Serenbe Stories

Living Architecture for the Future with Steven Peck

November 23, 2020 Serenbe / Steven Peck Season 4 Episode 8
Serenbe Stories
Living Architecture for the Future with Steven Peck
Show Notes Transcript

Steven Peck was introduced to the idea of green roofs and living walls in the mid-90s and quickly realized how important it is to have nature at the center of architecture and design. Since 1996, he has worked to advance the green roof and wall industry by facilitating research; organizing conferences; writing articles;  and advocating for supportive policies and standards at all levels of government around the world. He also edits and publishes green roof magazine Living Architecture Monitor. 

Steven is optimistic about our collective ability to rapidly evolve the building industry within a generation. He does not believe COVID will define our future, but rather it has been and will continue to be defined by climate change, and having green infrastructure will help us prepare for that future. Join us as he shares his biophilic journey to expand the living architecture industry world-wide.  



0 (1s):
Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called biophilic solutions. Our last season of ceremony stories, building a biophilic movement was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it every other week. Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture the living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations more often than not. Nature has the answers. You can find biophilic solutions on apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and follow us today. So you don't miss an episode.

0 (41s):
All right, now let's get back to ceremony. Stories. Ceremony is a place where the innate connections humans have with nature and all living things is celebrated through work and play. And we're here to tell the stories of those who have been inspired by this biophilic way of life in our community and across the country. This is Sarah stories.

0 (1m 23s):
Steven Peck was introduced to the idea of green roofs and living walls in the mid nineties and quickly realized how important it is to have nature at the center of architecture and design. Since 1996, he has worked to advance the green roof and wall industry by facilitating research, organizing conferences, writing articles, and advocating for supportive policies and standards at all levels of government around the world. He also edits and publishes a green roof magazine entitled the living architecture monitor. Stephen is optimistic about our collective ability to rapidly evolve the building industry within a generation. He does not believe COVID will define our future, but rather it has been and will continue to be climate change.

0 (2m 4s):
And having green infrastructure will help us prepare for that future. Join us as he shares his biophilic journey to expand the living architecture industry world wide. But first ceremony stories is brought to you by the, in it ceremony. The in is nestled in the rolling countryside, a bucolic ceremony where guests can walk on the 15 miles of trails through preserved forest land, the wildflower meadow, and the animal village. You can relax by the pool hot tub or in rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, play on the croquet lawn swings and in-ground trampolines connect with nature and each other all while staying in luxurious rooms on the, in ground or within the community of ceremony. Book your stay today@beaton.com.

0 (2m 45s):
All right, I want to welcome everybody back to Sarah stories today. Today we have a special guests out of Toronto, Stephen W. Peck, founder, and president of green roofs for healthy cities, which is a north American roof and wall industry association. Don't anybody leave? I just know that it may not sound super exciting, but it is going to be fascinating because we're going to find out what this thing is that we call living architecture in biophilia, how it benefits residents, how it benefits corporations and how it benefits our health. So I want to welcome Steven Peck and Steve Nygren to Sandy stories this morning.

1 (3m 24s):
Good morning. We're so glad to have you with us

2 (3m 26s):
This morning. Good morning, Steve and Monica. Thanks for having me. We're looking forward to the conversation. Great to be

0 (3m 33s):
Here. And Steven, we always ask our guests, how did you come into the Serengeti sphere and what is your ceremony story?

2 (3m 45s):
Well, I was fortunate to come to the Serengeti biophilic summit two, two years ago, and had a tremendously fantastic time. Not only because of the interesting people that were there, but the place that you have created, Steve is just really quite wonderful. And one thing in particular remember about the couple of days that I spent, there was my first official forest bathing experience with Jamie Jamie Trost. I think it was led us through the, some of the cerem before us and to learn about what you're doing, how you overcome some challenges to develop the way we really should develop land, you know, in an intense way, I preserve a preserving farmland and greenspace, it's just a remarkable achievement, a wonderful place.

2 (4m 35s):
Well, thanks.

