Final Presentation Video

5/26 Reflection

While I think conserving before we load is the best way to tackle our problems of energy/water efficiency, the conservation must go back even further than turning off lights or shutting off the water while brushing our teeth. After seeing the short video clip today and remembering discussions from past material and lectures, the specific designs of our homes are the root of the problems. Where, direction, size, layout, and function are the core aspects in my opinion. Building smaller, fully utilized spaces in solar-friendly areas solves many of the problems with efficiency before they even have a chance to occur. If we don't have 15x15 dining and living rooms that see minimal use, we wouldn't have to heat and cool, decorate, and maintain them in the first place and would decrease the overall footprint of our indoor spaces. From there, we could design with ideas in mind of only using energy where absolutely necessary, similar to how the BIF building only heated and illuminated areas that humans occupied. That is brilliant in my opinion and has the potential to make a huge difference in energy efficiency. Loading on living machines, solar panels, wind turbines, etc. seem to be further down the road, but would be the ideal next steps after we start designing our indoor spaces conducive to sustainability from the ground up.

The main and probably most inevitable problem of indoor efficiency, is that we already have millions of spaces that were not designed with the slightest sustainability in mind. The repercussions of starting over would not only be non-ideal for occupants and astronomically costly, but wasteful in the first place considering the existing materials and embodied energy. Also, most people do not realize that their urban sprawl result of a home could be so much more sustainable inside and out, and in turn more energy/water efficient.

My thoughts have changed to wonder what we can do given the current status of our existing indoor designs and/or apply to new construction, renovation, etc. Seeing how drastically indoor spaces can be altered, granted it will be costly, we can do a lot with our current indoor design to incorporate energy efficiency. Not only can we do small things like use LED lights, water aerators, and use less energy that was pre-existing knowledge to me, but we can alter our space slightly so that it automatically consumers less water and energy without our input or continued effort. This is the kind of design we must start to look at, because regardless of how much less aerators and LED's use, they can only do so much

Rather than a question, I would like to see "outside the box" examples of subtle or large, free or expensive, alterations to indoor design that make the space extremely more efficient. These may be in the form of living machine types or energy generation, but it just seems like short of new construction, there are few examples of what can be done with a modern, existing space like the home I live in now.

5/26 Initia Thoughts

When I first looked at this question, my thoughts started to wonder what a home or building would be like if it incorporated some of the sustainable options that we discussed for use outside on a broader scale, inside. Since we have already neglected watershed in many areas, what if we opened up that watershed to run through our home or buildings? I try to imagine having a small creek or valley running through my living room and I actually like the idea of incorporating such nature inside. I often think of structure walls as a strong barrier between the elements of the outside environment, which really is their purpose. It wouldn't be so bad though, if we had green space in our homes, would it? We try to emulate it with fake plants, water falls, decorative fish takes, etc. so maybe we are already indirectly longing for nature indoors.

I think these imaginations kind of answer the question of how to bring energy efficiency and water conservation into the home. Living machines are certainly similar to bringing streams/nature into our homes the way they have plant beds that clean our water for alternate, on-site use. These are certainly feasible options, but it will take a strong force to start transitioning. Conserving though, would be the first objective to making our indoor spaces more efficient. Using less energy in our lighting, HVAC, electronics, etc. will make a huge difference alone.

Re-use is also a big factor in being more efficient. I think of my family's home, and realize we waste A LOT. Sadly to admit, we do not recycle and with six people living in the home, garbage bags pile up fast. My family, although I am trying to spread the education, does not make very sustainable conscious decisions. We use a lot of paper towels/plates/etc., waste a lot of food, use a lot of water, and run HVAC systems heavily most of the year. These are conditions reflective of a lot of family homes and indoor spaces around the country.

So again, conservation is a main component and a good starting point for energy efficiency and water use. Then when we add LED lights, automatic dimmers, automatic climate control, water aerators, etc. the efforts will make that much more of a difference.

