Natural Urges

I went to a USGBC talk a couple nights ago on natural ventilation in Denver at the REI flagship building. To me this is a very sexy subject. Natural building ventilation is elegant, efficient, and democratic. The room REI built for meetings was sadly not these things. A huge tube above us with a few diffusers into the room mocked the conversation as it first belted us with constantly changing air temperatures and then turned off and left us in an increasingly stuffy room. I mention this not to give REI a hard time but to point out that we sadly do not have enough really well designed buildings in which to embrace. The Denver REI downtown flagship building is a marvel. From its underground parking with a park on top to the enormous factory, turned museum, turned retail this is a cool building. I feel a little guilty complaining really, sort of like you met someone famous and all you mention about them is that they passed gas. The REI building is neat, but it did not serve one of its primary duties that night, keep it occupants comfortable. So as maybe a hundred and fifty or so folks listened over the HVAC’s din about how to build big buildings without HVAC and still make them comfortable. I’m sure the point was drilled home quite well. I can’t think of any seminars, conferences, or talks I have attended that were in a great “green” building. The attendees usually complain about the lack of natural light, bad air, and someone might mention the irony (usually me, to be a smart ass.)
Think of a sexy person. Especially if you’re single, you want to know them. Maybe chat, flirt if you need too. If they come off ditzy, a little arrogant, you know, it quickly changes how comfortable you feel around them. It’s the same with a building. It looks good, it has all kinds of cool stuff, but if you hang out in it and it makes a lot of noise and is the wrong temperature you get second thoughts.
Natural ventilation is sexy simply because of its elegance. It is not easy to pull off and needs to be supplemented, but when it works it takes care of your air quality, comfort, sense of well being and gives you control all at the same time, with no juice. So when a room full of well behaved green building folks are contemplating their future influences in a well conceived space we can all think “Well that works….”
Hopefully the agenda of most people in that room was to make these really great buildings, but we could use a few more to hang out in, like the MCA just down the block. They had the smart idea that if you’re going to build a visual arts building then even the walls themselves should let in the natural light.