Seattle's new Green Lab
One of the year's most anticipated preservation projects has been the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Green Lab, an office based here in Seattle that will by a catalyst for promoting historic and neighborhood preservation policies as part of a drive to link preservation with sustainability and green rehabilitation projects.
Hired to head the Trust's lab is local former developer Liz Dunn who, through her firm Dunn + Hobbes, has been an important player in projects on Capitol Hill and notably the Pike/Pine corridor, including the Pacific Supply, Piston & Ring, and Melrose Triangle redevelopments. Dunn will be based in Seattle but also oversee Green Lab projects in San Francisco and Dubuque, Iowa.
The official announcement of her hire and the kick-off of the Lab will be made today (March 25) by Mayor Greg Nickels and National Trust for Historic Preservation President Richard Moe.
Dunn is a believer that increasing urban density and historic preservation need not be at cross-purposes. New development should be of high quality, she says, and "we've got to stop tearing down stuff that defines the character of neighborhoods." Resistance to density increases when cherished neighbs are treated roughly by new development, and that's self-defeating because it not only blocks sustainability, but stripping the richness and history out of neighborhoods destroys what made them appealing to urbanites in the first place. As she told The Stranger awhile back, "If we tear down all the cool old buildings in Pike/Pine, that neighborhood's not going to be that interesting anymore."
The Green Lab she'll head is being set up (with help from $50,000 in funding from the City) to find ways to promote green development by re-using and retrofitting existing structures, and by finding ways to integrate new projects into neighborhoods without destroying local character. This will mean looking at making adjustments in rules and incentives to make make it easier for developers to consider saving buildings rather than tearing them down and starting from scratch. The issue isn't so much with landmarks as with the bread-and-butter older structures that still have many years of use still in them and help make a community what it is.
A preview of the project was offered by the Trust's Moe who spoke last night at the recently saved First United Methodist Church sanctuary in downtown Seattle, one of the city's most recent preservation success stories. Moe was preaching to the choir gathered to hear the gospel of preservation. The Trust is touting the environmental benefits of re-using existing structures. Moe says that while everyone talks about the carbon footprint of transportation, a much larger share of emissions (43% compared with 32%) are from the operation of buildings.
And older buildings are generally more energy efficient than newer ones, or can be upgraded with less consumption than new construction. But in a world of diminishing resources, we've yet to get the message. The Brookings Institution predicts that by 2030 we will have demolished one third of all existing buildings, a situation Moe describes as a "wasteful orgy of destruction." We obsess about recycling cans, bottles and newspapers, why not buildings? In singing the praises of repairing and retrofitting older structures, he quoted Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy, who writes that "the main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulking gun."
Dunn will be looking for showcase projects to get the Green Lab off the ground, ones that can demonstrate the win-win aspects of preservation, density, sustainability, and neighborhood protection. Groups are already preparing their lists of possible showcase projects. Topping Historic Seattle's list is Washington Hall, a landmark much in need to a makeover.
The Dunn appointment has been well-received by local preservationists. The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation said it was "thrilled," Susan Boyle of BOLA Architecture and Planning, a leading historic preservation consultant who specializes in modern architecture, says the choice is "great," and Kathleen Brooker of Historic Seattle says Dunn's a "terrific choice." Kathryn Merlino, assistant professor of architecture at the University of Washington who teaches a course in preservation, praised the choice of a fortysomething with a development background for the job. "I think someone young(ish), experienced in adaptive reuse and not from the field of design or preservation directly could be just what [the Lab] needs. She has the developer point of view so economics will play a strong force, and I think this is the only way something like this will really get off the ground."
Comments:
Posted Wed, Mar 25, 9:47 a.m. inappropriate
I am happy to hear that Dunn will work for win-win solutions when it comes to urban development. There has been a bias for too long that the only option is to completely replace older buildings with modern structures, which can strip neighborhoods of their character for many years. We need a change of values that says that making money is not the only consideration but that we should also value structures which are familiar and convey the history of our past.
Posted Wed, Mar 25, 9:14 p.m. inappropriate
Knute,
Thanks for keeping on top of this subject. It's time may have finally come. In addition to the Mayor getting into the act, the WSJ took similar note March 6th: "The Firepower of the Lowly Caulk Gun (Jeffery Ball, environmental editor)...U.S. homes commonly waste 30% of the energy they use. About one-third of that energy loss could be stopped by such simple moves as caulking and insulating.
Building new houses that are more energy-efficient would make sense. But the bigger problem is the houses that exist today. Some 115 million homes exist in the U.S., and less than one million more are built every year. The federal government says that existing homes consume about 90% of the amount of energy that will be used by the country's housing stock in 2030."
Posted Thu, Apr 2, 2:09 p.m. inappropriate
I am extremely glad that Seattle was chosen as the site for the Green Lab and that Liz Dunn was chosen to lead it. That said, and this is a small point perhaps, but I wonder why a member of the architecture faculty at UW, who teaches a course in historic preservation, would make such a point of suggesting that someone with ties to the fields of design (I presume she is including the field of architecture) and historic preservation would not have been a good choice for the Green Lab.
Posted Sat, Apr 4, 11:09 a.m. inappropriate
Kamille,
Yes, I am both an architect and historian/preservationist, and although this was just one point that I made about the choice, I will clarify my statement. One of the main reasons that existing buildings (and I mean ALL buildings from precious historic ones to gas stations and strip malls) are torn down is for economic reasons. One of the primary goals of the Green Lab is to look at building codes and cost efficient ways to make it easier reuse or preserve (partially or wholly) and make sustainable existing buildings, therefore revitalizing our cities both environmentally and culturally. I have seen too many buildings destroyed due to difficulty with meeting existing, unrealistic code requirements (that are written with new construction in mind), misunderstanding that older buildings are less energy efficient (windows come to mind as a common misconception in this area) and challenges conforming to new zoning in older neighborhoods (parking, access, etc.); all of these things causing economic challenges, among other things. In short, it's often considered harder to keep a building than to build a new one. Someone like Liz Dunn who thinks like a preservationist and a designer yet also has had the opportunity to both experience and invest in the process of adaptive reuse, I believe sits nicely in an informed context to investigate practical and workable solutions to this complex issue. While I think many people could have filled this role nicely who come from fields of politics, design and preservation, I think this choice was right on for the goals of the Lab.