by Stacey Crumbaker
From internal culture to design choices, rigorous adherence to honesty and integrity makes everything we do better. But is it easier said than done where sustainable practice is concerned? Is it a bar set too high for architects, interior designers, and manufacturers in a stressed economy? With set budgets and tight timelines? And clients who want what they want?
When it comes to committing to creating built environments that promote health, safety and well-being — and the well-being of this big, beautiful planet we call home — no, I do not think that we are being too ambitious. And here’s why: Getting to a point where sustainability is an integrated, holistic design approach is the ultimate goal, but no one expects it to happen overnight. What is expected is that we do the next right thing. And then the next right thing after that.
Like Vincent van Gogh said, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” In fact, thinking about sustainable practice as all or nothing is one of the biggest inhibitors of regenerative progress. If we commit to integrating low-carbon materials and sustainable systems one at a time, cumulative integration will happen naturally — and it won’t feel so daunting. Start with material health, for example. Try tackling non-toxic ceilings in your current project and sustainably harvested, recycled, or reclaimed flooring in the next, and then move on to energy-efficient utilities (instead of trying to learn every single thing in one go). As far as budgets go, I firmly believe cost is in our control. Yes we get a budget, but we have control over how we use it.
The accountability of and advocacy for building a future that is transparent, sustainable, and ethically conscious for the well-being of the planet requires industry-wide commitment and, in many ways, a shift in mindset. Out here in the Pacific Northwest, sustainability and regenerative reuse have been a part of our lexicon for more than 40 years, and there are some impactful thoughtlines and practices emerging from this area. Of late, we’ve been spending a lot of time reevaluating beauty. Is beauty the shiny new thing to come out of High Point Market? Is it whatever the client deems it to be? Or can we reframe beauty for the sake of sustainability? Practices that positively impact all phases of a building’s life-cycle encourage compromise and tradeoffs.
For example, some may argue that there aren’t as many color options for PE materials (thermoplastic products that can be melted into a liquid and then cooled back into a solid many times over) because of the way that they are manufactured. Sitting with a narrower range of choices as a designer, reframing what we thought we wanted in order to get to a better choice by envisioning what it could be — instead of dismissing it because it’s not ‘Pantone color of the year’ enough — is the emerging mindset.
At Mahlum, we follow the Living Building Challenge (LBC) philosophy and framework for designing, and are proud of our LBC certification. (LBC is a philosophy, advocacy tool, and certification program defining today’s most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment.) Our latest challenge as a firm has been the restructuring of our resources library to exceed LBC’s standards. Bigger picture, we have adopted Design for Disassembly (DfD) as our ideal paradigm for reuse, and recently implemented the strategy for the remodel of our Seattle office to maximize economic value and minimize environmental impacts through reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling. (DfD is a building design process that allows for the easy recovery of products, parts and materials when a building is disassembled or renovated.)
The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) has amazing resources for the commercial interior design industry to take sustainable practice to the next level. From Converge (a platform for knowledge sharing around sustainable practice) and the Converge Action Summit (a yearly event which brings together sustainability leaders in design and a wide range of emerging designers) to giving its members complimentary access to Ecomedes (a platform for finding, evaluating, and specifying products and materials while tracking your carbon impact), the organization offers myriad ways to tap world-class thought leaders for cutting-edge practices and tools that designers can take back to their firms.
The fact of the matter is that, as a planet, we don’t have time for “I’ll figure it out on the next project.” We need to collectively envision a world where healthy human and environmental systems thrive. And I believe community empowerment and comprehensive buy-in will be the game-changing forces that lead to sustainable, transformational ways to make that possible.
Editor’s Note: Stacey Crumbaker, ASSOC. AIA, IIDA is associate principal at Mahlum. With 18 years of experience, she has cultivated her practice as a response to human experience and deeply believes in architecture’s ability to shape community. Stacey is currently the 2022-2024 IIDA National Vice President of Advocacy. She was also one of five nationwide recipients to be awarded the 2020 AIA Associates Award.