Home is where your heart is, the old saying goes. And nowadays, thanks to certain events of 2020, home is where every single thing is. Home is where we sleep, eat, work, educate, learn, play, argue, chill out, exercise—nearly everything. It is our sanctuary, our haven, and the only place we can feel safe, really. (And that goes for only those of us privileged enough to live alone or with trusted family or friends, even though sometimes people close to us can pose a risk based on their job or other methods of exposure).
Nonetheless, home means a lot more to us now than it used to.
We spend 90% of our time indoors, or with an average life span of 79 years, 71 years indoors*. Six months ago, a huge chunk of our time spent indoors included places of work, learning, and socializing. Now, for many of us, these activities all take place in our home.
Not to be all doom & gloom: there is a silver lining and we’ll get there, but we need to characterize the situation first.
Life is hard for almost everyone right now, in some way, and it’s not all because of COVID-19. There is a lot going on in the world that we are grappling with - and many conditions seem beyond our control. We have heightened awareness of our current state, more than we have in the past, and whether you are working for a grocery store, as a business executive, as a general contractor or as a writer—it is nearly impossible to escape from the challenges facing ourselves and each other.
This might make you wonder, “why the heck should I read a blog written by an architecture firm on home construction when there are so many much bigger problems in the world?!” Well, because those homes are a huge part of a system - the environmental framework we have built for ourselves - that has enabled our situation.
We often ignore homes as part of this system because most of us are not building new buildings day after day—most of us simply move in and out of them without much thought. If we are thinking about architecture, for most of us, we are deciding the color to paint a wall or what flooring to choose. Or, maybe you are building a home, but it is a possibly a long-term or once-in-a-lifetime decision-making process.
The fact is that the impact of the choices we make in designing and building a home are significant not only to ourselves, but to our local communities and the global community as well.
We’re going to highlight three ways that this is true:
Individual Health: related to psychological well-being, prevention of morbidities like cancer and auto-immune diseases, as well as immunity.
Environmental & Socioeconomic health: related to industry of product production.
Climate Change: whether human caused or not, buildings have the potential to help mitigate it.
Individual Health:
From a health perspective, ‘you are what you eat’ rings true, but there is so much more to it. There are countless studies about diet and impacts, genetics, exercise, stress. Only more recently, as our time indoors increased so dramatically (past 150 years - since industrialization) have we begun to understand the impact of our surroundings (the indoors) on our health. LEED certification has only been a thing since the 1990s, following studies proving that connection to nature and good daylight improved employee performance.
Psychologically, we know that colors and smells can affect your mood, sounds can help you relax or amp you up or distract. We know that chemical sensitivity, auto-immune disorder, and cancer rates are on the rise. Poor air circulation significantly increases your exposure to communicable diseases, like Covid, and the surfaces we touch also harbor those germs. Our surroundings matter.
We are not only what we eat. We are also what we breath and absorb. We do not realize it, but we ingest (eat) a lot of dirt and we also breath it. We absorb what ends up on our skin. Every human has over 167 chemicals in their body, 76 of which are linked to cancer, 86 are endocrine disruptors, and 79 can cause birth defects and developmental delays, according to BodyBurden: The Pollution in People, published in 2003 by the Environmental Working Group.
When we design high performing buildings, we always incorporate constant and balanced fresh air that is filtered to eliminate pollutants in the outdoor air from coming in. This is especially relevant in the mountains, during fire seasons. It is also helpful for people with asthma and allergies to keep pollen and vehicle or other industry emissions out of the home. It is a preventative measure that can help to avoid allergies, asthma, and cancer.
However, this only addresses the air that comes from the outside in. We have nothing protecting us from the particles, chemicals, and emissions that are already inside our home, brought in during manufacturing and construction.
There is no question that small children and unborn babies are at the greatest risk. Toddlers eat upwards of 20 mg of indoor dust, daily, they are on the ground breathing the dust bunnies under the furniture and the particles of carpet or polyurethane that have worn off from walking, vacuuming, and daily use.** Pollutants like lead disproportionately affect children more than adults.
Photo Credit: J. Christian Jensen
Lead has been eradicated from new paint, thankfully. As have some VOCs. But, the chemical industry is only barely more regulated than it was 100 years ago and though certain chemicals are no longer an issue, chemical regulation is set up to accept the next best thing as an alternative, with very little or zero testing necessary. As an example, BPA has been eliminated from many drinking containers, but it has been replaced with another chemical that does the same thing and for all we know, may have similar endocrine-disrupting characteristics, or other.
There are thousands of chemicals used in products we invite into our surroundings: in glues, finishes, fabrics, and solid surfaces. Some of the risks are known, but hard to pin down, and others are following us around, slowly building up in our system. The research is in infancy and there is little policy in place to protect us. Building codes, which focus on catastrophe avoidance, say very little about the quality of your indoor air and some of the improvements in energy efficiency create risk for potential toxins to be trapped with you in your sanctuary, if systems are not calibrated correctly.
The installation of all building materials impacts the people and families of those doing the installation. Crew-members carry particles of these materials home to their children and other loved ones on their clothing and equipment. Some materials require full haz-mat suits and others require masks and respirators. When a father hugs his little one who then breaths in the fiberglass, the damage is done. Kids are resilient, but they are also far more sensitive than full-grown humans.
