated garden that has attracted tourists in droves, helped spearhead the revival of the Meatpacking District, and hosts multiple arts events per year.

Repurposing the Clemente could have a similar impact. Among the many benefits of converting the bridge into a pedestrian crossing are encouraging physical activity, stimulating economic growth, linking communities, diversifying the urban landscape, and extending the Cultural District.

Our vision for the Clemente as a linear park or a pedestrian crossing includes a permanent garden, fixed seating, a protected bike lane, and space for a temporary market for pop-up shops, arts installations, food trucks, book fairs, and civic initiatives (such as blood-drives and employment expos). Another important part of the Clemente would be a temporary entertainment area, with a stage (at the PNC Park end of the bridge) for theater, film, concerts, and dance performances. Of course, there are several other possible activities suitable for the Clemente, including fitness classes, farmers markets, and educational fairs. In addition, having temporary structures on the bridge would also allow for its use as a possible platform for national or regional events, such as the NFL draft or various “National Celebration” days, of which there are plenty to choose from.

As an existing structure, the Roberto Clemente Bridge has the additional benefit of being a readymade asset, sidestepping potential obstacles such as financing and the potential messiness of long-term construction. And because of this broad array of potential activities, the bridge will, through rentals and taxes, generate revenue dedicated to its upkeep. Ideally, part of the revenues should go to a fund managed by a major non-profit for Pittsburgh social and civic programs. Adding a unique, cost-effective Pittsburgh landmark into renewal plans creates a destination that would attract visitors drawn by the events and the picturesque setting.

For nearly two weeks, beginning October 3, the Roberto Clemente Bridge will host Oktoberfest Pittsburgh celebrations, and, as part of the all-ages Karneval, a 60-foot Ferris Wheel will grace its deck. In a way, the temporary Ferris Wheel also has a certain symbolic value: it highlights the possibilities of the Roberto Clemente Bridge as more than just a transportation link between the North Shore and Downtown. In fact, the bridge could be a key element to downtown revitalization plans.

 

Taste: The Missing Ingredient in the Dialogue About Restaurant Noise

 

A recent article in the Washington Post focused on an aspect of the built environment that rarely gets mainstream attention: excessive noise levels in restaurants. Bishop Sand, an audio producer, along with Lily Wang, Director of the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, provided a helpful introduction to the problem of earsplitting restaurants. (In addition to Sand and Wang, Post food critic Tom Sietsema, who added decibel-level readings to his reviews a few years ago, makes a worthwhile appearance.)

A 2018 Zagat Dining Trends Survey revealed that noise is the top complaint of restaurant-goers, ahead of the perennial irritant of poor service. (And poor service and uncomfortable noise levels probably intersect. After all, if you have trouble communicating with your server over a roaring din, the possibility of having the wrong entree set before you increases.) But excess noise in restaurants goes far beyond mere annoyance. As Bishop Sand notes: “Our brains have a tough time sorting through the cacophony in crowded dining rooms, which can influence our behavior. Multiple studies show that prolonged exposure to noise has physical effects such as increased anxiety and fatigue. Taken together, these effects can make the restaurant experience more taxing than relaxing for patrons, and they can leave staff drained from a long day straining to offer service while risking permanent hearing damage.”

Yet, while the Post article did an admirable job in highlighting certain aspects of clamorous restaurants and offering a few solutions, the piece suffers from one glaring oversight: the effects of noise on taste perception. Indeed, of the mainstream outlets that have recently covered the issue of loud restaurants (including Vox, Bon Appetit, the New York Times, and the Post) none of them mention taste.

Sewickley Tavern. Studio St. Germain

According to some research studies, loud environments can flatten the perception of saltiness and sweetness in certain foods. At the same time, excessive noise levels may veil or mask aromas, seemingly undermining a key experience of dining out altogether. Although the science behind how noise affects taste is still ongoing, studies have shown that excessive decibel levels —the kind found in many restaurants—can interfere with sensory perception enough to distort the flavor of certain foods. Other possible explanations for the effect noise has on food perception are simple distraction and, more complex, biochemical responses to a nerve-racking environment. Continuous noise at high decibel levels causes the body to release cortisol and adrenaline, stress hormones that may momentarily short-circuit the gustatory system.

There are several reasons why noise complaints in restaurants have risen over the years. In trying to create a vibrant environment, restaurant owners have gone overboard with music, turning their speakers up so loud that they create a sonic chain reaction: diners begin to shout at each other to hear themselves over the songs, creating a virtual cacophony. And while many diners find the drama and hectic craft of an open kitchen mesmerizing, the clash and clatter of a lively “back of the house” can be thunderous enough to raise your blood pressure.

Modern design trends, streamlined if not outright minimalist, also contribute to excessive noise. Despite their capacity to absorb or deflect sound, carpeting, tablecloths, drapes, upholstery, and the occasional decorative screen are relics of the past, unlikely to become fashionable again. The stripped-down, sometimes raw decor of contemporary restaurants—usually box-shaped and dominated by hard, flat surfaces—allows sound to travel unimpeded and to ricochet throughout the space. For the Sewickley Tavern, Studio St. Germain used an acoustical plaster ceiling system and a micro-perforated tin ceiling for sound absorption. These elements not only reduced noise significantly, but they also stood out for their aesthetic appeal. One of the drawbacks of soundproofing is how unattractive it can be. Spray foams, organic polyboard, and wall panels are hardly classy decor choices. In addition, Studio St. Germain installed noise-measuring sensors in the dining and kitchen areas to monitor the decibel levels for both diners and staff in real-time

Sewickley Tavern Decibel Level Performance Data. Studio St. Germain.

While not every restaurant should aspire to sound like a monastery, it is also counterintuitive to imitate the deafening ambience of the Hard Rock Cafe or a bar-and- grill with a jukebox in the corner. Steady exposure to decibel levels above 80 (a common figure in restaurants) can also cause long-term harm to employees, from servers to line cooks to bussers to hosts/hostesses. Because of constant exposure, hearing loss is a serious potential hazard to restaurant workers; for diners, who are less likely to linger under sonic bombardment, a night at a dB-oblivious establishment can be frustrating and uncomfortable.

It was only a matter of time before the backlash to sonic overload hit. The restaurant industry is highly competitive in the best of times; after years of struggling during the pandemic, survival might mean making new adjustments. Remote work, shut-downs, the growth of meal-preparation kits and delivery services such as DoorDash and Grubhub not only made diners accustomed to eating at home, but these alternatives also made them less tolerant of middling experiences. Because restaurants rely on “regulars” —repeat customers—for long-term success, perfecting the atmosphere is crucial. If excessive noise is not enough to deter a gourmand, then the inexplicably bland taste of the house specials may.

 

Designing for the Future: The High Performance Program

 

Sustainability has become a key concept in the national consciousness. The announcement from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of a fusion breakthrough that might lead to an emissions-free future, the focus on climate change at COP27 in Egypt, and the Biden Administration passing legislative orders to limit energy consumption have all raised public awareness of one of the most important global challenges we face.

The impact of climate change, driven by greenhouse emissions, has become all too apparent in the last decade. At the same time, Americans have become far more aware of health, how environmental factors influence well-being, and how climate change is intrinsically connected to our day-to-day lives. In addition, a reliance on finite resources, often at the mercy of supply chain issues, is economically volatile, with prices rising and falling unpredictably, adversely affecting the international economy.

But creating built environments with climate change in mind is only one element of designing for the future.

