West Coast Green Early Adopter’s Workshop Interview

Bob Birkebile, Principle, BNIM Architects

Founder, AIA Committee on the Environment

www.bnim.com

8/25/08

1. What inspired or caused you to get involved in green building & how many years ago was that?

3 generations of craftsman contractors-dad was a contractor and mother was an educator & introduced him to systems thinking. Dad explaining elegance in building. In college encountering Bucky Fuller-taking systems thinking to a deeper level. And thinking about spaceship earth and how we are passengers without an operating manual.

After 10 years of practice, the collapse of the Hyatt Regency. The questions that came up that night of helping on the rescue crew was-did I kill all these people? What is the real impact of our design decisions on then people we serve? Do our designs improve their health & productivity, the vitality of their neighborhoods, community & planet? I couldn’t find the answers to these questions. To find them I reached out to people like Amory Lovins & Lovejoy, and started the AIA Committee on the Environment and the USGBC.

2. 2 or 3 examples of what do you do to keep you on your edge.

Continuing to listen to my youngest colleagues put ourselves in places to try to define the future in a different way.

Being involved in large disaster responses such as Greenberg, Kansas & Katrina. Greenberg is a community that was leveled by a tornado & in its place has been built a living community that through wind power produces 3 times more energy than it consumes.

3. What are the next steps for you to get to the next level?

Finding a way to do all these things elegantly. We’re good at creating big ideas. The bigger challenge is in giving up the old ones.

4. What feelings come up for you when you think of these steps?

Two dominant feelings: 1. Learning how to love more thoroughly all life. Einstein said that our huge delusion is that we’re separate from all that’s different. We’re a small part of a large beautiful system. It’s easy for us to lose site for our place in the universe. We need to re-discover who we are. 2. There’s a huge urgency right now. Large pattern scientist forecast’s are very scary.   Things have proven to be progressing faster than their earlier forecasts. Some experts say we have waited too long. Time is not our friend.

5. What are a couple of success stories of bringing along your network to their next level?

• AIA Committee on the Environment
• USGBC
• Living Buildings
• One Planet Living Concept.

The Greensburg rebuild has become a benchmark for revitalizing rural American cities to create wonderful people to live, to attract young people back, develop green collar jobs and is a systems approach.

6. If you were to describe your network as a metaphor, what comes to mind...what would it be…?

Water Lily. It’s beautiful, responds to the local environment, has a rhizome root system through which it is connected to others.

7. Next steps in working with your network in helping & inspiring them to the next level.

Getting things into a national & international discourse like in a Wiki type of form.

Creating a Living Systems Institute with Cascadia chapter of the USGBC, USGBC & the scientific community.

8. Which ones are you most drawn to?

• Greensburg on the Discovery channel.
• The Living Building Conference.
• One Planet Living in Montreal

·      Designing a building for the Omega Center for Sustainable Living

·      Designing a new center for the Odum Institute

9. Resources you’d suggest.

• The Living Building Challenge, www.cascadiagbc.org/lbc
• Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World by Paul Hawken
• A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
• Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life by Stephen R. Kellert, Judith Heerwagen, and Martin Mador
• Biophilia by Edward O. Wilson
• The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals And Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World by Peter M. Senge, Bryan Smith, Nina Kruschwitz, and Joe Laur

10. Any other things that I haven’t asked that you’d like to add?

Building to the LEED Platinum level is building less bad for the environment. We need to move toward buildings and communities that rejuvenate and have a positive effect on living systems.