Expert Offers Green Alternatives for Design Professionals

BRANFORD, CT — While a much beloved childhood character once bemoaned the difficulties of being green, Lindsay Suter wants design professionals to know that it’s actually quite easy. And, designing ecologically friendly projects can not only keep the environment healthy, but bring in some extra green to your firm, as well, since consumers value having a healthy home, and will pay to ensure this. Suter shared his thoughts on green design at a recent meeting of the Southern New England Chapter of the NKBA.

The first step to designing these types of projects, he explained, is understanding what green design actually means. “People ask me what sustainability is, and the bottom line is not using more than you can make, and not messing up more than you can clean up,” says Suter, AIA, critic at the Yale School of Architecture and principal of Lindsay Suter Architects in Branford, CT.

To accomplish this, Suter offers a two-part solution based on material choices and energy consumption, and the systemic decisions in choosing those materials. Or, put simply, looking at the big picture.

“The largest thing is energy consumption, both from a resource standpoint and an air pollution standpoint, because all things are linked,” he states.

For instance, Suter cites embodied energy, or the amount of energy it took to get a piece of material in the right place, as a critical part of the equation.

“There is a quote from the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) that predicts that over a presumed 40-year lifespan of a single-family residence, six to seven times the amount of energy will be used operating the house as was used in building it.”

He adds: “Therefore, [we want projects to] make more energy than they use, and use materials that have come from somewhere else so that when [we’re] done with them, they will be of at least equal value [of the energy used].”

Suter cites aluminum windows and glass as examples of this practice, offering: “When these windows are done being windows, they can be melted down and used first-grade for anything else. The glass goes back to being glass and the aluminum goes back to being aluminum.”

He continues: “Design professionals should ask themselves how they can design a bathroom or kitchen so that it makes as much energy as it uses, or gives back as much material as it uses in its construction.”

If this approach could be adopted industry wide, Suter notes that over a relatively short amount of time, people would begin to see better air quality, more diversity among plants and, quite possibly, longer lifespans.

He continues: “We have to look at things holistically. For a long time, we have been giving short shrift to environmental impact because we don’t see it. We are paying a price for that and unfortunately, it gets shuffled down to generations. Above all, we have the chance to leave a place worth inheriting.”

Material Options
While some people have the perception that green design is too expensive to be practical, Suter believes just the opposite. In fact, many affordable, natural materials can be used to help create environmentally friendly kitchens and baths. Topping the list, he says, is bamboo flooring and casework.

“Bamboo is a grass which is twice as hard as maple, three times as abrasive-resistant as oak and has natural anti-bacterials in it,” he points out.

He continues: “It has a clear finish and is essentially non-toxic. Plus, you don’t have to stain it because – since it is a grass – it will darken when heated due to the sugar in its cell walls.”

Another material to consider is natural cork, Suter says, because “it feels great under your feet and has a little give to it.”

“You can buy it in raw tiles, put it down with non-toxic adhesives and then add a finish on top of it,” he says. “That is much better because when you put a finish on top of it afterwards, it seals up the seams between the tiles.”