Builder - September 2008 - (Page 62) GREEN HOUSE for building green, as opposed to energy cost savings or pure ecoaltruism. “It’s official. Green has gone mainstream,” says New Mexico builder Ray Tonjes, chair of the NAHB’s Green Building Subcommittee. The results are included in a new issue of the McGraw-Hill Construction SmartMarket Report series, available now at www.analyticsstore .construction.com. OUTSIDE THE BOX T Green Reading The Geometry of Green Knowing the right angles can reduce a home’s carbon footprint. his may not appear as an Oprah’s Book Club selection, but Contractor’s Guide to Green Building Construction, by Tom Glavinich, and Sustainable Design, by Daniel Vallero and Chris Brasier, are two more resources for a green builder’s library. The first title presents the business fundamentals of various competing green standards (without endorsing any) and offers multiple checklists, worksheets, and other tools addressing all phases of a green project. The second title provides readers with the scientific principles needed to guide their own sustainable design decisions and understand the interdisciplinary nature of sustainable design. Go to www.wiley.com for more information. K TO READ MORE STORIES ON GREEN BUILDING, GO TO W W W.BUILDER ONLINE.COM/GREEN. eep it simple. That’s the also exposing its exterior to a advice from most green greater amount of maintenance building gurus, especially and repair. regarding a home’s footLastly, when the building’s life print. The fewer corners in a ends, more material must be torn structure, the fewer materials down and hauled away. “We pay (and labor) required to build it. added environmental and energy Unfortunately, few builders costs not once, but four times actually stick to that logic. Inover the life of the structure,” he stead, they add telescoping secsays, compared to a moretions, dormers, and complex NEW LOOK: An octagon, say some efficient building geometry that corners that erode resource effi- green building experts, makes more is uniformly designed and built. ciency. And, it turns out, even a efficient use of materials and energy Arguing against the status simple square may not be the resources while providing better views quo for shapes or designs, howmost efficient shape after all. ever, is generally unpopular and and daylight than a standard footprint. Allen Dusault offers a differ(for now) less marketable and ent angle on the subject. Applying “simple physics” profitable. “No one is going to build something a and referencing a relatively obscure, 150-year-old buyer doesn’t like or want,” says Dusault. But just because builders and home buyers are book on the topic, the program director for Sustainable Conservation in San Francisco argues that geo- attached to standard home shapes and features metric shapes such as hexagons and octagons are doesn’t change physics, says Dusault; surface area actually more efficient to build and operate than to- still matters. “The good news is our taste in building day’s floor plans, including even simple squares and geometry is largely learned. We can shift our preferrectangles. “It has to do with the three-dimensional ences in building shapes, as we have with automoforms of these shapes and using uniform modules,” biles, but it will require more than just waiting for a says Dusault. change,” he says. In terms of the materials used to construct a A first step, says Dusault, is to recognize the benbuilding and the amount of volume that needs to be efits of efficient geometries and then incorporate heated and cooled, he says, there’s approximately 25 them into our sustainable building vernacular, namepercent more wall area for a rectangle or square than ly green building programs and rating systems. “That for a comparably sized octagon. could start a whole new wave of creativity,” he says, More building material for conventional shapes “When we think of green architecture, we need to and those that do not adhere to uniform modules or start thinking outside the box.”—R.B. dimensions, Dusault says, results in more “embodied GOT GREEN PROJECTS, energy” in the building, a significant portion of the PRODUCTS, OR DESIGNS? structure’s total lifecycle energy consumption. Meanwhile, a higher percentage of surface area E-MAIL DENISE DERSIN AT: ddersin@hanleywood.com requires more fuel to heat and cool a building, while photos: courtesy multi-facetted homes 62 ■ B U I LD E R sep t e m ber 2 0 0 8 W W W.BUILDERONLINE.COM http://www.analyticsstore.construction.com http://www.analyticsstore.construction.com http://www.wiley.com http://www.builderonline.com/green http://www.builderonline.com/green http://WWW.BUILDERONLINE.COM
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