Lecture Series/ Kroon Building

Last Thursday I began attending a lecture series at Yale in the School of Forrestry and Environmental Science. It was strange, returning to where I spent four years of my life over twenty-five years ago. Funny thing about it is, when I was an undergraduate, I never stepped foot in that building, or for that matter did I venture into that part of the university altogether. Science hill is the area of the university where the math, science folks went, and I was an artsy, writing guy.

So we drove up to Science Hill, got out of the car and headed into the F&ES building. Harassed only one person for directions, and we entered Bowers Auditorium, where, oddly enough, it reminded me of being in a lecture hall in college. The only differences were 1) there were refreshments in the back, and 2) after grabbing a cup of coffee, I sat towards the front because I was actually interested in being there.

The lecturer was Gus Speth, the Dean of the F&ES. His introducer went through the many incredible things Speth has done in his career, then ta-da, Speth stepped up to the podium, and to be totally honest about it, gave a pretty mediocre lecture. Not to say he's a bad lecturer, but the topic was pretty dull. It was about the multiple administrative difficulties he faced over the previous 5 years getting the University to capitulate to the building of the new Krune building, and on the gloriousness of the plan for the building.

I learned a lot about the resistance to new ideas during the lecture even within a supposed bastion for new ideas. Speth seemingly engaged in the academic form of open warfare with the temporary provost of the University for a multi-year stretch. After finally outlasting the temp, he actually got what he wanted, which was to have the university agree to get rid of the Pierson-Sage power plant, virtually an energy dinosaur, which of course, sat adjacent to where the Krune building is to be built.

Throughout the lecture there were several references to the environmentally ground-breaking nature of the building and how those element will provide leadership for the rest of the university and the community at large to move toward a "greener" future. And I sat there and thought about it for a long time, and I realized this is exactly what is wrong with universities and right with them at the same time.

Let's tackle what's right first. The Kroon building is a brilliant building. Brilliant design, brilliant lighting, floor plan, usage of renewable energy sources. All that good stuff. Further, it is in some respects a beacon, a lighthouse offering direction through the fog of grants and red tape and construction costs and varying reports on the virtues of different forms of fuels and energy and passive solar design and fuel cells... on and on and on. Further, in one sense it cost the university nothing. Yale told Speth, "Go ahead, but you have to raise the money," and Speth did, got costs broken down, got estimates, hired architects, designers, construction teams, and tallied it all up and then went out to find private donations. Got donations, and hence, the name "Kroon." (I guess that is better than say the Southwest Airlines Arena, but not much.) Further, went after the power plant, fought the good fight, threatened "the power plant or me!" The power plant had to go. Well done.

But let us talk about leadership for a moment. What does it mean to be a leader? I wonder about that because for the first time, I saw my alma mater as the ivory tower I am sure it always was, but I guess I was too self-absorbed or inebriated to know it. As I look at the design for the Kroon building, I realize that it is unrealistic for anybody but a Yale, or Harvard, or University of Texas, or the Brookings Institute, or Bill Gates to consider building a building like the Kroon building. The cost per square foot must be nearly a thousand dollars, whereas I am a principal in a company that aspires to create green homes for under a hundred dollars a square foot. Now, if you are playing follow the leader, yeh, the Harvard might follow the Oberlin who might follow the Brown who might follow the Sacremento Museum of Fine Art (I'm just pulling these names off the top of my head and they have no correlation to reality other than I know these places exist.) But when you are talking about global warming, what you are shooting for is the entire human population, particularly virulent polluters like the US, to change its behavior. Walking around in a library that uses solar energy is not going to make you wander home and cry out to the misses, "Hey, honey, we need to throw some solar panels on top of this sucker." But I think if someone is buiding a new house and you, as a builder say, "Hey, you know what? I can build your house pretty cheap and still do your electric system solar, cut your bills way down near nothing, and it will be just the house you want. Cost you less than Joe Blow was going to charge." Now that will get people changing. Cheaper, better, greener?

I am not saying Yale is not doing a good thing by building the ultimate green building. But who is going to follow? The question is already out there: how do we face the impending global warming crisis? Al Gore got it out there, and I'm sorry to say, he went to Harvard. But the point is, Yale, we know already. Green is good. Now how do we bring everybody to the table? Making a spaceship modern building, cool and all, but 7, 8, 9 hundred dollars a square foot just is not dealing with the real world.

Environmental Equality for Everyday People

The beginning germ for this book began when I was in the seventh grade and Duncan Phillips was on top of me. I know that sounds strange, but I was required to go out for some sport in the winter season, and I chose wrestling. My brother James, who is a year older than I am, wrestled, and I figured I would do what he did. That was how I chose most things early on in life. As it turns out, I sucked at wrestling. Also, as it turns out, Duncan Phillips did not. So one week into the winter sports season in 1972, I lay on my back struggling and Duncan Phillips was on top of me pinning my sorry ass to the mat. The wrestling coach's hand slapped against the mat, indicating I was toast, and that was the moment I decided I needed another sport.

The next day, I asked if I could switch to basketball, and that was when I discovered an entirely new world.