When Nathan St. Germain established the High Performance Program in 2018, he did so with the hope that his unique vision would allow building owners and developers to have a positive impact on their communities while at the same time designing for the public and environmental good. St. Germain believes that a successful building puts people at the heart of its design process and at the heart of a movement based on social responsibility. High-performance buildings—which combine energy efficiency, durability, and occupant well-being--have set a new standard for positive social and environmental impact.

Nothing affects our bodies and minds more than the built environment that surrounds us, and because we spend more than 90% of our time indoors, our homes and work spaces have a significant bearing on our health. In addition to reducing carbon footprints and conserving energy and natural resources, high-performance buildings prioritize the well-being and comfort of their inhabitants.

A high-performance building features improved lighting and advanced HVAC systems and monitors indoor air quality in real time, an essential feature for those with asthma or chronic bronchitis. Regulating temperature and reducing noise also promote well-being, making high-performance buildings models of livability.

Essentially holistic, high-performance buildings fuse quality design with advances in science and technology to produce environments that place people at their centers. Focusing on the health of occupants promotes a commitment to community as well as a significant return on investment for owners and developers.

Climate concerns are implicitly addressed by high-performance buildings, which are often net-zero and focus on reducing carbon footprints. Designed for durability, a high-performance building also promises an extended lifespan that will overall conserve natural resources and limit embodied carbon. After all, a resilient structure that lasts twice as long as a standard structure does not have to be replaced, a costly and ecologically unfriendly process.

At Studio St. Germain, the High Performance Program makes it easier for those with a sense of social and environmental responsibility to effect real change. One unique tool Studio St. Germain offers is the High Performance Program Calculator, which reveals intangible assets and transforms them into tangible assets. The focus of the calculator is the human factor behind every firm: employees and how optimizing workspaces with their health in mind can solidify performance and lead to savings and productivity. Emphasizing health in workspaces reduces voluntary turnover, limits absenteeism, and increases employee productivity. Improvements in air quality, acoustics, and light, along with ergonomic planning, combine to create spaces where people can thrive.

Studio St. Germain has also developed an efficient step-by-step process that calculates the Environmental Performance Quotient (EPQ) of a client. Based on that unique EPQ, Studio St. Germain will generate a customized plan that will align the client with the right program, one that takes into account environmental and performance needs.

Broadening the sustainability umbrella to include concepts such as health, energy reduction, performance, and future-proofing (using design and resilient materials to mitigate the impact of severe weather) means building for tomorrow and reducing the damage produced by fossil fuels today.

The power of architecture long ago transcended mere aesthetics; what architecture can do now, in the wake of rapid technological and scientific advancement, is proactively limit the impact of climate change while improving the everyday lives of people.

 

Revisiting Mass Timber

 

Oregon State University College of Forestry. MSA.

The Skyscraper Museum in New York City has an unusual exhibit currently underway: “Tall Timber: The Future of Cities in Wood.” This program is unusual in that it focuses on a forgotten material few would have predicted would become a trend in the age of Neo-Futurism. As far as large-scale architecture went, technical and theoretical advances starting in the twentieth century essentially banished wood to the kindling section. From Bauhaus to the International Style, from Brutalism to Postmodernism, wood seemed like a historical afterthought, like dugouts or adobe construction. But the battle to arrest climate change has seen timber stage a remarkable comeback over the last ten years in America.

Since Studio St. Germain last looked at mass timber in 2022, wood construction has skyrocketed in the United States. Walmart is currently building a mass timber corporate campus in Arkansas, and Google (Alphabet) recently completed construction on a mass timber office in Sunnyvale, California. Universities and colleges, many of them with sustainability pledges, have begun using mass timber for new campus structures, including Clemson, Bowdoin, the University of Arkansas, and Michigan State.

Already known as one of the best airports in America, Portland International Airport has also recently upgraded its look, with a new mass timber terminal designed by ZGF. This project, scheduled for completion in 2025, highlights the powerful aesthetic appeal of timber. Even New York City, the steel and glass capital of America, has seen timber developments, including municipal grants to encourage the use of wood.

But mass timber (also known as CLT—cross-laminated timber) has predictably sparked a backlash. According to some studies cited in a recent Bloomberg article, mass timber is less carbon-neutral friendly than advertised. As with any new material or technology, timber proponents go overboard with praise; similarly, timber opponents exaggerate flaws to the point where concrete and steel seem like benign products, even though concrete production alone is responsible for roughly nine percent of all human-generated CO2 emissions worldwide. Steelmaking is also a carbon-intense process, and it is made all the more problematic because the U.S. is the biggest importer of steel in the world, a distinction that translates into untold climate damage from cargo ships releasing greenhouse gasses from port to port across the globe.

Adohi Hall. University of Arkansas. Leers Weinzapfel Associates

Despite the real drawbacks of mass timber—use of natural (albeit renewable) resources, the chemical process of assembling CLT, and the still ever-present need to specify emissions-intensive materials, including concrete for foundations—it is still, from a sustainability point of view, intrinsically superior to steel and concrete construction. Because of its lightness and its prefab qualities, mass timber reduces assembly, making construction footprints smaller and less pollutant. In addition, by speeding up the assembly time, mass timber projects cut excessive emissions produced on-site, which is typically responsible for much of the carbon released from any given project over its lifespan. (Nor does mass timber rely on the sometimes-dubious calculations of embodied-carbon algorithms or the extracurricular—and often questionable— justifications of carbon off-setting strategies.)

A few overlooked attributes of timber vis-à-vis climate change include the fact that timber is a carbon sink, sequestering CO2 under optimum conditions. As Ana Antunes recently wrote in ArchDaily: “The sustainable essence of wood as a renewable raw material is undeniable. During tree growth, carbon dioxide is absorbed, and when used in construction, wood stores this carbon, contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.”

Finally, because CLT is lightweight, it can be used for renovating existing structures, encouraging adaptive reuse instead of the often wasteful demolish-rebuild model still dominant today.

One concern that has materialized in the wake of the mass timber trend is the fear of deforestation. Other than logging, the main causes of deforestation in the United States are agricultural expansion, urbanization, and, most important, climate change, as wildfires become more destructive with each passing season. As noted here more than two years ago, increasing logging, to a reasonable extent, might help mitigate wildfires:

At the same time, more mass timber projects might mitigate some of the rampaging fires recently seen on the West Coast. The Timber Wars of the 1990s were so successful that harvesting has declined more than seventy percent in California from federal restrictions imposed decades ago. This may have had serious collateral damage in the form of accelerating wildfires in overcrowded forests. "When John Muir arrived and discovered Yosemite, we had about 40 trees to an acre. Today we have hundreds of trees to an acre," Rich Gordon, president of the California Forestry Association, told Reuters. "We will be better off if we can get closer to the way our forests once were."

Bowdoin College. Mills Hall & Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies. HGA

Another fact that pushes back against deforestation panic is that because mass timber projects are rarely more than mid-size, the amount of wood needed for each structure is limited. Indeed, it is doubtful that there will be mass timber supertalls or needle towers in the near future.

While mass timber buildings are becoming more popular, the process is still evolving. Just as the steel and concrete industries are, after decades of ecological destruction, finally working on decarbonization and manufacturing with clean energy, so too will mass timber make future adjustments based on environmental impact. In the meantime, the harshest critics of mass timber fail to see the forest for the trees.

