Majora Carter

President, MCG Consulting

No matter how good you believe your product, your idea, your policy, or even how good you think your intentions are, it doesn’t matter if nobody is “buying” it. There are tried-and-true ways of getting people to buy things and “educating” folks is far down the list. Relationship building continues to be a leading strategy in the foreseeable future, so let’s work with it!

Serving on the Board of USGBC for four years, I was able to see its good products, ideas, policies, and intentions firsthand. But I come from the South Bronx, and my consulting firm works in the “South Bronx” you find in every city around the world: “low status” communities where good intentions have come and gone for generations, producing less than expected results.

People debate why that is: not enough money, spending on the wrong things, insufficient community education; and all of them are probably correct.

Whatever success my company has achieved is based on principles used in nearly every successful commercial product launch: identifying and developing a market that demands what you have. Otherwise it doesn’t make any difference how good that product is. It’s that simple.

But nothing simple is ever easy. As U.S. reurbanization gains momentum, increasing pressures on real estate development affect people at all levels of influence and income. How we engage communities with USGBC’s gospel of Environmental Equality now— during these pivotal years of geographic transition from sprawl to density—will be a continuing factor in the level of demand for that which USGBC has to offer.

The first step is an initiative we use called Advisory Boards: a collection of local people curated to avoid the usual suspects who often come with preconceptions and motivations based on funders’ jargon and assumptions about what poor people “should” want, or get, or deserve.

Advisory Boards in this context are meant to collect real concerns among the broader community and generate fresh ideas by bringing together disparate voices within a geographic area comprised of business owners, residents, and local influencers.

USGBC is taking a leading role in the development of its long-term market viability by supporting this kind of relationship with amazing communities in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles, and on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota.

Once you build real relationships with people who are motivated to improve their communities, the potential demand for your product can be detected in a more accurate way. Then, you launch a beta version of your offerings, learn from how people react, refine, reiterate, and expand.

When you market from a position of mutual self-interests, your chances of effective and ongoing engagement improve dramatically and can leverage any resources that might otherwise meet the typical deadends that plague philanthropic sectors in all markets.

I am different than many of my peers in the urban and building design worlds, and I’m also set apart from most of the people in the community where I was raised and continue to live, work, and invest in.

My experiences in both worlds are coming together in ways that give me so much hope for how USGBC and the United States can effectively develop market demand for environmental equality in ways that none of us can predict—but all of us will benefit from.

LEED ON,

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Multifamily housing such as the Station House shown here are benefitting from Fannie Mae’s Green Initiative program.

Fannie Mae rewards sustainable buildings with lower interest rates.

The site of an old police station in Maplewood, New Jersey, has been transformed into a shining example of adaptive reuse and the real financial benefits of achieving a green building certification. Built on a once environmentally contaminated site, The Station House is a 50-unit, mid-rise, multifamily rental property that earned the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification for its use of recycled materials, efficient water management, and green power.

In April of this year, Prudential Real Estate Investors (PREI) acquired the Station House property using Fannie Mae’s new lower interest rate on loans for properties with green building certifications, including LEED, ENERGY STAR^®, Enterprise’s Green Communities Criteria, and five others. Multifamily owners may receive a reduction in the all-in interest rate of 10 basis points (for example 4.0 percent to 3.9 percent) for refinance, acquisition, or on a supplemental loan if the green building certification is awarded and current at the time of loan close. In the case of the Station House, this reduction will translate to a savings of more than $100,000 over the life of the nearly $10.2 million loan originated by Wells Fargo.

“For the first time, Fannie Mae multifamily lenders will be able to reward owners for investing in high-performing properties,” explains Chrissa Pagitsas, director of the Fannie Mae Multifamily Green Initiative. “Our reduced interest rate for properties with a green building certification is the only one of its kind for multifamily properties in the US. It shows Fannie Mae’s commitment to making the triple bottom line tangible. The Station House is a great example: It is a financially stable property, provides quality housing that is more affordable, and has a lower impact on the environment. It’s a clear win-win-win for Fannie Mae, our lenders, our borrowers, their tenants, and the bond investor market.” As of September 2014, Fannie Mae has securitized more than $140 million in Green MBS backed by Fannie Mae’s Green Financing loans.