At Love | Schack we are aware of these potential risks and how to avoid them. While we strive to eliminate risk, we are often balancing the health of our clients with their budget. Naturally derived products are becoming more available to everyone, and we work with product developers like Limestrong, to make the products more affordable. We are working to educate builders about the market of safe and healthy material choices to increase awareness of the things that can be implemented and why it matters. We also learn about new products from the builders we work with and in turn incorporate them into our palette.
Regarding immunity: some materials and products are naturally antimicrobial, like lime and clay. Their porosity and chemical nature either kill germs or inhibit their survival. These were used widely less than 100 years ago, but as manufactured paints, cement stucco, and sheet rock have taken over the markets, we are now surrounded w/ water proof latexes and poly-urethanes that promote the survival of bacteria and viruses. Some manufactured products have anti-microbial coatings applied or integrated into them but the chemicals used are highly toxic to the environment and do not break down. The coatings wear off over time, polluting either our bodies or the outdoor environment and eventually cause more harm than good.
Environmental and Socio-Economic Health:
The construction industry is a very large chunk of the economy, in general. We often think that the bulk of this industry and economy is relegated to the commercial and institutional industry, but it is actually in the single family residential market where most of the money gets spent. This means that the money moving through the system impacts the lives of everyone involved in that chain of demand.
In building a home, one spends large amounts of money on a daily basis and those tens of thousands of dollars that went into your insulation is now in someone else’s pocket. The products we specify and purchase influence and are in turn, influenced by the market. We know, from learning about organics and fair trade in food and fashion, for instance, that the spending choices we make have real impact for sustainable and healthy ecosystems and economies, or they can have detrimental impacts.
Due to our history and policy, mining and industry are not evenly or equally dispersed throughout. Resource extraction and manufacturing tend to be in places of less wealth and fewer financial resources. They tend to degrade property values. A lack of adequate regulation often means degradation of the environment: drinking water, soil, air - the things we need to live, and we begin to see consequences amongst those communities. Asthma, allergies, auto-immune diseases, cardiovascular disease and cancers arise at dis-proportionate rates, further entrenching socio-economic disparity.
If we are able to avoid using the products containing chemicals that cause harm and source from companies that are stewards of the environment, like wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council or by Cradle to Cradle, we buy into a system that avoids these health hazards, promotes regeneration, and offers opportunity within industry without the negative health and environmental impacts to communities. These certifications are the opposite of regulation - they are incentive-based rather than punitive.
We are in a high-cost labor market so it is often difficult to make an economic argument for natural or raw materials that might require more on-site labor to install. However, where/when it is possible, we want to encourage these investments over heavily manufactured or processed materials coming from far away with unknown consequences. While the argument might be difficult at a small scale, we all know that in general, our communities thrive when we keep our currency local and support our neighbors and community-members who are in the trades.
Climate Change:
The climate is changing and there is a rather short period of time within which we can slow it to a manageable rate. The impacts of climate change range from species extinction to extreme weather events to rising sea levels. There are significant economic costs of this rapid change, as well as social and health tolls.
Different building materials and methods have different levels of embodied energy and emissions called CO2e (Carbon Dioxide Equivalent). Over the past 20 years, industry has begun to measure the relative CO2e of many materials. Buildings incorporate vast quantities of stuff into them and that CO2e is becoming more and more apparent as a major contributor to the warming global temperatures.
Some materials, like spray foam insulation and steel, have extremely high CO2e. To illustrate this: 6” of spray foam will save you a lot of money on your heating bill. However, it took a LOT of energy to make that spray foam, to get it to your house, and to install it. It will take 100 years for your savings in heating to make up for the energy used in the production and installation.
There are alternative insulation options with much lower CO2e, do not bring hazardous chemicals into the home, and don’t cost more, while performing just as well.
Other materials like cellulose, standard-sourced wood, and wool have very low CO2e, and yet other materials like FSC certified wood, hemp, and straw actually have negative CO2e. This means that when we purchase these materials, we are using our money to source and store CO2e within the walls and roofs of the building we are making.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified buildings and agriculture as two of the highest potential climate change mitigation opportunities.
We have a ways to go before hemp, straw, and sustainably-sourced wood are mainstream products we can purchase at the lumber store, but we like to imagine near future in which we know that every building we help design is part of a regenerative agriculture and forestry economy benefiting farmers and foresters, helping to encourage thriving ecosystems, boost soil and crop production, and keeps its occupants cozy, healthy, and happy.
At Love | Schack we do our best to avoid high CO2e components and utilize carbon-storing ones, but it is not always possible or practical. We design with wall, floor, and roof assemblies that incorporate plant-based but durable, repairable, and available materials. We use a wide range of materials and products that are both available at the lumber store and in the fields and hills. We can help you find the balance of connection to nature and avoidance of hazards you need to match your budget.
We advocate for our clients to consider the impacts of their decisions and make the rubber hit the road. Sometimes it might mean a more creative design that allows for flexible/shared use of a room rather than building two rooms to save a little on square footage and enabling that money to go to a slightly more expensive wall system - one that will enhance your health, protect your wallet, and serve your construction crew and your planet beyond your expectations.
Your home is where your heart is.
Sources:
*Jeffrey Siegel, Dept of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto
**https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2010.01524.x