 

Rejuvenation: Four Exceptional Renovation Projects in Pittsburgh

 

Although Pittsburgh has historically been known for blast furnaces, smokestacks, and, at slightly lower altitudes, the braces and cables of seemingly infinite bridges, its rich architectural heritage includes buildings by HH Richardson, Mies Van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer. Alongside the projects of such luminaries stands work produced by lesser-known but accomplished craftsmen and several manufacturing sites that distinguish themselves as industrial art. Together, these diverse structures represent a unique cultural legacy, one that, in recent years, has been increasingly preserved—with notable results. The following projects are a shortlist of some of the most impressive renovations recently completed in Pittsburgh. These projects, which celebrate the past and enliven the present, epitomize the transformative power of architecture and reflect the importance of historical context.

The Assembly

Wexford Science & Technology, LLC, The Assembly. ZGF Architects.

Formerly a Model-T assembly line and showroom for the Ford Motor Company, The Assembly had long been in disrepair before Wexford Science & Technology, LLC, began developing it. After Ford sold the building in 1953, The Assembly had a predictably checkered existence. Decades of deindustrialization ultimately left it a vacant eyesore in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield (Little Italy) section.

Designed by ZGF Architects, The Assembly has now been rejuvenated as a busy tech and retail hub. At over 500,000 square feet, The Assembly is not strictly a renovation (a new expansion allows for additional lab and research space), but it is a complete repurposing of a landmark site that embraces both the past and the future. Its major tenant is the University of Pittsburgh, which moved both its School of Medicine and its Hillman Cancer Center into the complex.

Featuring a glass facade interlaced with terra cotta, the new building addition complements its historic context, designed by John H. Graham, Sr. in 1915. ZGF also made imaginative use of the existing six-story crane shed (originally used by Ford to hoist auto parts shipped to the site via railroad), transforming it into a dynamic event space. In 2022, The Assembly achieved a LEED Gold certification for its carbon reduction strategy, its energy efficiency, and its use of recycled materials.

RIDC Mill 19

RIDC Mill 19. MSR Design.

With a footprint of more than a quarter of a mile, Mill 19 is one of the most high-profile recent renovation projects in Pittsburgh. From an oversized industrial ruin to a sprawling state-of-the-art campus for the Manufacturing Futures Initiative (a Carnegie Mellon University program) and the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing, Mill 19 reflects the power of adaptive reuse.

Located in Hazelwood Green, Mill 19 not only salvages the weathered infrastructure but revitalizes the site for community use. The last operating steel mill in Pittsburgh (owned by LTV Coke Works), Mill 19 ceased operations in 1997, leaving an unused complex that would slip into disrepair within walking distance of the Monongahela River.

This ambitious project, developed by RIDC and designed by MSR Design and R3A Architects, is now an exemplar of how adaptive reuse can function as both art and a model of sustainable architecture. By removing the original facade and exposing the underlying exoskeleton, the designers recall the achievements of the manufacturing past while simultaneously creating a striking, raw look that suggests industrial art crossed with the modernist transparency of the Centre Pompidou. The angled roof also supports one of the largest single-slope photovoltaic arrays in the United States, generating two megawatts per year.

Roundhouse at Hazelwood Green

Roundhouse at Hazelwood Green. GBBN Architects.

Another standout renovation project in Hazelwood Green is the Roundhouse, now known as the OneValley Innovation Center, a co-working space for start-ups and tech firms designed by GBBN.

The Roundhouse was built in 1887 by the Monongahela Connecting Railroad to repair engines and transport cargo (usually steel) across the country. Its unique purpose as a service center for trains gave the Roundhouse an unusual footprint, deftly repurposed by GBBN not just as office facilities but as greenspace as well. The original “turntable” (designed to rotate trains) has become an outdoor lounge area, with benches atop wheelsets for a neat decorative touch.

Retaining several of the original elements of the Roundhouse gives the project a celebratory air while at the same time highlighting the visual potential of industrial remnants.

After a century of hard usage followed by years of neglect, the Roundhouse hardly seemed like a candidate for a large-scale renovation, much less one with significant aesthetic appeal. But the result of its overhaul is a unique space that captures the spirit of dialogue between past and present. In 2021, the Roundhouse won a First-Place prize from Retrofit Magazine for adaptive reuse of an industrial building.

Union Trust Building

Union Trust Building. Elkus Manfredi Architects.

Not every impressive restoration project focuses on salvaging industrial sites. Inspired by Gothic and Renaissance Revival architecture, the Union Trust Building in downtown Pittsburgh stands out for its dramatic facade and ornate detailing, along with its unusual terra cotta cladding.

Designed by Frederick J. Osterling and John D. Sanderson, the Union Arcade (as it was known under the ownership of Henry Clay Frick) was completed in 1916. Over the next decades, the building underwent varying renovation projects, but by the late 1990s, more than twenty years after it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, it began to look weathered and worn. In 2014 the Davis Companies bought the building and embarked on a rehabilitation of an architectural gem. A $100 million restoration, spearheaded by Elkus Manfredi Architects, left the Union Trust Building resembling its glorious peak.

Along with pragmatic additions—such as a basement parking garage and a new HVAC system— Elkus Manfredi Architects also focused on aesthetic renewal. The terracotta roof tiles were cleaned, and the interior, where a rotunda once featured a stained-glass dome designed by the Ruby Brothers, has been given a face-lift. The dome, hidden years ago by misguided construction, returned to its sparkling heyday; and the original marble interiors were restored to their previous grandeur.

The Union Trust Building was named a National Historic Landmark in 2011 and remains a treasure in downtown Pittsburgh.

 

The Human Factor: How Architecture Can Improve Well-being

 

Tower 25. Atelier Jean Nouvel.

Except for a few inhospitable geographical typologies—deserts, ice sheets, and volcanic islands, for example—the built environment is omnipresent. From the smallest hamlet to the biggest city, architecture dominates the landscape. In turn, these structures have a profound, if underappreciated, impact on the physical and psychological well-being of the people interacting with them.

Ever since the late 1960s, when the environmental psychology movement began gathering steam, the effect of our surroundings has become a subject of research and theorizing. In the mid-1980s, the concept of sick building syndrome underscored the negative impact a poorly planned building could have on its occupants. (As far back as 1969, Robert Sommer published Personal Space: The Behavioral Basis of Design, which detailed how architecture shaped interaction.) Today, after decades of technological progress, architecture, and health intersect in ways that once would have been unthinkable.

A few years ago, Dr. Sergio Altomonte, Professor of Architectural Physics at UC Louvain in Belgium, underscored this new paradigm: “Buildings and urban spaces should be designed first and foremost around their occupants. The importance of architecture as a trigger to physical, physiological, and psychological well-being is nowadays becoming a topic of significant relevance.”

Since then, architecture and well-being have increasingly dovetailed, both in the construction industry and in the collective psyche of the public.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health on its website as follows: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” In that sense, many indoor environments are antithetical to maintaining health: the headaches, fatigue, and runny noses so common to the everyday workplace, for example, are possible signs that poor design is responsible for the low-grade ailments often found in shared spaces.

In the post-Covid age, perhaps no other aspect of the built environment has attracted as much attention as indoor air quality. Similarly, after the smoke storms that enshrouded much of the East Coast last summer, articles and features on the importance of clean air inundated local media outlets. But the everyday stale and stuffy air found in most underventilated buildings can also have a negative effect on you.