The Station House property’s former use and key location adjacent to the Maplewood train station are an important part of the revitalization of the community. “These types of projects invest in the local community while providing quality housing. These projects make our mission and purpose tangible,” adds Pagitsas.

Wells Fargo, one of Fannie Mae’s 25 Multifamily lenders, recommended its borrower, PREI, take advantage of the new Green Building Certification Pricing Break. “Our lender network plays an important role in communicating our Green Financing options to the thousands of multifamily borrowers in the United States,” says Bob Simpson, vice president of the Fannie Mae Multifamily Affordable, Green and Small Loans Business. “We are thrilled that Wells Fargo recognized the availability of our Green Financing option to benefit PREI.”

In addition to providing loans to multifamily owners with incentives for the owner to reduce the property’s energy and water consumption, the Green Initiative delivers analytical tools for multifamily owners, and conducts research centering on the relationship between financial performance and sustainability. “We provide innovative thinking beyond just financing,” Pagitsas adds, “to create real long-term value for our borrowers.” She cites Fannie Mae’s multiyear collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on something previously missing in the market—an ENERGY STAR^® score for existing multifamily properties.

To further the relationship between financial performance and sustainability, Fannie Mae has its multifamily borrowers report their property’s ENERGY STAR^® score to their lender and Fannie Mae annually if the property is located in a city with an energy benchmarking law or if the property was financed with one of Fannie Mae’s Green Financing loans.

“We are looking at how the financial performance of a property relates to its energy performance over time,” says Pagitsas. “With this data, tracked over time, we can share with the industry the value of energy efficiency.” With this information, Fannie Mae aims to provide both the real estate and green building industries the answers to some key questions about the relationship between financial performance, energy performance, and green building certified properties.

“That is the big picture,” she adds. “We provide financing, we hit the triple bottom line, but the end goal is to have the financial and energy metrics that tell the story in a language that finance professionals, green building professionals, and policy professionals understand to make smart business decisions around real estate and green building.”

The interest rate reduction for Green Building Certified properties is just one option in Fannie Mae’s growing Green Financing offerings. While the pricing break for a Green Building Certification benefits owners who have already made an investment in greening the property—and don’t need additional dollars going forward—a new mortgage loan product feature called Green Rewards just launched this spring assists owners wanting to make a green investment. Green Rewards offers the same 10 basis point pricing break, as well as additional loan dollars to finance needed energy- and water-saving property improvements at an existing property.

Since their launch, Fannie Mae’s Green Financing pipeline has grown, says Pagitsas. “We are looking forward to announcing the next deal soon.”

The growing interest, she adds, is noteworthy for its diversity. There is demand from all types and sizes of borrowers and multifamily property owners located from the coasts to the Midwest. “It tells me that this is a growing market,” Pagitsas says. “And the end result is better quality housing for all.”

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Appleton Farms preserves cultural and historical landscapes while practicing sustainability.

Walking down a pristine gravel road past the fields of grazing Jersey cows, meandering stone walls, and historic dairy barns, a pastoral landscape unfolds. Appleton Farms in Hamilton and Ipswich, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest and largest (with more than a thousand acres) continuously operating farms in the United States. Established in 1638 by a land grant to Samuel Appleton, the farm today preserves a bucolic landscape, agricultural traditions, and historic farm buildings that are disappearing in the eastern part of the state.

The working farm is just one of 114 properties located on more than 25,000 acres across the state under the auspices of The Trustees of Reservations, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts that not only preserves land and historic buildings but also works in ways to support the vitality and sustainability of the communities in which they exist. The Trustees was founded by landscape architect Charles Eliot in 1891. The properties are open to the public with a vision toward creating more healthy, active, and green communities across the Commonwealth. Acquired by the Trustees in 2000, Appleton Farms has the ambitious goal to become carbon-neutral in its near future. “This is no small feat,” says Jim Younger, director of structural resources for the Trustees. Because farming can be incredibly damaging to the environment—fertilizer, livestock production, and food distribution all create greenhouse gases—farming has become a leading contributor to climate change.

Organic Growers

To move toward this goal, The Trustees began to farm the land sustainably. “All the vegetables are grown in an environmentally sustaining manner,” says Ryan Wood, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program manager on the property. Practices are guided by the National Organic Standards, which means synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides are not used. Instead, the farmers employ aged animal manure compost and organic fertilizers. Legume cover crops are planted to regulate nitrogen, build soil organic matter, and prevent erosion. Seeds are organic when available and include heirloom and open pollinated varieties. Wood controls pests through the use of crop rotations, biological insecticides, and cultural practices such as the use of row covers. “Some bugs we’ll just tolerate,” he notes. “We grow about 200 different vegetable, fruit, and flower crops on the farm.”

