Kindness is generally the best policy

"But, today, for good or ill, we do live in that interconnected world and global society everyone talks about.  What happens to someone in Nigeria, or Brazil, or China matters to me.  Their happiness, their health, their prosperity, affects mine....Their well-being affects mine.  It is in my interest for them to be better off." Heaven on Earth: the Kindness Maxim

This is relevant to my interests in human ecology and buildings because it's a good reminder that we'll get better outcomes by securing the needs of the least-well-off, rather than focusing on what elite consumers are doing. It is in my interest for them to be better off. See also the post "Better to Insulate Old Homes than to Increase Regulations for New Homes". 

Also relevant: California's Air Resources Board has published its 2030 Action Plan Update for phasing out GHG emissions in the state. The initial recommendations of the Environmental Justice Action Committee (EJAC) (https://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/scopingplan/ejac_initial_recommendations082616.pdf) are worth reading. "ARB must better balance reducing greenhouse gases and reducing costs (cost compliance) with the other AB 32 goals of improving air quality in EJ communities while maximizing benefits for all Californians." This list of recommendations is a great reminder to academics and consultants like me. Because elite consumers provide funding for a lot of construction work (green second homes), and we work with Energy Codes for new construction, we can get distracted in this realm. The links in this post help me remember to broaden focus to include everyone, and non-human life. 

Put on a sweater

Update: Researchers aim for smarter people, not smarter thermostats

We see everyday more examples of "smart" products that presume people are dumb. We should instead leverage human intelligence and instinct.

Research Project Aims to Make 'Smart' Clothes for Personalized Cooling and Heating.
SAN DIEGO—A new research project aims to develop a fabric that will keep people at a comfortable temperature regardless of how hot or cold it actually is. Press release.

Wait, we have this already! It's called a sweater! 

The ATTACH (Adaptive Textiles Technology with Active Cooling and Heating) project at the University of California, San Diego is funded with a $2.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E). The smart fabric will be designed to regulate the temperature of the wearer's skin—keeping it at 93°F (34°C)—by adapting to temperature changes in the room. When the room gets cooler, the fabric will become thicker. When the room gets hotter, the fabric will become thinner. To accomplish this feat, the researchers will insert polymers inside the smart fabric that expand in the cold and shrink in the heat. "Regardless if the surrounding temperature increases or decreases," said Wang, "the user will still feel the same without having to adjust the thermostat." 

With smart people who know how to dress themselves for the seasons, you won't need to heat the room as much in winter....uh, wait, there is now an app for that? 

“With the smart fabric, you won’t need to heat the room as much in the winter, and you won’t need to cool the room down as much in the summer. That means less energy is consumed. Plus, you will still feel comfortable within a wider temperature range,” added Renkun Chen, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC San Diego.

Tech and 3D printing, blah blah blah. 

For some short pieces actually worth reading on this same subject, see Kris De Decker's work on clothing at Low Tech Magazine.

An Affordable Passive House by Chris Corson

"The big-picture goal of the Passive House movement is to nearly eliminate housing’s share of climate change by slashing energy consumption to about 6 percent of that used in conventional homes. But to have a practical effect, the standard can’t just apply to high-end projects with big budgets; it has to be within reach of ordinary working people. That’s why I jumped at the chance to build a 1,600-square-foot two-bedroom Passive House in Knox, Maine, for a young working couple with a $210,000 budget....For my first Passive House, I wanted not only to hit the performance targets but to build affordably, using methods familiar to any capable builder and readily available materials and products."  [Wonderful illustrations and photos in this PDF from JLC-Online]

Startup Takes Google Street View Approach to Home Energy Audits

Home energy efficiency startup Essess has a pretty cool idea for bringing building energy efficiency information to the masses. It's basically a merging of two already successful ideas: Google Street View and online real estate libraries like Zillow or Trulia. The company plans to send cars to take thermal energy scans of every building in the country, find energy leaks and give the buildings each an energy score, and then build an online library of that information. [Full story via Treehugger]

Open or Proprietary Green Standards?