I grew up in Washington, DC, which during the early 1970's, was the most predominantly Black city in the country. In his African-American call to acknowledgement, "I'm Black and I'm Proud," James Brown referred to Washington as "Chocolate City." Since, DC has undergone significant social and racial changes, and I believe Detroit has supplanted Washington as the most heavily Black dominated city in the US, but back then we were "Chocolate City." This is important, because once I began playing basketball, I found my true sports love.

However, to fall in love with a sport is to commit one's self to practice. And while we had a nice sized house in the Georgetown section of intown Washington, we sure as shooting didn't have a basketball court. The nearest court available was an asphalt slab ten blocks away: Volta Park.

My first time there I saw Black and White men, mostly Black, I'd say seventy-thirty, playing basketball. Every spare hour of every temperate weekend day from sun up to sun down from that day forth until I went to college, that was where I was. If you go to Volta and 33rd even today, you will see folks playing ball. It is a very nice city park, with a baseball field, a public swimming pool, tennis courts, and a small field house where during the week small children gather for day care. But to me, at the age of twelve, it was the hoops courts and nothing else.

There I really learned how to play basketball. It was, more importantly, where I was introduced to Black America, prejudice with a human face, and my first inklings that America wasn't the land of equality my powers that be wanted me to believe. My realization of injustice had names and faces to go with the stories: Briscoe, Cap, Black Earl, Downtown, Ced, and Crazy Bronx, to name those I can still remember from thirty-five years ago. These were men, mostly in their twenties and thirties, African-American, who experienced racism everyday in every way. I was the rich White kid that sat and listened and returned home to my stately residence and my tie and jacket private school with a sense of all is not right in this world.

That feeling never left. It is now thirty-five years later, 2007, and I have another passion, the environment and the global warming crisis. I, like many others, am a recent convert. I saw "An Inconvenient Truth" and realized I had to do something. I already was involved in commercial real estate. Most of my work took place in destitute urban settings in Connecticut-- cities like Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury and Hartford. However, within the last two years I started seeing shops and advertisements sprouting up in the tonier spots along Connecticut's Gold Coast (meaning: Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Weston, Wilton, Fairfield-- Manhattan commuter communities with enormous McMansions gently nestled into two acre lots) touting "Green Remodeling!" As it turns out, a friend of mine was one of the leading contractors in this green remodeling movement and his business was booming. "You can't believe how many of these rich Greenwich housewives want their houses totally redone completely green. I love Al Gore. He's making me rich."

OK, so rich housewives are going green, and doing a fine job of carbon offsetting their SUVs and Hummers. Gerald Moore and James Smith, two African-American friends, both extremely bright men with post-graduate degrees but without the high-paying jobs to match, live in the area of Bridgeport where proportedly the Mafia dumps much of its toxic waste and "green" construction is not even a blip on the radar screen, what with crime, poverty, police brutality, and missing social services to contend with first. What is wrong with this picture?

However, this disproportion of justice doesn't negate the fact: the "green" explosion is for real. If you examine the numbers, there is no question that even in the most negative real estate market in decades, "green" construction is going great guns, with industry growth in the neighborhood of twenty percent. Something of a disconnect is going on here. The housing market is in shambles. The economy is headed into recession. The environment is the hottest topic in the media. The "green" economy is going through the roof.

My unjustice hackles are up. I'm afraid of the world cooking to a light crisp and the rich being the only ones with sunscreen and an umbrella. So, I have decided to actually do something about it. We are trying to start a company that makes housing which is cheaper than traditionally built housing, but which utilizes solar power and energy efficiency, thereby creating what we call Zero+ Energy homes.

Point is we're in the process of creating housing which is about 17% cheaper to build than traditional construction but which is energy efficient and utilizes solar power photo voltaic cells. There are two basic benefits to this idea, both of which are big.

The first is that while the wealthy have bigger housing than the non-wealthy in the US, its not 50 times bigger. So while Buffy and Reginald Davenport III may be going green, that leaves about 95% of US housing that is the same old crapola which eats energy like crazy. If we build regular houses which are green as can be, that don't eat energy like crazy for the average Joe, then this green idea is no longer the plaything of the rich, but a possibility for everybody. Throw in the fact it will be cheaper and less costly to maintain with the diminished energy costs, well, you're talking a home run. Heck, people can help the environment and save money. Most people are simply going to ask where they can sign up. The global warming crisis is not changing until the greening of American and the rest of the globe takes place in all construction, not just a small sliver of construction.

Second, our plan is one of the few plans that is designed to make its designers wads of money while being good for everyone. This is key and yet it could come across as only self-serving, which it is, but is not as well. If a company like ours produces housing which is cheaper and lessens the carbon footprint of the average American home dweller and the idea goes over really well, we will be really rich. I know that sounds disgusting, but stick with me for a moment. If every builder out there saw us making gobs of money doing it greener and cheaper, that is the only way they are going to change what they've been doing up until now. You can't change the way people do business by making them feel guilty. If that were the case, Exxon would have closed shop 30 years ago. GE would have committed suicide en masse if guilt were a business motivating factor. Does not work like that. Business is about making money. Make more money, better business. Simple. Now, we believe we have a way to make GREED, that big bad monster, not only run the economy, but this time save the planet.

