Bill Sloane, a partner at MSGS Architects in Olympia, Washington, has said “yes” to our request for answers to our 5 questions. Bill is an avid sailboat enthusiast, skier, and Father to 4 outstanding and awesome children. His daughter took her turn accompanying her Father on the Seattle To Portland Bike ride this summer.

Bill Sloane

Thank you Bill for sharing your thoughts and ideas and welcome to the Biking Architect:

And the 5 Questions are:

1. Why did you choose Architecture to express yourself in your work? I discovered in College that I have good math skills, graphic skills and artistic skills. I discovered the School of Architecture building on the campus of my undergraduate college and loved what I saw in there. I was an Environmental Science undergraduate major and was very concerned about the use of energy, especially in the built environment. I applied to architecture school with the hope of being able to make the built environment more energy efficient.
2. What was/is your favorite project and accomplishment? The smallest project I have ever worked on, with a 6’ x 6’ floor plan, is my most satisfying project. It is a brick clock tower in downtown Shelton Washington. The entire project was paid for through community donations of money, labor and time. It was extremely rewarding to see the energy such a community project brings forward.
3. Have you taken the Architecture2030 Challenge and how are you working LEED into your designs and projects? I have not taken the Architecture2030 Challenge. All of the project I work on have sustainable design features in them, some more and some less. Projects that are not trying to achieve a LEED certification still have many sustainable features. Natural ventilation of buildings using thermodynamic principals is found throughout my work.
4. How do you challenge a client to use green, sustainable, or alternative energy resources or incorporate green design when there is no code or financial incentives to comply? I talk about design from a sustainable viewpoint from the beginning of a job. I talk about the life cycle costs of each decision made in the design of a building. There is much acceptance of sustainable ideas in the current market place.
5. What impact can Architecture have on our Global Environmental Future? New building represent less than one tenth of one percent of all the building in the world. Building great sustainable and green new buildings will not have a significant affect on the energy consumption of the built environment or the planet Earth until all existing buildings retrofit themselves with new sustainable systems and operational practices. Architects need to look to the existing built environment more than the newly built environment in order to achieve a significant and lasting impact on our environmental future.

We would enjoy reading your comments and making connections. Please let us know if you are an Architect who would like to be featured in 5 Questions. Thank you and let’s keep the conversation going.

Garner Miller the newest partner at MSGS Architects in Olympia, Washington has said “yes” to our request for answers to our 5 questions. Garner is the Father of two young sons and is married to an Educator. He is a sailing enthusiast, Sand in the City sculptor, bicyclist, and all around good team manager and designer.

Garner Miller

Thank you Garner for sharing your thoughts and welcome to the Biking Architect:

1. Why did you choose Architecture to express yourself in your work? We live in the ‘built environment’ (as my college professors liked to call it) almost 100% of the time, except during those rare occasions we can get out into nature far enough to get away from any man-made alterations. Whether in a building, out on the street, or in a park, somebody designed the space. While to most people most of the time the spaces they are in seem to be ‘background’, the reality is the qualities of spaces have a profound influence on the individual person, as well as the collective community. As an Architect, I have an incredible opportunity and responsibility to design spaces that create positive influences and make our world a better place to live in. Though designers will never top nature for its beauty, we do have the ability to complement it, and the responsibility not to destroy it. I guess I chose Architecture to express these values because the canvass is very real- we set the direction for millions of dollars worth of change in our environment every year, and to actually see the positive effects of our work is very rewarding.
2. What was/is your favorite project and accomplishment? Winston Churchill once said “We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us”. Whitney Houston once said “I believe the children are our future…” Is it ok to quote Whitney Houston? I have had the fortunate opportunity to design several schools in Western Washington, and probably partly because my wife is a passionate educator, I believe my greatest accomplishments have been to create positive learning environments for children. It’s certainly been some of the most rewarding work I feel I’ve accomplished. A project that comes to mind was a new Junior High School in Redmond WA- This was a project where the community, teachers, staff, students and parents all took such an active role in the design direction for the school my role as designer was much more to facilitate and organize their wonderful ideas and give them life. The results were not only incredibly functional and beautiful, but everyone connected with the building took such a pride of ownership in the design. Especially the students, who basically designed the main lobby to be integrated with art concepts they were creating with the project’s artist. So in this case, the building created a positive learning environment not only with the completed structure, but with the design process itself.
3. Have you taken the Architecture2030 Challenge and how are you working LEED into your designs and projects? I believe strongly in working toward carbon-neutral buildings. In the US, over half of all energy consumed goes to constructing and running buildings, and they account for almost 40% of the carbon emissions. Everyone talks about cars- and that’s important- but when you look at the numbers, buildings are far worse culprits for negative effects on the environment. The good news is technology is moving very rapidly toward this end, now that there are capitalistic incentives to do so. LEED is the most recognized benchmark for sustainable buildings, our firm is currently constructing 2 projects under this program. However sustainable design principles permeate all our buildings. Having said that, there’s so much more we could explore. LEED does a good job of encouraging current strategies for green building, but doesn’t always account for pushing the envelope with new ideas and technologies. The trick to getting to 2030 will be to do just that- and take our clients along with us.
4. How do you challenge a client to use green, sustainable, or alternative energy resources or incorporate green design when there is no code or financial incentives to comply? This seems to be one of the greatest challenges we face right now. The truth is, in most cases, if there is no code requirement or financial incentive, you need to appeal to their sense of responsibility to the planet and the future, and that constructing a building actually has a pretty large impact. Fortunately or unfortunately, we’ve reached a tipping point where the combination of code requirements and the cost of energy have created the situation where the financial benefits of green design are being realized. So in essence, it’s a reactionary response, not a pro-active response. But at least it’s a response.
5. What impact can Architecture have on our Global Environmental Future? With buildings accounting for such a huge percentage of energy use and emissions, Architects may have the greatest opportunity of just about anyone to have a positive impact in the near future. With that comes a great responsibility, and it’s not something we can do alone. It takes clients, jurisdictions, engineers, etc. all moving in the same direction to affect change. That’s our greatest challenge. But I am encouraged. We’re moving out of the fringe stage with green design, and it’s on the way to becoming every bit as much a part of mainstream ‘Architecture’ as building with concrete and steel became a century ago.