1 (4m 36s):
We loved having you with us and hopefully next year, we'll, we'll be back with another session. Yeah,

2 (4m 42s):
Let's hope so. Let's hope so. So

0 (4m 44s):
Steven, I am so curious. How does one get into sort of the green roof industry you've been doing it for over 20 years now, did you study environmentalism or sustainability or, you know, what sort of drove you into this really kind of interesting industry? Thanks

2 (5m 4s):
For that question. Monica, I've had a background in economics and a philosophy I've studied at McGill university. And coming out of that, I realized that through the studies that, that we weren't developing the right way, you know, that we, that we weren't placing nature in the center of our, of our, of our work. And I started volunteering to protect a portion of the green space and Toronto in the Dawn river, part of the Dawn Watership, the Dawn river flows through the city of Toronto. And then professionally, I started working as a public policy consultant. And for over 10 years, I worked doing public policy work, studying technology and innovation and the role of government in developing new technologies, environmental technologies, but also creating markets for them.

2 (5m 54s):
And then in 1997, the idea of a roof across my way at a conference, I was at a guy named Brad bass, Dr. Brad bass introduced me to the concept and I thought, wow, green roof, great idea. Like we've got nature and buildings in cities. It was like a perfect combination of things that I'd already sort of been working on. And that's kind of how I got launched into the whole thing.

0 (6m 19s):
And at that time, were there many people or many companies building that way?

2 (6m 24s):
Well, the thing about that is at the time there was nobody. I mean, nobody had even heard of really a green roofs. We did, we got a grant to do a study and we couldn't find anything written about green roofs in the English language. Wow. No way, nothing. It was like totally new concept in 1998. Although there was a lot of work being done in Europe, particularly in Germany. And we had a German architect by the name of Monica Coon working with us and she translated a tax from studies done in Germany. And that's how we were able to publish a report called greenbacks for green roofs, forging a new industry in Canada and engaging some of the industry leaders that were just tinkering around from Europe.

2 (7m 6s):
Most of them tinkering around with the north American market. And that's how we kind of brought the nexus together to start the industry association, which is now green roofs for healthy cities.

0 (7m 15s):
Yeah. That's amazing. And did you immediately start that association or was that something that kind of happened a few years in, I mean, that seems pretty visionary to realize there needed to be a group.

2 (7m 29s):
It did take a while we had, after the report was done, we had a small group of companies, a coalition that we, that I pulled together and we focused on building a green roof at city hall in Toronto. And in order to do that, we had to jump through lots of hoops and raise funds and we wanted to build a demonstration green roof. And we wanted to use science to determine how is it performing, how much energy is being saved, how much storm water is being retained. And that was the first step. And after we got that off the ground then came the, a conference in Chicago in 2002, because mayor Daley at that time was promoting green roofs in Chicago. And then that led to the development of the industry associates.

0 (8m 12s):
So I'm going to back us up a little bit and actually have you define what a green roof is because it's not putting a potted plant up there. Right?

2 (8m 21s):
Right. So we have, there are technologies that have been developed and utilized for well over 40 50 years now that enable us to grow plants on roofs without doing any harm to the underlying waterproofing system. So there are different layers that you have to put in. You have to put out what's called a membrane protection layer on top, or your waterproofing has to have inherent membrane protection capability. And there's a standard for that. Then you have to have a drainage layer because we don't want water pooling on, on rooftops you to make sure the structure loading capacity is there. So there's a drainage layer and some in some systems now we actually hold a certain amount of water on top of the roof and use it for the plants.

2 (9m 5s):
So like a, like a flat system, if you will, then there's a filter cloth that protects any of the fines from the growing media, from getting into the drainage works and clogging it up. Then we have lightweight engineered growing media, which is specially designed for the type of green roof and the type of plants. And then of course, we've got the plants on, on the top that, you know, are the PS resistance is what everybody loves about being roof system for wonderful clients.

0 (9m 33s):
I remember working in San Francisco in my company, which was gap at the time, opened an office in San Bruno, which is south of the city. And I believe like, I think William McDonough may have done it, but I remember thinking that they did all green roofs and that felt very innovative at the time I had never heard of it was that one of the first buildings

2 (9m 55s):
McDonough is a project at the gap headquarters, which was the gap headquarters in San Bruno. California was one of the first green roofs McDonough's team adopted was one of the first major architectural firms to adopt green roof technology. They also did the Ford Dearborn plant, which has this huge, like 11 and a half acre, extensive green roof on the F-150 assembly line. So McDonough was out there and Roger Schickedantz, one of his partners was, were out there really early on. They were definitely one of the first architectural firms to start to embrace this technology.

