From the January/February 2008 issue of New Urban News

New urbanists step up their progress toward ‘green’ design

PHILIP LANGDON
A council highlights green architecture initiatives of the New Urbanism while the trend gains recognition for fighting greenhouse gas emissions.

The inherently climate-friendly aspects of New Urbanism have recently attracted a burst of public attention, at the same time that new urbanist designers and developers have increasingly incorporated environmentally advanced energy and stormwater technology into their projects.
With popular awareness of global warming intensifying, the appeal of compact, mixed-use, transit-accessible communities appears to be on the rise. Among the signs of this trend:
• Time magazine on Dec. 19 published an essay arguing that “technological fixes” like hybrid cars, wind turbines, and algae biofuel will not be enough to get us out of “the climate change mess.” Writer Bryan Walsh said purported solutions “like rooftop solar panels or energy-efficient insulation” do not go to the heart of the difficulties facing the country and the world.
“The deeper problem may be how — and where — we live our lives,” Walsh asserted. “The adoption of cleaner technologies will take us part of the way, but what we really need to do is change our habitat, not just for the environmental benefits, but for our health, lifestyle, and happiness.” The best remedy, he suggested, is New Urbanism.
• The Washington Post on Dec. 30 published an essay by Eduardo M. Peñalver of Cornell Law School arguing that “the inexorable spreading out that has characterized American life since World War II might finally be coming to an end.” Peñalver predicted that “persistently high gas prices may mean that the next building boom will take place not at the edges of metropolitan areas but far closer to their cores.”
His view: “Accommodating a growing population in the era of high gas prices will mean increasing density and mixing land uses to enhance walkability and public transit” — solutions associated with New Urbanism.
• New York Magazine on Dec. 17 ran an essay by Justin Davidson declaring that the nation’s biggest city is far more environmentally benign than lower-density communities. “The average American churns out 24.5 metric tons of planet-heating pollutants every year; a New Yorker produces 7.1,” Davidson emphasized.

The graphs above show the effect of urbanism on vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse emissions:
• At far left, a study by Nelson\Nygaard transportation consultants found that vehicle miles traveled (VMT) could be slashed as much as 90 percent by urban design elements such as residential density, a mix of uses, nearby retail, exceptional transit service, and a circulation network that accommodates pedestrians and bicyclists. Community was found to be more effective than transportation policy measures — such as free transit passes and provision of affordable housing — in bringing down VMT for residential-related trips. Nonresidential trips were harder to reduce, but they, too, could be cut as much as 35 percent with physical design. The analysis was done with an analytical system called URBEMIS.
• Second from left, the Atlantic Station development in Atlanta has far exceeded VMT reduction goals.
• Second from right, residents of Manhattan generate far lower greenhouse gas emissions than other US citizens, according to a magazine report.
• At far right, an analysis of the Bay Area shows how residents of compact cities generate far lower greenhouse gases than suburban counterparts.