This is a spot where we will be asking architects a bit about their craft and how they integrate green design into their work.

And the 5 Questions are:

1. Why did you choose Architecture to express yourself in your work?
2. What was/is your favorite project and accomplishment?
3. Have you taken the Architecture2030 Challenge and how are you working LEED into your designs and projects?
4. How do you challenge a client to use green, sustainable, or alternative energy resources or incorporate green design when there is no code or financial incentives to comply?
5. What impact can Architecture have on our Global Environmental Future?

So I now ask you to give our first 5 Questions Architect a warm welcome.

Name: Joseph Ferraro

Firm: Ferraro Choi

Website: http://www.ferrarochoi.com/

Ferraro Choi

1.  Why did you choose Architecture to express yourself in your work?

I think I didn’t choose architecture, but it chose me. Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be an architect. It was hardly a conscience decision, so it must have been instilled genetically or by artificial intelligence. My father had a construction company so my brother and I were immersed into the building industry as soon as we could hold onto a hammer. (He’s also an architect) In 1967 after graduating from high school, I enrolled into the Interior Design department at Pratt Institute and received a BFA in 1971. I worked in the design field in New York City for ten years for interior designers, industrial designers and architects before relocating to Hawaii in 1982. I enrolled at the University of Hawaii’s in 1984 and completed undergraduate and graduate classes at the School of Architecture before receiving my registration in Hawaii in 1988. I love all aspects of the design process. It solves problems in a logical and systematic manner. It helps people directly in their daily lives providing the basic needs of shelter and a healthy environment. It produces tangible results that are measurable and visually rewarding, and when done well, reduces the footprint on our environment.

2.  What was/is your favorite project and accomplishment?

It would have to be South Pole Station. We started survey trips and gathering research for the project in1992 and the actual design in 1996. The design process allowed me to make more than a dozen trips to the Antarctic to meet with scientists, contractors and facility managers in planning for the project. I was privileged to head a team of incredibly talented engineers from Alaska, Canada, and the mainland US. I also worked with people from the Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research Laboratory in New Hampshire and NASSA offices throughout the country on the unique remote location aspects of this research facility. It was a special opportunity to design for a pristine environment with parallels for Hawaii.  In January of 2008, I was one of a select group of dignitaries to fly to the station for its commemoration.

3.  Even though there were trials and tribulations in designing and implementing the NW Regional conference of the AIA in Hawaii October 2008, what did you learn from the conference and preparation?

The theme of our conference, Crossroads of Design and Diversity, turned out to be well suited for the spectrum of people and ideas represented at the three day event. Even though I had a great deal to do with the selection of the theme and the steering the development of the programs, I was surprised how much I learned about the diversity. I found and came to appreciate the differences not only in our region but within our local Hawaii components. There was diversity in brainstorming ideas and decision making in our planning group. I took part in monthly planning conferences with the past and upcoming conference planners in Hong Kong, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Japan.  During those one hour calls I heard diverse perspectives on how the conference is viewed in other parts of our region and what their themes would be. I attended Hong Kong’s and Spokane’s conferences at the geographic and cultural extremes of our region and found that as diverse as the people, cultures, languages, climates, politics and landscapes are in those two regions, what seems to hold us all together is our fellowship as architects and our dedication to finding design solutions for our diverse environments.

4.  Have you taken the Architecture2030 Challenge and how are you working LEED into you designs and projects?

I have been designing sustainably for the last 26 years in my Hawaii-based practice. My partners and I took on a green challenge back then because our islands have been on a fragile life line for energy and food supplies for decades. As was reiterated in our AIA Northwest & Pacific Conference, Hawaii has approximately two weeks of food and fuel on hand at any time even though we are blessed with ample resources and weather to be independent in both. Currently over 85% of our energy is produced from imported oil.

To aid our state in turning this situation around, our office has been designing with the LEED system since 1998. We took an active part in the LEED pilot program for Commercial Interiors (CI) and designed the first LEED CI gold project in Hawaii. We have also designed the first LEED for new construction (NC) Platinum project in Kailua Kona, Hawaii which was an AIA Committee on the Environment’s Top Ten projects for 2007. We have taken the 2030 challenge to heart but since there is no actual measurement system at hand, we continue to monitor our progress through LEED and Laboratories for the 21st Century, (Labs21).

5.  What impact can Architecture have on our Global Environmental Future?

What we have heard is that the building industry uses approximately 60% of the energy resources in the United States. We know that it has a huge impact on resources for materials, energy and jobs. By producing energy efficient buildings we can reduce our carbon imprint and extend our available energy fuels. By producing environmentally friendly buildings we can also reduce illness and provide for a better quality of life for their occupants. So we as architects can have a tremendous impact on the global environment.

There cannot be any substantial change in our environment to curb global warming without the participation of architects.