After a week of sub-zero temperatures and seemingly endless driving through the Great Plains, we were really looking forward to this bastion of civilization in the endless expanse of middle America. We were a good 30 miles away from any area marked as "urbanized" by the map were were using when the corn fields and high density feed lots gave way to cookie cutter suburbs.
Denver is an enormous city in an unlikely place. Its population is considered extremely health conscious and as far as we could tell, people were more active in this city than in any we had visited (we were in town during unseasonably warm weather...). This former cattle town's population has tripled over the last 50 years. The accommodations built for the new residence have shaped the entire city.
The Great Plains stretch endless to the North, South and East. To the West, the towering Rocky Mountains beckon. It's quite a view, especially to a couple saddle sore midwesterners. It seemed like every place in the city enjoyed some nice views of the mountains, from the swankiest condos to the parking lots of big box stores.
Denver (and Colorado in general) is a colorful place. The older buildings seem very much influenced by the southwestern building tradition. Many employ stucco and a handsome brickwork that is often painted with great detail. The pre-WWII developments are laid out in the typical pseudo-suburb pattern that planners of the time would have referred to as "best practice". Some of the homes are nice, some are less so and they all sit in quiet neighborhoods with little pockets of commercial activity.
The newer buildings are unremarkable and aside for some scale differences (i.e. double left turn lanes, six lane roads...etc), much of Denver is indecipherable from the suburb I grew up in outside Lansing. The downtown is packed with towering office buidings. Perhaps the architects in the area were attempting to convey the endlessness of the Great Plains when they designed these giants.
Downtown Denver is very much the central business district advertised on the transit maps. A couple buildings stood out though, holdovers from another era.
We were surprised to find street cars in Denver. They are oriented towards the downtown area and it seems like they were intended to reduce highway congestion during rush hour. In no way do these street cars attempt to increase the mobility of Denver residents or allow any person to get by without a car. The Denver bus system is incredibly highly developed, but since the development blocks are so large, multiple transfers--and lots of time--are needed to get around on the public transit system.
Denver has a very highly regarded transit system. In my totally amateur yet critical opinion, the only reason anybody would use it is fluke route placement or economic necessity. Forcing under-privileged people onto an inconvenient and time consuming bus system only makes it harder for them to get a leg up in the world. This is an issue of social justice and as a society, we need to address it as such.
Denver is essentially in a desert, but you wouldn't really know it. It was astonishing the waste that is tolerated in a place that has such scarce water resources. They also make recycling practically impossibly for most residents. The critical concepts laid out in the "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" slogan don't seem like they've caught on here.
Denver does take an interesting approach to bicycle transportation, one that we've seen repeated in other places across the west. There is enough space in cities of this sort that bicycles don't always need to share road space, instead they have their own rights of way where they hurtle over clean asphalt complete with on and off ramps. More on this in the Boulder piece.
We didn't see all of Denver, and allegedly we missed some interesting parts of it. Even so, I have no problem leaving the place thinking that rapid growth usually ends up being unsustainable growth.
It's a difficult challenge for a city to accommodate a burgeoning population. Most would argue this was the challenge that lead to the field of planning in the first place. From observation, the first 100 years of planning practice has accomplished much, but left even more to be desired.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thoughts on Denver
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Chat with Adam Stenftenagel
In America, we spend our energy in three broad categories, making products, moving around, and occupying buildings. The building construction and occupation pieces of the pie have been targeted through a number of organizations and standards including USGBC, Energy Star, LEED and HERS. These groups have gradually reduced the occupational and constructive impact of buildings. Later in this post, we'll see just how advanced these buildings have become.
One of the most interesting standards is the Passiv Haus standard being developed in Germany (New York Times article here). A German ex-pat living in the Denver area was so enamored with the idea that he decided he would build an entirely new development based on the Passiv Haus standard just to show us Americans how easy it can be to build well. The development is called GEOS and I was lucky enough to talk about the project and other things with Adam Stenftenagel who runs an energy modeling company called Sustainably Built out of Boulder, Colorado.
