455 West 22nd Street - Chelsea's Green Brownstone

Designing and building or gut renovating any multi-family dwelling is an enormous task. A well-designed, truly green building that keeps its budget and target design goals is quite a rarity, and a worthy accomplishment. Reducing the carbon "footprint" (i.e. how much fossil fuels are consumed and, therefore, carbon is emitted) by a multi-family dwelling relies on several "systems"; building materials, design & construction, and, most importantly, human usage (consumption & control of inputs & outputs)

There are several reasons to consider living in a Greenspace, or Purspace as we call it, like 455W22nd St: Each unit's systems, from independent "zone" central heating & AC, to the full spectrum Tungsten low voltage lighting, to the high performance appliances, is designed for efficiency, longevity, comfort and quiet. Several proverbial birds got hit by the green stone we threw at this project's carbon and operating cost benchmark in the sky: it's cheap to live in, and comfortable, easy to live in for the owners. That's good for you. It's low impact in how it was made, and easy on the carbon it contributes to the planet.

As I said, designing and building any multi-family dwelling is an enormous task. Enormous tasks are often tacked by enormous egos.

From the advertising landscape here in NYC, it would seem that the designers and architects of most new construction projects are as keen on promoting their career, their faces and clever catch copy, garnished with vogue-style images of immaculate looking persons or couples sitting in lotus positions in a living room filed with white river stones or strutting through the lobby, branded bags in tow, looking like Bianca Jagger and Jerry Hall wanna-bees. Our living rooms still have furniture in them that invite comfort as well as design pleasure and style. We don't dress like we're just about to leave for studio 54 when we chill in the living room or make dinner with friends. We're just mortals looking for a nice, dry, quiet place to park our carbon-based butts and enjoy indoor sports. This, above any, is the goal of the new modernism in design and architecture.

I'm amazed (and offended) by the plastique contortions and obscene postures the word eco or green is forced to assume in US building culture and marketing. I've seen buildings say that they are green or eco-friendly because they use 20% post-consumer recycled toilet paper in the spec units, or because the doormats are made out of hemp. Green design-build projects in many countries are viewed as great public services, with great aesthetic and social responsibility as progress is made in the field. No matter where in the world the goal, the bar of green design is aligned: well designed, low impact buildings should make people happy to live in them. They serve as an ecosystem for family and communities to function and thrive with relative ease, without undue resource destruction, pollution or energy consumption (our calories to btu's of gas) on the rest of the planet (that would be us, too).

I've visited buildsites in over 53 countries and designed a few places in my day. 2 out of 3 of every de Vito born in my generation (and there are a bunch of us), are architects or designers. The rest, yes, you guessed it: ad execs. I have the dubious pedigree of having done both. 455 West 22nd Street is an example of a green designer hitting his stride in a hard NYC race of street-smart developers. It's an honour that people still living in places I've designed or built still keep in touch, letting me know that they love living there as the space allows their lives to change and grow or simplify, or to ask questions when they want to modify or re-design. Not many of them have re-sold, at least yet, and certainly not because they have not increased in value. These folks are happy because they live bathed in natural light by day and stars at night. They don't hear their neighbors, the street traffic or incorrectly spect blowers in the HVAC system. They are happy at the excellent oxygen turn over and low or Zero VOC air quality in their spaces, happy that when they intuitively reach for a light switch or a place to hang a coat, it's there, happy that the home is, by design, cheap to run, simple to fix or modify and does not resist them in the ways they want to live and change their homes.

A CONTRACT FOR HEALTHY, PEACEFUL LIVING IN A COOPERATIVE CONDO:

Kitchen side composters and were donated by XXXX. What I ask is that each person who owns their space at 455 commits to really using them. My mother is a composting fiend: after her 16th floor terrace worm-composter proved warm enough to keep her little "wormies" alive through a chilly NYC winter, we joked that she spent part of her fall knitting all the XXX residents little sweaters so that they would be warmer next time the frost hit. It was very beautiful to watch the satisfaction she and others in a very wealthy-person's building got from sitting out on the terrace in the springtime sun, sorting the worms from the rich, gorgeous soil they had made the previous year from all of their yummy food scraps.

There is a lifestyle to be embraced in here, if one should choose. I spend a lot of time in airplanes as a by-product of having a multi-continental family and jobs that happen all over the planet. Trust me, it's a sweet and sour deal. Every time the jet engines suck, burn and push the plane, I do indeed think of the towns I've personally lived in Panama, in Cameroun, in Mexico, that would consume as an aggregate in one calendar year.

At the time of this writing, I am about half way as the crow flies between Salzburg and Innsbrook, Austria, on a writing & skiing vacation with my wife, her 20 year old son and many, many friends. We came from Pairs to Munich on an overnight bullet sleeper train; cheap, functional and hyper-efficient transport the likes that Amtrack-the-national travesty has never seen. Warm, on-time buses take us anywhere we want to go, to the cottage or the slopes or to town. Most of the food we eat is "bio" (i.e. organic). It's a movement now dominating the Euro farming landscape and markets without the Whole Paycheck fanfare and price gouging. In 6 days here, without effort or more than 20 extra seconds a day per person, the only thing we are unable to recycle or compost is some strange plastic packaging (about 5 grams' worth) from nuts I bought in the Latin quarter in Paris. Zero landfill is easy because it's set up right, because everyone is educated and signed on, because it's become a lifestyle now into the second generation here and in most of Europe, with Germany leading the way with grace and style and great, functional design. This habit will never change, regardless of what a government or municipality dictates. It's a pan-national lifestyle, not an option or a choice or a luxury or something you do when you have time or feel like it.

Let's share ideas while respecting each other's space and time.

If we have criticisms or complaints, let us say them in writing or with respect. Let's do what public street signs in India suggest:

Praise loudly, criticize gently