0 (10m 34s):
Were you having a hard time or I guess, you know, I know that Steve, you know, when Steve brought geothermal in here, it was, you know, kind of a little bit of an uphill battle to sort of explain the benefits because there's some upfront costs there, but there's so many savings, you know, the research that you started to do when you did the city hall demonstration, did you find that that's what you needed? You had to sort of get the numbers together for people like how, tell me a little bit about that.

2 (11m 2s):
Absolutely. You know, anything, anytime something costs more money and you'll know the scheme upfront, right? That there's an upfront costs, capital costs, but the benefits are come, you know, over a period of five or 10 or 15 or 20 years, you know, there's a challenge there. And also there's a challenge when the upfront cost is born by one party, but the benefits are born by another party. So there's a split sort of disincentive if you will, there. And a lot of the development projects have that sort of in built into their nature. You know, the idea is you build it at the least possible upfront cost now, and you sell it in the marketplace. And then, you know, the owners of the building get the benefits.

2 (11m 44s):
So that was a challenge for us. And we spent a lot of time working with researchers and, and economists to look, try to look at the life cycle of the building, not just the first first cost and in some types of development, the first cost, you can actually get a economic yield from a green roof, but a lot of the benefits are public in nature. Monica, there are things like storm, water management and improved air quality and those things which aren't captured in a traditional, you know, proforma for a development project, right? So we need public policy support to get more green roofs built because the public policy support is what recognizes those long-term public benefits and makes it easier for developers to do the right thing and put living architecture on their buildings.

2 (12m 38s):
The

1 (12m 39s):
Big thing problem I found for our builders that were doing spec product is, you know, the bankers, the financial folks didn't recognize this, so they couldn't get the appraisal. So even if they wanted to, they could not really build spec product. And the, and the other big problem I found was everyone measured things in silos and this whole payback. And when, what we found when we, when we build the dam built a demonstration house here, gosh, it's been what seven years ago, better now with Bosch. And, you know, because it was, it, it was built and certified because it was geothermal because it was saw or yes, it was more expensive.

1 (13m 21s):
But when we sold that, of course the buyer got a mortgage and because it was more expensive, their monthly mortgage was more, but that mortgage increase was not as much as what their power bill would have been. So it was actually cash positive month one. And we don't talk about that that much, because we're so busy measuring silos in the costs that we're not looking at actual cash flow. And so that that's been something that we've really tried to talk about. And it's amazing how hard that is to get financial people and, and, and builders to really look at that. How have you found, how have you found that in the appraisal world recognizing what you're doing?

2 (14m 8s):
Well, there's a certain, I mean, there are certain component of the appraisal world, which has up until recently seen green Roos as a negative on a building. And, and some of the early work that was done by Arab engineering, some of the early lifecycle cost benefit work had a small line item in there taking the value off the building, but there've been a number of studies that have been done now comparing identical buildings, one with a green roof. And one, without that demonstrate, there's a five to 7% increase in the value of the building. All things, other things being equal because it has a green roof on it.

2 (14m 48s):
And particularly if it's accessible and this kind of speaks to, I think, biophilia too, right? Because we do have an inherent love, an affinity towards nature. And if you can build that into your, your building, either inside in terms of a green wall or outside as a green wall or accessible amenity space, it's going to add value right. To the building. It's fairly plain to see,

1 (15m 14s):
Well, we think it's playing. Is it playing to the appraiser?

2 (15m 18s):
I think some of them, you know, if they're unfamiliar with the technology may not, not see it that way still, but you know, it is still green roofs for all the work that we've done over the past 20 years or in many parts of the country are still a relatively new idea, right. And other parts of the country that are well-established, we're building millions of square feet every year on buildings in certain markets. Other markets were, they're still sort of experimenting tinkering around the edges. So I think even it really depends on which market you're in, you know, the level of awareness

1 (15m 52s):
I would suspect. This is sort of just it's built in. It's probably more in resale that you see it rather than trying to get it appraised when it's all in plans. But are there any measurements for happiness or health

2 (16m 8s):
For a green roof

1 (16m 9s):
Project versus one that's not?