Left: Appleton Farms resident cheese maker, Anna Cantelmo, uses the Jersey cows’ rich butterfat milk to make divine cheese, which is sold through Appleton Farms’ dairy store. Appleton Farms is open to the public and holds educational events during the year on the importance of local, sustainable food production.

Appleton has become a dynamic resource for the community. Its CSA program established in 2002 offers shares to CSA members to receive fresh produce, flowers, and other farm products. The 100 shares available in the first year sold out in two weeks. Today 650 families have shares in the CSA. Once a week, they head to the farm to pick up a bag of up to 15 different varieties of produce. Wood, who turned to organic agriculture in 2008, keeps a weekly blog for CSA members sharing the joys and wows of farming at Appleton.

The old dairy barn has been restored at Appleton Farms. Today 22 dairy cows live at Appleton and all the milk is processed onsite.

This Old House

Another sustainable move that The Trustees made was to renovate the original farmhouse at Appleton Farms. In 2010, work began to convert the property’s 1794 farmhouse into the Appleton Farms Visitor Center. Today a net-positive energy building, the farmhouse serves as a demonstration model for sustainable restoration for other Trustees properties. The renovation was made possible by an outpouring of support from donors. Approximately $1.75 million has gone into the restoration, including endowment funds. The Trustees hired the local firm Allsopp Design in Hamilton for the planning, engineering, demolition, structural repairs, and exterior renovation of the house.

“More than 85 percent of the demolition and construction waste was recycled or reused in the process,” notes Younger. Salvaged lumber became shelving to hold educational materials, and unpainted plaster from the house was composted, which was a great lime source for the soil. “Deep energy retrofits—spray foam insulation, air handlers, dual flush toilets, cisterns to capture rainwater, and solar array panels were placed on the property,” notes Younger. “The facility serves as a home base for all of the farm’s programs,” says Younger. While the farm is heading toward a carbon neutral goal, having cut its carbon footprint from 380 metric tons to 184 over the course of five years, the house is a net positive energy producer—producing more energy than it uses. Appleton Farms also secured the funding to incorporate a solar water heater for the dairy barn and an electric ATV for getting around on the farm. There was also an ingenious system put in place that collects and reuses heat from the farm’s dairy cows.

Sustainable Farming

Fresh eggs are collected daily from the farm’s hen house and free-range grass-fed beef cows graze in the Great Pasture. During the haying season, the farm produces thousands of bales of hay to feed the livestock, and all farm waste is composted and turned out on the fields. Hundreds of families visit the farm during the growing season to pick their own vegetables as a part of the CSA.

Dairy farmer Scott Rowe makes his way before daybreak each morning to milk the Jersey cows, which have an integral history on the farm. In the 1800s, the Appletons brought Jersey cows to this country for the first time for their high butter fat content. Today 22 Jersey cows roam the property. The milk is processed onsite to make cheese and yogurt. Rowe does not use antibiotics on the cows, which he says have “low stress and are well cared for.” He does not push for the most milk production but rather provides more targeted care. “The old ways of farming are simply not working. What The Trustees are doing is the future of the New England Farm—creating a local sustainable model is going to be the driver,” he says.

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In part, that shift is what led to UDC’s conjunction with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Together they have identified five areas of priority to enhance food systems and production: Global Food Security, Food Safety, Sustainable Energy, Climate Change, and Childhood Obesity/Nutrition. The business-incubator kitchen will be a space in which to address some of these issues while also helping DC residents take steps toward self-employment. “We will use it also as a means for…training those who maybe have mom-and-pop recipes and want to become caterers or want to have their own line of food products,” explains Hare. “We have this opportunity to get them certified to work, standardize their recipes [for use] in a commercial kitchen, and [help] them start up and minimize liability.”

Above: The incubator kitchen is slated to open November 2015.

As a university-based endeavor, education will be the kitchen’s core. In addition to a brick and mortar facility, nutrition education and business training will be inherent in the program. Educators, like Hare and Dr. Dwane Jones, director of the Center for Sustainable Development College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) will provide the training. “It’s special because, to my knowledge, we are the only university that is doing this. It’s more prevalent in the commercial industry,” notes Dr. Jones.

