The holidays have arrived and I am going offline for a couple of weeks. I’ll be in San Diego making a list of the projects I’ll be venturing during this 2012.
I won’t be posting any research progress these these next few weeks. I have received much feedback from teachers and friends and I will only post the occasional picture or thought.
This GIF is from San Diego downtown, the view is from the balcony from which I will be enjoying the next few weeks. It was inspired by Rob Whitworth and his time lapse video of Ho Chi Minh City I posted last week. (Only 12 pictures though… so don’t expect the same quality just yet)
London’s Battersea Power Station is on sale for £500 million ($780), since Real Estate Opportunities, an Irish developer couldn’t finance their development and Lloyds Banking Group called in the property.
Pink Floyd’s 1977 ‘Animals’ featured this power station in the album cover, and it has been proposed for theme parks, shopping center, high-end residential, all unsuccessful due to lack of investment. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michael Jackson, Cirque du Soleil, and Warner Brothers all were potential investors, but in the end backed up. In October SP Setia, a Malaysian developer, offered £262 million but was rejected for being too low.
Who will invest, and what will become of the Battersea Power Station?
It is next to the Thames, with access to Battersea Park: a children’s zoo, ponds, and an arena. Not to mention the high-historic value of this property that is currently rotting. There is a development coming up in 2020 that extends the subway system into this area.
If no one has the money to invest in this project, this might portray the eminent phenomenon we are facing: we spent so much making a mess of our cities that the cost to clean it up is evaded by the market even if it means making a historic impact in a world city. With austerity measures European government are less likely to spend in brownfield redevelopment projects, which would ultimately boost employment and tourism a bit. Hopefully this industrial relic comes back to use in some odd form, be it residential, commercial, or that controversial Disney park.
The LEED system leaves many issues unanswered, including the incorporation of food-based strategies, higher standards on human health, a revision of the conflicts and contradictions that are inherent in the certification process, and an increasing consumption of energy that cannot be strategized alone on energy efficiency.
Food desserts in urban areas have become a major concern, and with an increasing concern over the social aspects of sustainability, they should be a primal focus.
At the same time, many governments are adopting LEED as their standard for buildings in belief that it will solve their health issues. This raises several questions because this organization has not focused the strategies on health but rather efficiency and environmental preservation. There are several conflicts between sustainability and health that are evident in LEED Certified buildings. One of conflicts pertains to the trade-off between energy conservation by air-tightness and ventilating the gases emitted by the chemicals used in building materials (the paradox of successfully trapping harmful gases with high-tech building envelopes). Since there is a major trade-off between comfort levels and energy savings, projects that achieve high levels of energy efficiency should be required to achieve comfort levels. At the same time, LEED dismisses strategies that try to control the thermostat during operation in order to achieve optimal comfort and efficiency levels. Although LEED accounts for using low-emission materials, and increasing ventilation, they are optional and in many cases not used in many projects. This raises concerns about why LEED does not consider many benefits to human health. This is evident in the points available within each category; there are almost four times as many credits for energy conservation (35 points) as opposed to (8 points) for indoor environmental quality from hazardous chemicals. (21) (22) (3) (20)
LEED focuses strongly on energy efficiency, however little points are accounted for the real consumption levels. While LEED standards help buildings achieve high standards of insulation, day lighting, and other factors that make a building more efficient, it dismisses behavioral strategies or operation strategies ( turning the lights at night or adjusting the thermostat during the summer and winter) . The energy consumption surveys from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) showed that the average energy use per square foot in buildings remained the same since 1920 despite all the improvements in efficiencies. Although the building systems and envelopes have gotten significantly efficient over time, day by day our energy use keeps growing. There is only so much that buildings can do in order to be energy efficient, the rest comes from human behavior and our increasing needs to consume more electric products. (23)
