Nathan Good Architects

The dirt floors look great, the salvaged Douglas Fir cabinets look at home, the green roof is in winter mode, and the kitchen swing continues to greet visitors to the kitchen at the O’Brien’s home.

I asked Mike about the use of the Comfort Cove electric heating panels (www.radiantsystemsinc.com) that were installed as the sole heat source in the second floor bedrooms and bathroom and learned that they’ve never needed to turn them on. As the floor below is warmed with hydronic radiant heating, the heat rising up the stairs has been adequate to heat the bedrooms and bathroom above.

The only change to the home’s systems that I learned of was their plans to replace the solar-assisted hot water heater with an ultra-efficient heat-pump water heater. The challenge with the solar-thermal panels on their roof is that it is usually overcast in Portland on the days when they need to heat their home. Heat pumps are solar neutral.

It’s worth sharing Mike’s passion for educating homeowners on their own home’s energy use. Mike believes that a homeowners’ awareness of their own energy use is one of the keys to large-scale energy savings. Seems like a “duh” until one realizes how little is being done to educate home occupants on energy use. Most of the energy efficiency programs and incentive funds target current technologies and techniques like thermostat, window, heating unit, and insulation replacements. Mike proposes a massive investment residential energy use education and feedback system.

Through his role with the City of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Mike developed a class to train individuals on some of the basics of how to read and track electric and gas bills, knowing which appliances consume the most energy, the implications of home electronics upon a home’s plug loads, and simple strategies to save energy. The behavioral strategies that Mike teaches are usually the least expensive and most cost effective available for residents to improve their energy efficiency and reduce their home’s consumption.

In February of 2009, Mike conducted a presentation at the Affordable Comfort Conference on the basics of residential energy concepts that can be viewed at:

http://www.affordablecomfort.org/images/Events/48/Courses/1202/FUND_2_OBrien_Home_Energy_ACI_Northwest.pdf.

It’s also interesting to note the influence that consumption feedback is having upon residential occupant behavior towards energy savings. An electric utility in California provided customers information on how their energy use compared with others in their neighborhood, which resulted in a statistically significant drop in energy consumption. Other utilities have experimented with feedback systems that range from simple emoticons (smiling or frowning faces) to online “engagement” systems like OPOWER (www.opower.com).

Mike recommends reading Robert Cialdini’s book, “Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion” to further understand the factors that lead people to change their behaviors.

Some of the unique qualities to Vana and Mike’s home include:

-the first use of Durisol’s Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF), a fiber-cement block, in Portland for the south’s single story portion to the home
-an innovative strapped-wall system (proposed by the home’s builder, David Heslam, formerly with Coho Construction and now with Earth Advantage) to increase the depth of the wet-spray cellulose insulation and add to the thermal breaks of the wood-frame structure
-radiant-heated earthen floors, which were featured in the February 9^th, 2007 issue of the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/garden/08dirt.html?ex=1328590800&en=aa3bd499058c4308&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) with Sukita, the talented installer (www.sukita.com).
-a vegetative roof for stormwater management and heat-island reduction, that includes a roof garden for their herbs
-a swing in the kitchen (it’s a long, but good, story)
-the extensive use of salvaged materials: cabinets, doors, tile, plumbing fixtures, etc.
-a courtyard and roof terrace for private outdoor living
-an “away room” off the greatroom that doubles as a guestroom and solarium
-approval from the City of Portland to build a new home without off-street parking, a garage, or driveway (The successful pitch: it takes the equivalent of two on-street parking spaces to create a single lane of driveway for off-street parking.)
-the purchase of green power and carbon off-sets as an alternative approach to reaching a carbon-neutral home, rather than on-site renewable energy

To learn more about Mike and Vana and their home, check out one of the following publications:

The Portland DJC article, “Home Built”, August 2^nd, 2006: http://djcoregon.com/news/2006/08/02/home-built/

The Oregonian article, “Structural Integrity”, June 8^th, 2007:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/homesandgardens/2007/06/sustainability_expert_mike_obr.html

My wife and I have been invited to spend this weekend with former clients and current friends, Vana and Mike O’Brien, in their new Portland home. It’s always a treat for me to be invited to visit my client’s homes after they have moved in, and an extra honor to be an overnight guest. Such a visit approaches an ideal post-occupancy evaluation.

