St. Louis builders find wisdom in seeing green

Written by David Bonetti - PD Visual Arts Critic

"We are currently going through a paradigm shift in how we think about our species and our planet," says Jean Ponzi, program manager at the EarthWays Center for Resource Efficiency.

That shift has resulted in skyrocketing interest in "green" or sustainable building. In the Victorian mansion that EarthWays Center occupies in Grand Center, there is a simple and eloquent definition of sustainability painted on the wall above the fireplace: "Meeting the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

St. Louis is in the forefront of green building. Ponzi was proud to discover a few years ago that St. Louis was one of only two cities in the country already doing everything the U.S. Green Building Council recommended.

The Alberici Corporate Headquarters building on Page Avenue near Interstate 170, which opened in 2004, was for a while the highest-rated platinum building in the world. (We'll get to the rating systems for green building in a minute.) Ponzi says that the fact that Alberici is a construction company and that it chose to make its own headquarters a shining example of sustainable design was a landmark in green building. (To learn more about the innovative building, by Mackey Mitchell Associates, go to www.alberici.com.)

Although many people think that green innovation is something you do yourself at home - recycling the newspaper, switching to fluorescent light bulbs or adding a low-flush toilet - it was actually large government and commercial buildings that first embraced green building.

"It makes sense that commercial development led the way," Ponzi says. "Commercial buildings have a large square footage, so energy savings alone made green design worthwhile."

While saving money might have prompted businesses to adopt green design, there were two other factors involved: the health and welfare of the workforce and the health and welfare of the planet.

"We say that sustainable design addresses three components - the human, the natural and capital," Ponzi said. "In other words, people, planet and profit. I call it the 'triple bottom line.'"

Some architects have been pushing for green design for decades. Out of their concerns came the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) system for ranking buildings according to green criteria. Independent appraisers assign awards according to a comprehensive set of categories, including site sustainability, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, interior environmental quality and design innovation. There are four rankings: Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum.

Ponzi predicts that the certification system will soon become as familiar to consumers as the nutrition panels on packaged foods. "Fifteen years ago no one read nutrition panels," she said. "Now everyone does, or at least they know how to if they want to."

Housing was the next logical step in green design.

You might not notice them, but there are green houses and housing complexes going up all over the Metro region. The reason you don't notice is that the houses don't look all that different from the houses surrounding them. Green architecture can come in all styles and price categories.

At the moment there are two LEED Homes Platinum certified houses in St. Louis. One, by the green builder EcoUrban, is a prototype in Benton Park that would sell for about $250,000, not including land. Its modernist design distinguishes it from its surroundings. The other, which a principal with Forum Studio built for herself in Kirkwood, looks, according to Ponzi, like any other house in Kirkwood.

To get a better sense of what this all means, I took a tour of a townhouse nearing completion on the 3300 block of Gustine Avenue in the Tower Grove South neighborhood. My guide was Mike Greene, one of three owners of Sage Homebuilders. The four townhouses he's building have been certified Gold by the Home Builders Association, a respected certification program that is less stringent - and less expensive - than LEED certification. Each 1,800 square foot townhouse, one of which is already occupied, sells for $319,000. They have three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms.

"We go as green as we can in a cost-effective way," Greene said. He'll seek LEED certification for the considerably more expensive 2,400 square-foot ArtHouse townhouses in Grand Center, which will sell for $480,000 each.

The Tower Grove houses, designed by Jeff Day, are handsome, vaguely arts and crafts in style, but architecturally conventional in look. "We wanted these homes to fit in the neighborhood," Greene said.

The tour began on the street corner. A wall of rough-hewn yellow stone surrounds the site. It turns out that half the site was on top of a stone deposit. Cutting it up and using it as a wall gave the project green points.

Before heading down to the basement, Greene took out a three-ring notebook that analyzes the building's energy performance. Prepared by AserUSA, an independent auditor, it gives the house a "5 star plus" rating, the highest possible. The bottom line shows that the household energy costs should be about $1,200 a year, a saving of $622 a year over a conventionally built house of the same size. In general, green housing saves 30 to 50 percent in energy costs.

"The energy savings allow you to spend more initially on the house because you'll be saving over time," Greene says. "Building green initially adds from 2 to 5 percent to the construction cost, but you start saving on your energy bill immediately."

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Bright ideas for a greener home

OK, you want to go green, but you don't know where to begin. You'd like to build a house from ground up, but that's out of the question. So how do you start to make the house you have greener, more sustainable?

At EarthWays Center (3617 Grandel Square) you can pick up "16 Ways to Green Your Home," a list created by the U.S. Green Building Council. It includes simple ideas such as switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs, choosing ENERGY STAR appliances, buying local, planting trees to provide shade and wind protection for your house and buying a high-efficiency car.

We asked three builders for one bright idea for greener homes. Here's what they had to say.

Mike Greene Sage Homebuilders

I highly recommend hiring an energy auditor. They will come in with a digital camera and analyze your house. The cost is not that much - about $300 - but the results will tell you where you can most benefit from making changes."

Names of energy auditors can be found at EarthWays Center and on Sage Homebuilders' website, www.sagestl.com.

Jay Swoboda EcoUrban

So many people are unaware of how much energy they lose through the ducts in their basement. They'll cut that loss by simply sealing them with Mastic sealer."

Nate Forst EcoUrban

Always replace old windows on the first floor of your home. That is where the most energy is lost. And the new windows don't have to be expensive. Quaker has a good line available."

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What makes it green?

Interior:

1. ENERGY STAR compact fluorescents. 2. Bamboo floors. Greene is working with the Pioneer Forest in the Ozarks to obtain sustainably harvested white and red oak as well. 3. Solid wood frame windows with double panes filled with argon reduces UV transmission for up to 15 years. 4. Dual-flush toilets. 5. Kitchen cabinets finished with water-based stains. 6. Pro-Green paint, which emits lower amounts of smog-forming volatile organic compounds. 7. ENERGY STAR kitchen appliances. Made by Frigidaire, they are available at Lowe's and Home Depot among other retailers. 8. Cambria counters, a resin-based aggregate that comes in a variety of color tones.

What makes it green?

Exterior:

1. Deep overhangs provide more shading in the summer yet are not so deep to keep out winter sun. 2. Fiber cement-board siding made of recycled materials looks like traditional stucco. 3. Brick, which is durable and long lasting. 4. Native landscaping, which requires less watering and care. 5. Basement waterproofing. 6. Cultured stone - i.e., textured concrete aggregate - is less expensive than real stone and yet fools the eye. 7. Front door by Thermatron, certified by ENERGY STAR. It looks like wood but has a fiberglass veneer that provides better insulation.

Other advantages

• Density. Sage fit four townhouses on one large city lot.

• Site location. Urban infill, the project is a couple of blocks from a bus stop, a few more to a major park and a 10-minute walk to Grand Avenue shops and restaurants.

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Online resources for living green

www.earthwayscenter.org • Diverse local and national resources for home and lifestyle greening from Missouri Botanical Garden's EarthWays Center

www.regreenprogram.org • Guidelines for Green Home Remodeling from the U.S. Green Building Council

www.greenhomeguide.org • Guidelines for Green Home Building from U.S. Green Building Council

www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.es_at_home • U.S. EPA ENERGY STAR resources

www.stlhba.com/consumer/greenbuilding • Green Homebuilding resources from St. Louis Homebuilders' Association