The college comprises five land-grant centers, three of which will play a major role in the project—the Center for Sustainable Development; the Center for Nutrition, Diet, and Health; and the Center for Urban Agriculture, the last of which is the starting point for the food production and harvesting component of the model. “We are unique in that we are a land-grant university,” says Dr. Jones, “which means we have the task of taking education out from the main campus into the community—relevant research-based education.” UDC is also the only land-grant institution in the nation with an exclusively urban emphasis. They receive funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to offer agriculture-based programming. Every other land-grant university in the nation has a rural component. UDC does not. Their territories are strictly urban, which means they focus on micro- and small-scale urban farming. They work with community gardens and the DC Housing Authority, with whom they are developing a modern urban farm on three acres of vacant land; it is adjacent to a metro stop and easily accessed. They are also currently mapping underutilized and vacant lots as well as potential green roofs for future acquisition and use. Additionally, the university owns and operates a 143-acre research farm in nearby Beltsville, Maryland, that serves as an agricultural experiment station, where they test innovative ideas and technologies in order to replicate those ideas for application in the District. The university is also home to one of the largest, if not the largest, food production green roofs in the District.

The Center for Nutrition, Diet, and Health does the majority of related outreach and community education around the Food Hub’s mission. UDC currently has 483 sites including public schools, faith-based organizations, and nonprofits with which they partner to provide food handling certification training. They also do demonstrations at farmers’ markets. “We have the visibility already,” notes Hare. What was lacking, prior to the kitchen idea, was a mechanism for getting people properly trained to go into business for themselves. “We have had a lot of individuals express interest in this process, so we are hoping the commercial kitchen, in terms of the food preparation, will be able to support this initiative.”

Once the kitchen is up and running in November, interested parties can submit an application to be vetted by a panel. “They need to demonstrate their motivation,” says Dr. Jones. “Those who are accepted will receive technical support to be successful in the space.”

Workshops held at the congregations spread the word about mitigating waste, growing vegetables in the church gardens, and carpooling. Top right photo: Kathy Arnold; Left and bottom right photos: Kari R. Frey, FREYtography

Of course, the program’s results will be measured. Faculty members plan to assess the impact of the system in terms of how it is (or is not) creating “healthy people and a healthy city.” Those overseeing it will first capture baseline data and then use surveys and interviews to determine behavior modifications of participants and impacts on society at large. “There are many different facets we are pursuing with regard to that,” says Dr. Jones. “We call it the ‘So What Factor.’ We are engaging in all of these activities and projects and initiatives…so what? What does it mean to an individual? What does it mean to the community? What does it mean to the District as a whole? And because we are the nation’s capital, what does it mean for the nation, as other institutions and entities look to us for leadership?” There will be a full spectrum of analyses to follow. Dr. Jones calls it the “triple bottom line”—the social, environmental, and economic impacts of this project will be the true measure of its success.

In addition to the commercial kitchen space, UDC is launching a food truck—one whose purpose goes beyond straight food distribution. “We are designing and purchasing a nutrition and education vehicle…and using it to build Food Hubs—at least one in each ward of the district,” says Dr. Jones. It will be yet another training tool for aspiring entrepreneurs in the culinary industry. “It will be used as a mobile research and education vehicle.” According to Hare, the food truck is part of a process that integrates research into the Food Hub equation. “Every one of our centers has a role to play in supporting our Food Hubs in terms of research and community education. That’s how we are looking at it. We see it as a mechanism to continuously improve. It’s not a static system—it’s really dynamic.”

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Workshops held at the congregations spread the word about mitigating waste, growing vegetables in the church gardens, and carpooling. Top right photo: Kathy Arnold; Left and bottom right photos: Kari R. Frey, FREYtography

Building codes in many areas of the country are becoming incrementally greener, with the state of California in the lead after the 2010 adoption of the nation’s first and only statewide mandatory green building code, called CALGreen.

CALGreen is considered so eco-friendly that the LEED Steering Committee ruled this spring that a handful of their building measures are aligned enough with LEED credits for building professionals to use a streamlined documentation path for LEED certification.