Most often than not, the costs pertaining to a credit will generate benefit someone different from the investor, and scenarios where the benefits are intangible but important to the environment should be the main concern for policy-makers. These externalities keep being neglected even by LEED Platinum buildings so we often encounter brownfield redevelopments, regional materials, green power, and renewable energy unless generous incentives were introduced. On the other hand, there are several strategies that bring significant benefits over the long-run without accounting for many costs. In these cases (minimum energy performance, minimum water efficiency, and construction activity pollution prevention) there are several policy tools that the government can use in order to promote more sustainable building practices without affecting the market prices. Policy tools for this include nudge, minimum standards, or asymmetrical paternalistic regulation[1]. ( Camerer, Colin, Isaacharoff, Loewenstein, O’Donoghue, & Rabin, 1998)
Accepting that affordable housing projects are being neglected from the sustainability movement is vital in taking the next step. With an increasing public interest and support for the greening of our cities, sustainability has quickly become a marketing tool for businesses and commerce. While this scenario is great for improving the quality and efficiency of commercial buildings, it is doing little for housing – affordable housing in particular. Starting in 2007, LEED addressed this by developing a series of LEED Homes, starting with LEED Homes v 2008 for Single family and Multifamily projects. These now account to 6,287 LEED Home certified projects with a total of 14,343. However, out of these 14,343 only 2,008 are listed as affordable (6.86%). The USGBC hosted an Affordable Housing Summit in Toronto in 2011 in an effort to develop appropriate tools, educational offerings, and technical assistance to the affordable housing market. (3) (20) (24)
The USGBC is on the right track by putting a special focus on affordable housing, but it is ultimately the market prices that will generate barriers for these projects attempting certifications. States and local municipalities that invest in incentives for sustainable practices should focus on the developments that are being challenged the most to achieve these standards. Minimum standards and regulations required by local municipalities should be working comparable to LEED, integrating diverse regulations in order to provide a local region with its regional priorities and focusing on making the more affordable strategies part of the regulatory process (such as the case of construction activity pollution prevention, water efficient landscaping, heat island effects non-roof, and maximize open space). Public regulations can do a better job of assessing minimum standards and regulating affordable strategies, while rating systems can continue to contribute to the projects with higher goals that come with higher premium costs. (3) (20) (24)
Several state and local governments and several federal institutions have included LEED[1] standards as a requirement for their facilities. 15 different federal agencies and hundreds of municipalities have adopted LEED as a minimum requirement for their facilities. As of November 2011, 23%[2] of American LEED registered[3] projects are government-owned buildings, out of total 19% are Federal, 40% State, and 41% buildings owned by local governments. There are several tax-payer dollars going to LEED certifications of public facilities and this raises the question of how many tax dollars are going to paying premium costs in public buildings.[4] (20)
The LEED certification system is administered by the USBC, a non-profit organization. However, most of the standards rely on other entities like the ASHRAE[5], EPA[6], DoE[7]. Many of these entities are public and in most cases the regulation is free, public, and designed to be used as standards for different aspects of a building’s systems. Since most of these regulations were already developed by public agencies, one could say that the USGBC contributed with a framework that integrated all of these different regulations based on the priorities and values the institution advocated. Although the USGBC did a great job of integrating all of these regulations, it remains a non-profit institution independent from government or public decision. Likely, most of the effort needed in order to develop a rating system was already developed by generating these regulations; in several cases local municipalities had already generated frameworks that integrated these regulations within their local building codes.
Taking into account that there has been a constant increase in government buildings getting registered and certified, and that LEED costs vary greatly depending on certification level, project location, size, type, and stringency of regulation, we can conclude that there can be a great variance in expenditure. Large projects with platinum level certifications, or located in rural or suburban areas will probably have higher premium costs, since the project needs to achieve many costly points in order to compensate for missing ‘free points’ from urban locations. Many public projects with already high built-in premium costs that cannot be replaced can significantly increase the total premium cost, such as the cost of a laminated bullet-proof glazing that now needs high insulation values further increasing premium costs. Mixing all these traits can account for extremely high premium costs in public buildings.
