Guide toDeep Green

Your Best Source for understanding what all the buzz is about and what it means.

Produced by Damian Farre l l Design Group

DEEP GREEN

These diagrams are intended to aid a person in understanding the current ideas and principles of sustainable living. These include but are not limited to the built environment, LEED certifi cation, personal heath & well-being,

and educational awareness.

Basic 4

Defi nitions 8

Apendix 22

Works Cited 23

Table of Contents

Copyright © 2008 Damian Farrell Design Group All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of Damian Farrell Design Group.

What is Sustainability?

Everyone keeps touting this word around like it answers all the questions to solve our environmental problems. But what are all these people really getting at. The best way to describe this precarious word is by regeneration. Just as our environ-ment has a circular path in the ecosystem so should a building or any other system for that matter.

In design and construction sustainability is an action to create better more effi cient buildings to the point that they no longer require outside resources. Much the same as a plant only needs the sun, water, and the earth to survive. Although no building has achieved this level of self-suffi ciency this is the underlying goal of sustainability.

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Conventional Construction Habits

Sustainable

Construction

Habits

struction

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SustainabilityFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, searchFor other uses of the term “Sustain”, see Sustain (disambiguation).Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right).

Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the ability to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defi ned as the ability of an ecosystem to main-tain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future.[1]

Sustainability has become a complex term that can be applied to almost every facet of life on Earth, particularly the many diff erent levels of biological organization, such as; wetlands, prairies and forests and is expressed in human organization concepts, such as; eco-municipalities, sustainable cities, and human activities and disciplines, such as; sustainable agriculture, sustainable architecture and renewable energy.

For humans to live sustainability, the Earth’s resources must be used at a rate at which they can be replenished. However, there is now clear scientifi c evidence that humanity is living unsustainably, and that an unprecedented collective eff ort is needed to return human use of natural resources to within sustainable limits.[2][3]

Since the 1980s, the idea of human sustainability has become increasingly associated with the integration of economic, social and environmental spheres. In 1989, the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) articulated what has now become a widely accepted defi nition of sustainability: “[to meet] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”[4]

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The History of Sustainability

Sustainability has been fast and furious in its growth within the last fi ve to ten years. Those outside of the trades dealing directly with this new wave of thought probably have not had the privilege to see all the nuances that have erupted.

For some general background; green design has been around since...... well since villages started to use water to turn a wheel in a river for grinding fl our. It was just not called sustainable or green design in pre-industrial revolution times. These simple ways of using our environment to perform daily needs has been modern-ized through our inventive use of technology. We are really seeing a push to use regional environments to our advantage as we see the toll we have paid as a society in the past 100 years. This has come in the form of greenhouse emissions from fossil fueled automobiles. Our impact on wildlife now referred to as “biodiversity”. And of coarse the wasteful ways we have been building our homes and work places.

You can see a great example of how sustainability has become main stream by look-ing at any design magazine from before 2001. Just by fl ipping through the pages in a comparison you will see adds of all types of products which never had any com-ment on being green or an advocate of sustainability. By 2005 you couldn’t help but see some quip about greening you life style or using their product for LEED points. Now, in 2009 it has become rather overwhelming.

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February 2009

December 2001

April 2000

Defi nitions

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What do all these technologies really do?

Next lets look at terms that are being used and what they actually mean.

1 Impervious versus Pervious

2 Grey water versus Black Water

3 Water Reclamation

4 Geothermal Energy

5 Solar Power

6 Bioswale

7 Biomass

8 Energy Modeling

and what they actually mean.

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Pervious Versus ImperviousPervious and impervious are two fairly simple terms that become switched when used in conversation about how water is managed. Perviousness is directly linked to porosity or a surfaces ability to absorb water. So a grass lawn would be pervious and at the opposite end a typical asphalt parking lot would very impervious.

Is impervious bad?

Not Necessarily. Impervious surfaces are great when you want to keep water out. Its just not the best way to deal with large surface areas that water can land and accumulate on. A great example to remember is an open fi eld. When it rains, the water is not really thought about because it is absorbed. But if that same fi eld is a parking lot, the water has nowhere to be absorbed. So we have to install a man made water management infrastructure to put the water somewhere else.