As of July, projects in California subject to the mandatory 2013 CALGreen requirements and registered under the 2009 or v4 versions of LEED BC+C or LEED ID+C can use the streamlined path for select credits and prerequisites.

“The streamlining of paperwork has obvious benefits,” says Wes Sullens, green building program manager at StopWaste, a public agency responsible for waste reduction in California’s Alameda County. “However, this is also the start of something bigger, which is an overall alignment between LEED and green codes.”

Sullens is chair of the LEED and CALGreen Task Group, which worked since the summer of 2014 to investigate LEED and CALGreen alignment in technical detail and explore opportunities to reduce the costs of documenting LEED. The group, and ad-hoc group of statewide technical experts coordinated under the USGBC-California banner, found that six LEED measures concerning indoor water use reduction, refrigerant management, the storage and collection of recyclables, construction waste management, and the use of low-emitting paints and adhesives were functionally equivalent to a corresponding CALGreen requirement.

Engineers, architects, and other building professionals in California were inspired to learn about the streamlined documentation path for CALGreen projects.

“When we shared this news around the office, people were pretty happy and thought ‘Wow, that is great news,’” says Andrea Traber, a principal with Integral Group, a green engineering firm in Oakland. “It’s a removal of confusion that’s really helpful. We still all have to design well and pay attention to all the details, but the streamlining is really what’s so important.”

Joseph Marfi, the director of sustainable design and construction with Turner Construction Company in Anaheim, said it will be easier and less expensive to achieve LEED certification by saving time in the documentation process.

“I suspect this will increase the number of LEED certifications in California in the near future,” which has positive ecological implications, Marfi says.

“Everyone knows the fragile environment in California is in dire need of help,” he says, “from air pollution and snarled traffic caused by cars to droughts and water shortages caused by old, inefficient infrastructure and outdated buildings that also fuel climate change.”

Sullens says that as California’s building code has become greener, a debate has been ongoing in the state as to whether LEED is still necessary to achieve eco-friendly buildings. Yet, while some other measures are close to alignment between CALGreen and LEED, many are not, he says.

“This clearly shows that there is a lot else that isn’t able to be streamlined so easily, because LEED does it quite differently and exceeds CALGreen in many ways,” Sullens says. “So it helps solidify that codes and LEED are not necessarily equivalent.”

Nevertheless, there are still other parts of LEED and CALGreen that are similar, and work will continue to reduce required documentation, says Ryan McEvoy of Gaia Development, a green building consulting company in Marina Del Rey.

Dan Burgoyne, sustainability manager for the state of California’s Department of General Services, who also sat on the task group, said that, specifically, the energy standards used in LEED (ASHRAE 90.1 – 2013) have similarities to California’s Energy Code (Title 24, Part 6) and may also be a candidate for streamlining. In fact, USGBC issued two LEED addenda on July 1 that do just that (#10419, #10421).

“California continues to make large strides in energy efficiency with each code cycle,” Burgoyne says. “By comparing these two code standards, and determining how they align, this will save California building professionals additional engineering costs to run two energy models and will reward California buildings appropriately for higher efficiency.”

Terminal 3, boarding area E of San Fransisco International Airport. Natural updrafts will create a fresh-air feeling, more like being outdoors. Photovoltaic panels, solar water heaters, and radiant ceiling panels are also expected to help SFO achieve LEED Gold certification. 

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) incorporates sustainable design features that promote energy efficiency while mitigating adverse environmental impacts.

Marfi, also a task group member, notes that California’s building codes and LEED continue to evolve and “codes change usually on a three-year cycle…We will have to restart the analysis when these updates are released.”

One potential stumbling block in California is that, while the CALGreen requirements may be mandatory, they’re not necessarily understood, adhered to, or enforced equally in the state’s hundreds of jurisdictions, says Bill Worthen, a founding principal of Urban Fabrick Inc., a consulting architecture firm.

“How [the new codes are] being implemented is in no way consistent, and that’s a real risk right now,” Worthen says. “There are a lot of things that were in the building codes even before CALGreen that are still never really enforced, so this just adds another layer of complexity.”

Worthen, who sat on a preceding task force effort also chaired by Sullens, contributed to a report released by USGBC and USGBC California in April. The report acknowledges these challenges in code implementation, makes other observations on progress to date, and offers recommendations for how green building codes and rating systems can evolve and harmonize in California.

