Lessons from Sandy

Last night, Sandy blew in to town – actually just the periphery of the storm which is not raging on the East Coast.  We have been lucky, with high winds and snowfall, but no major damage this time, not like the Derecho.   But others have not been so luck.  Storm surges, high winds, power outages, and snowfall.  The devastation is unprecedented.

Fortified Homes Builders Guide

In previous blogs, I have advocated for the construction industry to design and build for resiliency to natural disasters, but this level of event surpasses any preventative measures.    There is no way we can predict this type of ‘perfect storm,’ nor can we prevent the impact.  At best we can try to fortify our buildings and infrastructures to help protect human lives, and pull together as we rebuild after the storm.  We can learn to prepare ourselves with emergency provisions,  cooperate with authorities during the event, and rise to the occasion by extending our help to others in need.

The first step in developing an emergency plan it to understand the types of natural hazards for the area that you are in. The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety’s Fortified Home program  provides information based on zipcodes, and issues a very comprehensive builder’s manual to help retrofit or fortify homes as best possible.   The website: http://www.ready.gov  offers some good guidelines to get ready.   From the reports coming from the impact of Sandy, it appears that the authorities in this area have learned from previous disasters, and have emergency management systems in place, good cooperation with FEMA. But it is important that we recognize our own responsibility to plan, prepare and cooperate with the community disaster plan. For those of us on the periphery, we can only watch, learn, and get prepared for the next time, which may be in our own backyards..

Ready Mixed Concrete Industry Adopts the 2030 Challenge

On Oct. 4 of this year, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) has endorsed the 2030 Challenge for Products.   The industry has, for many years, addressed issues of sustainability in the product:  identify the longer service life of concrete in buildings and roads, or promoting the use of alternative industrial waste pozzolans (e.g. fly ash) to displace some of the Portland cement in the mix.   There is also the very valid point of air tightness, thermal mass and energy savings for buildings using one of the many insulated concrete wall products, such as ICFs.  All of these point are very important, and salient to the goals of sustainability. 

But there is another level, one which the NRMCA has adopted.     Sustainability applies not just to the product, and the application of that product, but also to the production.    This shifts the focus inward, with a spotlight on the enterprise.   And this bright light reveals very quickly whether sustainability was a goodwill marketing effort, or is truly embedded in the company.

The NRMCA Sustainability Initiatives have challenged the industry to meet some very aggressive goals by 2030:  30% reduction in embodied energy and carbon footprint,  20% reduction in potable water, 50% reduction in waste and a 400% increase in recycled content.   They are tackling issues of source energy, water re-use, and end-of life extension.  The target for plant design, production, maintenance and waste management is aligned with zero waste discharge.  Edward Mazria, CEO and founder of Architecture 2030 notes: “This is precisely the kind of industry program that can help the Building Sector meet its targets to lower GHG emissions. We’re incredibly encouraged by the leadership NRMCA is providing to drive innovation and reduce the carbon footprint of their industry.”   Bravo

And now comes the difficult part and the greatest opportunity.  Concrete is an integral part of most construction projects, especially commercial and industrial.  There are about 2,500 ready mixed companies that operate over 7,500 concrete plants in the US.   This is a workforce of local jobs, not just in the plants, but with a very visible face at the job sites.  The industry relies on a veritable network of people, from the specifying engineers and architects, to the finishers.  In many ways, concrete is the foundation of the construction industry.  And herein lies the opportunity.

While many of the recommendations made by the NRMCA require hard dollar investment, many more are a function of awareness and opportunity.   For example, reducing the footprint of concrete delivery is based on several choices:  truck size, delivery route, timing, minimizing truck idling, truck maintenance. There are choices to be made about return concrete, truck washing.   It is also a result of decisions of mix design (i.e. self-consolidating concrete for faster placement), and agreements on truck route access.   This is a complex and interwoven combination of many decisions, by many people.   It is a unique opportunity to mobilize this army around a common mindset of sustainability, embedded in the very fabric of every enterprise decision.

So I commend the NRMCA for adopting Architecture 2030,  CEMEX for their investment in a wind turbine,  applaud the continued research through MIT, and fully endorse the concrete industry Joint Sustainability Initiative.   And I also hope that our industry reaches out to the key link in all of this – the very motive for sustainability -  people.

 

Glass Palaces

My little cottage is surrounded by the brilliant display of fall foliage, trees giving us a last heroic flash before they move into winter’s hibernation – and I’m thinking of growing plants.   So I helped my sister install a small hoop house to extend the growing season a bit.  It felt great to get some dirt under my fingernails, and to use my brain cells on something practical.

Truth be told, I’ve always been a bit fascinated with greenhouses.  There is no finer museum visit than to the old Victorian style conservatories.    I’ll admit that I’m no great botanist, and so can’t really appreciate the uniqueness of the lilies (which seem to be the prize possessions of these glass palaces).   But I have good memories – especially on one winter’s visit to Pittsburgh, where my friend kindly deposited me in the Phipps Conservatory, so I could sit in the desert room and bake some heat into my bones.  

Aside from the propagation of exotic species, greenhouses can serve a very practical function of providing fresh produce, especially greens.   While some vegetables or fruits ship and pack well, such as apples, I always felt that greens are best grown locally, picked fresh and eaten that day.  The good news is that greenhouses can come in all sizes – from the largest greenhouse in the world (the Eden Project in Cornwall) to a simple PVC hoop house.

Regardless of the size, there are a few common denominators.  Greenhouses are essentially passive solar houses – without shading.  A well-designed production facility will normally provide an environment with temperature set points between 55 and 85°F, with humidity levels high enough to reduce water stress and low enough to discourage disease and fungus outbreaks in the crop. So excess heat and moisture needs to be removed  through some type of ventilation system.   For even a moderate sized greenhouse, an exhaust fan tied into a thermostat  can easily automate the process and can also have a timer set to regularly refresh the air.