"The fact that green building codification has been left to mature with private sector advocates testifies to a failure of public leadership. If governments now simply nod toward one of the existing rating systems in toto and say, “Me too,” they will create some shiny golden apples for the chosen system. Governments will better serve the cause of green building if they develop a set of prescriptive standards that act impartially toward existing private rating systems, freeing private-sector advocates to complement one another’s efforts in pushing the green frontier."  Full Article on GreenSource.

California has taken leadership in this regard by publishing CalGreen, the state's mandatory green code.  But CalGreen, like LEED, is an additional layer of regulation that makes up for failures in the IAPMO and ICC model plumbing-, mechanical-, and building-codes.

California's CalGreen perpetuates a double-standard in building regulations by having three tiers of requirements.  The bigger cities are enforcing the upper tiers, making LEED-equivalent the worst-allowable construction.  Smaller jurisdictions may require a weak local Green Building Regulation as an alternate to CalGreen.

Better to Insulate Old Homes than to Increase Regulations for New Homes

"Greater return on investment in insulation will be found by focusing on refurbishment of existing, poorly-performing homes than on increases in new build regulation."

From the 2007 thesis "What are the Financial- and Carbon-optimal Points for Return on Investment inInsulation?" by Jamie Bull, University of East London.

The work "examines whether it is worthwhile to continue lowering the elemental U-values demanded by Building Regulations in light of the diminishing returns found when increasing insulation thickness.... Key results are that the carbon-optimal point is far beyond the financial-optimal point for all materials assessed. The carbon-optimal point is also beyond the requirements of Building Regulations. However the financially-optimal point (before accounting for co-benefits) is below Building Regulations. Therefore it is found that, at the margins, super-insulation is an expensive way of reducing lifetime CO2 emissions."

California residential CO2 emissions

Here is a chart that breaks down California residential CO2 emissions into end-uses.  The data comes from the 2009 CALIFORNIA RESIDENTIAL APPLIANCE SATURATION STUDY Executive Summary.

Space heating and water heating account for nearly 50% of all CO2 emissions from residential building stock.  The energy source for these is mostly natural gas.  Compared to electricity, this fuel is cheap per pound of CO2 generated.  This makes it hard to argue for CO2 reductions on the basis of energy cost savings.

Here is the same chart, re-colored to highlight the end-uses that building designers can affect.  These end-uses may persist for the life-of-structure: for example, it's costly to change a building's orientation or significantly increase its insulation levels.

This second chart shows that resident choices and behavior (shown in gray) may account for 40% of a building's metered energy consumption.  The other 60% (shown in color) may be due to choices made by the designer and equipment specifier. 

Designing to Passive House standards can cut out most of the active heating and cooling energy.  Solar water heating can cut out most of the Water Heating category.  Daylighting can halve the Lighting category, with low-power electric lights knocking out much of the remainder.  The fun challenge is to implement these concepts cost-effectively, especially for existing buildings, in today's contracting economy.

The coming UK energy meltdown

Insert [US] for [UK] and this article raises important points. Dan

"There can be no doubt that the UK must evolve an energy strategy that will liberate the economy from hydrocarbons as fast as possible. But its resources and financial circumstances are increasingly modest. The energy aspirations of its politicians are incoherent and technically illiterate. All this is about to come to a head with the transparent reluctance of international financiers to invest in the “green” economy. A huge U-turn lies ahead when it will have to plead with its EU partners for a derogation on the closure of the coal capacity and with EdF to keep the old nuclear fleet on the road, while developing a more realistic energy plan. This must almost certainly require the electrification of almost everything and the speeding up of nuclear capacity build, wherever possible innovating technically and reducing the costs...." http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8146

Energy Efficiency by 2041 (Salon: Michael Klare)

"...one crucial approach to energy consumption in 2041 will surely be efficiency at levels unimaginable today: the ability to achieve maximum economic output for minimum energy input. The lead players three decades from now may be the countries and corporations that have mastered the art of producing the most with the least. Innovations in transportation, building and product design, heating and cooling, and production techniques will all play a role in creating an energy-efficient world."

Proof is in: Going Green Creates Jobs

"The bottom line from the California Air Resources Board: The new goals would give the state's economy a modest boost, save residents money, add jobs and even avoid 300 premature deaths via cleaner air." (Sorry Bush, discredited again) Article in SF Chronicle

Bay Area mayors band together for green future

One of the biggest impediments to accomplishing the mayors' ambitious agenda, Dellums said, "is getting people to understand there are no options. Either we do it or we do not survive." Article in SF Chronicle

Local graywater in Contra Costa Times

http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_10139889?nclick_ More good press for WaterSprout.