While California is the only state with a mandatory green building code, a handful of U.S. communities have adopted the International Green Construction Code (IgCC). The so-called “IgCC Powered by 189.1” is also being analyzed for overlap with LEED, says Sullens, who sits on the standards body working on the alignment of LEED, the IgCC, and Standard 189.1.

“The U.S. Green Building Council committed years ago to green codes and seeing their alignment with LEED to help encourage the benefits to the environment that they provide,” he says. The new LEED documentation path for California projects “is the first stab at actually doing that and showing what an overlay looks like…so it’s really the start of something much bigger happening,” Sullens says.

In honor and appreciation for this foundational work, and also for many other exemplary contributions, Sullens was recognized at USGBC’s annual volunteer meeting this summer with the organization’s annual Astounding Advocate award.

Several members of the LEED and CALGreen Task Group agreed that what happens in California often has a way of happening across the country.

“This is a real message to other states, and I hope it will accelerate the development of green codes nationwide,” Marfi says. “No longer can codemakers turn a blind eye on inefficiencies for which society will have to pay a very high price throughout the life of our new buildings.”

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It was clear that the High Line was to be the major point of our attention and the Hudson River, of course. The project needed to relate to both,” says Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) partner Elisabetta Trezzani, who was involved from the very beginning when New York City’s new Whitney Museum was but a concept being discussed at its former Madison Avenue location.

The museum’s move downtown is a “return to its roots in the Village,” since at its opening in 1931, the Whitney stood on West 8th Street. Its second reincarnation, in 1954, saw it grow to 65,000 square feet on Madison Avenue and 75th Street. Ultimately, however, the Marcel Breuer-designed building could accommodate only 10 percent of the museum’s permanent collection, which led to yet another relocation. Now, situated at the southernmost entrance of the High Line, it is a strong visual and physical tie to the urban landscape.

“One of the main points was to create a place at the ground level that was transparent and calming and connected to the city,” says Trezzani. RPBW wanted to take full advantage of the “fantastic new feature” in the city (the High Line), in a complementary way. Toward that end, the team—in partnership with waterfront design specialists Cooper, Robertson & Partners—decided to mass the building such that it would scale down on the High Line side while the bulk of it would face the river. “The idea was to always have a connection between inside and outside,” says Trezzani. “The gallery needed to have not just a view out but an outside gallery.” Hence the stepping terraces, which serve as “urban stages,” at each level on the east side.

The museum’s curtain wall is made with insulated glass with a three-tiered shading system.

Sheathed in blue-gray enamel steel panels, the eight-story museum is powerfully asymmetrical and appropriately industrial, given its surroundings. The character of neighboring loft buildings and the streetscape, as well as the property lines, setbacks, and city regulations all determined what was to become its signature shape. The team wanted to maximize the ground level space, maintain a view of the High Line and the river, and take optimum advantage of natural light sources as well as opportunities for open areas.

The expansion nearly doubles the museum’s exhibition space, enabling the first comprehensive view of its growing collection, which today comprises more than 19,000 works of modern and contemporary American art. The entrance, lobby, and ground floor make up a dramatically cantilevered plaza, or “largo,” which serves as a free and open transitional space between the street and the collection. The whole structure contains approximately 50,000 square feet of indoor galleries, 13,000 square feet of outdoor exhibition space, and an 18,000-square-foot gallery for special exhibitions. An education center; a 170-seat multiuse theatre; a black box theatre for film, video, and performance with an adjacent outdoor gallery; and a Works on Paper Study Center, Conservation Lab, and Library Reading room all resulted from this most recent expansion. Additionally, a top-floor studio café offers a sit-down respite, where visitors enjoy natural light from a sawtooth-configured skylight system.

“The building is quite simple,” says Trezzani. “It has this central core where all the vertical elements are aimed.” To “express” what lies beyond this core, RPBW looked to key characteristics of the city itself. They used concrete, they exposed the cooling tower, and they built an exterior stairway with glazed walkways that connect all the terraces. Combined, these elements reference the urban landscape—its primary building material, water towers, and fire escapes, respectively. “We wanted to create a language that was specific to the museum but related always to the city,” explains Trezzani.

Lighting in a museum is a sensitive issue as the purpose is to display artworks in the best color rendering. Today the museum is lit with LED fixtures as opposed to incandescent lighting to avoid excessive energy consumption.