In most scenarios, the premium costs tend to increase prices in the building market and can have an impact on the availability of affordable housing. Many base the principles of sustainable developments on the symbiotic interaction between ecologic, economic, and social needs – often referred as the “triple bottom line”. Since sustainability integrates equity values, it should not only account for, but focus on affordable housing projects as they are likely to be the buildings facing most of the challenges.
There is much debating on what is the true premium cost of LEED Certifications. The fact that each building can adopt different standards and levels complicates defining an absolute number. Some argue these premium costs to be 0%-2.5% for LEED certified 0%-3.3% for silver, 0.3%-5.0% for gold, and 0.3%-8.5% for platinum (in comparison with the initial capital construction cost). However these numbers not take into account many factors and cannot be expressed in such values, as there is a great variance in premium costs among projects. These variations include the cost per square footage of construction (how affordable is the project), local and state zoning regulations (how stringent is the baseline regulation?), and how many points can be achieved without investing in costly strategies (what is the cost per point?). Read the rest of this page »
LEED Premium Costs and their Impact on the Building Industry
The LEED rating system categorizes points awarded for implementing strategies between Sustainable Sites (SS), Water Efficiency (WE), Energy and Atmosphere (EA), Materials and Resources (MR), Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), and Innovation in Design (ID). Each strategy implies different costs and benefits, which can be paid or received by different stakeholders during the building lifetime: the developer and builder, operator, inhabitant, neighbors, and secondary players like neighbors, municipalities, the economy, society and the environment.
Costs and Benefits in LEED Certification
There are three type of costs implied in a LEED-certified building: soft costs, the cost of improving the building systems’ efficiencies, and the cost of reducing environmental impact. These types of costs provide different types of benefits. Soft costs are the only costs that don’t provide any tangible economic benefit. The cost of improving the efficiency of building systems provide tangible benefits such as reductions to operating and maintenance costs, improved working conditions, and productivity. The cost of reducing environmental impact brings significant benefits, however they are non-market benefits since the market fails to incorporate these costs and benefits into the true market costs. (1) (2)
Soft Costs
The soft costs of development of a LEED certified building mainly pertain to professional fees, registration, and certification fees. The standard services such as Urban Planning, Design, and Construction Administration increase in fees due to an increase in analysis, documentation, and deliverables. The process also requires additional professionals to participate in the design and construction process such as LEED Administrators, Commissioning Agents, and Energy Modelers. The USGBC’s approximations of these fees range from $20,000 to $60,000 depending on the size and complexity of the project size. Registration and Certification costs range from $3,000 to $23,000 depending on size of project and membership status with the USGBC. Although soft costs might not have a tangible benefit, it assures that the building systems perform effectively and efficiently.(10)
In the United States, buildings currently account for 49% of the energy consumption, 13% of water consumption, and 39% of CO2 Emissions. These three facts provide substantial evidence to understand the role of government in regulating the buildings on the grounds of energy, economic prosperity, ecologic preservation, and national security. Challenging buildings and technologies in the realms of ethics and efficiency will generate great economic and social benefits in the long-run. However, there is a trade-off between sustainability and affordability in buildings. The cost of LEED[1] certifying a building implies a series of premium costs which raises many questions about the LEED Certification System:
[1] This research focuses on measuring the costs of implementing LEED certifications. The different strategies are exposed with the potential costs and benefits for the LEED New Construction Version 2009.
Urban developments on the outskirts of the Monterrey MSA continue to expand with scarce density, mix of uses, public infrastructure or transportation, and a high degree of segregation of socioeconomic classes.
Developments that further expand the urban boundary represent more costs in infrastructure for State and local governments while derailing many other conflicts. Since they are usually stranded and with little infrastructure, they are dependent on vehicle ownership. These communities are often the most underprivileged and represent a larger part of households that do not own an automobile (because they cannot afford one). If there is an increase in income growth, vehicle ownership will boost within these areas, further incrementing CO2 emissions, pollution, traffic, and infrastructure costs.
