Page 271 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

HARD BARGAIN FARM, ACCOKEEK, MARYLAND 247

During the charrette we had to figure out where to locate the building, and one of the
criteria established before the charrette was that it had to be a zero net energy struc-
ture. In that climate, this requirement means we would need to collect quite a bit of
solar energy both for daylighting and heating. The ideal site for that would to place the
building out in the sun with good solar orientation. But the client’s preferred site was
on the location of an existing building that they wanted to either expand or replace.
The problem: that site was in the shade. It was tucked into some beautiful, mature
shade trees with very poor solar orientation. That was a real conflict that we had:
being able to deliver a really energy-efficient building while meeting the client’s
desire to use land that was previously disturbed. We kind of banged our heads against
this for a while in the charrette and we got to point where we were at a standstill. We
took a break for lunch. My joint venture partner from Re:Vision Architecture, Scott
Kelly, had gone outside with his lunch. We held the charrette on the project site and
he was sitting in the shade next to the existing building that the client wanted to ren-
ovate. He looked down between his feet where he was sitting and he saw that there
was a bunch of moss growing there. He started thinking about that. It was a shady
area, but stuff was growing there. So he thought, “Maybe our building needs to be
more like a moss and less like something that’s out in the sun.” He wasn’t sure what
that meant but it was just kind of an inspiration that came to him.

After lunch he shared that with the group and the proverbial light bulb came on in my
mind. I said, “Of course! We need two buildings. We need to split up the building and
have one set of uses on the existing site. It’s going to be the ‘moss’ building, and it’s
going to collect water, which is what moss does. It’s going to be a shady building and
take advantage of that environment. It can have big windows without worrying about
overhangs because it’s got shade. The other building should be out in the sunny field.
That’s going to be used for daytime uses and it’s going to collect solar energy. It’s
going to be like grass. It’s going to be the ‘grass’ building. (Fig. 14.2)”
That was huge. Within that half-hour of discussion, we had solved the problem. It was
because we had first banged our heads around this issue, then went away and let
things settle. Then someone had an inspiration in which they brought back and cre-
ated another set of inspirations amongst the group. That project is now moving along,
we’re in the design process and we now have two buildings. One will collect and
purify rainwater, which will be distributed to both buildings. That’s the Moss Lodge.
The Grass Building will sit down in the field. It is smaller but it will have big eaves,
big overhangs and photovoltaics. It will collect enough solar energy for both build-
ings. The two buildings will work together symbiotically.

There were other positive benefits of breaking the building up in terms of the uses.
By having the client’s staff in the room for the charrette, they were able to determine
how the uses for each building should be divided. We had input from both the client,
who knew how things were going to operate, and expertise from the design team, who
knew how to incorporate energy efficiency, water conservation and water efficiency
into the design.
This made us examine the idea of a living building. A building can’t really live on its
own because it’s got to take in energy, materials and water and put out waste. You