2 (16m 13s):
I think so. A lot of the stuff that we are finding a lot of the data that we have about the benefit of a green roof sort of upfront the cash positive idea comes from the notion that you're creating an added in Menindee in the building. So if you had two buildings, for example, if one had a pool in it, for example, and the other one didn't have a pool or two hospitals, and one hospital had a lush garden that the patients and staff could use. And one did not. What we find in the hospitals, for example, that reported is that there's less staff turnover at the hospitals because it's a less stressful environment that patients heal faster that the, the visitors to the hospital are happier.

2 (16m 59s):
You know, that they sell more meals in the cafeteria that overlooks the green roof of the green wall. But we, we get, we have anecdotal information. And on the condo side, we also have information that indicates that if you have a view of green space, those units will be worth more than units. That don't have a view of green space, just a view, not even access necessarily. So there is the developers in many parts of north America are understanding this and realizing that they can realize right up front, the value of investing in a green roof and wall technology, because they're going to get more for, you know, the units that they're selling or the product that they're delivering.

2 (17m 42s):
Why

1 (17m 42s):
Is it still fairly a unique concept then?

2 (17m 46s):
Well, I think it's a unique concept in some parts of north America. I mean, green roofs are really well established in the Northeastern up the north board in places like New York and Boston and Philadelphia, you know, Toronto Montreal, just to name a few. And now on the west coast are really well established and places like Vancouver and San Francisco, San Francisco is a mandatory requirement for green roofs on all new buildings, for example,

1 (18m 16s):
That's moving. That's great.

2 (18m 18s):
Yeah. So I think that where there's public and public policy support, Steve there's a, the market has responded. The capacity has been built and people are, you know, building these things. As a matter of course now, Atlanta is an area we've taken a couple of shots at. I believe there are a few incentives in place, or at least there were last time I checked, but we haven't been able to sort of convince policy makers as much in the south about the need for, to make green roofs or mandatory requirement or provide incentives that are effective. And that was what again, recognizes all those public benefits that come years after the green roof and wall is built. You know, we're not quite there yet, as much as we'd like to

0 (19m 2s):
Atlanta needs to do to get there just incentives. Is there more education for the city itself? It doesn't need to be a state mandate or Atlanta mandate it

2 (19m 14s):
In most of north America, it's been local governments that have mandated or created incentives for green roofs. It was probably at the local government level. One thing is to understand, I think that a lot of governments that have done this, I've crunched the numbers, you know, and they've looked at the public benefits provided by, by green roof technology and they've quantified it. And then they realized as, as has New York, New York city, you know, they realized that in New York, they will provide financial incentives for you to put a green roof on your building because they realized that green roof is like a mini storm water management utility. It's going to keep that water from impacting the larger system and they've crunched the numbers.

2 (19m 57s):
And they realized that there's a payback to the city. If they can get more and more of these buildings, these existing buildings to put green, green roofs on. And I think that's work that needs to be done to make the economic case to cities, which are usually cash trapped cash strapped that they should move in this direction.

1 (20m 17s):
You had white papers coming out from any cities.

2 (20m 22s):
San Francisco has done some of the most interesting work on this recently. And if you go to the city of San Francisco website and you look up green roofs, you can find some of the lifecycle costings and things that they've done. But the thing about it is Steve that, you know, San Francisco's, environment's going to be very different from Atlanta's, right. In terms of a cost and the benefits and the technology. So you really do have to kind of figure this stuff out in your own context, you know, what those numbers look like and to, to make the case, that's the, that's the best way to do it.

2 (21m 2s):
I do

0 (21m 3s):
Think that's interesting thinking about green infrastructure, because as we started talking about just, you know, roofs, I think of it as a single building, but really thinking about it as a network of buildings that would then impact that green infrastructure and a little bit to Steve's point, you know, we do sort of think in silos and even I'm, I have to break my head out of that to think about the bigger sort of ecosystem or sort of biophilia, which leads me to the question. When did you sort of know about the philosophy or sort of by Ophelia or the concept, is that something that you studied at McGill or was that something that sort of through the green roof industry came upon your

2 (21m 47s):
Way? I came across the notion of Steven Keller, its work was the first expression of biophilic design that I read about that would have been quite a while ago, 2001 or 2002, I think maybe back then. And we had Steven while he was alive, come and speak at our conference twice. We took the, some of the, the constructs to describe the elements of biophilic design that he was working with. And we applied them to a green roofs. We tried to sort of say, okay, how does this work in a green roof concept con con with a green roof technology?