The green building movement has begun to coalesce around the slogan "build tight, ventilate right" for good reason. Energy modeling shows that restricting infiltration is by far the best way to reduce energy usage. Standard building codes require a maximum air exchange of 0.35 air switches per hour and a good builder will tighten up a building to 0.1 exchange per hour. To eliminate energy usage entirely, you need to go as low as 0.04 per hours or only one exchange per day.
In addition, buildings in the GEOS development will utilize passive solar heating. The land covenant specifies that no house may cast a shadow on another during the Winter solstice. In a suburban development like GEOS, that means a somewhat unusual checkerboard pattern.
The southern walls of the buildings are full of windows. Carefully placed awnings let in the winter sun for warmth but block out the searing summer rays. The walls and roofs are heavily insulated, R-24 for the total wall systems and R-40 for the roofs.
"Tight" houses have been around for years but suffered from mold problems and stale air due to their insufficient ventilation. The GEOS homes solve the problem elegantly. Low speed fans run constantly, sucking 110 cubic feet or air per second from the bathrooms and kitchen. That air is used to condition outside air being brought into the house in a small heat exchanger located in the basement. That way, very little energy is used to heat or cool incoming air to the desired temperature. In addition, by the time the outside air makes it to the heat exchanger, it has already passed through shallow geothermal tubes running around the foundation, making the heating and cooling processes even more efficient.
These homes are designed to be net-zero energy. That means a somewhat conscious household will have no energy bills over the course of a year. Colorado's generous rebates and sunny weather make solar panels an amazing option. No gas lines will be run and electrical lines will connect the homes to the grid for storage.
In the end, the GEOS development is still a suburb, but it is a vast improvement over standard practice. Their work on the heat exchanger units will likely lead to the development of American Passiv Haus systems comparable to the excellent German ones.
If you are thinking about building a new home/building, it would certainly be worth it to check out some of these innovative homes starting to spring up across the county for ideas. And if you're tired of rising energy bills, it might not be a bad idea to look into the Passive House (into English now...) concepts for the next remodeling project. This page is a must. Depending on your location, you may be able to get financing at a rate that will offset your energy payments and leave you with a more comfortable and sustainable home.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Chat with Christopher O'Hara
I finished my master's degree in structural engineering in December and the lack of "green" oriented jobs in the field is one of the reasons I'm on this cross country trek. It was with great surprise and delight that I stumbled across Studio NYL Structural Engineers in Boulder, Colorado.
Studio NYL is a small firm that specializes in sustainable structural design. None of my coursework even touched on the subject so I knew I had to find out more. I was fortunate enough to speak with Studio NYL co-founder, Christopher O'Hara, to get a bit of illumination on the subject.
Structural engineers are typically brought into the design process after the global decisions about a building are already made. We are compelled to follow a building code that sets design requirements for the parts of the building that keep it standing. We don't typically have much say beyond the structural details of a project and even then, it's a crap-shoot.
From the Studio NYL point of view, structural engineers can't do much, but they can do something. They focus on reducing material use. Christopher told me, "Using 10% recycled materials is great, but reducing material use by 20% is even better." Achieving that reduction means designing with modular materials in their natural increments, utilizing the most efficient structural systems and creating elegant structural forms that don't need to be covered up. Much of this takes early coordination with architects and the monetary savings from reduced material usage is mostly erased by increased labor costs.
Studio NYL is in an interesting position. There is no incentive (such as LEED certification) to reduce structural material use so the market is in no way crowded with sustainable structural design firms. Only builders who are genuinely interested in being sustainable will take the time to hire Studio NYL. That means the builder will have certainly hired a "green-minded" architect who is willing to cooperate. Breaking down the barrier between architects and engineers--or form and function--is what gives Studio NYL the ability to affect critical design decisions.
For a structural engineering office, operating as a sustainable firm makes a whole lot of sense. It means playing a greater role in the design process and locking in a more receptive clientele. For some reason, this hasn't really caught on. Christopher couldn't name another small firm doing the same sort of work.
I think this sort of firm will begin to multiply in the very near future. Green building is arguably (I'll prove it in the next post) the most advanced branch of the "green" movement and all of the green builders will soon be looking for ways to green the gaps in the design process.
