We know that we are in the midst of a global energy and climate crisis. What we sometimes forget is that one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions is all around us: our buildings.
The GTA boasts the second highest concentration of concrete towers in North America. While many of the 2,500 towers built between 1960 and 1980 are structurally sound, the exteriors are worn down, leaky, and ineffective.
Supporting heating, cooling, lighting, and hot water systems, running elevators and escalators, and increasingly loaded with electrical appliances, buildings account for half of all greenhouse gas emissions in North America, and even more in urban areas: 79 per cent in New York, 72 per cent in Hong Kong, 63 per cent in Toronto, and 52 per cent in London.
Given that buildings are such a large part of our gas-guzzling problem, they can be as much a part of the solution. Toronto-based Zerofootprint has launched a campaign to break ground in sustainable designs that will change the face of architecture.
Ron Dembo, founder and CEO of Zerofootprint, cites the importance of making “our buildings as smart as our cars.” He points out three key ways to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of our cities through integrating technology into building practice: closely monitoring building performance (which, like a dashboard in a car, would be visible to the inhabitants of the building), integrating disparate systems (like heating, cooling, and lighting) into a centrally manipulated console accessible by Internet, and finally, wrapping buildings in a new insulating layer—in other words, a new skin.
This last approach forms the basis of the international Zerofootprint Skin Renewal Competition launched in April 2009. What sounds like some kind of cosmetic challenge is actually a call to arms for sustainable design that will have a big, and immediate, impact on architecture in the GTA. Zerofootprint’s central mission is to reduce humans’ environmental impact on a global scale and the organization has honed in on the building envelope as the site for revolution.
For a grand prize of $1 million, the largest prize for an architectural competition to date, competing designs will strive to out-reduce one another. But while Zerofootprint has set the goal of exteriors that will cut buildings’ energy consumption by 50 to 70 per cent, designs must also be smart, reproducible, aesthetically pleasing, and cost-effective, according to the competition’s guidelines.
Re-skinning a building has several benefits, both as an extra layer of insulation and a means of sealing leaks that allow warm indoor air to escape in the winter. But the skins can be more than just a barrier to the elements. They can incorporate technologies that actually generate energy for the building, contribute to the active heating or cooling of the space, diffuse sunlight, and even support vegetation.
The five finalists in the competition were selected last month, though construction on the projects will not finish until March 2010. The prizewinner will be announced in March 2014.
The results from this competition have international implications as a cheap, non-invasive renovation option that could blanket towers in cities worldwide, improving each building’s performance without the cost and time of rebuilding. Dembo suggests that “like snakes, buildings could regularly renew their skin to keep up with evolving technology.” As much as new ideas need old buildings, Toronto’s older buildings need new ideas.
Professor Ted Kesik of U of T’s Faculty of Architecture has calculated that if all of the deteriorating buildings in Ontario were re-skinned by 2030, it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 142 million tonnes, and would save $60 billion in energy spending, $3.6 billion in avoided power generation infrastructure, and $10.2 million in health care costs. It could also generate 800,000 jobs and create a green industry worth $95 billion annually.
For better or for worse, concrete high-rises are part of Toronto’s built heritage. The buildings of the future can be the buildings of the past, just with a facelift.