How to Do More with Water

[Published in AIA East Bay's ARCHnews September 2008]

Producing drinking water is extremely energy-intensive. ASHRAE reports that energy costs make up 80% of the typical water bill. Efficiency is a first step, but we really need to use locally produced, non-potable water to be sustainable. Our chief uses for non-potable water are toilet flushing and irrigation.

The real excitement comes from integrating architecture into the water cycle. With architecture we “harvest” two sources of non-potable water: rainwater and graywater.


Architectural expression of rainwater collection and storage. Buildings already collect rainwater in leaders and downspouts. Making water part of schematic design leads to rooflines that take on a receptive posture and concrete tanks that serve as basketball courts.

That brings us to graywater. Graywater is bathwater (plus bath sinks and showers). The English spell it greywater. The most harmful things in graywater seem to be detergents and cleansers, but graywater also contains bacteria from our skin. Avoid storing graywater unless it’s treated in an appliance like the BRAC, Pontos Aquacycle, or Aqus. These units filter, chlorinate, and store the water for toilet-flushing. San Francisco and Mendocino County are taking the lead in permitting these appliances in California.


Reconnect architecture with horticulture. A better use for graywater may be irrigation. Laura Allen of the East Bay’s own Graywater Guerillas explained that organic particulates in graywater are good for soil health, turning a waste product into a resource. When our grandparents “threw out the bathwater,” they threw it onto the vegetable garden. We are seeing a resurgence of residential horticulture, using mulch basin technology to distribute the graywater with no storage. The gardens of the Sunset Idea House in San Francisco are irrigated with a system designed by the East Bay firm WaterSprout.

Regulations. Appendix G in the California Plumbing Code (written by sewage disposal engineers, not horticulturalists) regulates graywater. Designing a permittable graywater leachfield makes building your own moonshine distillery seem cheap and easy. The absence of realistic code guidance at the scale of single-family homes has led to elegant R&D by rogue horticulturalists, explained in excellent detail on the web. The Arizona and New Mexico graywater codes allow these clever systems, and we need to pressure our East Bay jurisdictions to emulate them.

Resources
Low tech:
East Bay’s Greywater Guerillas. Laura Allen, co-editor of Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground. www.greywaterguerrillas.com
Texas Manual on Rainwater Harvesting, online, now in its 3rd Edition.
Arizona Graywater General Permit provides guidelines and requires no review or inspection.

High tech:
High Performing Buildings magazine, Summer 2008 issue on rainwater, subscription free to architects, www.HPBmagazine.org
BRAC, www.bracsystems.com
Pontos Aquacycle (by Hans Grohe), www.pontos-aquacycle.com
Aqus (by WaterSaverTech.com), www.watersavertech.com

Designing Sun Control

[Published in AIA East Bay's ARCHnews May 2008]

Until the energy glut of the 1900s, architects designed the architectural shell to reduce loads. Reducing the cooling load has a positive ripple effect through all the systems of a building. Cooling equipment can be downsized, perhaps crossing a threshold to a less intensive cooling system. Fan power and duct sizes can be reduced. Less space is needed for mechanical equipment.

One of the easiest ways we can do this again is by keeping the sun out of windows. Properly sized overhangs are a great place to start with sun control. A fixed overhang will admit low winter sun when the radiation might be useful for heating, and exclude high summer sun when the indoor climate is too hot already.

How do we properly size overhangs? First, we have to know what seasons need shading. For this, a good tool is Climate Consultant 3 software developed at UCLA. The newest version works on both Mac and PC systems, so there is no excuse for not using it. A free copy can be downloaded from: http://www2.aud.ucla.edu/energy-design-tools/.
The program’s Sun Shading Chart will show graphically which times of the day and year that solar heat is useful for the indoor climate. At my office, we start each project by printing charts from Climate Consultant to guide our schematic design.

Next, we have to design geometry that shades in the hours and seasons we’ve identified. Until the advent of an easy 3D program with solar shading like SketchUp, we had to use mystical tools like the Pilkington Sun Angle Calculator and design in plan and section using a protractor. (SketchUp is available from: http://www.sketchup.com.)