2 (22m 32s):
Like how many elements of biophilic design could one fit into a, a green roof project type of thing. And we promoting that and training that through our green roof professional, which is a GRP agreements, professional training professional training program. So we have a training program that we provide that enables you to get a certification as a GRP. And you learn the economics of green roofs. You learn all of the different technologies that are in play the benefits and so forth, some of the challenges of installation and design and maintenance. So we built that in, we baked a biophilic design and very early on in like 20 2003, 2004 from the work that Steven Keller had been doing.

2 (23m 19s):
That's sort of how I first, I think what we first, how we first came about it, it's a very powerful philosophy and design approach that he has helped to develop.

0 (23m 35s):
And do you see, I mean, obviously access is important. And, and when I say access, I mean, you know, some of the buildings like the gap, San Bruno building was just a green roof. And so it was a regular roof and they turned to green for all the benefits that we've talked about. But how often is access available to, you know, the people who work in the building or live in the building, is that becoming more and more common?

2 (24m 0s):
The developers that understand that there's a upfront economic value to be had through their green roof projects. They're the ones that build in access. And we've also built access in to our living. Something called the living architecture performance tool, living architecture performance tool is like lead for, for build for green buildings. This is like living architecture performance tool for green rooms and walls. So we came up with eight different areas and we have all these credits and we give more credits to buildings where people actually have access to the rooftop and can experience the views and the, you know, the water features and the greenery that's obviously has more biophilic and human health value than a roof that simply you can see through a plate of glass, then, you know, one where we have full access to.

2 (24m 57s):
Right. Do you think

0 (24m 58s):
That, like I, I had read, and I think I may have learned this when you were here a couple of years ago. I think we also had the, the head of Washington DC city planning possibly here that's, you know, DC at the time. I think, you know, a couple of years back had the most green roofs over a million square feet than any other city in the country. You know, how did that happen? Was that public policy was that it's DC, you know, w w what sort of drove that and what other cities are coming, falling behind

2 (25m 30s):
TC has some really serious challenges associated with the management of their storm water. Every time it rains in DC, you know, there's a flush of combined sewer overflow, you know, into Rockwood Creek and the Potomac river and ultimately into Chesapeake bay. So part of the way of, of helping out Chesapeake bay is to get storm water management under control. And the policymakers in Washington to their credit have recognized that it's much better to create a policy environment in which buildings hold onto their storm water, and then use that stormwater to grow plants than it is, you know, simply designing the building so that the storm water heads off to the treatment plant.

2 (26m 21s):
So they've put in a series of policies that encourage developers through regulations and through economic incentives, they have a tradable permit system actually for storm water, which was very unique. They also have green space requirements and a variety of different regulations that make it much better for developers to integrate green roofs and walls into their projects and other forms of green infrastructure. So that the storm water is seen as a resource. It can be used to grow plants, which could help cool down the city during hot summer months and improve their quality and generate biodiversity and manage their storm water problem. Well, so they've been doing great work in Washington DC for, for some time now to, to accomplish that they have one of the more sophisticated regulatory environments for that.

0 (27m 15s):
And the benefits that I read that I didn't realize is acoustically that when you have a green roof, it actually helps the sound in the building. Is that, is that right? And is that just because you have more layers or

2 (27m 29s):
You used to work in the San Bruno office, right. I actually

0 (27m 33s):
Worked in the San Francisco one, but you never got paid.

2 (27m 38s):
Well, that's one of the projects, the San Bruno California project, which was formerly the gap headquarters has a, I think, six to eight inch layer of growing medium and, and native plants on it. And they're also on the flyway of the San Francisco airport, where the planes going over constantly, and there've been studies that demonstrate that a green roof can help to capture that sound so that doesn't enter into the building. And there's, there's a correlation, interestingly enough, between the property value and the amount of sound that gets into the plot, it's called the noise depreciation index and Dion index.

2 (28m 19s):
So it is the, the more noise that's coming into the building, but less value of the building. It's almost an anti biophilia in a way, right? Because what we're finding researchers are finding more and more that all this background, noise and cities in particular, you know, sirens and construction projects, highways, and the, like it's actually has a detrimental impact on our health and wellbeing. So there are noises that are positive, like Birdsong, wind blowing through grass, the type of stuff you hear in Sarah, and be very positive for your health. Right? But a lot of the stuff that we have in cities is not very positive.