It is eminent to stop contributing to this phenomenon by implementing an Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). Although an UGB is not the solution to the problem, it is a measure which prevents us from making the same mistakes in the future. Existing sprawled areas cannot be disappeared or easily connected, but if the UGB adheres to a regional plan that oversees the growth capacity and distribution of housing and employment areas, with an integrated goal-driven regional plan, these externalities can be reduced by promoting more economically efficient, ecological, and equitable land use patterns.
Besides urban growth, the Monterrey MSA has faced many challenges that need to be addressed from a land use perspective. The latest climate trends have brought unprecedented water levels to the seasonal waterways, which devastated public infrastructure and neighborhoods. Although the Federal government is responsible for protecting waterways, the State can also implement stricter laws that forbid urbanization in environmental sensitive areas, such as rivers, swamps, and seasonal rivers. After Alex’s devastating consequences in 2010, it is a good time to assess seasonal waterways from an environmental and economic perspective and strengthen the regulation in these areas. The policies recommended are then:
Generating an UGB that is assessed by the Metro Agency in coordination with local governments.
Integrating local government planning at a metropolitan level with a goal-driven metropolitan plan.
Demanding new developments to comply with minimum density, diversity of housing, protection of natural areas, and accessibility to public transportation, natural areas, and school facilities.
Study recent changes in seasonal waterways in an effort to re-zone seasonal waterways and generate stricter rules towards urbanization in these areas.
If the economy needs just 124,000 net new jobs just to cover population growth, how can 120,000 jobs drop the unemployment rate by almost half a percent? (From to 9.0% in October to 8.6% in November)
Most people that left the workforce account to people retiring, but it also might be the effects of a new working and social patterns. Companies that went under significant and painful layoffs during this recession are skeptical about re-hiring, with fear of having to rely on such methods again. Some companies have increased through outsourcing, contracting, and part-time positions in order to avoid lay-off scenarios again. It is a lot easier financially, legally, and even emotionally to let go of a contract worker than an employee or executive.
If companies continue these patterns in the long-run, James B. Huntington might be right. In his book, Work’s New Age: The End of Full Employment and What It Means to You, he proposes that the American job market is changing drastically. He explains with data, trends and patterns that the gap between workers and jobs is going to increase even further.
One thing Huntington misses in his book, that is probably relevant to this trend, is that many industries are undergoing a further systematization of now the professional tasks, ultimately eliminating many needs from professionals. Just as in the Industrial Revolution manufacturing evolved on several stages further increasing efficiencies in the processes, the professional services industries is undergoing a similar systematization never seen at this degree. Industries and professional services undergoing this tansformation include Architecture and Planning, Management, Marketing, Arts and Entretainment, among others. Information is replacing humans now, just like machines replaced humans in the manufacturing industries in the last century.
Architecture‘s Building Information Modeling (BIM) is drastically changing the way buildings are being designed and developed. With BIM, you can integrate all the information of one project into one file. It is a model that takes not only volumes and materials into consideration, but also costs, time, people, and tasks. This reduces the need for large teams since many of the previous tasks are not needed anymore. Drawings are not drawn anymore, they have been systematized. We have systematized drawings: floorplans, elevations, perspectives, and even video tours are done without any drawing skills whatsoever.
Marketing has been constantly re-shaped by new phenomena as facebook, twitter, and google. They are the new marketing and they are a lot more accessible than a marketing firm. The ‘upload your logo’ link in LinkedIN, Google, Facebook, and other networking and marketing companies has proven how we have systematized marketing as well.
Software on iPads such as GargeBand, DJay, or DJ Mixer Pro have made a musician out of pretty much everyone who has an iPad and $9.99 dollars. Software like those have systematized music. Same with the Arts, Photography, Painting, and now Lasercutting sculptures.
The transformation in the job market is not just in the US. It is a competitive race between all the competitive firms regardless of which country or which city they operate. The race is to reduce inefficiencies and increase profits, so if this means reducing the design workforce of a hospital from 20 to 4 people be it. Or if that means not hiring a marketing consultant but just rather someone that just knows how to photoshop and operate twitter? How about calling myself an artist after dribbling on GarageBand one afternoon and I want to sell my track at the same price Roger Waters sells the Dark Side of the Moon on Itunes? What does this do to the prices? to the professionals? the artists?
