2013 Sustainability Crash Course

Imagine being able to spend one amazing day immersed in learning about sustainable design—and meeting the people who have pioneered new thinking and practices. On Saturday, March 23, 2013, Pratt’s CSDS presented the third annual Sustainability Crash Course, a day-long series of workshops with a host of experts from Pratt’s sustainable design faculty and elsewhere. The event was a great chance to hear experts discuss everything from Ecology and Biomimicry to Packaging Design and Life-Cycle Analysis. With over 22 speakers, it was a fantastic day of exploration and inspiration!

Scroll down to check out videos of some of the presentations. Check back soon as we add more!

Program Features:

PASSIVE HOUSE: NYC’S NEWEST GROWTH INDUSTRY

An in-depth presentation about Passive House, the energy conservation strategy developed in Germany, rooted in North American energy efforts of the 1970’s, now a growing global movement. Discussion will include Passive House basics, materials and construction concepts integral to Passive House, the energetic New York Passive House community and relevant policy development, case studies, the global perspective, and emergent opportunities to participate in the field.

Panelists:

Floris Keverling Buisman

Floris Keverling Buisman, CEO, Technical Director, CPHC, LEED AP. Floris attended Delft University of Technology, School of Architecture, The Netherlands. He worked on Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC Green Code Task Force, and was an Urban Green chapter board representative-at-large for North East Corridor Regional Council and certified WUFI instructor. Floris is a Certified Passive House Consultant and a founding board member of New York Passive House. Floris is a adjunct professor at City College of New York, has been a guest critic at Pratt Institute and Columbia University, and is co-founder of 475 High Performance Building Supply.

Buck Moorhead

Internationally Certified Passive House Designer / Passive House Institute, Germany.
North American Certified Passive House Consultant / Passive House Institute US.

Buck Moorhead is the principal of Buck Moorhead Architect, a Manhattan-based architectural firm founded in 1984. Focused on sustainable design, the firm has designed new construction, as well as completed large-scale re-use and renovations of residential, commercial, and institutional buildings throughout the metropolitan region. Buck is a founding partner of Building Consensus for Sustainability (BCS), a land use mediation and consensus building firm. Buck also assists the Pace Land Use Law Center in the training of local municipal officials and community opinion leaders throughout the region, including the mid-Hudson River valley and the Upper Delaware, in the areas of collaborative processes and techniques.

Buck is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Architecture. His land-use education includes: the Pace Land Use Law Center LULA program, Ecological Land Planning and Green Infrastructure Design at Harvard, land use mediation and consensus building with the Consensus Building Institute and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and ad-hoc regional collaboration with the Public Policy Research Institute of the University of Montana.

Stas Zakrzewski

Stas Zakrzewski is a founding partner of ZH Architects, an award-winning firm that has been recognized for its broad range of residential, commercial and urban design work. ZH^e [ZH energy + enclosure], approaches design with an early integration of sustainable energy saving features within its work. Mr. Zakrzewski earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture (University College in Dublin and Columbia University respectively). His professional experience has led him to work as an architect in Ireland, Japan and the US.  Mr. Zakrzewski has been licensed in the state of New York since 2000, is a LEED Accredited Professional and became a passive house consultant in 2011.

FROM GUITARS TO EAMES FURNITURE: WAYS IN WHICH SECONDARY ALUMINUM HAS BEEN UPCYCLED INTO GOODS OVER THE PAST CENTURY

The term upcycling, popularized in design since the late 1990s, reflects the creation of new goods from salvaged ones in a way that increases the value of the material.  The actual practice of upcycling has a longer history; this talk examines the use and reuse of aluminum with particular attention to ways in which secondary aluminum has been upcycled over the past century.

Carl A. Zimring

Carl A. Zimring is Associate Professor of Sustainability Studies at the Pratt Institute.  He is the author of Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America(Rutgers University Press, 2005) and general editor of the Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste: The Social Science of Garbage (SAGE, 2012).