And indoor air quality is just one element of the built environment that affects us. Whether or not we are readily cognizant of the fact, our surroundings play an important role in how we feel on a day-to-day basis. Although it may be subtle or even subconscious, we react to the permanent stimuli we see in various ways—physically and psychologically. We know that some colors, for example, can have a soothing effect on occupants while other colors can boost creativity.

Another element that affects people is lighting, which has proven beneficial to patients in hospitals and, especially, to children in schools. Exposure to natural light in classrooms can enhance cognitive ability, allowing students to concentrate longer and retain information better. In the workplace, where employees can spend more than forty hours a week, lighting design has become a common way to mitigate fatigue and improve mood. Using circadian-attuned technology to mimic the natural processes of the body clock can be beneficial for everything from depression to high blood pressure.

Of course, the simplest way to ensure a certain amount of comfort in a work environment is by adopting layouts that encourage concentration and flow and reduce stress and discomfort. Open-plan offices, which are nearly ubiquitous, not only discourage collaboration among colleagues but, as spaces with poor air ventilation, they may also make their occupants ill by spreading pathogens.

One of the most overlooked factors for improving well-being is noise reduction, which can cause troubles beyond headaches and insomnia. For example, excessive noise in a restaurant can actually affect the way your food tastes. By introducing acoustic design into an environment, occupants become much more comfortable.

Over the last decade or so, architects have begun experimenting with biophilic design, incorporating flora and natural elements into their schemes. Adding plants to offices, for example, can brighten moods. At the same time, an office window that provides a view of green space can also be helpful. Similarly, avoiding straight lines and sharp angles in favor of curvilinear shapes often found in the natural world (and which are often seen in art nouveau design as reflected in this quote from Antonio Gaudi: “There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners.”) bring a sense of serenity to an office.

Amazon in the Regrade. NBBJ.

Designing with well-being in mind is a key component of progressive architecture. Although Passive House design is associated with sustainability and energy efficiency, there are also health benefits. Because of their emphasis on air-tightness, passive houses reduce noise and lessen air pollutants, both important to physical and psychological well-being. But it is high-performance architecture that stands out as the benchmark for health. Combining air-tightness, indoor air quality, acoustic design, and natural light, high-performance buildings have a marked impact on the everyday life of their occupants.

While enriching or improving the physical environment is not a panacea, it is an important step to offsetting stress, reducing illness, and improving productivity. In other words, designing for well-being means keeping the human factor in mind at all times.

 

The Great Empty Office Debate

 

Since the pandemic, now more than three and a half years ago, office vacancy rates have skyrocketed in cities across the country, with newspapers and magazines reporting the dreary numbers in Houston, Portland, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City. By some estimates, up to twenty percent of offices in the US are vacant. In Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia represent standout examples of empty office space leading to underutilized downtowns. (A recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette outlines some of the challenges cities face when dealing with vacant spaces.)

As hybrid work crystallized from an open-ended response to the pandemic into a seemingly permanent condition, companies began to consolidate office spaces or broke their leases outright, leaving behind financially impractical terms. Facebook, for example, recently announced it was vacating its New York offices and yielding 435,000 square feet of office space in San Francisco.

For cities such as Chicago and New York, whose economies depend on more than just tourist dollars, the office vacancy trend could eventually be catastrophic. Declines in public transportation ridership from commuters heading to work invariably lead to budget shortfalls and the shelving of ongoing infrastructure projects. Similarly, a lack of foot traffic in downtown districts affects restaurants, bars, and retail outlets, eroding city funding from sales taxes and limiting employment in the service sector. Another possible consequence of emptier streets is a general decline in the atmosphere. In San Francisco, for example, quality-of-life issues forced officials at the US Department of Health and Human Services to urge remote work to its employees indefinitely.

For owners, losing tenants at a rapid pace puts them on the road to potentially defaulting on mortgage payments, and that extends the domino effect to banks. From city to city, entire financial ecosystems are seemingly at risk if the demand for office space remains low.

As a result of these potential aftershocks, some cities have begun the process of converting office buildings into residential ones. In fact, there is great optimism surrounding the notion that office conversions are the solutions to moribund downtowns and, to an extent, a national housing shortage. But visions of ghostly downtowns transformed–en masse–into thriving residential zones may be more than just farfetched: they may be impossible, or at least improbable.

Converting office buildings into apartments is not nearly as simple as it sounds. For one thing, some office buildings are unsuitable for retrofitting due to layouts designed primarily for functional use and to maximize square footage. Most office buildings have deep cores, dedicated areas for bathrooms, windowless rooms, and large floor-throughs whose subdivision would be impractical. Red tape is also an issue for office buildings located in single-zone districts. In New York and Pittsburgh, efforts to fast-track office conversions are aimed at sidestepping regulations in hopes of receiving construction permits as soon as possible. Finally, for some developers, the prospect of conversion is cost-prohibitive, even with underwriting from federal programs.

Of all the solutions proposed for reinvigorating downtowns ravaged by empty space, the most likely to succeed is the modernization of buildings to make them both desirable and sustainable, which would lure employees back to their desks. This end result, known as the flight to quality, would theoretically ensure that only buildings focused on health and efficiency upgrades would survive the shift in trends. These upgrades would transcend traditional workplace amenities and include occupant wellness, health, and comfort—all aspects of high-performance design. While the internet era and the tech revolution radically altered the concept of the office—from on-site gyms to game rooms—neither focused on the health and well-being of employees.

In the COVID era, we have become more aware of airborne pathogens and the drawbacks of sharing enclosed spaces with poor ventilation. A high-performance retrofit would reduce the possibility of viral illnesses and help employees who suffer from respiratory ailments such as bronchitis and asthma. In addition, research has shown that improved indoor air quality can sharpen cognitive function and drive productivity. Upgrading lighting with circadian-tuned technology also positively affects the well-being and mood of building occupants.

By retrofitting offices with high-performance principles, building owners will ensure that the flight-to-quality calculus will be in their favor. Last year Mike Watts, President of Americas Investor Leasing, analyzed the numbers and spoke to CBRE about the growing trend. “This data represents just one of many ways of assessing the flight-to-quality phenomenon, but it does provide a simplified, clear view for consideration,” he said. “The data underscores that companies are investing more in their offices and owners are investing more in their buildings to get into the top tier and stay in it. Owners in lower tiers may need to get more aggressive in their pricing and concessions to generate sustained leasing velocity.”

Not only would retrofitting offices in high-performance style tempt employees to return, but it would also raise the valuation of buildings and serve as a differentiator for owners. After all, not every building can advertise itself as being physically and psychologically beneficial to its occupants. Owners also have a chance to qualify for tax credits (from the Inflation Reduction Act as well as local municipal programs) by meeting energy and sustainability standards. This process of attrition—with tenants choosing wellness and amenities, leaving behind the outmoded office building—underscores the importance of adapting to the growing awareness of sustainability and wellness. In some ways, the great empty office debate is an extension of the healthy building movement. At the center of both issues is the human factor and how design can improve our day-to-day lives.

 

Smokestorms and Unhealthy Air Quality

 

The swirling smoke cloud that engulfed the East Coast last week, caused by wildfires hundreds of miles away, turned horizons a hellish orange, caused zero-visibility, forced the cancellations of activities ranging from Broadway plays to baseball games, and, ultimately, dramatized the fearsome specter of unchecked global warming.