2 (28m 60s):
So green rooms and walls, interestingly enough, our buffers are able to buffer that sound and improve some of the environments for us from an auditory perspective.

0 (29m 12s):
I love that again, with the geothermal, if you don't have the compressor outside your house for the HVAC, which is so true, that's right.

1 (29m 23s):
Quality of life. We, you know, w we always think about energy demand, reducing energy demand, but the real, a lot of the really issues or quality of life that people are looking at. So, so Steven, what are there battles with w w with, with architects, when the teams are designing buildings for a roof space for solar versus green roofs, how does that tension? Both good things. Yeah.

2 (29m 49s):
That's a really good question. There was a major rush towards putting solar panels on rooftops about a decade ago. And that's a really good use of that space. If you don't have the space on the side of the building or on the ground, what we're seeing in now more in Europe in particular, there has been some adoption of this in north America, but we're still early days as our bio solar roots. When you put the solar panels on the green roof together, there are some symbiotic, positive symbiotic relationships to form. One of them is that the solar panels will generate more electricity for you than they otherwise would.

2 (30m 31s):
And that's because all solar cells, when they reach a certain temperature, it takes about 20 degrees centigrade. As the temperature continues to rise, their ability to generate electricity goes down. So when you have a green roof, healthy green roof underneath that green roof will create a column of air that's cooler, right. And that's what helps to cool the building off, off, and table that privy. But it also helps to cool the surrounding areas, including the solar panels. So we can see from various studies that depending on a whole bunch of design factors, a green roof will increase your solar energy yield by anywhere to five to 15%.

1 (31m 13s):
Are there, are there any sessions where you're, you're raising the solar panels and there's actually plants that can grow more shade plants under them, or how does that all

2 (31m 23s):
Work? And there are systems like that that are on the market. A couple of systems that some of our members have that are on the market. And the other thing about these systems, Steve, is that Tetris traditionally, when you put a solar panel on, you've got a racking system, right? So how do you fix the racking system to the roof? You know, you have to either drill it in to the structure of the roof, or you use sandbags or cement bags or whatever. And what we find is that anything like that can potentially over time cause leaks, right? You don't want to be puncturing that membrane. So we have, there are systems in place where the growing media sits in a tray and in the middle of the tray, there's a, an angular racking system built in so that the growing media holds the solar panels in place.

2 (32m 12s):
You don't have to do any roof penetrations. And the other thing is that, you know, people forget that at some point, you're going to have to remove a building. So if you've got a membrane that's 10 years old and you put a solar array on top of it, the likelihood is that within 10 years or so, you're going to have to take that solar rate down and reroof, and then put the solar array back up, which is very expensive and time consuming. But if you do green roof system, it can protect the membrane so that the membrane will last longer than the solar panels too. You know, you never have to take them off and put them back on. So those are a couple of the symbiotic relationships that exists between solar panels and green roofs.

2 (32m 55s):
When you bring those two technologies together, it's a, win-win,

0 (33m 1s):
It really is. You mentioned green walls. And so, you know, as you worked in the green roof space, I know that I don't know if you've founded it, but I know you worked for a very long time and still do living architecture magazine. And so that not only encompasses the roofs, but any sort of green infrastructure or green living building, does that make sense? And tell me a little bit about walls. Like, you know, I think that the consumer is maybe most comfortable with that concept, right? They've seen it in hotels and maybe a condo, or maybe they're they, they pawned something on their wall. I'm starting to see it on the exterior of buildings to tell me a little bit about how that fits in and the benefits there.

2 (33m 46s):
Well, the living architecture monitor magazine is now in its 22nd year of publication. If you can believe it, it's at living architecture, monitor dot calm. If anybody wants to check it out, living architecture, monitor.com, we picked up the green walls about 12 years ago. It just became obvious like we're working on green rooms and some of our members were starting to do work on that. And we've developed training courses on green walls that are available through the living architecture academy.com and as well as courses on biophilic design, we've got one from bill Browning on there, as well as Elizabeth Calla breeze and that's to train architects about the technologies and the principles and so forth.