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FYI : In most US cities when a heavy storm occurs all the water that goes into the storm drain cannot be handled. When this happens the sewer treatment facility becomes overloaded. This is because storm water and sewer treatment are physically linked. The treatment plant has no choice but to allow the raw sewage and the storm water to fl ow untreated into the nearest river or body of water. A great example is the Mississippi River. It starts in Minnesota perfectly clear... and when it reaches New Orleans; think about how many river cities have had to “overfl ow”. And this is where we gather our drinking water!

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Gray water versus Black waterThis one is pretty easy to understand. First of all we are talking about water that has changed from treated for drinking to a form that is not. This applies to all plumbing fi xtures.

Bathroom Tub

Commode

Lavatory

Kitchen sink

Water Fountain

Rain water

Urinal

Water Reclamation

Now what do we do with black and grey water?

We Re-use them!!

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GeothermalGeothermal is the process of using the earth to regulate the temperature of a build-ing. It is not a fuel source, but rather an energy source. Think of a root cellar or a basement. Remember how it would feel cooler in the summer days and warmer on winter nights than outside, but always had a moderate temperature? That’s geo-thermal energy! The only diff erence between the example and a modern system is that pipes are set into deep drill holes where the ground temperature is close to 50 to 60 degrees year round. Then through the pipe another smaller pipe is looped down. A liquid, either water or glycol, is used to transfer the energy (hot or cold de-pending on the season) from deep within the Earth and “pumped” into a building. Once inside the building it is used in the same manner as a conventional heating & cooling system except without any added gas or electricity to required create the desired temperature. The piece of equipment that delivers the energy to the build-ing is called a heat pump.

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Horizontal fi elds can also be used to gain energy transfer depending on the application, but the idea is still the same.

Vertical Field

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Solar PowerEveryone has heard of solar power.... as a general term. The problem comes when two techs start to talk shop and then you might as well be in another country. Here is a little bit of their foreign language.

BioswaleThis is a technical name for a ditch with a very pragmatic purpose. A bioswale cre-ates a place for water, from run off or overfl ow, to go and be slowly fi ltered before either entering a retention pond or a storm water drain. They act in a similar fashion to what nature calls a wetland; only on a smaller scale. There are certain plants that work best within a swale. They have deep root systems and can be quite aestheti-cally pleasing when properly maintained.

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The standard solar panel that everyone knows about. It uses the sun’s energy to create low levels of electricity which is then pumped through a convertor so that it can be stored in a battery (DC power) or is used right away (AC Power).

This is one of the best example diagrams of a Bioswale. It was created by Doug Adamson and Published by the National Resources Conservation Service.

These are also called solar water heaters. They are a series of pipes that are enclosed in a box, typically black. They are set at a low angle to gather as much heat as possible during the day. The sun causes a green house eff ect within the box and as the water or glycol is pumped through, heat is gathered and stored or used for many diff erent applications. This energy can be used for heating water for a building, or can act as a supplemental aid for another heating system for thermal comfort such as in fl oor heating.

Photovoltaics:

Photovoltaic Panels Photovoltaic Roof Shingles

Solar Thermal Panel:

Bioswale in a Corporate Setting

Adapted from original illustration by Doug Adamson

Helping People Help the Land

Soil AmendingAlong with native plantings, soils amended with compost and sand may be needed to facilitate infiltration. A rock trench can be installed down the center of the swale.

InfiltrationWater infiltrated through bioswales helps recharge groundwater, which supplies rivers and streams with a slow, purified seep rather than surges of polluted surface runoff from roofs and other impervious areas.

Native LandscapingDeep-rooted native shrubs, forbs, and grasses build soil structure and allow water to infiltrate into the ground more easily than nonnatives. Native plants are low maintenance, adapted to Montana climate and rainfall patterns, and resist local pests and disease.

Strong Deep RootsNative plants have a tremendous root architecture that builds soil quality and increases organic matter content. High organic matter content helps soil hold water like a sponge making it available for nourishing plants.

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BiomassThis is another old technology that has slowly risen back into modern scientifi c thought. It is simply the process of converting a waste product into a fuel. The most common forms of fuel are wood manufacturing wastes, landfi lls, and agricultural wastes. There are three diff erent ways to achieve the end resultant fuel without simply burning the waste to create steam powered electricity.

When an indirect heat source is applied and the waste product is allowed to stew and breakdown. This either creates off gases such as methane or liquids that can be refi ned into alcohol or ethanol.

Bacteria, yeasts, and enzymes breakdown waste products to create methane gas and fermented liquids that can be turned into alcohols.

The use of waste liquids such as corn oils to make fuels referred to as bio-diesel.