In terms of its LEED Gold certification, green measures include glass windows designed to take in diffused natural light from the north, which Trezzani describes as “the best light,” as it allows for more control and results in less energy consumption. Additionally, the whole museum is lit with LED fixtures. “In a museum… lighting is one of the most energy-consuming [features],” notes Trezzani. “In the last five years, the market has really changed… a lot of progress has been made in the quality of LED lights and color control.”

Building project manager Larissa Gentile concurs: “Lighting is an especially sensitive issue for museums, whose whole purpose is to display art works in the way they are meant to be seen—in the best light, literally.” Traditionally, contemporary museums have gone with incandescent lighting, which is, of course, hugely consumptive. “We were waiting for advances in LED lighting to come up to where we wanted them to be, specifically for color rendering,” notes Gentile.

Other energy saving efforts included the installation of a 75-kilowatt co-generation engine and a ventilation system that makes use of outside air. “Most of what we were trying to achieve related to energy savings,” notes Gentile. That’s no small feat for a museum that needs to strictly regulate its climate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. “Looking at ways to reduce consumption was key to the design,” she says, noting that the original goal was LEED Silver certification, but she adds, “We found with a little extra hard work and a little extra commitment, we could go over and above and get LEED Gold.”

Low-flow, automated faucets and toilets, a stormwater retention tank—which retains all runoff from roofs for irrigation and for the cooling towers—a green roof, and plaza-level planters that help reduce runoff to the sewage system are all at work in the new location. Of special note are the gallery floors, which are made of reclaimed heart pine wood beams from defunct area mills. “We love them,” says Gentile. “You could only find them here. It’s a very Whitney thing.”

Additionally, the museum’s curtain wall is devised of specially insulated glass and a three-tiered shading system. “Our envelope was quite robust already,” notes Gentile, “meaning [we have] a highly insulated sandwich between the interior and exterior spaces for controlling glare and diffusing light to protect the art works.”

Affiliates discuss their green initiatives whenever possible, especially during tours. “From the museum standpoint, it is something we absolutely highlight whenever we are talking about the building,” says Gentile, adding it was never an option to not make the building sustainable: “It was very important to Renzo that our new building be designed as a sustainable building. He said not thinking of that is just wrong. You have to go forward and build with that mindset. The museum was very much on board. We wanted to do whatever we could.”

So, how has the new museum fared since its opening? “In the last three months, it has had the same number of visitors it normally has in one year,” says Trezzani. “In general, we have heard very, very good feedback.” That reaction comes not only from visitors, but also from insiders like Gentile who inhabit the building daily. “To create a new museum—the only art museum in New York City to be LEED Gold—is phenomenal, and to have a hand in that is even better.”

The new building, completed this past spring, will be the first LEED Gold-certified museum in NYC. Located in the booming Meatpacking District and sandwiched between the Hudson River and the High Line—Manhattan’s recently completed urban park built on an abandoned elevated spur from the 1930s—the Whitney occupies an extraordinary site indeed. “The city was always supporting the idea of a cultural project in this location,” notes Trezzani, who together with her team specifically designed the museum to connect visitors to the downtown community as well as the cityscape.

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For more than 50 years, the South Lincoln Homes development, operated by the Denver Housing Authority (DHA), had the lifeless look that was so rampant in mid-20^th century public housing: nondescript low-slung red brick buildings with cookie-cutter windows and thin strips of parched-looking grass in front, intersected by concrete sidewalks.

The units served a vital purpose—housing the city’s low-income residents. But the buildings did very little to inspire residents or anyone else who walked down the West 10^th Avenue area. In those times, designing safe, healthy, beautiful community spaces was as absent from planners’ minds as renewable energy, low-water living, or sustainable architecture.

Around 2010, the light switched on and everything changed. Today the drab buildings have been replaced by vibrant structures with eye-catching architecture and thoughtful lighting. The reconstructed development, with renewable energy systems and facilities that draw residents together in community, is winning awards for innovation and forward-thinking leadership, and earning LEED Gold and Platinum certifications.

Called Mariposa—Spanish for “butterfly”—the 15-acre transit-oriented development invites the mixed-income residents to thrive. They tend community gardens, play and exercise in a park, enjoy art, and engage in special features, such as a stairwell with an art installation that uses LED lighting to tell a Mayan story, which also encourages residents to use the stairs. Better access to the light rail stop adjacent to Mariposa gives the neighborhood another dynamic aspect and easier, more environmental commuting.