The other issue is adding heat during the night, since there is essentially no insulation in the walls. The niftiest idea I came across was a subterranean heating and cooling system,  which might be understood as a closed loop geothermal recharge system.  It used the soil under the greenhouse as a type of phase change converter.   A small fan moves the excess daytime temperature and moisture into the ground, where the cooler soil causes the moisture to condense out, thus cooling the air, and returning into the greenhouse as cooler and dryer air.   During this daily cycle, the soil under the greenhouse stores the heat, which then radiates up through the greenhouse at night.    It seems to be a very low maintenance systems, which has been tested in the Rocky Mountains and in Alberta, Canada – some pretty cold places.

I've oftened wondered just how much food we could produce if we converted even a small amount of our garden or side-yard spaces to greenhouses.  Maybe not enough to affect the GNP, but maybe enough to increase our intake of fresh vegetables, and help our kids understand that food actually comes in plant form, and not just from a box.

Lightning, strike!

Today, I turned in the final chapter of my dissertation - and haven't a brain cell left to spare.  Fortunately, the world is full of brilliance, and my momentary dimness is easily replaced with the fascinating news from the other bright minds.  Thus with full acknowledgement, I am posting a research news released this month by the Frauenhofer institute.

what to do with the concrete canoe?

Whether the Pantheon in Rome or the German concrete canoe regatta, whether ultralight or decorative: concrete is unbelievably versatile and is the world’s most widely used material – next to water. It is made of cement, water and aggregate, a mixture of stone particles such as gravel or limestone grit in various sizes. However, the CO2 emissions, which are mainly the result of cement production, are problematic: the production of one ton of burned cement clinker of limestone and clay releases 650 to 700 kilograms of carbon dioxide. This means that every year 8 to 15 percent of global CO2 production is attributable to concrete manufacturing. And when it comes to recycling waste concrete, there is no ideal solution for closing the materials loop. In Germany alone the quantity of construction waste amounted to almost 130 million tons in 2010.

“This is an enormous material fl ow, but at the moment there is no effective recycling method for concrete rubble” explains Volker Thome from the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP from the Concrete Technology Group in Holzkirchen. The current method is to shred the concrete, which produces huge amounts of dust. At best, the stone fragments end up as sub-base for roads. “This is downcycling,” explains Thome, in other words, simply the reutilization of raw materials, the quality of which deteriorates from process to process. On the other hand, if it were possible to separate the stone particles from the cement stone, the gravel could easily be reused as an aggregate in new cement – a first decisive step in the direction of recycling waste concrete. “The recovery of valuable aggregate from waste concrete would multiply the recycling rate by a factor of around ten and thereby increase it to 80 percent,” says Thome. If it were also possible to obtain a cement substitute from waste concrete, the cement industry’s CO2 emissions would be considerably reduced. To achieve these goals Thome revived a method that Russian scientists already developed in the 1940s then put on ice: electrodynamic fragmentation. This method allows the concrete to be broken down into its individual components – aggregate and cement stone.

Recycling valuable components

Using this approach, the researchers in Holzkirchen are unleashing a veritable storm of lightning bolts. “Normally, lightening prefers to travel through air or water, not through solids,” says Thomas. To ensure the bolt strikes and penetrates the concrete, the expert uses the Russian scientists‘ expertise. More than 70 years ago they discovered that the dieletric strength, i.e. the resistance of every fl uid or solid to an electrical impulse, is not a physical constant, but changes with the duration of the lightning. “With an extremely short fl ash of lightning – less than 500 nanoseconds – water suddenly attains a greater dielectric strength than most solids,” explains Thome. In simple terms, this means that if the concrete is under water and researchers generate a 150 nanosecond bolt of lightning the discharge runs preferably through the solid and not through the water.

Revisiting the CPTED Continuum: does environment affect our behavior?

The concept of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) ) had been debated since the 70’s.  Experiments  with using design to fight crime can be found all around the world.  A recent article about the cooperation between developers and the police department in the Anacostia River front in the DC area is just one of the latest examples.

All for one, and one for all

Theories abound, and I don’t claim any level of expertise,  but there were a few concepts which seemed of particular interest.   CPTED is not about crime prevention, but about reducing the opportunity for  those with criminal inclination. Also, the reduction of crime is not displaced and relocated elsewhere.  In other words, what’s going on here is removing the temptation for people who haven’t necessarily set out to commit a crime, but would fall prey given the chance.   It recognizes that much crime is committed by residents and other legitimate user of the space.

Some of the recommendations are to clean up the property, make sure there are good sight lines from the house to neighbors and the street, spot lights with motion sensors. But the key recommendation is Community policing.  Yup.  Turn the bad cop to a good cop.  And while we’re at it , re-instate the nosy neighbor brigade.    It works on so many levels.  People caring for people.

replacing graffiti with a mural

If I think about this as a continuum, with crime being the bad, and a neighborhood watch coming toward the center, with good protecting against bad, can we continue this concept up the continuum.  Is there a mirrored positive?   So can environment start supporting good behavior?   If negative opportunities can trigger a negative crime reaction in human beings,   can positive opportunities trigger good Samaritan behavior?   

pitching in for some grape stomping

If this is the case, maybe there is another field of design which could be developed.  Instead of crime prevention, it would be a design specialty in creating community opportunities,  humanitarian behavior, random acts of kindness… funny how there isn’t even an antonym for crime…    This might be the use of a space, for a pocket park, for an alley garden.  It might be getting a community project to paint a mural on a wall which has had graffiti problems,  it might be sprucing up the curb and gutter, and putting in bike racks.  I’d have to give this some more thought – but it would be great to come up with a word/ name to express this idea.