Green Scene

BY PHIL HAGEN

Ed Mazria and Architecture 2030 Take on Global Warming

Just how long ago was 2002? When you consider that the Iraq War had yet to start, The Osbournes was the big TV show and gasoline was $1.30 per gallon, the right answer is forever.

And in the design world, the most time-warping flashback might be this: Six years ago, we still thought transportation was the biggest contributor to global warming — or "global warming," as it was known then.

Then one day in 2002, the future began. Santa Fe, New Mexico architect Ed Mazria was preparing a presentation on green design for the firm he founded in 1978, Mazria Associates, which specialized in environmentally conscious residential and commercial designs. While doing the presentation, Mazria realized that the commonly accepted emissions statistics didn't add up. The greenhouse gas (GHG) contribution of buildings in America was divided up into "parts," he recalls, "and you never saw the whole." Once he pieced commercial with residential, for example, and tied in energy and embodied energy (making a building's materials), Mazria came up with one logical category — buildings — and a key statistic: Construction materials and building operations consume nearly half of the energy we produce.

His very public conclusion: Anyone who designs buildings is "responsible for half of all global warming emissions annually."

"I think everybody was surprised," he recalls. "Most planners, architects and designers were not up on the [GHG] numbers that were disseminated. It appeared not to concern them."

Fast-forward to today, and Mazria is dizzy with progress in the movement he calls Architecture 2030. "It's growing like wildfire," he says.

Last year he gave up his practice in order to devote his full attention to the nonprofit organization, whose mission is to provide outreach and education in transforming the building sector from "major contributor to the problem" to "a central part of the solution." In doing so, Mazria has been lecturing and teaching all over the world.

Mazria's evidence of progress starts with the long list of states, cities, organizations and firms that have adopted the "2030 Challenge," which pushes for all new buildings and major renovations to reduce fossil-fuel consumption by 50 percent come 2010 (as compared with that of a similar building in 2003), with the ultimate goal of designing all carbon-neutral buildings by 2030.

Then he rips through some of the advances that have him excited, including one from his home state. "The governor of New Mexico issued an executive order requiring all state buildings to meet 2030 challenge targets," he says. "And Albuquerque has a whole plan to get to carbon-neutral by 2030. Santa Fe adopted it for all city buildings and is working on its code."

California has become the model state, Mazria says. Its public utilities division not only adopted the 2030 targets for new commercial buildings, but also required all new residential buildings to be carbon-neutral by 2020.

That state also boasts America's most progressive 2030 city: Santa Barbara. "It was the first city to actually put it into code," Mazria says. "You can't build anything there unless it hits the 2030 targets."

Even Capitol Hill has jumped aboard, with the energy bill requiring all new federal buildings and major renovations to make the grade of 55 percent reduction now and be carbon-neutral by 2030.

Ed Mazria.

The big breakthrough, though, is what he calls the "awakening of the profession." A favorite piece of evidence is how architects are more in tune with the climate in which they're designing. "They're better understanding how to integrate the natural forces and systems into the building, so everything from the shape to materials has that symbiotic relationship. It's critical."

Interior designers play at least two critical roles, Mazria says. The first: "Most interior designers work in commercial. Those are daytime institutions, and daylight plays a very important part in the consumption pattern of the building." Second is the selection of materials. "They can change the entire industrial sector by specifying low-embodied energy and recyclable materials, finishes, furniture and fabrics."

Mazria has been working on his own game, too. Besides constant speaking engagements and the daily support system offered at 2030 headquarters, he's added an online feature called Face It, a half-hour webcast on the building sector and climate change (more than 200,000 people watched it the first week). He's also starting to update The Passive Solar Energy Book, which he wrote in 1979. Talk about a long time ago — he'll have lots to update with all he's learned since then, from daylighting to water issues. And with the revision comes a timely new title: The Architecture 2030 Book.

Expect a foreword that reflects the most important thing he's realized in the last six years: "People do want to make a difference. They're not happy with the status quo. They're willing to do what it takes to change it. I couldn't be happier to see that."

For more information, visit www.architecture2030.org.