As climate change accelerates, wildfires threaten not only to intensify but also diversify—sparking at unusual times and places. Although Canada has active wildfire seasons every year, the outbreaks are usually clustered in the western provinces, which, except for British Columbia, are sparsely populated.

The intensity of the wildfires in Quebec is matched by their proliferation. “Across the country as of today, there are 414 wildfires burning, 239 of which are determined to be out of control,” Federal Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair said at a press conference last week. According to Reuters, Canada is on track for its worst-ever year of wildfires, and with three months left to go in the season, Quebec has already eclipsed its previous high for outbreaks.

While climate change has wrought damage in specific locales, it has also had a domino effect clearly reflected by the Quebec fires. The byproduct of the outbreaks in Canada can be felt several hundred miles away, in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. That was also the case on May 31, when wildfires in Nova Scotia forced the American Lung Association to release an air quality alert for Pittsburgh. Then, a few days ago, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection declared a Code Red for its air quality, signifying hazardous conditions for the general public. In New York City, the AQI reached 400 (on a scale of 500, as determined by the Environmental Protection Agency), indicating serious risks for many and Susquehanna Valley registered an astonishing 448 rating on June 8.

To those with chronic respiratory illnesses such as COPD, emphysema, and asthma, the last week has been a potential disaster. When considering the effects of such an unexpected event, pre-existing conditions also have to be calculated. Debra Smit, director of communications for the Breathe Project, told the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette that the smoke clouds from Quebec exacerbate the already-existing poor air quality in Allegheny County. “When wildfires and fires add to this, a result of climate change, it mixes with the industrial pollution we are already seeing coming from the U.S. Steel plants in the Mon Valley, adding serious risk to people’s health,” she said. “Children in Clariton and Braddock already have a three-times higher rate of asthma compared to the rest of the U.S. Layer wildfire pollution on top of that and it’s a serious problem for our residents.”

Remaining indoors is the only safe option for those with respiratory issues. But even that strategy is limited when considering older housing stock. Gaps and cracks in, for example, a Queen Anne house in Shadyside or Friendship may allow particulate matter to infiltrate the building at levels that may exacerbate asthma or cause nasal and lung irritation. Mitigating this situation is possible through the use of air conditioners (set on recirculate) or air purifiers, which filter pollutants.

Architecture has responded to air quality issues directly and indirectly with Passive House initiatives (including air-tight design to limit leaks) and high-performance construction (which features high-grade HVAC units and sensors to measure pollutant levels), and to ensure safety, it is worth investing in some of these design strategies for another potential calamity.

All signs point to more frequent and severe wildfires in the future, virtually guaranteeing similar unhealthy conditions as we have seen on the East Coast. (Worse, when numberless trees burn during wildfires, they release carbon dioxide, absorbed and stored for years, back into the atmosphere, creating a vicious circle: Air quality gains earned from years of applied sustainability measures are lost when wildfires burn out of control.) In California, wildfire seasons last longer, and in the Pacific Northwest, they are more frequent due to recent record-breaking heat waves, creating tinder-like conditions in forest areas that are susceptible to everything from an errant cigarette to a lightning strike.

Building with climate resistance in mind—a variation of future-proofing—can ensure the health of the public during real-time emergencies, but there is only one way to arrest global warming: through concerted efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and carbon emissions across every industry possible.

 

Past Present: Adaptive Reuse and Sustainable Architecture

 

RIDC Mill 19. MSR Design.

Because of its scale, its costs, and its adoption of technological advances, architecture is an art that exalts the cutting-edge. But one of its byproducts, the destruction of existing buildings, significantly affects the environment and cultural history.

Over the years, even works by architects as renowned as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Richard Neutra have faced the wrecking ball. Paul Rudolph, a mid-century modernist associated with Brutalism, is now most notable for how frequently his projects are demolished. The Savoy Plaza Hotel in New York City, a Beaux Arts showpiece designed by McKim, Meade, and White, barely lasted the average lifecycle: built in 1927, it was demolished in 1965 to make way for the General Motors Building. An extreme example of the voraciousness of construction imperatives occurred in 2014 when the Folk Art Museum, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, vanished after only thirteen years.

While demolishing an older building is often troublesome from a historical point of view, it is also a prime generator of climate change. Razing and replacing an existing structure not only scatters pollutants throughout a widespread area but also multiplies embodied carbon and energy use over several phases. The energy used to demolish and transport debris to landfills or dumpsites also compounds what inevitably occurs next: new construction, which results in manufacturing carbon-intensive materials and their delivery to the site.

The harmful effects of new, particularly megalith-sized, construction projects have long been documented (according to various studies, new construction represents nearly 40 percent of total global carbon emissions), particularly buildings of standard construction. In recent years, eco-friendly architects have rallied to implement sustainability measures in their designs, building with the environment in mind.

Given the stakes involved with carbon emissions and the toll construction takes on the environment, adaptive reuse — retrofitting or renovating existing buildings for new purposes — is becoming an increasingly common method of achieving sustainability goals. Across the country, underutilized malls and big-box retail stores are being repurposed as cultural and municipal centers while many cities are converting surplus office space into residential buildings and hotels.

Repurposing existing structures conserves materials, promotes environmental benefits, and serves the community by limiting the noise and pollution of extended construction sites. Another value of adaptive reuse is preserving distinguished architecture and local heritage. A few years ago, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette released a study revealing that fifteen percent of the buildings listed on the initial Pittsburgh Register of Historic Places (created in 1994) have been demolished. Although some of these buildings were blighted or structurally flawed, and some of them should be razed because of the danger of collapse, a few of them represented cultural standouts. “The loss of register-listed buildings is endemic of an even larger loss of similar structures across the city,” wrote Sean D. Hammill. “Those losses have changed the character of the neighborhoods, from the destruction of individual Queen Anne row houses that have left gap-toothed grins along Homewood’s streets, to the loss of dozens of grand, Perrysville Avenue Colonial, Italianate and Romanesque homes on the North Side, to the demolition of dozens of distinctive, pre-1900 commercial buildings Downtown that have slowly diluted the living history of the city’s most visited neighborhood.” (A good example of adaptive reuse in Pittsburgh is the RIDC Mill 19 redevelopment in Hazelwood Green, which recently won an AIA award.)

There are also cost benefits of adaptive reuse: sometimes it is cheaper to renovate and retrofit an existing space. In addition, developers can recoup their investment dollars sooner because of rapid turnarounds that are virtually impossible in standard construction.

The Marcel. Becker + Becker.

The divergent fate of two buildings designed by Marcel Breuer underscores clashing philosophies about existing structures. Not long after his milestone Geller Residence in Lawrence, New York, was demolished, Becker + Becker announced plans to transform the vacant Pirelli Building in New Haven, Connecticut, into a net-zero hotel. More than once, the Pirelli Building faced demolition but avoided implosion when separate plans for a mall and a parking lot fell through. By repurposing the Pirelli Building, which had been vacant since the early 2000s, the owners bypassed wasteful energy use and generating embodied carbon on both ends of a typical demolish-rebuild formula and created a sustainable alternative. Just as important, perhaps, they have salvaged a unique building whose design added color and historical value to its context.

While architectural innovation and construction will continue evolving, often with impactful environmental strategies, some of the solutions to carbon emissions and climate change are standing in plain sight. The future of sustainable architecture may come, in part, from the past.

 

Illumination: How Designing for Light Affects Well-Being

 

Honeybrains Cafe in New York. Magda Biernat/Ketra.