The Tapiz apartment was part of phase one of the Mariposa revitalization project (master plan is shown opposite).

It took a trio of innovators to lead Mariposa and its residents—projected ultimately to number more than 1,000—to bring Mariposa to fruition: the DHA, which decided early on to take a risk, pushing the envelope on sustainability and inspiring its residents to transition to new living quarters; Mithun, a sustainable design firm in Seattle that integrated health aspects into the project and led the master plan design; and YR&G, a sustainability consulting firm headquartered in Denver, which headed the sustainable aspect. Mithun worked with 10 subconsultants, including Perspective3 in Denver.

When the DHA began planning the project, the aim was to improve the quality of life of residents. So when Mithun—including Erin Christensen Ishizaki, a Mithun partner who led the project’s redevelopment master plan—responded to the RFP for Mariposa, they began to look at residents’ health. Ishizaki and her colleagues found several areas in which health conditions were much poorer than for other Denver residents. For example, 51 percent of the children living in the DHA complex were living below the poverty line, compared to 21 percent in Denver overall. The crime rate was 248 out of 1,000, compared to an average of 69 out of 1,000 in Denver overall. “From an equity standpoint, it was hard to ignore,” Ishizaki says.

After Mithun got involved in the master plan, the firm used a Health Impact Assessment (HIA), which laid out community health indicators in a framework of sustainability performance. “That gave us an understanding of key health issues,” Ishizaki says. At that time, 2009, there were a few HIAs being used countrywide, but most looked at policy issues instead of design issues. In 2012, with one of Mariposa’s buildings completed, Mithun spearheaded the Mariposa Healthy Living Initiative, to integrate health into every aspect of the community’s design, construction, and operation. The Mariposa Healthy Living Toolkit, developed in 2012, continues to serve as a guide as health measures are folded into Mariposa’s design and construction.

Mithun was an inspiration for the DHA throughout the redevelopment project, says Ryan Tobin, the DHA’s director of Real Estate Development. By integrating health into smart, sustainable design, Mariposa has racked up some impressive numbers, including a 50 percent reduction in energy consumption compared to 2007, Tobin says. Mariposa has one of the largest solar arrays in housing developments throughout the country, he says, as well as a geothermal system. “Across the board,” Tobin adds, “we have low-flow toilets and a graywater reuse system.”

Mariposa’s individual buildings are achieving LEED Gold and Platinum certification. More impressive is its LEED Gold certification (Stage 2) for Neighborhood Development. “Very few places in the US, maybe just 150, have this designation,” says Karin Miller, sustainability manager at YR&G. Mariposa also won a 2012 Award for Smart Growth Achievement from the Environmental Protection Agency and a 2012 Affordable Green Neighborhoods grant award from USGBC, with support from the Bank of America Foundation. It was named one of the Top 10 US Neighborhoods by the American Planning Association, and received a 2010 HOPE VI grant, a federal grant program administered by HUD.

Earning the LEED Neighborhood Development certification for Mariposa was an especially big moment for YR&G, says Narada Golden, the current principal of YR&G’s New York office and YR&G principal in charge of the Mariposa development. “YR&G engaged the DHA, along with building and master plan design teams, to expand the definition of sustainability beyond energy,” Golden says, including factors such as health, wellness, and community empowerment. As Golden says, it adds up to “a sense of place at Mariposa.”

Ultimately, much of the success of a development project comes down to people; in this case it is Mariposa residents. “The biggest success is how well the DHA and the team were able to incorporate resident engagement in the process,” says Miller of YR&G.

Tobin sees how fully residents’ lives have changed, simply by observing daily life at Mariposa. Ridership at the light rail stop continues to increase, and organic community gardens draw enthusiastic residents. Donated space on the first floor hosts daycare centers and the nonprofit group Youth on Record, which creates music and conversation. Tobin sees residents living in community, working, and having fun.

“We’re creating places for kids to play, before- and after-school programs, art and literacy, a park with a swimming pool; it’s quite the neighborhood, with all the amenities.” Tobin looks at photos of the old South Lincoln Homes, and the new Mariposa. “I see vibrancy, safety, security, opportunity,” Tobin says. “It’s dramatically changed. It’s basically changed the way people look at their lives.”

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