PERFORMATIVE AND RESILIENT LANDSCAPES: PRESERVING NYC’S INFRASTRUCTURE WITH NATURAL INTERVENTIONS – Presented by LEAP (Leaders in Environmental Advocacy at Pratt)

With the more frequent occurrence of stronger weather events as a result of climate change, urban waterfronts have come under attack in the last couple of decades. In New York City, Hurricane Sandy demonstrated the power of water, and highlighted the fragility of our infrastructure. While proposals for strengthening our shores have concentrated on a mix of concrete seawalls and levees, local landscape architects, horticulturalists, and other scientists and designers have advocated for a more natural approach. These experts have long collaborated to construct wetlands, green roofs, urban farms, and other natural infrastructure. Can such designs and measures provide tools to create a more resilient landscape for our city?

This panel discusses the role of these resilient and performative landscapes in the preservation and success of New York City post-Sandy, and how policy makers can facilitate the transition towards ecologically-minded infrastructures.

Paul Mankiewicz – Horiculturalist/Landscape Expert 

Dr. Paul S. Mankiewicz, Executive Director of the Gaia Institute, received his Ph.D. from the City University of New York/New York Botanical Garden Joint Program in Plant Sciences. He holds patents on a modular, in-vessel composting system, an ultralightweight green roof plant growth medium, and a biogeochemical reactor to breakdown dioxins and PCBs. Past president of the Torrey Botanical Society & board member of the NYC Soil & Water Conservation District and former chair of the Bronx Solid Waste Advisory Board. He has designed and built natural landscapes to remove metals, hydrocarbons and excess nutrients from runoff and wastewater, capture carbon, and to slower air conditioning and heating costs.   Dr. Mankiewicz has constructed the first green roof in the Bronx, the first industrial-scale stormwater treatment meadow and green wall at Sims Recycling- a six acre truck-to-barge material handling facility on the Bronx River, the first process water/greywater treatment green roof on the Linda Tool Corporation in Red Hook, Brooklyn, the first ten of the Mayors PlaNYC 2030 enhanced tree pits for street-side storm water capture, as well as the first community garden constructed for lead mitigation as well as storm water capture – El Jardin del Paraiso on  E 4^th St. on the Lower East Side.

Carter Craft – Policy Advisor /Director of Long Range Planning and Development / Urban Assembly New York Harbor School

Carter Craft is one of the region’s leading waterfront planners with a long history of linking disparate constituencies and organizing innovative waterfront projects.  For the past 12 years Carter has been leading teams to design and implement planning, education, and infrastructure projects through multi-partner collaborations.

From 2000-2008, Carter built a number of data sets that together created the most comprehensive baseline of waterfront information in the NY-NJ metro area.  This dataset is now being used by, among others, the US Army Corps of Engineers in developing their Comprehensive Restoration Plan for the New York-New Jersey Harbor complex.

In 2002, he devised the Designing the Edge initiative to help develop bulkhead treatments that could help provide structural capacity and environmental benefits in the form of new habitat and wave attenuation.

As Co-Founder of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (1998-2008) Carter has one of the most extensive sets of waterfront networks as well as one of the broadest and deepest institutional memories on and around the City and Region’s waterfront.

Carter’s work with MWA helped grow and establish relationships with public, private, and NGO stakeholders all connected to the water in some way.  More recently his work with Outside New York consulting continues to allow him to cultivate relationships across these groups, as well as branch out more expansively into fields including energy, education, and development.

 Walter Meyer – Landscape/Architectural Designer

Walter Meyer is an urban designer with the firm Local Office Landscape Architecture (LOLA) which he founded in 2006 with Harvard classmate Jennifer Bolstad. Operating between infrastructure, urbanism and territory, the firm has won awards from across the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, public policy, science and art. The partners have been engaged as speakers and visiting critics at Harvard GSD, Columbia University, Penn, MIT, and Parsons New School.