2 (34m 32s):
But, you know, green walls are still relatively new industry in north America. They have, there's a lot of different types of systems on the market. It's important that designers do their research and understand the full life cycle costs and benefits of green wall technologies that offer an awful lot. But the kind of benefits they offer are often very technology dependent as not all green walls, right, are the same, you know, those little plastic plants, you know, that they staple into a suppress board. That's not going to be the same as a living system and which is drawing air through it and recirculating water and, you know, providing a wide range of benefits for the interior of a building.

2 (35m 21s):
There are lots of the living architecture performance tool has a credit system, a whole bunch of different points. And a lot of green wall benefits are built into that. If people are interested, you can download that for free off the green infrastructure foundation, website, green infrastructure, application org. But I think there's a bright future because of the pandemic as Steve was mentioning earlier, right? One of the things about the pandemic that we're seeing with people locked down there without having access to green space, like they normally have, they're thinking, how do I get green space closer to me? You know, how do I bring it into my house or put it on top of my roof or, or build it more into my community.

2 (36m 4s):
And I think there's been a real, if you look at the stats on seeds and growing medium, and a lot of the landscaping products, there's been a surge in demand for these things. And in part it's because people are hungry that deep need for nature has been blocked by the lockdown to some extent for many people. And they're wanting to see this have more access to greenspace in their, in their local physical environments.

0 (36m 32s):
Yeah, definitely. You know, I know that I noticed that there's in, by the time this airs it'll be over, but there was a city's alive conference. And I noticed that one of the topics was sick building syndrome, which I think is an interesting term. Can you talk a little bit about that?

2 (36m 49s):
Yeah. So building sir syndrome has been around for a term that's been around for quite a while. Now. It really refers to the problem with offgassing of materials. When we build new buildings, a lot of the materials that we use still have are offgassing. So will you have those gases build up? And there's a negative potential impact? One of the benefits that green walls can provide is to be able to pasture and metabolize some of those, those gases and act sort of as an air purifier inside a building, especially when the, with the systems that draw air through them, the air comes through it, it hits the leaf surfaces, which act as a filter, and then it hits the root roots.

2 (37m 36s):
And on the root systems, there are a whole bunch of micro organisms that exist in sit in a symbiotic relationship with plants. And those organisms are able to metabolize pollutants that pass through. So that that's what the context is, is looking at health. How can we build healthier buildings using living architecture? How do we optimize those systems for people's wellbeing?

0 (38m 3s):
And are you seeing, I mean, obviously a lot of people aren't in the office right now, but are you seeing that this is a time where office managers, building managers are looking for retrofit their buildings?

2 (38m 16s):
I think so. I mean, I think there's going to be, I mean, a couple of things that seem to be trending right now, one is that, you know, there's, everybody's working virtually, so there's a greater comfort level with people working virtually so less people are commuting into downtown cores, right? And that's putting pressure on office space in downtown course and all the restaurants and services that help with all those people on a daily basis. And it's not clear exactly what the longterm is going to be. But one of the things that is clear is that a lot of people that are working virtually now, Monica will probably continue to work virtually into the future.

2 (39m 0s):
So office managers are going to be under more pressure or looking for opportunities to make their spaces special, to create biophilic elements in their spaces, to attract people right back into these communal spaces after the pandemic. And I think that's partly, what's at play here.

0 (39m 20s):
Yeah. That's a great benefit for all of us. You know, I don't work in a big corporate office building, but to have the experiences, the, you know, more access to nature, whether that's a living wall or I can open my windows or there's more outdoor space, you know, has to be a positive for the health and wellbeing of, you know, all office workers. What are you seeing? You know, Steve was mentioning, I think, before we got on it, you know, we're sort of in this new, normal with the pandemic, but what are you seeing in the next sort of 18 to 24 months? Because at some point, right, we'll have a vaccine we'll get back to again, a little bit of a different time.

0 (40m 2s):
I don't think we'll a hundred percent get back to where we were, but you know, what are you, what are you seeing? What are you hopeful for?

2 (40m 10s):
Well, I think that it's, it's really important that we create a public policy environment and we create, we, we evolve a manufacturing and a design and a development industry that is a nature. And because the ways that we've done things traditionally have been, have drawn down resources have created a lot of pollutants and so forth. And I think that the pandemic as actually, because of its impact on people's physical and mental wellbeing directly and indirectly have reinforced the need for, for us to make nature a central part of our cities.

