Green house effect

UrbanLab architects
You would expect the winners of the History Channel’s 2007 “The City of the Future Design Challenge” to have incorporated a few conservation ideas into their living space. But husband-and-wife team Sarah Dunn and Martin Felsen (pictured, previous page) of architecture firm UrbanLab went beyond expectations. They won the national competition with “Growing Water”—a project that envisions Chicago as a model city for recycling 100 percent of its water. Pretty cool, right? So is the couple’s Bridgeport apartment (situated atop their office), complete with a green roof covered with soil and vegetation, and a grassy hill in their backyard that they created with the building site’s demolition debris.

But the most important thing they did was add insulation—lots of it. “People think there is some trick to being green, but the best thing to do is conserve energy by beefing up the insulation,” Felsen says. When building their space, Dunn and Felsen used six inches of the stuff, which prevents heat from escaping, saving energy and cash. By choosing to make their living space double as a work space, they also cut down on commuting. They both teach architecture and design—Felsen at IIT and Dunn at UIC—and live midway between those campuses. “We built the space as green as we could afford,” Felsen says, adding that they “could have, should have” done more. The obstacle they encountered is the same as any home-builder: high costs. “We started with a big idea,” he says, but eventually had to scale it down. “You can do more extravagant stuff later,” he says, presumably with the money saved on your heating and electric bills. They note their green roof keeps the place cool in the summer. “But if we didn’t also have massive layers of insulation, [the green roof] wouldn’t do as well,” Dunn says.—Ruth Lopez

SLANTED AND ENCHANTED Kathy Tholin saves the planet—and some money—by powering her water heater with solar panels.

Kathy Tholinlandlord
Reflective rooftops. Solar-powered hot-water heaters. Recycling. “These aren’t really sexy things,” admits landlord Kathy Tholin. But they are the details that make a big difference in keeping her building—a two-unit structure in Logan Square—as green as possible.

Tholin lives in the building, and her tenants are lucky she does. A longtime environmentalist (she is the CEO of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which works to build sustainable communities by doing everything from stormwater management to holding screenings of An Inconvenient Truth), she says that the green tweaks to her building were born out of her own beliefs, and that her tenants are simply the beneficiaries of her actions.

Tholin also saves some green by going green: By painting her roof a silver-white with a reflective coating, her building reflects heat in the summer, making it naturally cooler and lowering her air-conditioning bills. And the rooftop solar panels pull in enough energy to run the building’s water heater, which, over time, will keep more cash in her pocket. Ultimately, all of this means extra dough for her tenants, too, as she passes the benefits along to them in the form of reasonable rents. Because the way Tholin sees it, an apartment isn’t truly sustainable unless people can afford to live there.—David Tamarkin

TREE’S COMPANY Nick Jackson captures storm runoff in a rain barrel in his backyard to water his flowers.

Nick Jacksonlandlord
He’s a bike nut, a green enthusiast and a landlord: For Jackson, sustainability is a way of life, and that includes how he manages the Logan Square three-flat he owns.

“I wanted to find a way to inspire others to do projects on the neighborhood scale,” Jackson says. For him, this began with “ditching the car. Then green living comes naturally. You walk and bike, and you begin to live more locally,” he says. “I do everything I can to support bicycling and walking among my tenants…small things, like sharing [bike] tools and pumps, and providing bike parking. I am proud to say all my tenants have gotten rid of their cars while living in my building.” 

Another key move was to install a rain barrel in his backyard to collect storm water, which he reuses for watering plants and flowers in the yard and “diverting water from the sewer.” He also chose to renovate an existing building rather than buy new, using recycled fixtures and salvaged wood whenever possible. When new materials were needed, he chose nontoxic, low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints, and bamboo floors (bamboo being a fast-growing, renewable resource).

He notes that his location—close to transit and shopping—is critical. “Many of the [sustainability] solutions discussed in the media focus on consumer choices,” he says. “[But] we need to get away from thinking about green as a product label and start thinking about it as a way of life.”—Audrey Michelle Mast

FASHIONABLE HIPPIES, REJOICE! A bathroom (top) and lounge area (below) in the eco-conscious MDA Chicago City Apartments.

Jonathan Holtzmanlandlord
Banking on his notion that green buildings are “no longer the wave of the future, but where the future will live,” Jonathan Holtzman, CEO and owner of MDA Chicago City Apartments, is trying to create a “lifestyle for rent.” He is the first rental building owner in Chicago to apply for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) approval (for more on LEED certification and places for rent in Holtzman’s building, see “Emerald city,” this page).

Originally designed by Daniel Burnham Jr. in 1926, the newly restored, 190-unit building at 63 East Lake Street—which once housed the Joffrey Ballet—combines environmental practices and sleek design with original elements from the time period. Absent are the ratty carpet and lackluster lobby of typical rental apartment complexes, and in their place is a concierge who buzzes tenants in and out, indoor and outdoor movie theaters, and a swanky bar and grill area for neighborly camaraderie.

But those amenities are just icing on the cake—the building’s eco-conscious features are what really set it apart. It’s a half block from public transportation; has sustainably harvested flooring; double-pane, oversize windows that keep cold out and let light (and heat) in; special sinks that preserve water; a four-pipe heating and cooling system that uses renewable energy; and bamboo, salvaged timber and concrete communal areas. Heck, there’s even a “sky park” (an area that also includes a lawn, hot tub and lounge chairs) and a green roof with native vegetation. The green roof doesn’t just look pretty: It also decreases the storm-water entering the city’s sewer system because rainwater gets absorbed into the soil and plants. 

“Our residents will be living in a cleaner, healthier environment, saving money and contributing to the greater good,” Holtzman says. In other words, you can live large and still keep your impact small.—Taryn Bickley

GARDEN APARTMENT Doug Farr basks in the solar panels and shrubbery at his West Loop green-ovation.

Doug Farrarchitect
Since opening Farr Associates (farrside.com) in 1990, Farr has had a clear mission in mind: Make buildings green. “It’s been our emphasis from day one,” he says. Farr and his 17-person architecture and design firm have earned LEED Platinum certifications for commercial buildings (the “platinum” rating indicates that the building is more than 80 percent sustainable), but his real emphasis is on housing: Farr has built, designed and renovated more than 1,000 housing units across the Midwest, many of them green. The firm is at work on its first “zero-net energy” residence in Ravenswood, meaning “it will generate more energy than it consumes—which is really cool,” Farr says. In other words, over the course of a year, the home will produce (or “net”) more energy than it uses via technologies such as solar power. “That is an exceptional level of environmental achievement,” Farr says, adding that incorporating green aspects into renovations is rarely more costly than a typical remodel. While the Ravenswood house is being built from the ground up, Farr cites a recently completed West Loop residence (pictured) as an example of an older brick townhouse gone green. Piggybacking on a bedroom addition, Farr Associates incorporated south-facing windows that provide passive solar heat; solar panels to heat water; and photovoltaic (solar-powered) panels to generate electricity throughout the home. “Anything you’re doing,” Farr says, “there’s a way to do it green.”—Lauren Viera