Until relatively recently, indoor lighting has been considered a purely functional aspect of our workaday environment. For decades, in otherwise dim commercial spaces, the default approach to illumination was simple: install rows of track lights in offices or, in common retail stores, hang linear fixtures with raw fluorescent bulbs burning overhead. But lighting a space with the elemental purpose of merely seeing surface areas is no longer an option when considering the health and well-being of occupants.

Although we have come a long way from scriveners toiling by flickering candles during winter months or even from the days when Le Corbusier could state: “The history of architecture is the history of the struggle for light,” the refinement of light for significant improvements in health is an ongoing process.

Along with progress in acoustic technology, indoor air quality, and environmental enhancement concepts such as biophilic design, light is an important, if underestimated, aspect of architectural strategies focusing on wellness. Building occupants are not only affected physically by light but they are also affected psychologically. Gloomy spaces illuminated by harsh sources—halogen and fluorescent bulbs, for example, or even LED lights, which have drawn complaints about “dirty electricity” and migraines—are bound to affect occupants who, after all, spend dozens of hours a week in workspaces. Prolonged exposure to blue light—commonly found in bulbs, computer monitors, and smartphone screens—can negatively affect the release of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep, boosts the immune system, and retains antioxidant properties. Combining these everyday blue light sources with poorly designed lighting can wreak havoc on biological systems.

While the design industry develops tunable white-lighting technology (adjusted via smartphones) and experiments with horizontal sources, the sun remains the gold standard for well-being vis-a-vis light. Natural light not only helps the body absorb Vitamin D, but it also regulates the circadian system, also known as the biological clock, and aids in the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter hormone whose levels can play a role in depression. Depleted serotonin levels can influence moods and emotions as well as cause sleep difficulties. Because serotonin helps produce melatonin, maximizing natural light for overall health is imperative.

Recent studies have shown that a steady dose of natural light can increase energy, improve moods, and sharpen cognitive function—results that underscore how important designing with the occupant in mind has become.

Other negative outcomes from a lack of natural light include Seasonal Affective Disorder, migraines from bare fluorescent bulbs, and a disruption of the circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms are the physical and emotional responses to the 24-hour cycle. When most people think of circadian rhythms, they usually think of sleep, and how disrupting the body clock can lead to insomnia, fitful sleeping patterns, and subsequent fatigue or lethargy. But the circadian rhythm impacts far more than just sleep; it also affects metabolism, the immune system, blood sugar levels, and mental health.

In 2002, the ASHRAE Journal reported on a study that reflects one of the most intriguing benefits of natural light: cognitive improvement. “Students in classrooms with the most window area or daylighting were found to have 7% to 18% higher scores on the standardized tests than those with the least window area or daylighting,” read the report. Studies have also shown that cortisol—known as “the stress hormone”—rises in a dimly lit environment, such as a cubicle in a typical office.

For patients in hospitals, circadian lighting can have positive physiological effects. ZGF Architects recently designed a behavioral unit center in Seattle, Washington, with circadian lighting, that has shown tangible positive results.

Providence Health & Services, Swedish Medical Center-Ballard, Behaviroal Health Unit. ZGF Architects LLP.

Still, even natural light in a workspace is often inadequate to avoid negative impacts. Some of the byproducts of direct sunlight in an office environment, such as uncomfortable temperature, monitor glare, and overwhelming brightness at peak hours, make it difficult to rely completely on solar. And rainy days, overcast skies, and the winter months also limit natural light. So do some sustainability pursuits. “Due to restrictive energy codes, daytime light levels in buildings are often too low or at threshold for activating the circadian system,” Mariana Figueiro, the director of the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, told Architect magazine. “Even in open offices with many, large windows, workers do not receive enough daylight to stimulate their circadian system, due to factors such as season, cloud cover, desk orientation, and window shade position.”

Because environmental cues are what regulate circadian rhythms, it makes sense, health-wise, to design surroundings in keeping with the 24-hour cycle. To that end, architects are not only planning spaces with an emphasis on natural light, but they are also experimenting with circadian-attuned technology, programming indoor light sources to mimic the natural processes of the 24-hour cycle. This process stresses cool and bright light (blue) in the morning and, as the hours pass, gradually dims into warmer hues, giving the body an approximation of the natural light cycle. Even a café in New York City, Honeybrains, has adopted circadian lighting for “happier vibes.”

Just as architecture changed its outlook on light in response to modern aesthetic and technological advances—cooling systems meant less reliance on proximity to windows and larger spaces created greater floor depths—it must now become responsive to the demands of biological and behavioral imperatives by maximizing natural sources essential to humanity.

 

The Challenges of Tomorrow: Future-proofing and Architecture

 

As climate change, the pandemic, and rising fuel and energy costs have combined to adversely affect homeowners, developers, and businesses recently, the possibility of architecture as a kind of bulwark against the unpredictability of tomorrow has become a critical issue. That concept—future-proofing—is a significant, if underrated, aspect of high-performance architecture.

Future-proofing a building minimizes negative forthcoming events, whether climate-related or cost-related. Using resilient materials, improving air quality, incorporating solar power, and providing safe water can help buildings ride out potential catastrophes and unexpected fluctuations in the availability or costs of energy and fuel.

Future-proofing focuses on two major issues. The first is from the perspective of the construction industry. For owners and developers, a high-performance upgrade promises substantial benefits, including raising property valuations. In addition, by using clean technology, installing advanced HVAC systems, and minimizing utility costs through energy efficiency, these progressive developers are not only responding to the demands of sustainability-conscious clients, but they are also adapting to trends that may become mandatory someday, either through municipal legislation that targets climate change or through overwhelming changes in the market.

It has been an increasingly accepted idea that the health benefits of high-performance design are now considered coveted amenities; in a few years, structures that feature future-proofing elements will likely follow suit. Resilient buildings, designed to cushion the impact of fluctuating energy costs and climate-related catastrophes, stand out among the countless examples of traditional construction.

The second and most important focus of future-proofing is lessening the impact of climate-related events. While architects grapple with the root causes of climate change—i.e., carbon emissions—they are still lagging behind its everyday effects. Storms, heat waves, and unexpected cold spells can cause severe damage to structures built without acknowledgment of environmental factors. Wildfires, increasingly prominent in the West, can pollute the air for hundreds of miles. Finally, the side effects of these events can leave residents suffering without necessities for days, if not weeks. “In today’s environment, climate-resilient design has taken on huge significance, as we’ve seen more and more severe weather-induced catastrophes, such as the historic flooding in New York City, or the hurricanes that have battered the East Coast,” Sara Neff, head of sustainability at Lendlease in the Americas, told Forbes.

A recent Yahoo News article outlines the growing trend of power-grid failures, highlighting how poor infrastructure combined with extreme weather all but guarantee blackouts of varying degrees across the United States: “From 2000 to 2021, 1,542 weather-related major power outages were reported by U.S. utilities, roughly 83% of them attributed to weather-related events. Those blackouts have become more frequent in recent years …. The rate of failures is speeding up: There have been about 73 power outages annually on average in this century, but there were 150 — more than twice the annual average — in 2021.”

High-performance design principles, which include airtight interiors, advanced HVAC systems, triple-glazed windows, solar panels, durable materials, and continuous insulation, are uniquely qualified to prevent the worst from happening. (The unpredictability of disasters, however, cannot be understated.) “These buildings with solar panels and batteries, that have natural light, and passive heating and cooling — all these things they need to be zero energy also make them a lot less vulnerable to extreme events,” Alexi Miller, an associate director of the New Buildings Institute, told Grist.