In SketchUp, I can quickly draw a test overhang and then turn on the shadows. Using the sun shading controls, I can move the sun through the seasons and watch the overhang’s shadow move up and down the window below it. Then I resize the overhang to shade farther into spring and fall, if that’s what my Climate Consultant chart indicated.

Using shadows in SketchUp, it’s easy to see that some orientations have no overhang solution. Even vertical fins cannot keep low sun out of windows that face due east or west. On a current project, we designed operable, louvered shutters that the occupants will close at night before leaving the building, and open in late morning during a coffee break. We cut the simulated cooling load by 50% by shading these windows between sunrise and 10:30 am, when the sun is too low for overhangs to work. More synergies can come from such a layering of the window openings: the shutter design creates the opportunity for a lockable security system over the east windows, and the potential for leaving the windows open at night for night-ventilation cooling. We can pay for the shutters using savings from the mechanical system.

Sun control is usually one of the most cost effective measures to squash the loads on mechanical equipment, which is the key to having a low-energy building. Using Climate Consultant 3 and SketchUp, shading design becomes very straightforward. The next step is simulating the shading design in an energy model to see the ripple effects throughout the building system.

The “Passiv Haus” Standard: Houses without heaters

[Published in AIA East Bay's ARCHnews July 2008]

Imagine on a cold winter day, a house can be heated solely by people, lights, equipment, and sunshine. A Passive House is a building with enough insulation and air-tightness to eliminate the need for conventional space heating. After the 1970s energy crisis, architects in the Northeastern U.S. developed “superinsulation” (e.g. double-stud walls) and fresh-air ventilation. In the last fifteen years, European architects have perfected these innovations to create the Passive House Standard. This architectural formula will become part of the European Union’s building code by 2012. It could also be the most elegant and inexpensive means to reduce building energy use in the Bay Area.

How does it work? As we increase the insulation and air-tightness of a building envelope, the building becomes more comfortable and saves more energy, but it also becomes more expensive to build. However, there is a threshold of insulation and air-tightness at which the heating system becomes superfluous, and the total cost falls to the price-point of conventional construction. This is the key to designing a Passive House: simplify the mechanical system to pay for envelope upgrades.

It gets better. Because insulation blocks sound, the interior of a Passive building is quieter than a conventional building. Being inside engenders a feeling of serenity to know that the building is perfectly balanced between internal and external heat. Considering the building metaphorically, comfort is no longer attained with fire, but with breath. To cool off, one opens the windows. To warm up, one closes them.

Passive buildings are also healthier than conventional buildings, because they are flooded with filtered outdoor air. By using a fresh-air ventilator with heat recovery (an HRV or ERV), a Passive House loses less heat than a conventional building that is fully buttoned-up. Furthermore, the ductwork can be smaller and simpler, since it only provides fresh air.

So how do we design Passive buildings for the Bay Area? We turn our typical design sequence on its head by starting with a piece of mechanical equipment (the HRV). Next, we “size” the architectural shell to meet the heating loads, the way an engineer would have sized a boiler in the past. The calculations can be done on a napkin, but planning software is available. See the resources listed at the end of this article.

East Bay architect Nabih Tahan used the “Passiv Haus Planning Package” (PHPP) software to design a Passive House in Berkeley. He raised and remodeled a typical early-1900s bungalow. When I paid him a visit recently, I expected to see thick walls and high-tech windows. Surprisingly, Tahan used 2x6 studs at 24” centers, 2” of rigid insulation over the original 2x4 walls, and conventional windows. He paid careful attention to airsealing by caulking and foaming gaps in the plywood sheathing (continuous through the attic), and gasketing under sill plates.

Ironically, Tahan had trouble passing the Title 24 Energy Code. California’s current Alternative Compliance software cannot understand a house without a heater, so in order to get his certificate, he had to install $35 electric baseboards. When a basic gas furnace costs $8,000 and radiant floors cost upwards of $20,000, the upfront cost advantage of Passive buildings is clear. As if we needed more incentive, forthcoming revisions to the Title 24 Energy Code will mandate mechanical ventilation for houses—the Passive House essential. All that’s left to do is seal the gaps and get rid of the heater.