2 (40m 53s):
And I'm sure to meet bili, we'll talk about this. He's very big on this when you speak to him next, but we really should be, for example, investing in a certain percentage of forest canopy, you know, at 40% of the land area of a city is in, should be in forest, like how our traditionally has been enforced. We should invest in the forestry infrastructure and the four star seedlings and plant fruit trees, for example, so that people can and feed themselves. We should use the technologies available to us, to green our buildings inside and out because though all those strategies are going to help deal with some of the impacts.

2 (41m 35s):
And the big impact really is not COVID. The big impact still is climate change. The impacts of climate change are going to severely tasked our ability as a civilization to continue to survive long into the future. And we've got to get prepared for, you know, intense storms, intense heat and green infrastructure. He agreed with us or walls or urban forests, or bioswells can help us prepare for that future. And we need to get more and more people on board so that we have cities worth living in, in the decades to come.

2 (42m 15s):
And I think that's the big, still the big challenge that faces us. And hopefully the pandemic has shaken us up a little bit and realize that we can do things differently and better in a transformational period. We are

0 (42m 30s):
Transformational period. And I know that again, off offline, we talked about draw down and you were saying that green roofs are one of the hundred ideas to dry down carbon out of the atmosphere, which we know we need to do that. I think to your point, we also have to start building for resiliency and mitigate what we know is

2 (42m 55s):
100%, 100%. And the thing about green roof technology that makes it somewhat unique. The two things are that it's not just a cost to developers, smarts, savvy developers can, can invest in a green roof and get a benefit from it immediately. And so it's a sort of a public private type partnership and a green roof deals. It gives you a mitigation, reduces greenhouse gas, emissions, and adaptation. At the same time you get both right. And that's, that makes it an end. And we're using all this wasted space in our cities as these rooftops that are otherwise not doing anything other than heating up the city and causing more flooding.

2 (43m 38s):
So why not turn that negative into a double positive that's, but we need our policy makers and leaders to wake up and advocate for such things, because there's a lot of people that are used to doing things the old way, right? Steve, I mean, you work one of the things that impresses me about it so much as how many battles you've won, you know, to get flexibility into the, against the old way of doing things, to achieve the dream of ceremony, you know, it's quite an accomplishment and

1 (44m 10s):
It's all common sense when you look at it. And that's, that's the big thing. If we just can get everyone to look at the issues, it's, it's an easy decision. Yeah, definitely. We're just in rut thinking and, and the financial institutions are causing a piece of it because they always want feasibility study on anything going. And that's the only way you can do that is by looking in the rear view mirror instead of through the windshield is where we're headed.

2 (44m 39s):
Right? Yeah. I think that we can be

0 (44m 45s):
And do our research, but also lead with hope rather than fear and rather than worry and take chances and be visionary. I know financials don't like that word, but I think it's important for all of us to keep pushing any last thoughts.

2 (45m 6s):
If people are interested in learning a little bit more about what we do, I would encourage you to check out our magazine, the living architecture, monitor.com. If you're interested in finding out more about the living architecture performance tool, which is the rating system of benefits for green roofs and walls. So you can go to green roofs, I'm sorry, green infrastructure foundation.org, our members, and the services that they provide are available at green roofs, green roofs.org, and then our training platform, which has free and horses for sale, as well as the GRP accreditation program is available@livingarchitectureacademy.com.

2 (45m 46s):
So a little plug, but be hopeful. I think that the times they are changing and I would say that we have a lot of the things we need to do to make the world sustainable for future generations, existing generations. We have. Now we have that technology. We just have to have the wherewithal and the leadership and the vision to implement and implement it on mass. That's what we need to, to do. And I believe we're, we're in many places, this is happening already. So we're, we're feeling bullish about the future. Well, thank

1 (46m 17s):
You, Stephen, for all, you're doing to put a spotlight on these issues and that it is possible. These products and systems are in the market and we, we hope to help you point the light on a lot more of this. Thank you.

0 (46m 34s):
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Sam B stories, new episodes are available on Mondays. Please rate and review the podcast and visit our website to learn more about upcoming guests, episodes and everything by ophelia@sarahbstories.com