John Gower Design

  • Built Projects
  • Stock Plan Catalogue
  • About
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

Building blocks of sustainability

August 14, 2017 By John Gower Leave a Comment

(CV Collective is a beautifully-produced magazine that features people and places around the Comox Valley — you can view it online at https://cvcollective.ca/. In their most recent issue, I got to share my personal journey toward a more sustainable life and work practice. The article below was published in Volume 11 of the magazine.)

Picture a small boy sitting on a tall drafting stool, drawing rocket ships, submarines, and houses ­– sculptural, impossible, fantastical houses. That was me almost 50 years ago, enjoying the drafting board that my architect father kept at home. In the cozy living room below, my parents entertained friends from all walks of life. Among them were folks who had moved from California to B.C. to experiment with living closer to the earth and each other. It was the end of the 1960s, a time of creativity and chaos, and a time of growing awareness of the fragility of the world and our social systems. My parents felt this, and bought a quarter section of land out of town as a place to go should things get out of hand. In me a seed was planted.

As a young adult in the 1970s, I gravitated to others who were questioning the status quo. I spent time on a Kibbutz, bought a tipi, grew my hair and beard long, and lamented being too young to have been part of the counterculture. The early 1980’s found me in architecture school. Initially I flourished, winning scholarships and awards, but after two years I left, disillusioned by how the profession seemed so oriented to serving the elites of society, and oblivious to the social and environmental crises I believed were just around the corner. Cross-disciplinary bachelor’s and master’s degrees followed, where I sought to understand the lessons the counterculture offered in how we might exist in harmony with the natural world. In pursuit of a more alternative lifestyle, I moved to the Kootenays, where I fell back into architecture – initially because I needed a job and happened to be good at it. It became a passion that continues to this day.

A concern since my return to architecture is the nagging question: what do architecture and building have to contribute to sustainability? In other words, how do we design homes that are not simply less bad–being more energy-efficient, say, or having better indoor air quality or renewable materials–but are actually neutral or even positive in their impact on the world?

This is a vitally important question. In North America, buildings consume massive amounts of resources and contribute roughly 40 percent of our total CO2 impact to the atmosphere. If you add on the impacts from water use, runoff, commuting, our consumer habits, and so forth, you can see that where, how, and what we build has huge implications for the planet.

What is being done to change this? To my mind, not nearly enough, There have been a few tiny wins: incremental tweaks are made to the Building Code to encourage better energy efficiency; windows and doors are better insulated; Comox requires new homes to be Built Green, Bronze level. Consider the last two decades of building here in the Comox Valley – largely built on the idea of car-focused sprawl: wide streets, big lots, large homes, conventional infrastructure, big-box stores. The course of the evolution of our valley seems to have been entirely left in the hands of the developers, while well-thought out initiatives like the 2010 Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy languish on the shelf.

Leaving the important issue of urban planning aside for now, what does a truly sustainable home look like, one that is not simply less bad? I’m not sure that such a thing exists, although the Living Building Challenge strives for this very goal. What I do know is that we can build a home that is so energy-efficient it doesn’t need a heating system. We can harvest rainwater from the roof to use for domestic consumption of irrigation. We can recapture waste nutrients from sewage and waste heat from its plumbing systems. We can grow food and recycle nutrients through composting. We can build with natural, low-carbon materials like hemp, lime, wood, and earth. We can generate electricity from the sun sufficient to be “net zero” over the course of a year. We can do all these things, making in the process a beautiful, healthy, and enduring home that is on the way to being entirely benign.

And what does it cost? The answer to this question depends on why one chooses to build this way. If someone wants a more “green” home to feel like they’re doing something positive, but has at the same time all the other lifestyle expectations prevalent in our society – lots of space, lots of stuff – it’s going to be expensive, costing perhaps 30-50 percent more than a conventional home. However, if one wants to make a serious attempt to live sustainably, the home will be smaller. It will probably have fewer modern conveniences, and a sweater might be chosen over turning up the heater on a really cold day. The house will contain less and its owners will make things last. In this scenario, a sustainable home might cost the same or even less than a conventional home.

