Green Building Forum Interview

June 6, 2005
HousingZone

The Role of the Architect:  David Hertz, A.I.A. LEED AP

David Hertz is founder and president of Syndesis Inc., an architectural, design and manufacturing firm located in Santa Monica, Calif. that develops sustainable strategies and manufactures environmental products. Syndesis is the developer of Syndecrete®, a pre-cast, lightweight concrete-based composite using natural minerals and recycled materials as its primary ingredients.

Before graduating with a bachelor of architecture degree from The Southern California Institute of Architecture in 1983, David worked in the office of John Lautner FAIA (a former apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright). After travel and study in Europe, David returned to intern in the office of Frank O. Gehry and Associates FAIA before opening his own firm in 1984.

David Hertz has been an active participant in the environmental and design communities for over a decade. He has served on numerous professional committees including the L.A. Chapter of the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment and the Environmental Affairs Committee of the Construction Specifications Institute. Hertz became a LEED Accredited Professional in 2004.

Hertz discusses the role of the architect in green building with HousingZone.com Editor Felicia Oliver.

HousingZone: Do you see your role as an architect differently when involved in a green building project versus one without a particular focus on sustainable methodologies, and if so, in what way?

Hertz: I think so. I think that many architects or people in the construction or design industry do not necessarily understand their responsibility or their relationship to impacts that the built environment has on the natural environment. Having an awareness at the start tends to precipitate more of a sensibility about where materials come from, where they're going, their toxicity and long-term performance, and all of those things that affect either the embodied energy or the lifecycle of buildings.

HousingZone: So if you were working on a project where sustainability was not as much of a concern, you wouldn't necessarily have input into the type of materials chosen, how they are used, etc.?

Hertz: Yes, though almost all of our work has to do with sustainability in one way or another, even if it's not a determinant. We're still going to be aware of orientation, encouraging natural ventilation, minimizing solar gain, having indoor air quality, and being responsible about construction demolition waste.

HousingZone: Can you discuss current design trends in green building, and what you see on the horizon?

Hertz: Well there's certainly a significant and growing interest in prefabricated buildings. I also think affordability is a big factor, and the growing population of people looking for home ownership and the affordability index precludes a lot of people from entering the market. So I think there's going to be more and more ideas [that impact] availability and affordability, but also without necessarily having a particular need to be nostalgic, historic or classical in design. So when you look at this kind of Dwell Magazine interest in prefabricated buildings as well as sustainable projects, I think that's a growing population base.

HousingZone: Are you speaking of prefabricated panels, or an entire house?

Hertz: Ideally an entire dwelling - an entirely manufactured house. I'm working with a lot of buildings that are using prefabricated components - hybrids, like a tilt-up. I'm doing a house out of refrigeration panels, and a house out of airplane parts where we bought a 747 and we're cutting it up and using the wings and fuselage as roofing.

HousingZone: Wow. That's really what you'd call recycling.

Hertz: Yeah, but really, I think [the industry is moving] more towards [something] like a kit of parts, where you can buy a house like you can buy a car, have options, and it can be very affordable.

HousingZone: So there's a cost savings on labor.

Hertz: Yeah, and I think on control. Construction is hugely wasteful, and the way in which we build also, because we build for a very short period of time, but without really the idea of disassembly. So buildings are basically built and made out of all these little pieces with all this scrap and waste. Obviously a modular, prefabricated component means you can modify it, add it, take it apart, reuse it or expand it.

HousingZone: So the two trends are prefabrication and affordability. But you mentioned the idea of not having to be of any particular historical or classic style, the opportunity to be nontraditional in design.

Hertz: Yeah. I try not to start any project with any preconceived notions about style. I'm much more interested in substance. Ideally, the building evolves organically. If I'm doing a tilt-up concrete building, then it reads like a tilt-up concrete building. If it's a house made out of airplane [parts], that's going to derive the form of the building in a very honest expression of what it is and how its made.

HousingZone: Is there a tendency toward nondescript style, with the focus instead on substance - on being environmentally friendly? Or do you also see the possibility of also doing some creative things?

Hertz: A lot of times people associate environmental building with houses made out of tires, straw bale - some things that are not considered concurrent with contemporary or good design that's of our age. And we're really interested in [finding] that place where we can incorporate good design that helps the building's form, and also really becomes a determining factor in that design - rather than starting with the design first.

But we don't do any traditional houses. A lot of times if you have a Tudor house - it's a style that was based upon shedding snow. That's why the roofs are so steep. It was built for a cold northern climate, not a warm, southern California climate. So they're kind of inappropriate [in California], even in terms of being climate responsive.

HousingZone: Good point. Can you give some examples of the difference in your design approach and concerns for a green building project in California versus the Midwest or East Coast?

Hertz: Ideally, designs should be responsive to their climate - regional, local materials, other things that would inform the design in following that idea of organic building from the Midwest, from Frank Lloyd Wright. It should be "of the place" in that way, uniquely American, made of local materials. All those things also make sense environmentally.

What we would do here would be obviously different in terms of being climate responsive. Here we're generally more interested in minimizing heat gain and concerned more about cooling. [In the Midwest], we would be responding more to heating requirements, although you have the extremes of both heating and cooling. It would definitely become a different building, and the concern would be much more about insulation of the building envelope and trying to be responsive to the climate. Energy costs would be even more important.

We'd also certainly be looking at indoor air quality, because undoubtedly the building is going to have a tighter envelope in order to deal with the differentials of the outside temperature versus the inside temperature. There'd be much more importance, actually, in terms of using low-toxic materials interior materials - minimizing formaldehyde, minimizing mold - because indoor air quality in a tightly sealed building is going to [need to] be significantly higher.

HousingZone: Can you speak a little bit about your involvement in land development and landscaping when you're working with a builder on a project, especially in terms of sustainability issues?

Hertz: Well, ideally we tend to really respond with all the consultants in a collective way, rather than just having a design and then [being told], "Here, just do the landscape." It's more participatory and [consensus oriented]. And in working with consultants we tend to involve mechanical people, structural people and landscape people early on so that there's kind of a cross pollination of ideas. They're much more part of the team. We start to integrate systems so all of a sudden the structure could actually serve as part of the systems from mechanical, and the landscape could be designed to provide shading, using deciduous trees. You get heat gain when you want it in the winter and then you get the leaves in the summer to block the sun. So that can affect the building even from a mechanical standpoint. Also, a lot of our buildings certainly do a lot to make room for the landscape. We really are interested in blurring the definition between interior and exterior space.

HousingZone: So basically there has to be discussion from the beginning - this is what we're thinking, this is what the other parties involved are thinking, and instead of each developing their own ideas separately, you all come together and create a plan that incorporates them.

Hertz: Yeah, and we are actually are often involved very involved early in the selection, if not the design, of landscape as well as in, literally, the design of installation of a lot of those elements, because we do a lot of design/build work too.