The following resources offer more information, including the PHPP software:
The Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt, Germany: http://www.passiv.de/
The Passive House Institute, US: http://www.passivehouse.us
Passive House, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house
Sill Plate Gasket: Owens Corning Foam SEAL-R

Intersections of the architectural shell and mechanical equipment

Why energy efficiency is not only a matter for technicians, but also for achitects.

Common intersections of the architectural shell (designed for immediate experience by people) and the mechanical equipment (designed separately, to maintain indoor climate):

• Daylighting to reduce electric lighting power use and cooling load. Requires a thin section depth, lots of skin area relative to floor area, and good window/skylight design


• Solar heat gain during heating season (desired). Requires orientation, massing, window/skylight design


• Solar heat gain during cooling months (undesired).


• Glare control from daylight.


• Tectonics of energy strategy and building operations.


• Social use of space related to heat, cool, light, breezes.


• Facade and window design.


• Shade design related to cooling load and glare control.


• Control of personal environment, especially in office and classroom design.


• Exposure of structure and indoor climate control systems; integration with look and feel of the building.


• Spatial requirements and architectural integration of climate control system.


• Room volumes related to thermal comfort.


• Solar gain to different parts of the building; allocation of program areas.


• Lighting control systems relative to activities, architectural shell, and outdoor climate.


• Structural design, cladding design, materials sourcing.


• Basic scheme; form and massing relative to local climate, sun and wind patterns.


• Thermal capacity, storage of heat or cool in the building fabric.

What else fits on this list? Are there common integration solutions that can be described generically for different climates? Are there common conflicts between the optimal configuration of the architectural shell for aesthetic experience and climate performance? Can we catalog these in a generic way?

How does better environmental performance make buildings better for people?

"I don't care how much energy you saved [through efficient design, etc.]; if people don't like to be there, you've wasted every bit of it." Howard Brandston, lighting designer, personal communication, 2005.

Higher environmental performance doesn't necessarily make buildings better places for people. But it does make the whole landscape a better place for people. Let's try to untangle the relationship between technological means and ultimate architectural ends.

Architecture is about making beautiful places that make people feel good. Architects use construction technology to achieve this goal. For those obsessed with energy efficient technology, "ecological correctness" can become an end in itself, causing the design team to lose sight of the ultimate goal. Technology serves no other purpose but to be in service of places that people enjoy.

Fundamentally architects must be humanists, but they can only achieve beautiful and comfortable places by knowing and using technology. The architect must also be a technologist.

Technological improvements in buildings accrue benefits perhaps more in the landscape and socioeconomic system than in the experience of the building itself. Through this mechanism, architects can make the total environment better for people, rather than looking narrowly at a building.

The ecological design initiative recognizes that people live in the landscape, not just in buildings, and that outdated building practices of the last century are degrading the landscape. Buildings and cities must also be transformed to have a positive energy future away from fossil fuels. Imagine a Persian carpet as the fabric of human infrastructure spread across the landscape; beautiful patterns. A single architectural project is attached to a thread in one location. That thread and its effects run in several directions throughout the landscape. Replacing the thread has an impact on the whole fabric, not just on the localized pattern alone.

A single building project has a great potential for positive impacts throughout the landscape and fabric of human infrastructure. Ecological design takes advantage of this opportunity to improve our infrastructure to make it more comfortable and beautiful for people.

Higher ecological performance in buildings won't necessarily make buildings better for people, but it will make the whole fabric of human infrastructure better for people. Buildings are the means. The technology and construction practices used to make buildings are the ultimate means.

What is ecological design?

Ecological design means:
1. Including ecological performance as part of the definition of architectural quality, along with formal expression and human comfort
2. Using a generic design process of:

2a. Measurable ecological objectives set in the earliest planning phase of the project;
2b. Repeated design cycles of simulation and assessment to achieve objectives;
2c. Evaluation of architectural quality after occupancy and open dissemination of results

Ecological design can be better defined as a process than as a product. The process has the generic characteristics described above.

The form of contractual relationships between actors in the building process usually has a great effect on the resulting product. A review of common contractual arrangements and their affects on ecological outcomes will follow in coming posts.