Change happens only when one must change, or the incentive to change is so great, you would have to be a fool not to change. Admittedly, there are fools in every walk of life and construction is not immune to this, but I believe most people, when presented with the obvious in a clear, logical, and realistic manner, will adopt the obvious as a new fact of life.

Despite the present Presidential administrations attempts to convince us otherwise, the vast majority of Americans now realize we have a global warming crisis. Al Gore has presented the obvious in a clear, logical, and realistic manner, and most people get it. What has not been presented to the public is: how do you do anything about it on an individual basis that won't bankrupt you? That's what this blog book is about. I will attempt to show you what is out there for the "everyday people" to go green and with meaning. I will also show you how many forces out there don't want you to go green, because it means money will be taken out of their pockets. Right now, one of those guys in your president, and that is a very big problem. But we'll tackle that political mess a little later. There is a lot to cover, and I will attempt to do it topic by topic, but let it be known, that despite its reputation as being a pointless decade, the ideas for this blog book came from those very same 1970's.

Hey, make fun of disco all you want, but some interesting things happened back then that changed all of our lives for the better. The purpose of this book then, is to take those things learned from the seventies and turn them into something meaningful for everyone. The title of this blog, and what I hope will be a book on the net from blogs, Environmental Justice for Everyday People, is about the merging of two ideas: saving the planet by going to green construction, and combining it with reasonably priced housing stock, so some of Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People" can sit under the green revolution umbrella and catch some shade too.

Green Lists or the Price of Environmental Hip Status

Renovated spaces
Right-sized space
Green Intelligent Design
Healthy non toxic natural materials
Energy Efficiency (Energy Star Appliances)
Day-light spaces
Water efficient fixtures (Toilets, showers heads, sinks)
Quality Construction
Recycled materials & salvaged items from older homes
Local Materials
Organic land care and landscaping utilizing local plants
Southern orientation of the house
Limited or no use of plastics (especially PVC)
Limited or no use of asphalt
Pleasing spaces gracefully integrated with nature


We are in process of building an online directory of Green Products. Please check back as we bring you links to the following categories of products and services.
1. Alternative Building Materials
2. Architectural
a. Residential
b. Small Commercial
c. Large Commercial, Government & Institutional
3. Building Contractors
a. Residential
b. Small Commercial
c. Large Commercial, Government & Institutional
4. Building Control Systems
5. Building Maintenance
6. Cleaning Products
7. Commissioning
8. Consulting
9. Connecticut Produced Products
10. Day Lighting
11. Design Services
a. Residential
b. Small Commercial
c. Large Commercial, Government & Institutional
12. Educational
13. Electricians
14. Energy Audit Services
15. Energy Efficiency
16. Energy Efficient Products
17. Energy Modeling
18. Engineering Services
a. Residential
b. Small Commercial
c. Large Commercial, Government & Institutional
19. Environmental Remediation
20. Financial Services
21. Flooring
22. Furniture
23. Governmental
24. Green Electricity
25. Green Retailers
26. Healthy Products
27. Home Inspections
28. Indoor Air Quality
29. HVAC
30. Interior Design
31. Insulation
32. Land Use
33. Landscape Architecture
34. Landscape Design/Construction
35. Landscape Plants & Materials
36. Legal
37. LEED™ Accreditation/Consulting
38. Lighting Design
39. Lighting Products
40. Lumber
41. Natural Gas
42. Not-for-Profit
43. Office Equipment
44. Organic Land Care
45. Organic Products
46. Paints & Coatings
47. Plumbers
48. Real Estate Services
49. Recycling & Waste Management
50. Recycled Materials & Products
51. Renewable Energy
52. Remodeling
53. Research
54. Retailers
55. Roofing Materials
56. Site Planning
57. Solid Waste
58. Solar
59. Transportation
60. Wall Coverings
61. Wastewater
62. Water Heating
63. Water Management
64. Water Conservation
65. Wind
66. Windows
67. Wood Products

I put this list together off of the Connecticut Green Building Association site. These elements were all listed as being key to building green. So, I would love folks to chime in, item by item, as to what they think it would cost EXTRA (above and beyond normal construction costs without a "green" agenda} per square foot, say to add these elements properly. There are, of course, multiple elements within elements, and I am sure there are folks out there who know exactly what all of the water management costs of going green are, but haven't a clue about environmentally friendly flooring. That's fine. Just chime in on what it is you do know. That would be extremely helpful.

I realize I have set this up like I have a bet on it. "Hey, Bud, I think it will cost only x dollars/ square foot to go whole hog green." "No, f'in' way! It'll cost twice that if a penny." "Wanna bet?"

No, that isn't the impetus for this, but it sure as shootin' could be. Just navigating through the particutlars about a topic I blogged earlier about Green being the province of the spoiled rich when it should be directed toward the affordable housing set instead. Anyway, let's see what we come up with and go from there.