5/25 Reflection

After listening to our guest today in class, my thoughts were re-affirmed that indoor design decisions are heavily weighted to one or two areas. Although she was very concerned about the personal inhabitant health, aesthetics and appeal trumped sustainability whenever the two clashed. In my opinion, this is the problem. Our culture obviously has strong ties to aesthetics and comfort with concerns for cost as well or our homes would consist of drywall and floorboard. Our tendencies to at least want to chose and utilize sustainable indoor design materials is a step in the right direction especially when supplies start meeting our needs in this way, but cost, comfort, and aesthetic confrontations are always right around the corner.

The conflict of indoor sustainability seems to be quite evident from listening to our guest. She would love to make sustainable decisions, but absolutely not unless they fit her aesthetic plan which she has an obviously great eye and knack for. I think her thought process of design reflects the general public quite well. An "average consumer" will chose non-toxic, re-useable, energy efficient, etc. to a certain extent or breaking point which usually will be cost, comfort, and/or appeal.

My thoughts have changed from the class lecture, because I really did not have many thoughts prior to it. I have never really designed an interior space and have just dealt with my surroundings. After seeing some of the beautiful examples of our guest's work, I can definitely identify beauty and comfort when I see it, but sustainability is much harder to spot. She made it very clear what we could do to minimize toxins in our design, providing numerous examples. These were all very feasible options that met all of the criteria of an average consumer, satisfying the comfort and appeal aspects quite well in most cases. This is a feasible answer to the problem of having non-toxic/harmful clashing with comfort and aesthetics. The only concern that I and most will still have is cost. For most people, health will have to be quite an important criteria to justify the extra cost that often, but not always is associated with less-harmful/toxic material. I think health is a significant enough factor though that most will opt for it, and luckily for sustainability, the two often go hand in hand!

The only questions I have for our guest is, and I suppose she kind of answered it, but what is keeping her from making more sustainable decisions. I understand she has aesthetics to satisfy, but I did not see much compromise at all when choosing more sustainable design features such as lighting. And second, like many other sustainable topics, how can we get the general public to start realizing what we discussed in class on a mass scale that provokes significant change.

5/25 Initial Thoughts

Balancing appeal, comfort, and non-harmful materials seems to be a generally hard thing to do. Often, when we design indoor spaces, we focus on one of these aspects, and go full force at doing the best we can achieve the objective given our resources and parameters. For example, when I think of an apartment, my personal goals would be comfort at an affordable price. Appeal would be a small part of my objective, but color or style matching would probably be the extent of the beauty I would design a space for especially on a typical, "tight" college budget. In another space, such as a newborn baby's room in a new family home, non-toxic paint and child-friendly materials will surely be at the heart of the design.

To illustrate my point, I've come across a variety of indoor spaces, with no two being for the same purpose. Often times, the three characteristic categories will overlap depending on the use and available resources such as space, cost, etc. One thing I have noticed, is that only until recently have I come across "sustainable" indoor spaces incorporating non-toxic materials. I think design focus has been so often on beauty and function with cost being a very limiting factor, that non-toxic materials have even existed. Recently though, studies and material has been circulated linking toxins in the paints we use everyday for wall coverings with cancer causing agents, etc. And in typical American fashion, most consumers, regardless of their knowledge or even if they knew what a toxin in paint was, feared the worst, jumped on the bandwagon and started demanding non-toxic wall covering paints, so producers answered the call and created alternatives.

I supposed when I think of indoor design, my thoughts specifically turn to furniture, decoration, wall/floor coverings, etc. I'm not all that sure what can be done indoors that reflects the sustainability we can design outside of our homes and buildings. A first start though, would be to not use materials that do contain harmful agents, have to be shipped half-way across the world, or will end up in a landfill should we need to re-design or dispose of anything.

Neighborhood Assessment

Ironwood Pictures

I conducted my neighborhood assessment project in Ironwood Gardens Country Club. My parents home and the one I grew up in and still live is located in the neighborhood and was built nearly 17 years ago when the neighborhood as a whole was just getting rooted. Our house is located at one of the far ends and at the time it was built was one of the few on the block, but to date I think the neighborhood has no empty lots left with the final lot being occupied within the last year or so. The neighborhood also centers around and is intertwined with an 18-hole golf course managed by the Town of Normal. The only structures, besides golf course related facilities, are residential single family or condo homes. There is an apartment complex located outside the west boundaries of the neighborhood called Ironwood Gardens but to my knowledge is a separate entity.