As an added perk, the folks at Studio NYL were very well abreast with the most advanced developments in the structural engineering world. If you're interested in some cutting edge stuff, check out these links on carbon fiber retro-fits and bio-mimicking 3-D trusses.
Hiatus Over!
I've taken a few days off to finish up some tasks but we're back into the swing of things! Hopefully two more posts by tomorrow night...
Friday, January 23, 2009
Into the Mountains
The next few posts will be based on our visit to the Denver and Boulder area. The prairie stretches endless to the east and the mountains stretch endless to the west. It was quite a change of pace from the midwest that we had become accustomed to. More to come...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Milwaukee - Wrap Up
Milwaukee is full of clock towers. The Allen-Bradley Clock Tower, largest in the world, is just one of an entire skyline dotted with clock towers, fancy and plain, big and small. This is not the sort of place where you can lose track of time.
Milwaukee is much more than its clock towers; the distinctive neighborhoods and local character of the city are incredibly charming.
Milwaukee is surrounded by the type of sprawl typical of most cities. Vast tracts of housing sliced up by collector roads and interspersed only by churches and schools. These post-war neighborhoods are bland and unusually devoid of clock towers. Milwaukee's pre-war developments are much more interesting. Our hosts in Milwaukee proudly informed us that no place in Milwaukee is more than a block away from a bar. They weren't overestimating in the least.
I wasn't able to find any studies linking this sort of neighborhood to a reduction in drunk driving but if you can walk to several different bars within three minutes, you're left without any reasons to drink and drive. Drinking isn't the only use for these buildings, many have been repurposed creating de facto mixed used neighborhoods.
Milwaukee was fortunate enough to have some visionary political leaders over the last 35 years. It was one of the first cities to reject additional freeway construction through their downtown area and perhaps the first to permanently remove an undamaged freeway. The demolition of the Park East Freeway opened up the heart of the city to the north side and greatly in the increased the vitality of the city.
The north side is very nice in a small town sort of way, but the south side is very nice in a big city sort of way. Large elegant buildings line the streets of the Historic Third Ward just south of downtown. This upscale district of warehouses turned condos is really breathtaking.
It has some obvious problems though. It's streets, designed for heavy horse and wagon traffic are incredibly wide. The city addressed the problem by turning the center of the street into parking lots.
This is a remarkably good way to create an unpleasant place. It seems like the district planners decided that instead of optimizing the ward for it's residents, they would try to bring in "tourists" to public markets and upscale shops. It's a good way to convince retailers to pay higher rates, but it doesn't work so well to make a place that survives beyond its initial hype. The issue of too-wide streets is not easily dealt with in our current development scheme, I'll have more to say about that during the Denver/Boulder issue.
Unlike the north side, the south side is conveniently cut off from the city by an enormous interstate highway (I-794). It happens to be elevated, so if community planners ever had the drive, they could make an effort to reduce the disconnection by carefully designed spaces under the highway. Milwaukee is full of rivers that naturally dice up the city, they don't need any more mobility barriers than the ones that nature provides.
One thing that Milwaukee residents seem to understand is the critical importance of restorative spaces in human environments. Throughout the city, we came across the sort of bright colors the liven up the sometimes somber mood of Wisconsin winters.
It's always nice to see some play areas that actually look fun. Playgrounds of metal sticks and plastic panels ordered out of a catalog are only good at regimenting children away from their creative and innovative minds.
Milwaukee's school stock is among the best I've ever seen. Even in cases where they're forced to board up windows to reduce capital and utility costs, they find ways to brighten up the picture.
And let's not forget the roof tops. This light-hearted scene lay up against a major thoroughfare. The only apparent purpose was to provide tired commuters with something pleasant to dwell on during their nerve wracking dashes to and from work.
Milwaukee is a place full of serious people who manage not to take themselves too seriously. My guess is that all of this has something to do with the concentration of so much beer in such a small city. I'll leave you with one final picture that I'll call "The Future is Now".
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Update
We've been battling the mountains for the last couple days so posting has slowed down considerably. I hope to get up a post on Milwaukee later on tonight and maybe a couple on the Denver/Boulder area tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be caught up before too long.
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