NEW URBANISTS' RESPONSES
While commentators focused attention on the need to shift from dispersed, carbon-spewing patterns of development to comparatively efficient, compact, mixed-use communities, new urbanists have been escalating their efforts to incorporate advanced technologies into what they build. The most promising of those technologies were a chief topic at the Green Architecture and Urbanism Council Nov. 30-Dec. 2 in Alexandria, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
One hundred twenty-five traditional architects and new urbanists from North America, Great Britain, and Australia gathered for the Council, affiliated with the Congress for The New Urbanism but not under its direction. “We find ourselves in a time where, if we don’t change the way we build, we may perish,” warned New York architect John Massengale, who organized the Council with help from Torti Gallas and Partners of Silver Spring Maryland; Hank Dittmar of the London-based Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment; and others.
Actions that new urbanists are taking or proposing include these:
• Using the Transect to determine where particular environmental techniques make sense. One of the biggest flaws in efforts like the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program is a lack of attention to context. Except for the LEED-Neighborhood Development program, which is now in its pilot stage, LEED certifies projects without regard for whether they sit in the center of a city or occupy a remote site that will require users to drive long distances, generating “greenhouse” gases. “LEED has a lot of the wrong priorities,” said Elizabeth Moule, partner in Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists, of Pasadena, California.
Miami architect Jaime Correa urged designers to use the Transect to figure out where any specific energy- or environment-conserving technique is suitable. One example is natural drainage. Some environmental activists have been urging developers to install “rain gardens” — depressed areas that can take stormwater runoff and allow it to percolate gradually into the ground. The problem, said Tom Low of the Charlotte, North Carolina, office of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. (DPZ) is that there may not be enough room for an individual rain garden on every urban lot. And even if there were, a rain garden might not be appropriate there. Rather than install rain gardens everywhere, Low said natural drainage systems should sometimes be introduced at the scale of the block or the neighborhood.
“Management of water in the center of cities should be different from rural areas,” Correa said. “We need to think of the appropriate scale and of how the scale will really be the solution.”
Another example: Some advocates of cleaner energy have been pushing for individual properties to be equipped with their own power-generating equipment, ranging from solar panels to windmills. In some places, these fit well. Correa presented an image of a vertical wind turbine that could fit on a small building. But there are other instances in which energy production would be better handled at the scale of a neighborhood, district, or larger area.
• A “Light Imprint Initiative” handbook, produced by Low. This 250-page manual on integrating sustainability and New Urbanism provides detailed information on how to use more than 60 tools and resources. It presents a matrix of Transect-based environmental performance measures, something that Low says is absent from LEED-ND and form-based codes.
A version of this manual will be provided in January to a limited number of people who agree to offer feedback on it. Another version, he said, is an interactive toolbox available on the Web or as a compact disc or both.
Low told New Urban News: “Imagine how useful this will be when people can select different variables — soil type, slope condition, climate, urban to rural T-zone, initial costs, and long-term maintenance factors — and then have a customized version instantaneously calibrated with a palette of tools. When we describe this to people — especially engineers — they get really excited, as they are drowning in green information and are desperate for help with this.”

IS NEW URBANISM GREEN ENOUGH?
Many people in the Council insisted that New Urbanism has always been energy-efficient and environmentally responsible, in part because people walk more and drive less when they live or work in the pedestrian-oriented, transit-served, mixed-use communities advocated by new urbanists. “In my view, we’re all environmentalists,” said Moule.
Harriet Tregoning, the recently appointed planning director for Washington, DC, pointed out that when the 140-acre Atlantic Station mixed-use development in Midtown Atlanta won approval, it was required to reduce vehicle miles traveled by its residents by 25 percent. Since then, a study has shown that the reductions actually achieved are far larger. Residents of Atlantic Station drive an average of just 8 miles per day — dramatically fewer than the 34 miles a day driven by the average resident of the Atlanta region.
Not everyone agreed that New Urbanism has adopted enough sustainable features. “I think we’ve got to get beyond the notion that we’re green because we’re urbanists,” said Dittmar. “We cannot hope to be green unless we engage the whole issue of construction practice,” he contended.
Yet there was encouragement on that front, too. Ben Pentreath, director of Working Group, a London-based architecture, design, and planning firm, reported that he has produced traditional-looking houses that relate well to the street while at the same time satisfying stringent energy standards. Working Group, he said, has produced more than half the houses winning UK Home Excellence awards.
A number of firms are incorporating elements such as passive solar cooling in a Mojave desert Army neighborhood (see "Advancing from 'urbanists' to 'green urbanists'" in the January/February 2008 New Urban News). Torti Gallas and other new urbanists are designing high-efficiency buildings that meet LEED standards.
Within the Council there was some apprehension that green or sustainable design may have captured the public imagination and left New Urbanism in its shadow. It was noted that the US Green Building Council (GBC), founded in 1993, around the same time as CNU, has far surpassed CNU in numbers. Some 22,000 people attended GBC’s annual Greenbuild conference in Chicago in December, whereas 1,392 individuals attended CNU’s annual Congress last May in Philadelphia.