Mike is one of Portland’s green building treasures. His fingerprints can be found on dozens, if not hundreds, of the green homes, offices, and institutional buildings throughout the Portland area. In the early 1990’s Mike, and his former business partner, Debbi Allen, spearheaded the creation of the HERE Today Home (Healthy, Energy-efficient, Resourceful, Environmentally-responsible), along with architect and builder Greg Acker. Mike had an active hand in the creation of Portland General Electric’s “Earth Smart” residential and commercial green building certification programs (which morphed into Earth Advantage), one of the first of its kind in the US and a predecessor to LEED. Few people are aware that Mike was one of the creators of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s (NEEA) “Better Bricks” program prior to moving on to become the City of Portland’s in-house green building guru.

Vana is a fantastic actress. Portland theatergoers are fortunate to have her presence on their stages. Though Vana has acting in her blood (parents, sister, brother, and her children), she’s one of the most grounded and genuine people you’ll meet. That may be one of the reasons why she is known as a talented marriage and family counselor through her own Portland office. It was a treat for me to discover that her father was Van Heflin, one of my childhood favorites from the movie “Shane”. On Sunday, we will have the opportunity to see her perform in “Design for Living” at the Portland Repertoire Theater.

Through their own aspirations, Vana and Mike’s home is as unique as they are.

Last Friday, I took an all-day class on “Investigating Energy Use in Occupied Buildings” that was taught by two building science gurus, Dr. Alison Kwok from the University of Oregon and Walter Grondzik of Ball State University. Both professors have been active in the development and roll-out of the Vital Signs and Agents of Change projects, which train architects, engineers, students and others on simple techniques to assess a building’s performance.

This was an outstanding class that I highly recommend to others who are interested in learning how buildings actually function. We were trained in the use of simple tools to access a buildings lighting and daylighting, thermal comfort, airflow and energy loss. Attendees of the class plan to lobby NEEA’s BetterBricks, the Energy Trust of Oregon, and the University of Oregon to create a lending library that will enable design professionals and building operators access to these tools. The infra-red cameras that record the temperature differentials of adjacent materials is highest on my list of requested measurement equipment.

Dr. Kowk demonstrated the use of low-tech “high-performance” bubbles to assess airflow and circulation.

I was introduced to the Vital Signs project by Dr. Don Woolard in 1996 and conducted my first formal building assessment of the daylighting at the Mt Angel Abbey Library. My study was initially published as “User Responses to the Lighting Design at the Mt Angel Abbey Library” through the Vital Signs portal at the University of California at Berkeley, and can be viewed at http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/vitalsigns/bld/Casestudies/angel.pdf. The case study was republished as “Learning from a Library” in the October 2001 issue of Environmental Design + Construction, and can be downloaded from my web site at www.nathangoodarchitects.com/press.html.

My mother’s brother, David Wright, served with Counter Intelligence in Europe during World War II. One of the stories he shared with me was the rescue of a fellow soldier from beneath an overturned jeep in France. The soldier that he saved, JD Salinger, was obviously grateful and the two stayed in touch for years after they returned home from WWII. JD Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye, died today, January 27^th, 2010.

We are often asked about the design of passive solar homes for Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The climate in this region is relatively mild with wet/cool winters and dry/warm summers. The average temperature during the winter months is about 45º F, and the overhead sky is dominated by cloud cover from November until April. For passive solar homes, when we need the sun the most is when we have it the least. Without a well-insulated building envelope and high-performance windows, it is easy to lose more heat during the winter months than that which is gained from exposure to the sun.

One of the key ingredients for a successful passive solar home is the proper window specification. We track two of the multiple window performance factors for passive solar design: the U-value and the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC). The U-value rates the windows resistance to transmit heat from the inside out; the lower the value the better for energy savings and thermal comfort. The Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) rates the ability of a window to block solar heat from entering a home; the lower the number the better to keep a home cool, the higher the number the better for passive solar design during the winter months.

Our preferred window for passive solar design in this climate is one with a low U-value of .25 and lower, and a high SHGC of .65 (65%) or higher. Until recently, this has been a difficult order to fill. We have recently specified a triple-pane window (suspended film with fiberglass frame) from Serious Windows (www.seriouswindows.com) that will approximate these performance criteria.

I’ve been keeping a journal of thoughts and sketches since my early days of architectural studies at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in the 70’s. During my sophomore year at Cal Poly, I took a class on creative problem solving with Don Koberg, co-author of The Universal Traveler (with Jim Bagnall). Dr. Don introduced me to multiple problem solving techniques in a format that mimicked planning for and embarking upon a journey, including the ritual of keeping notes along the way. One never knows when they may need to backtrack or reference a past entry for way-finding or insights. The dozens of journals I’ve filled over the years represent at least three boxes of “baggage” in my storage closet. The sketchbooks contain hundreds of doodles, which I’ll drop in occasionally.