In 1993, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) was established as a non-profit organization to promote sustainability as to how buildings are designed, built, and operated. In 1998 the USGBC launched what was to become the most successful sustainability rating system for buildings in the USA and worldwide: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). LEED launched with a pilot version of the rating system LEED NCv1.0 in 1998, and then revised the versions twice to LEED NCv2.0 in 2005, and LEED NCv3.0 (LEED Online 2009) in 2009. Currently, LEED has certified over 7,000 projects over 30 different countries. Read the rest of this page »
America Movil is the parent company of Telmex, Telcel, Claro, and TracFone Wireless.
Telmex controls 78% of fixed phone lines in Mexico.
Telcel controls 70% of mobile subscribers in Mexico.
Claro is the largest mobile phone network provider in the Americas with 200 million customers over Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay.
In November 11, America Movil announced they held 92.79% of Telmex stock; they had around 60% previously. Carlos Slim, chairman, CEO of America Movil, the second-largest shareholder in The New York Times (behind the Sulzberger family), and the wealthiest man in the world according to Forbes magazine, decided this after the Federal Competition Commission (CFC) fined Telmex $7.9 million US dlls for Anti-trust behavior and calling it a “repeated offender”. Slim is trying to reach 95%. If he reaches that percentage it will be unlisted from the BMV (Mexican stock exchange). A the same time, Telmex is planning to invest in replacing copper networks for fiber optics all over Mexico.
Is it too early to have the CFC file anti-trust behavior again? Is it ever too early with companies like these?
Slim is well known for giving generous campaign contributions, in many cases to multiple parties at the time. Let’s wait and see who he endorses this time. Calderon gave Slim some tough moments during his presidency but never challenged the monopoly directly. Obrador has averted about Televisa’s monopolistic activity and in numerous occasions has blamed big monopolies to be the main concern. At the same time, Slim endorsed Obrador during his campaign for Mayor in Mexico City elections.
Who can ultimately challenge Slim’s monopoly? Do we want to challenge it? It will clearly provide the highest tech available though fiber optics that would otherwise not be installed by Telefonica or Axtel. However, prices are a major concern – and firms tend to raise prices in lack of competition. According to the OCED In 2003, “Mexico was still among countries where the cost of doing business was high in transport and telecommunication costs”.
Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Chilean filmmaker, writer, actor, author, and comic book writer better known for his films “El Topo” and “Santa Sangre”, helped organize a protest against the surge in crime Mexico is facing. The march was called “Marcha de las Calaveras”, or March of Skulls, where people painted their faces and wore skull masks and skeleton costumes in order to represent the casualties of this death toll.
Jodorowsky was joined by the poet Homero Aridjis, his family and protester welcomed him chanting “Hizo Magia por la Paz” “You made magic for peace” in Amparo de Puebla Museum in Mexico City on Sunday November 27.