What contractual relationships between actors in the building process are necessary for today's architectural quality? See coming postings.

Expanded role of architects in making buildings

This diagram illustrates the expanded role that architects need to play in making this century's buildings. The dual goals of creating places that make people feel good and high environmental performance require that the architectural shell acts as the primary means of maintaining the desired indoor climate. Mechanical equipment became the primary means for maintaining climate in the past century, but the era for that architecture is over.

Two things must happen in order for the architectural shell to help maintain indoor climate, rather than just to give the building's appearance. First, our definition of architectural quality must return to what it once was: quality architecture is a beautiful integration of formal expression and environmental performance that creates a place where people like to be. This definition means that environmental performance is just as important as formal expression, and that a design neglecting either is not a quality design.

Second, for the architectural shell to help maintain indoor climate, architects need to know more about building physics and engineering principles. Knowledge only of conceptual development, program allocation, and formal expression will not suffice for creating this century's architecture. Such a limited set of skills ensures that the architect will remain nothing more than a stylist for the elite 10% of expensive buildings constructed every year.

What does the end of cheap oil mean for architects?

"We have all been enjoying the greatest party the world has ever seen: the great oil party," according to Kjell Aleklett, president of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) and a physics professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.

"After the climax comes the decline, when we have to sober up and face the fact that the party is coming to an end," he wrote in a paper earlier this year.

A great site for getting up to speed on the world energy situation:
http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Peak_Oil

Once a designer is up to speed on the situation, a designer starts to think about solving problems. A good building should last at least 100 years, barring accidents. The grandchildren of today's architecture students will be living in these buildings: 2105 is not that far away. In the next 100 years, oil production will have fallen off dramatically.

What fuel will we use for transportation, and for powering our buildings? It's more than obvious that we must immediately begin a transformation of our energy infrastructure so we have something, let alone something nice, for our grandchildren living in our buildings in 2105.

You won't hear anything about this in the US media, especially not from the US government. For government to acknowledge the energy reality they would have to suggest that people must change their lifestyles. We will not be able to drive cars as much in the future, we'll need public transit, and we'll need denser urban development and architecture to make this possible.

Fortunately the Europeans are not afraid of the future. In Sweden they see the challenge of infrastructure transformation over the next 100 years as an exciting opportunity. I share this view, and my goal is to convince architects to get excited, to educate themselves for the new skills they'll need, and to take more responsibility in the lifecycles of buildings. Architects must make themselves relevant to building production if they want any voice in how the American landscape will be transformed this century.

Architects should take up this responsibility because traditionally we were humanists who used technical knowledge to create beautiful places that made people feel good.

Be sure that the responsibility for transforming our cities and infrastructure will be taken up by someone. Shall it be technical professionals who arrive at technical solutions, without regard for beauty and human well-being? Instead, I believe the responsibility should be taken up by architects who have returned to their roots.

Getting back to what matters in the profession
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, a Roman who lived in the first millenium, in his Ten Books of Architecture defined the architect's profession as the integration of firmitas, utilitas, and venustas. This is usually translated as firmness, commodity, and delight.

It has only been a short time, during the last century, that mainstream architectural culture trivialized firmness and commodity as fundamental to architectural quality. In a defensive response to the erosion of professional territory to engineering and construction specialists, Architecture became primarily about formal expression with regard to Concept--anything other than pure concept was art compromised, giving still more ground away to other disciplines. This nonsense of professional rivalry has no place in the architecture of this century. Architectural quality in this century must once again be evaluated as an integration of human comfort, environmental performance, and formal expression. Architects today are not trained for this; they are trained to be fashion designers, who are irrelevant for producing 90% of the new buildings made each year.

We architects must learn engineering again. We can start by doing some simple math. Buildings consume about 40% of our energy production in the US. Transportation consumes another 20-30%. We'll have replaced nearly half of American buildings, and renovated a larger fraction, by 2050 when today's graduates from architecture school are retiring. Thus, the arts of architects and urban designers/planners can affect 30-35% of America's energy use by our grandchildren's time, even more considering renovations.

Next steps:

How do energy realities translate into specific performance goals for architecture? See the next postings.

What does energy conservation in buildings have to do with the architect's goal of making beautiful places that make people feel good? See the next postings.