The firm’s recent built work includes the Parque del Litoral, in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. The 2-mile-long urban beach park is the largest in the country. The park restructured the post-industrial shore into a dune forest that protects the city from sea surges, while phytoremediation wetlands protect the sea from the city’s polluted sewers. The design was endorsed by the Caribbean Tsunami Institute for coastal resiliency, and the project won an honor award from the AIA Puerto Rico, as well as a Cimex award for sustainable infrastructure. In 2009, the firm’s partners were recognized for their ‘leadership and innovation in the green economy’ by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington DC.

After Hurricane Sandy the firm partners started ‘Power Rockaways Resilience,’ a non-profit dedicated to fundraising and delivery of solar generators to volunteer centers throughout the coastal Rockaway peninsula in Queens, NY. Currently, Local Office is advising the National Parks Service, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Army Corps of Engineers on coastal resiliency in the New York Bight.

HOW TO OVERCOME POLICY AND PERMITTING CHALLENGES IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Sustainable development has become an increasingly fundamental force driving the growth of cities in recent years, specifically in New York City. Balancing the myriad of factors that impact the process of creating a sustainable project can be a challenge. When dealing with city agencies, investors, community members, and other stakeholders, sustainable developer must keep in mind all of their interest, while keeping in mind the goal of achieving the most economically, socially, and ecologically viable project. This panel will discuss how inclusive and processdriven strategies can facilitate these ventures, what obstacles can prevent their realization, and how policy work can alleviate some of these concerns while stepping towards an enduring urban realm.

Michael Bobker – Director, Building Performance Lab at City University of New York

MANUFACTURING IN NYC

Learn about the New York City’s efforts to support the reemergence of the urban manufacturer – a necessary aspect for creating sustainable communities. From makers, engineers and designers, new resources are being brought to support the manufacturing ecosystem.  Learn why it still makes sense to make things  despite the challenges in nyc.

Miquela Craytor

Miquela Craytor is the Director of the Industrial Initiatives for the Center for Economic Transformation Team at the NYC Economic Development Corporation overseeing the city’s new policy efforts concerning New York’s industrial sector. She was formally the executive director at Sustainable South Bronx.  In her former role, she oversaw implementation of several community-based planning, policy and design initiatives.  These included expansion of a nationally-recognized green-collar training program, leading a community visioning project where over 500 residents participated, launching the MIT sponsored SSBx FabLab and New York State’s first green roof tax incentive.

Ms. Craytor also served as the Senior Planner for Economic Development in the economic arm of the Bronx Borough President’s office.  She has formerly served on the advisory boards of the NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection’s Green Infrastructure Committee, DC Project, Green Jobs Green NY and the NYC Chapter of the Apollo Alliance.

She has over 8 years of urban planning experience.  Ms. Craytor is a nationally-recognized advocate for using sustainable development to address reinvestment in under-served communities.  Ms. Craytor received her BA in planning, public policy, and management from the Honors College at the University of Oregon and her MS in city and regional planning from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. She is also a 2010 Catto Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a 2010 BMW Transatlantic Fellow.

ECO-DESIGN AND LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS: STRATEGIES, TOOLS AND CASE STUDIES

Carolyn Schaeberle

Carolyn Schaeberle is the Assistant Director of the Center for Sustainable Design Studies. Growing up in New Hampshire, Carolyn dreamed of becoming a ballerina. Twenty years later, she hung up her pointe shoes and picked up a power drill. After receiving her Engineering degree from Smith College she went on to work for DEKA, developer of the Segway, where she worked on a high tech water purification system. While working at DEKA, she realized that she was more fascinated with how people interacted with the technologies being developed rather than the technologies themselves.

Carolyn received her Masters of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute. Her thesis, entitled “Beyond the Tap”, explored how improved water is managed in the developing world. She has taught in the Industrial Design department at Pratt. Since 2009, she has worked to develop the CSDS Resource Center on Pratt’s Brooklyn campus, acted as project manager for a number of CSDS Industry and Research projects, coordinates the annual Sustainability Crash Course and runs the CSDS internship Program.