CHARTER REVISION AND A CHALLENGE
After extensive debate in Alexandria and Washington, the Green Architecture and Urbanism Council issued a call for revising or supplementing the Charter of the New Urbanism so that it explicitly emphasizes sustainability (see CNU report on page 22). Moule’s partner, Stefanos Polyzoides, said the proposal will be presented to the CNU Board in February. That will set the stage for discussion of the resolution by the entire CNU membership during the 16th annual Congress, April 3-6 in Austin, Texas.
“It’s important that it not be written in such a way that it feels like a catch-up document,” said Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture. “I can see people saying ‘CNU has woken up to green building.’” While the Charter revision or supplement is under way, CNU will be asked to issue an interim statement expressing New Urbanism’s intent to address the world’s environmental and energy problems.
Chicago’s Doug Farr, author of Sustainable Urbanism (reviewed in the December 2007 New Urban News), is one architect and planner who has been heavily involved in both New Urbanism and the environmental movement. Farr called for a national campaign to implement sustainable urbanism, along with a unification of smart growth, New Urbanism, and green buildings over the next generation. He said the campaign should include:
• Accepting LEED-ND as “the agreed-to weights and measures of sustainable urbanism.”
• Using the pilot phase of LEED-ND to study using the urban-rural Transect as a framework for tradeoffs between urbanism and sustainability.
• Reversing many regulations and standards that reflect the thinking of the “carbon era.”
• Issuing the “2030 Community Challenge,” setting a target of reducing vehicle miles traveled by 2 percent a year, or 50 percent by 2030.
“The green building in the drive-to location is half right and half wrong, and we don’t have time for half-measures any more,” he declared.

TALL-BUILDING CONTROVERSY
The Council revealed division over whether tall buildings are compatible with New Urbanism. “I’m sick and tired of seeing ‘green’ skyscrapers,” exclaimed Ben Pentreath. “CNU should have a stand against vertical buildings.”
Moule and Polyzoides suggested that CNU oppose buildings of more than about seven to 10 stories, to control what Polyzoides termed “loose tower disease” — the tendency to erect tall buildings here and there, with a paucity of pedestrian-oriented streetscape in between them. Moule identified “safety, evacuation, power, and consistency” as the chief factors militating against skyscrapers. Dittmar pointed out that “the densest part of London” functions satisfactorily at heights of four to six stories.
Andres Duany countered that “too many cities would simply not qualify” with a stringent height standard. Stephanie Bothwell, a CNU board member from Washington, DC, noted that the question of whether to approve or disapprove of towers had sparked strong disagreement in a CNU award jury, with Berkeley architect Peter Calthorpe and former Vancouver, British Columbia, planner Larry Beasley threatening to quit CNU if tall buildings were rejected by the organization. “That’s a sword that may not be worth falling on,” Plater-Zyberk said of the attempt to prohibit tall buildings.
Ellen Dunham-Jones, director of the architecture program at Georgia Tech, argued that urbanism benefits from density, and any attempt by CNU to prohibit tall buildings “makes us look irrelevant” to much of the world.
Pentreath, co-author of a new book, Get Your House Right (reviewed in the January/February 2008 issue of New Urban News), also objected to buildings that jarringly make a show of their energy- or water-conserving features. Sustainability is “very high on the political agenda” in Britain, he noted, but it may end up being “the excuse to build another generation of rubbish.”
Steve Mouzon of the New Urban Guild warned that green design can amount to mockery when it’s all about the latest technology. He summed up his thoughts on style with an aphorism: “That which is most intensely of our time today is most out of date tomorrow.”

TRADITIONAL DESIGNS CAN BE GREEN
Pentreath argued that traditional houses can achieve a high energy performance. In a community in Britain, Pentreath designed traditional houses while another designer produced energy-efficient houses displaying a modernist aesthetic (see photos below). The traditional houses, he said, did a much better job of creating appealing streetscapes and were superior in other ways as well. “They’re cheaper to build, quicker to build, and they sold for more money,” Pentreath said.

Photos courtesy of Ben Pentreath
Green design doesn’t have to be showy. The houses above, both recently built in Britain, perform at the same environmental standards. The house on the right was less expensive and sold more quickly, according to Ben Pentreath, Britain’s leading green house designer of 2007.

Ben Bolgar, an architect with The Prince’s Foundation, made the case that traditional buildings — because they have a greater proportion of solid walls and have less glazing than modernist buildings — tend to use less energy in their production, achieve more stable temperatures, cause less glare, and generate fewer privacy problems.
Various speakers contended that traditional buildings are not discarded as quickly as avant-garde buildings, partly because most people have an affinity for the traditional. As a result, the energy that goes into construction of traditional buildings is conserved, making them the responsible choice in the long term, according to Pentreath and others. Said Michael Lykoudis, dean of Notre Dame’s architecture school: “If a building doesn’t last for a few hundred years, all that embodied energy is lost.”
This article is available in the January/February 2008 issue of New Urban News, along with images and many more articles not available online. Subscribe or order the individual issue.