When looking at the entire neighborhood from a Google map or birds-eye view, the entire area is shaped like a bird or a obscure figure-eight. I live on the ONLY thru street in the entire neighborhood and even calling it such is quite a stretch as it is more of a detour from one side of the eight. There is also a single entry and exit point from the neighborhood. To me, this means an extremely inefficient and non-easily accessible location no matter where your home is located. The streets are roughly 3 car widths wide and are used for dual direction traffic and street parking, but parking is only permitted on one side. The streets are generally curvy, which is generally good for driver awareness of pedestrians and golf course, but like stated earlier, not conducive to easy access for any guests or owners. There is a sidewalk on the "inner" side of the streets that spans the entire neighborhood. The walk though, is roughly 5 feet wide and not comfortable to be used for more than 1 or 2 people walking. The cart paths spanning the golf course are wider but are only laid on the course and not so much integrated with the sidewalk aside from intersections and generally are to be used by golfers only during the season and play.

I walked, biked, ran, and drove around my neighborhood to observe. I gathered a far different experience from all three methods. Driving, I noticed much less of the fine detail and pedestrian activity. I was merely worried about traversing out of the neighborhood and most of my attention was focused on yield and stop traffic signs. Walking, I was able to absorb much of the great scenery and pleasant landscaping that many homes and the course contain. Pedestrian activity was quite high on my walks/bikes especially this time of year. I was aware of the cars and although I felt safe, I would not expect cars to halt for me to cross any of the streets or cart paths. With this, while driving I did not think about stopping for any pedestrians waiting to cross. I find biking to be difficult on the small sidewalks so I generally bike in the street or on the cart paths. Cars tend to yield well to bikers and I was able to take in much of the "natural" scenery and neighborhood similar to walking and running.

Most of my observations were done on a Sunday night around 7:00 pm. The day, and sundown was probably one of, if not the best of the year. The sun sets behind most of the houses as not to be a blinding, scorching nuisance. The temperature was an upper 70 to low 80. There was a slight breeze as well. This led to many grills being lit and dispersing much "cookout aroma" and a lot of pedestrian activity. This is common whenever the weather is tolerable to be outside. Many of the residents enjoy the weather in a similar manner to my family, consisting of walks, runs, rides, cookouts, and spending time on the patio and in the yard. Had it been during the winter, nearly all traffic would be from vehicles and the neighborhood would seem much more silent. Another thing to note, is many people walk their dogs around the streets and on the course. Considering I have lived in my house since it was built, I would like to think I have experienced everything there is to within the neighborhood. I have seen it from every angle, every day, every time, of every year. These observations recently conducted are an accurate sample of my lifetime experience.

My neighborhood has definite boundaries. Until very recent years, it was a neighborhood plopped in the middle of miles of farm fields with a strip of highway running along the south side. The north-south Towanda road runs pretty much through the entire BloNo area and takes you out to the entrance of the golf course and my neighborhood. Signs and a bridge over the highway inform you that you have entered the area. Medians split the main road at this entrance. This main road (body of the bird) runs through the middle of the figure eight and ends the neighborhood at a four way stop perpendicular with one of the most-norht roads, called Northtown road. There are several fingers off the main road before you come to a an intersecting road that enters the two side of the figure eights. The main road and inner facing rows of houses are what really signifies the boundaries. There are also two large ponds (man-made I assume) on either side of the main Towanda road. There is a raised hill that seperates the neighborhood from the apartment complex, and fields/ponds/golf course that separate the area from the rest of the environment.