THE COMMERCIAL SUCCESS OF SUSTAINABILITY

Brent Porter

HOW NEW YORK CITY CAN REDUCE ITS CARBON FOOTPRINT 90% BY 2050

The consensus amongst climate scientists is that major calamities await the world unless mankind drastically reduces its carbon emissions in the coming decades. Using computer modeling, citywide data sets, and insights from experts in the building and transportation communities, we have shown how New York City can lead the way towards climate change mitigation by reducing its carbon footprint by 90% by 2050. Since buildings produce 75% of NYC’s greenhouse gas emissions, our study focused on the built environment, but also included assessment of other components of the city’s emissions. We found that by utilizing currently available and immediately foreseeable technologies, we can rid New York City’s buildings of carbon pollution. Our cost analysis of these measures in buildings shows them to be essentially cost-neutral over time. Assessing additional sources of emissions, we have also shown that plausible reductions in the transportation and waste treatment sectors can take us the rest of the way to 90% overall reduction. This project was a collaboration between Daniel Wright and Richard Leigh at the Urban green Council.

Daniel Wright

Professor Daniel Wright teaches and develops courses in chemistry and physics at Pratt Institute. His current research interests include topics relating to the science of sustainability including life cycle analysis, building modeling/simulation, and sustainability metrics. His past academic research activities were focused on the study of organic materials for applications in optics. He has also worked in industry on the equipment and processes involved in the photolithographic patterning of microelectronics.

WHAT IS “SUSTAINABLE JEWELRY”?

 Christine Dhein

Christine Dhein is a jewelry designer, author, and educator. She is the assistant director and an instructor at the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts, where she developed the curriculum for the first ‘green’ jewelry class, a subject about which she has taught and lectured internationally. She is the author of numerous articles about environmentally friendly studio practices for jewelers, as well as founder and editor of Green Jewelry News, an electronic newsletter designed to keep jewelers up to date about eco-minded practices, materials, news and events. Christine’s jewelry has been exhibited throughout the USA, as well as in Europe and Australia, and can been seen in numerous books and magazines. Visit greenjewelrynews.com.

MINING CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE TO CREATE DESIGN SOLUTIONS

The work of designers can be part of the problem, or part of the solution, to the challenges of climate change. Accessing relevant climate change data to inform design solutions is tough for multiple reasons:

 – Information access and overload (hard to find, hard to wade through);

 – Deliberate profusion of disinformation (difficult to determine legitimacy);

 – Communication barriers (lack of translation into common language).

Discussion will review regional, national, and international sources of climate change science and provide methodologies for matching research needs to the design process. Case studies will be provided that demonstrate how makers of visual culture can move climate change communications forward through cooperation with scientists.

Kim Landsbergen

Dr. Kim Landsbergen is Associate Professor of Cross-Disciplinary Studies and Director of Liberal Arts at Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD), where she teaches courses in ecology and sustainability. Dr. Landsbergen represents CCAD within PALS – the Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability – an organization of 30+ independent colleges of Art and Design that collaborate to share resources to better integrate sustainability into art and design programs.  Her research explores the structure and function of forests as they process water and carbon and respond to changing climate. Dr. Landsbergen holds an appointment as a Visiting Research Scientist in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University. She received her Ph.D. in Forest Ecosystem Analysis from the University of Washington, and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. She is a certified senior ecologist with the Ecological Society of America and owner of CarbonEcology Consulting.

DESIGNING FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES: BIOLITE’S PLAN FOR IMPACT

A great product works only if people want to use it. It’s just that simple – and just that difficult. Hear about BioLite’s origins as a startup clean cookstove company and how sustainable design informs its product development, business model, and vision for a better world.

Erica Rosen

BE THE CHANGE – KEYNOTE PANEL

The complex nature of our response to the impact of human behavior on our environment requires social, political and psychological collaboration. Our three panelists are key participants in the interconnected worlds that connect design activism, psychology, design strategy, and urban policy. This esteemed group will have an interactive discussion around question, inspired by Ghandi, “How can we, as urban citizens, bring about the change we long to create in the world?”

Panelists:

Yeohlee Teng

Mary McBride, Ph.D

Adam Friedman