Great examples of Biomass fuel refi ning have been through entrepreneurial advocates such as Willie Nelson and the Ethanol Refi nery Company Poet Energy.

Thermochemical:

Biochemical:

Chemical:

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Energy ModelingEnergy Modeling is one of the many new ways to understand how a building is us-ing energy and how to streamline its effi ciency. Programs now utilize three dimen-sional models to look at how the sun actually eff ects a surface. With knowledge of who is using a building, how the walls are oriented with respect to the sun, the de-sign, the regional location, and the general cost of energy in the area, very precise estimates can be made to what actual costs are for the entire year. This becomes a valuable tool when looking at new construction and renovations. There are a few leaders in this software, one such is Integrated Environmental Solutions, IES. With IES Virtual Environment all the raw data can be used to create an energy audit that acts not just as a one time tool, but can be used in conjunction with a building ‘s life to verify that it performs as expected and can educate people about what it means to use and interact with the inner workings of a building.

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Damian Farrell Design Group

3011 Miller Road

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103

734-998-1331

Star Pack Group

3021 Miller Road

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103

734-276-3572

Infrared Energy Analysis

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104

734-995-6339

Integrated Environmental Solutions

43 Kingston Street

Fifth Floor

Boston, MA 02111-2241

617-426-1890

For Further Questions about this Guide Please

Contact:

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undefi ned. (March 3, 2009). Sustainability. In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 3, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability.

(2000, April). Armstrong. Architectural Record

(2001, December). Armstrong. Architectural Record

(2009, January). Armstrong. Architectural Record

Cohen-Dumani, Daniel. (Artist). (2009). Closed-loop horizontal geothermal fi eld, [Online Image]. Retrieved March10, 2009 from American Institute of Architects 50to50 Wiki.http://wiki.aia.org/Wiki%20Pictures/Forms/DispForm.aspx?ID=60&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.aia.org%2FWiki%2520Pictures%2FForms%2FAllItems.aspx&RootFolder=%2FWiki%20Pictures

Cohen-Dumani, Daniel. (Artist). (2009). Closed-loop vertical geothermal fi eld, [Online Image]. Retrieved March10, 2009 from American Institute of Architects 50to50 Wiki.http://wiki.aia.org/Wiki%20Pictures/Forms/DispForm.aspx?ID=61&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwiki.aia.org%2FWiki%2520Pictures%2FForms%2FAllItems.aspx&RootFolder=%2FWiki%20Pictures

Cohen-Dumani, Daniel. (Artist). (2009). PV Array wellfl eet, [Online Image]. Retrieved March10, 2009 from Ameri-can Institute of Architects 50to50 Wiki.http://wiki.aia.org/Wiki%20Pictures/PV%20Array%20wellfl eet.JPG

Cohen-Dumani, Daniel. (Artist). (2009). PV shingle, [Online Image]. Retrieved March10, 2009 from American Institute of Architects 50to50 Wiki.http://wiki.aia.org/Wiki%20Pictures/PV%20shingle.JPG

Nace Jamie. (Artist). (2009). Solar Collector Diagram, [Online Image]. Retrieved March10, 2009 from American Institute of Architects 50to50 Wiki.http://wiki.aia.org/Wiki%20Pictures/Solar%20Collector%20Diagram.JPG

Nace Jamie. (Artist). (2009). Solar Collectors, [Online Image]. Retrieved March10, 2009 from American Institute of Architects 50to50 Wiki.http://wiki.aia.org/Wiki%20Pictures/Solar%20Collectors.JPG

Adamson, Doug. (Artist). (2007). Bioswale Illustration, [Online Image]. Retrieved October 20, 2006 from United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service. http://www.mt.nrcs.usda.gov/tech-nical/ecs/water/lid/bioswaleill.html

BioWillie Premium BioDesiel— BioWillie [Online Image]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2009, from loxias.com. http://www.loxias.com/Training/BioWillie.jpg

Poet-LFG-Steps — Poet Energy Inspired [Online Image]. (n.d.). March 12, 2009, from poetenergy.com. http://www.poetenergy.com/fi les/release_fi les/Poet-LFG-Steps.jpg

Poet-Waste Power — Poet Energy Inspired [Online Image]. (n.d.). March 12, 2009, from poetenergy.com. http://www.poetenergy.com/images/showImage.asp?i=/fi les/release_fi les/Poet-Waste-Powered-Plant.jpg