Like I said earlier, my neighborhood was extremely isolated. It was recently attracted other neighborhoods within a couple miles to the northeast and southwest, an elementary school, a church, and a Casey's General store near the apartment complex. From my house to the single entry/exit/main road just to get out of the neighborhood is about 1 mile (2 minute car/15 minute walk) and 3 miles (7 or so minutes by car) to get to what I would consider the very north edge of "town." This makes it quite a task and nearly possible to get anywhere with meaning and purpose (school, work, store) by any other method than car. I do bike as much as I can given the time constraints of my schedule and weather conditions, but most of my travel is by car. I think the neighborhood blends and flows well with the region as far as natural environment and retention of natural landscape/environment. But in terms of being well integrated and sustainable with the town/city, the area fails quite miserably. With it being so isolated and with certain infrastructure design aspects, it is the opposite of sustainable, green infrastructure. The limited access, limited use, high energy consumption and attribution, generally oversized/underutilized homes spread fairly far apart, large lot sizes, limited use/high waste golf course space, etc. add to its non-sustainability and lack green infrastructure.

5/22: Reflection

After hearing and seeing a variety of perspectives on the uptown Normal area, our own LEED certified welcome center, and having a chance to spend a night in uptown over the weekend, I now have a new appreciation for the sustainable designs this community is moving towards. With that being said, I also experienced many areas which were neglected in designs that could have easily been improved to make a great difference in both areas.

Taking a tour of the welcome center, especially seeing perspectives of the gentleman giving us the tour and Professor Deal, provided very different takes on a single building and design. Granted, having a LEED certified building on campus and the community is a huge asset and stepping stone, it seemed as though our tour guide was selling the design to us instead of enlightening us with its sustainable design. I got the feeling that the main reason behind designing the building in the first place, was soley as a selling, advertiseable feature of the college's campus. To a similar extent, I got the same vibe going through uptown Normal, although the design of the area seemed much more for a sustainable purpose than our welcome center.

All of these realizations, made me wonder how great of a system LEED was. As professor Deal pointed out, although striving for a Silver or Certified standard is great steps above general contracting standards, they are still far from what our class would consider an optimal level of design sustainability. LEED standards and requirements do get people in the right state of mind and moving design of green infrastructure in the right direction, but allow designers to fall short and settle for less than can the potential that can be achieved in many instances. I suppose if I had to sum up the problem I witnessed from the two "field trips," is that green designs are either being done for reasons that do not match with sustainability all that well and/or designs are felling well short of what spaces are capable of in terms of how sustainable they can become.

When decisions made regarding the designs seen, it seems most answers come from balancing needs of the area, who is paying for it, and what the space is being used for. For example, the welcome center fully fulfills its function housing the career center, welcome area, etc. As far as IWU is concerned and seems evident, they want to be able to hang a LEED plaque on the wall to boast about to visitors and have a nice building for the allotted budget. I imagine, had they designed the center for the utmost sustainability and expanded the budget, the design would not have went over well at all with donors and decision makers about our class. Uptown Normal as an entire design is quite sustainable from what I have encountered and lived near. I still wonder why they did not attempt to incorporate any water re-use mechanism, or on-site energy generations, but for what is being done, it is on a whole different level from the rest of the Bloomington/Normal area. I know the tour guide stated funds as a main factor, and with taxpayers footing most of the bill I understand this being a valid concern. Why though, don't they attempt to educated the taxpayers on the capabilities of this space in terms of sustainability and open up their view to how extraordinary this large space would be if it was designed to its full sustainable potential.

My thoughts have changed mostly just from experiencing the area and seeing all of the aspects that went into the design. I had not taken note of them before and really have not spent much time in the area. I have a greater appreciation with what we are doing with uptown Normal and am anxious to see it when the planners deem the project complete. I am somewhat bitter though, after hearing about the welcome center and realizing some of the critiques Professor Deal made regarding the "short-cuts" that seemed to have been made and the bare minimum was done to reach the certification.

Questions I would ask everyone involved with these two sites would be first of all, was funding the main barrier in decisions? And if so, what more would it take to convince the funding sources how much better the space could be utilized and eventually give back in energy costs to a point where they would be willing to expand the budget to be a level that would allow for an extremely sustainable area and not just a LEED certified one?