Predicting harsh weather events is nearly impossible, but the recent heatwaves in states with moderate temperatures (such as Oregon and Washington) underscore the importance of planning for the unexpected. Existing structures, historically designed without fear of 110-degree temperatures, are inadequate for adverse events, and, in some cases, adding air conditioners to drafty, aged homes can have a counterproductive effect, such as overtaxing the energy grid and further contributing to global warming. A relatively simple solution to these issues is a targeted retrofit. Upgrading a space to Passivhaus EnerPHit standards can offset some of the most catastrophic effects of extreme weather.

Another instance of future-proofing, one that is proceeding in several states, is the retrofitting of office spaces and schools, providing advanced HVAC systems, installing air quality monitors, and improving ventilation to diminish the transmission of pathogens. Indeed, the Covid era has made clear how design can work for the public good and reduce risk. In future-proofing, architecture can do the same on a much larger scale, preparing us for the challenges of today and tomorrow.

 

Wellness and High Performance Buildings

 

A few years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency published a startling fact about modern life: “Americans, on average, spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors.” That statistic originated from a report to Congress released in 1989, before internet culture and the knowledge economy made us more office-bound and home-bound than ever. Given that we resemble, as Stanford University researcher Wayne Ott once wrote, “an indoor species,” we should all be interested in how such living and working conditions influence us physically and mentally.

Studies have shown that subpar home and office environments can have a negative physical effect on occupants, exacerbating pre-existing respiratory ailments, decreasing cognitive function, and possibly even causing depression. An unhealthy indoor atmosphere includes potential harmful effects from mold, dampness, and particulate matter, unregulated temperature, excessive noise, contaminated water, and poor lighting. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), chemicals that seep into the atmosphere from indoor surroundings such as paint and furniture, are another troubling issue. This combination of negative factors has long been unrecognized, but research over the last few decades has revealed just how damaging an inadequately designed building can be to its users.

“More time and creativity has gone into designing natural habitats for zoo animals,” Judith Heerwagen, a research psychologist with the US General Services Administration, wrote in Creativity at Work, “than in creating comfortable office spaces for humans.”

Indoor air quality is one of the most pressing health issues associated with architecture, possibly made even more so by two years of pandemic awareness. Poor air quality, combined with the airtightness and conventional HVAC units of many modern designs, can lead to Sick Building Syndrome, where occupants report illnesses whose causes are rarely connected to their environments. Lack of ventilation and outdoor pollutants can create a low-level toxic environment, and airborne pathogens in the covid era are not just harmful by accrual over time; they can be potentially deadly within weeks.

In her book The Great Indoors, The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape our Behavior, Health, and Happiness, Emily Anthes describes how bacteria is just one aspect of an unhealthy environment. “More indoor dangers lurk if you go beyond the bounds of biology,” Anthes writes. “Lead remains a major public health concern, and flame retardants–which have been linked to cancer, neuro developmental delays and hormonal problems–soak many of our household goods, from our sofas to our TVs. Many of the basic activities we perform regularly in our homes like cooking and cleaning, produce gases and airborne particles that are dangerous when inhaled.”

Emotional well-being is another aspect of daily indoor life that can suffer from a poorly designed environment. The key factor here may be a lack of daylight, which can skew circadian rhythms and limit the production of certain neurotransmitters, such as serotonin. Building for wellness includes using cutting-edge technology, but it also calls for strategic orientation and design layouts, stressing natural light, and developing holistic plans that encourage interaction in offices or maximize airflow in homes. An office or home that allows plenty of sunlight is likely to have healthier, more productive inhabitants.

One of the lesser-known factors that negatively impacts health is noise. While some might argue that excess noise is largely an urban problem, it still impacts millions of Americans across the country. Reducing noise through the use of acoustic tiles, vibration isolation hangers, mass roofing, and insulation material is critical for a productive space.

Since the green building movement began to coalesce in the late 1980s, progressive architects have steadily refined what it means to build responsibly. Energy conservation was followed by new strategies in sustainability focusing on renewables and more recent concepts such as PassivHaus construction, net zero planning, biophilic design, and battling embodied carbon. Today, wellness and health are two increasingly important elements of construction.

With climate change, air pollution, and the possibility of further pandemics, our health seems increasingly fragile, but architecture is at the forefront of improving lives. It might sound like something futuristic, but a building that can take care of you is not an outlandish concept plucked from a science fiction pulp novel. When most people think of healthy architecture, they think of smart homes, where artificial intelligence, wearable tech, and tracking gadgets on-site or embedded in phone apps combine to monitor and alert inhabitants of potential health risks. Some of these ideas and innovations can seem intrusive or overly complicated as well as extraneous. But there is a much simpler and more effective way for well-being to be an everyday aspect of living and working: a high-performance building.

While high-performance buildings are known for sustainability and energy reduction, they also acknowledge and address one of the most important aspects of architecture as a humanist pursuit: how the built environment affects the well-being of its occupants.

Each design component of a high-performance building is calculated with the well-being of its occupants in mind. High-performance buildings feature whole-house filtration systems that ensure safe water, high-capacity HVAC systems with variant refrigerant flow and filters that deliver clean air and filter it, thermal regulation for comfort, and an emphasis on natural light.

This focus–health–is not an add-on or an optional feature but the essence of high-performance buildings and, as our knowledge of the physical and psychological impacts of the built environment evolves, the future of architecture. “The decisions we make today regarding our buildings,” Joe Allen said in the Harvard Public Health Review, “will determine our collective health going forward.”

 

Doing Good and Looking Good: Four Sustainable Buildings with Style

 

If there is one overriding misconception concerning sustainable architecture, it is this: that structures designed to reduce carbon footprints, decrease energy usage, and conserve water lack aesthetic appeal. That notion might have been considered an established fact a decade or so ago. Even someone as prominent as Rafael Vinoly would say: "Sustainability has, or should have, no relationship to style."

Because of their technical outlays and pragmatic requirements–such as solar panels and differentiated construction materials–green buildings can sometimes seem undistinguished. Over the years, however, as sustainability has progressed from being a niche pursuit to a mass movement and technology has advanced beyond its previous limitations, architects rarely look at buildings from an either/or standpoint any longer. Although there are still plenty of sustainable buildings that are aesthetically challenged, the question of doing good versus looking good is becoming increasingly obsolete.

At the skyscraper end of the design scale, acclaimed architects such as Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, SOM, and Bjarke Ingels have produced visually striking works that also integrate environmental and climate-conscious design. On a smaller scale, there are several recent projects that balance visual flair with strategies to offset energy use and reduce carbon footprints. The following samples comprise a shortlist of aesthetically pleasing green buildings recently completed.

Hotel Magdalena. © Casey Dunn

One of the most recent sustainability trends, which is also celebrated for its aesthetic appeal, is mass timber construction. A renewable source that also offsets emissions by trapping carbon, timber has a striking visual effect, both as an accent to steel and glass buildings and as a dominant element. This is reflected in the Hotel Magdalena, designed by Lake | Flato and located in Austin, Texas. Billed as the first boutique mass timber hotel in North America, the Magdalena is mostly timber, with a mix of glass, stone, steel, and poured concrete floors completing the structure.