Sustainability- Learning from Collapses
Although ‘sustainability’ is a modern term with several connotations, the concept has been around as long as human civilizations have. It defines if a civilization or group of civilizations is able to support themselves – simply exist. During the history of the human species several civilizations collapsed including the Anasazi, Cahokia, Mayans, Moche, Tiwanaku, Mycenean Greece, Minoan Crete, Great Zimbabwe, Angkor Wat, and Harappan Indus Valley. The reason for collapse of these and many other civilizations pertain to damage to the environment, climate change, and war. (1)
Damage to the environment is primarily factored by two variables: fragility and resilience. No matter which particular organisms of the environment are damaged, there will always be those two factors which will define if a civilization is susceptible for collapse. Fragility defines how susceptible to damage, while resilience is the potential recovery from the damage. Damaging organisms with higher levels of fragility with low levels of resilience can determine a civilization’s collapse, such as the case of Easter Island, Mangareva, and Norse Greenland, who collapsed as a result to damaging fragile and low resilience forests. The main reasons for civilizations collapsing due to environmental damage pertain to destruction of nature (deforestation and habitat destruction), overconsumption (overhunting and overfishing), soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses), water management problems, and Human population growth (increase per capita impact of people). (1)
Current climate change concerns pertain to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions which raise temperature levels and offset the natural climate. However, natural climate change has been a major concern historically. From the Little Ice Age from 1400 to 1800 and the freezing temperatures in North America and Europe after Mt Tambora’s eruption in Indonesia covered a great part of the Earth’s atmosphere with ash. Since climate change is now focused on human-generated effects, for the first time in history, sustainability threats are global. (1) History of Sustainability Practices in Architecture
From the early Sumerian Cities of what is now Iraq to the end of the Colonization era in America in the XVIII Century, buildings were designed appropriate with the region to endure the natural climate, and were built with construction processes with low impacts to the environment. The construction process involved using local materials and even on-site materials like adobe and rammed earth. And buildings usually were located close to town centers, at walkable distances.
The major threats we are causing our environment mainly come from the drastic shift that occurred during the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the US. The invention and mass production of incandescent light bulbs in the 1870’s gave way to installing electrical power in buildings. Connecting buildings to a power grid gave headway to the invention and proliferation of electrical appliances and the increase of electricity consumption from one end and an increase in fossil-fuel energy generation from the other end. In 1902, Willis Carrier invented the first electrical air conditioner which would further increase energy consumption in buildings. With time, allowing buildings to rely on artificial air conditioning allowed Architects to neglect local climates and design buildings with less insulation, inappropriate materials, and orientations. Subsequently, after the Art Décor in the 1930’s, the International Style surged dismissing all regional, cultural, or vernacular characteristics and needs. (2) Read the rest of this page »
The City of Portland incorporated in 1851 with 850 inhabitants and was to outpace the USA’s population growth rate until the 1960’s. [See Chart - Population Growth Rate USA vs. Portland] During this expansion, the city extended its infrastructure and building development beyond Multnomah County in Oregon into Washington County, Clackamas County, Yamhill County, and to Washington State’s Clark and Skamania Counties. However since the 1970’s, State and Local governments have strategized policy and planning to contain the expansion of the Portland. (1) [See Graph – Population Portland City vs. Portland MSA Timeline]
Portland can be interpreted from many perspectives when it comes to defining the area of study. There are different legislations playing different roles in different geographies just as there are various dimensions in government and policymaking (local, state, and federal). To understand the land use policies in the City of Portland, it is important to take into consideration the State regulations and the interaction and predominance of legislatures. The State of Oregon grants Home Rule to local governments, which means the State grants authority to counties to “adopt charters providing more local discretion with respect to county government organization and practice within certain limits set by the state” unlike States that have adopted Dillon’s Rule which limits local government authority and grants most legislation and responsibilities to the State. The City of Portland has several entities enforcing land use and urban growth policies at different levels: State, Counties, Metropolitan Authorities, and Local Governments. [See Map: Portland Metro)] (2)
Nonnie Burnes started the presentation with these two images:
A hurricane and a graph showing the National financial collapse.
She begins by representing the risk that no one person can take alone. This brings the idea of spreading the risk, or socializing risk – that is insurance. In order to understand insurance, we must understand risk, no matter which scenario. From social security, health insurance, homeowner insurance, automobile insurance, unemployment insurance, to financial insurance – it’s a matter of spreading the risk.
Another concept intricate of insurance that must be understood is moral hazard. Moral hazard is when a party is insulated from risk, or as defined by Burnes “the tendency for insurance against loss to reduce incentives to percent or to minimize the cost of loss.” Since the party is isolated from risk, it behaves different. It is important to understand this concept, because it brings the other side of risk. A basic example would be thinking that having car insurance reduces cautiousness about locking cars and parking in safe zones. A more complex one is the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac relationships to banks which triggered housing crisis. Read the rest of this page »
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