As a result of using timber, the designers limited greenhouse gasses by sidestepping excessive manufacturing of concrete and steel and, because mass timber construction is essentially a modular procedure, they also minimized potential on-site pollutants. Exposed timber runs throughout the hotel and its grounds, giving the Magdalena a warm, natural environment, one that works in concert with sustainability principles.

York St John University Creative Centre. Tate + Co.

Another notable building that incorporates sustainable design principles is the York St. John Creative Center in York, England, by Tate + Co. This low-energy theater for performance, creative writing, and media production students also uses timber as one of its primary construction materials, a choice that both minimizes carbon emissions and maximizes aesthetic appeal. The natural beauty of wood, interspersed with glass and steel, gives the center a vibrant feel, and the column motifs, clad by prefab chestnut timber, not only evoke the nearby York Minster Cathedral but they also give a sense of texture to the facade.

Their corrugated look also suggests something out of Paul Rudolph but, pointedly, without the environmentally unfriendly materials and methods used in creating so many Brutalist works. The York St. John Creative Center achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating and uses triple-glazing, making the building as airtight as possible, reducing energy usage, and protecting interiors from humidity and particulate matter.

Sewickley Tavern. © Ed Massery

A good example of a sustainable building that is also aesthetically pleasing is the Sewickley Tavern, designed by Studio St. Germain. The first restaurant in the world to earn a RESET Air Standard certification, Sewickley Tavern is a high-performance building that adds well-being to the sustainability equation. Its energy-efficient HVAC systems, air quality monitors, and eco-friendly materials give the Tavern impeccable sustainability bona fides, but not at the expense of design. The interiors include natural materials such as wood and stone, for a pleasant atmosphere; brass accents on mirrors and hardware add elegant flourishes.

Original paintings and drawings from locally commissioned artists are interspersed throughout the restaurant and underscore the mission of combining sustainability with a human touch. For the exterior, the subtle blue and brass color scheme radiates warmth, and the contemporary variation on a traditional tavern is both stylish and inviting.

The Andy Quattlebaum Outdoor Education Center. © Jonathan Hillyer

The Andy Quattlebaum Outdoor Education Center at Clemson University in South Carolina is a net-zero-ready building that blends into its beautiful surroundings on the shores of Lake Hartnell and, in some ways, complements them. Its transparent facade not only provides plenty of natural light to each floor (allowing for reduced energy consumption), but it also showcases the shear southern yellow pine within to those on the grounds. The effect, from the standpoint of the viewer, is almost luminous. A simple sloped roof with an extended cantilever gives the building a subtle yet intriguing profile, hinting at the soaring aspirations of the students. By selecting timber as its primary material for the center, Cooper Carry chose a renewable resource, one that combines sustainability and aesthetics effectively.

While sustainable design continues to evolve, its central focus of limiting human impact on the environment will eventually dovetail seamlessly with the indispensable demands of art. "Making green buildings is a practical answer," Renzo Piano once said. "But architecture is about desire; it's about dreams."

 

The Importance of Net Zero

 

Bristol Community College John J. Sbrega Health and Science Building. ©Edward Caruso

A few years ago, the concept of net-zero energy was mostly limited to architectural trade journals and municipal think tanks, but now net-zero structures are increasingly viewed as viable options to limit global warming.

Over the second half of 2021, the phrase "net zero" became more and more visible. Governments worldwide, including those of Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and India, have made pledges regarding net-zero goals. In the United States, New York City announced an ambitious initiative to become fully carbon neutral by 2050–invoking net zero throughout its recent press release–and dozens of corporations have recently made commitments to reducing their carbon footprints.

More important to highlighting net-zero energy, perhaps, was an executive order signed by President Joe Biden last December promising to make all government facilities (and vehicles) switch exclusively to renewable energy sources. "As the single largest landowner, energy consumer, and employer in the Nation, the Federal Government can catalyze private sector investment and expand the economy and American industry by transforming how we build, buy, and manage electricity, vehicles, buildings, and other operations to be clean and sustainable," the executive order stated.

Another reason for the surge of net-zero interest was the introduction of a new net-zero standard by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which hopes to bring clarity and performance baselines to a thus far hazy term. (Previous net-zero certificate standards had been established by LEED and the International Living Future Institute, which named its program, somewhat confusingly, "Zero Energy.”)

Indeed, net-zero energy has been combined almost inextricably with concerns about embodied carbon. As a result, net zero–by itself an effective sustainability tool–has become fuzzy to the general public. Net-zero energy (sometimes known as a Zero Energy Building) is a fairly straightforward concept: it is a home or a building that will generate as much electricity as it uses over the course of a year. In some cases, a net-zero building will generate more energy than it consumes. When a photovoltaic system produces excess energy, it will return the surplus electricity back to the grid for future use.

The Joyce Centre for Partnership & Innovation. mcCallum Sather.

Although most net-zero work will be done by photovoltaic arrays, solar panels are only part of the equation. To reduce usage and meet net-zero status also involves specifying low-energy appliances, installing energy-efficient windows, focusing on air-tight construction, and using super insulation throughout the shell. This blended approach incorporates key elements of already-existing architectural methodologies associated with high-performance buildings and Passive House construction.

Embodied carbon refers to the emissions associated with the manufacture, transportation, and installation of building materials and their subsequent negative effect on the environment. And new construction is responsible for at least 39 percent of total global carbon emissions. "Put simply, embodied carbon is the carbon footprint of a building or infrastructure project before it becomes operational," states Carbon Cure. "It also refers to the CO₂ produced maintaining the building and eventually demolishing it, transporting the waste, and recycling it."

Although carbon reduction is a positive outcome of net-zero planning, embodied carbon is essentially a separate issue. Unlike net-zero implementation, measuring the effectiveness of embodied carbon–a process that could theoretically span every step of construction from logging to milling to manufacturing to assembling to shipping to trucking to installing–is likely to be, at best, a solid estimate, or, at worst, imprecise. By contrast, the baseline figure for net zero is part of its very name: zero. As a stand-alone concept (apart from concerns about embodied carbon), net-zero energy is an essential tool in slowing global warming. The across-the-board adoption of net-zero energy would mitigate fossil fuel usage, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and minimize stress on aging electrical grids.

While corporations, institutions, and the General Services Administration can target and reach sustainability goals that include embodied carbon, the average citizen with a sense of social responsibility has to look closer to the grassroots to effect change. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest a broadening interest in net-zero energy buildings and their positive environmental impact.

A recent New York Times article focused on homeowners whose concerns about climate change have led them to invest in sustainable residences marked by net-zero energy. In addition, net-zero communities have materialized in Washington, Michigan, and Utah, underscoring the tangible interest in sustainability.

The Marcel. Becker + Becker.

Affordable housing developments and multi-story structures across the country are also adopting net-zero energy. In New Haven, Connecticut, a vacant Marcel Breuer building has been retrofitted to become a net-zero hotel, reducing carbon emissions from razing the structure and, at the same time, preserving a significant piece of architecture by a world-famous designer. In Queens, New York, a net-zero community is in the planning stages, offering affordable apartments to hundreds while incorporating sustainability measures that will have a positive impact on the environment.

“The numbers are expected to grow," noted the Times article about the future of net-zero housing, "spurred not only by consumer appetite but also by building code updates, more affordable solar technology, a growing familiarity with once-exotic appliances like induction stoves and the 'electrify everything' movement. Now investors are increasingly steering money toward sustainable real estate, making it easier for developers to raise money for housing that addresses climate concerns."