The kind of sustainable living I’m talking about includes a culture change. How we live is determined by our values. What is a good life? How much is enough? What is my fair share of the commons? How do I begin to take responsibility for my personal impact on the planet? I believe these are the questions we need to be asking and the answers are what will lead us in the direction of real sustainability. Today, nearly 50 years after the start of my story, I’m still grappling with them. I live with my family in cohousing, which is a good way to cut back on stuff. Our home, at 1,450 sq ft is smaller than the average home but it’s conventional in construction. We grow food, but only a small part of what we eat. I walk to my office most days but we have a car and it gets driven more than we’d like. We don’t fly anymore but we take road trips to see friends and family. The way our world is currently set up, it’s hard to do it on our own.

This is why sustainability is a journey: we’re all somewhere on that road, some just starting out, others well on their way. Going the distance will take courage and a willingness to abandon the “if I can afford it, I should have it” ethos of our society. Sustainability is certainly about living a more frugal and modest life materially, but it’s offset with finding simpler pleasures in community and daily life, and where better than here, in the Comox Valley.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Energy Efficiency, Future-Proofing, home building, Miscellany, resilient home, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Lifestyles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Our Clients Say…

We’ve been living in it for a year now and are really pleased with the design and the final product. I can’t thank you enough for the extra work you did designing the downstairs living space. It is a perfect floor plan and very roomy. I can’t believe all that we are able to fit in there.  We hope that you are still designing houses when we build our next house!
Patricia B.California
View all testimonials
John Gower Design has provided me with outstanding service, time after time. I have relied on his team’s ability to recognize the scope of work that I have required, and deliver exactly the level of service which I had asked for. John Gower Design has shown a high degree of experience on my projects that required design solutions. Many of the designs had high levels of difficulty and I was always impressed with the intuitive knowledge that I could tap into. A pleasure to work with!
Dave S. (Builder)Nelson, BC
View all testimonials
John Gower provided the designs for a renovation to our 70 year old house. He designed a home that is energy efficient, durable, safe and beautiful. We cherish its simplicity, the connection it allows us to maintain with our community and the heritage feel that we were able to preserve. He made the process fun, thoughtful and productive. The sustainability of the design work that he provided will allow the house to be enjoyed for many more years.
Suzanne W.Comox, BC
View all testimonials
Bud and I wanted to thank you for the plans for our wonderful new home. It was a pleasure to work with you. I was concerned that we might have a difficult time working together with your being so far away. I must admit you made the process very easy. You seem to have a knack for taking what I saw in my mind and making it happen, even better than I could see it.
Bud and Sandy H.Idaho
View all testimonials
John has a unique ability to combine intricate elements of aesthetics, functional layout, resilience, and purpose into a progressive design package with minimal environmental impact both in construction and ongoing habitation. His designs are both mindful of the future and accommodating to his customers’ desires and lifestyle requirements. Such a complicated balance of considerations is not easy to achieve and John seems to do it time and time again. We have worked with John on several projects … Read more
Island Timber Frame (Builders)Cumberland, BC
View all testimonials
Your building plans worked fine for us and there were no issues of any size… We moved in here in Dec.2013 and find the house well laid out and easy to live in. Our dealings with your company were straight forward and presented no problems. All in all a good choice for us.
HelmutChilliwack, BC
View all testimonials
What an amazing experience to be part of designing a home to suit our lot! We had looked at house plans for months and could find nothing that we liked. Within ten minutes you had ideas for a plan that would fit the location and not destroy the natural surroundings. You are so knowledgeable about the whole building experience, not just the designing. We liked the way you interacted with our contractors. They said they thought you were very down to earth and had obviously done some building yours… Read more
Bob & Judy P.Big Lake, BC
View all testimonials
We enjoy the house very much and every day we are thankful for the design… We love the open feel and unique design. In fact, passers by are always noticing the house and we have received many compliments.
Jurgen & Shawn B.Midlothian, TX
View all testimonials
We have been absolutely showered with complements on the outside look of the house and the clever use of space on the inside.  Even the carpenters were constantly praising the design in its efficient use of materials and space.  They offered many times to purchase the house from us (only partly in jest).  And everyone asks who designed the place.
John W. and Traudi G.Jasper, AB
View all testimonials
We made our final decision to go with your plans based primarily on what we perceived as your ready accessibility and ability to understand our needs. We were not disappointed.
Jim B.New York State
View all testimonials

Let’s get started on your dream home.

We have the passion and the expertise
to make it a reality.

Contact Us Today!

212 - 2459 Cousins Avenue | Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada | V9N 3N6

Tel: 250.871.8765 | Toll-free: 1.877.366.2502

  • Facebook
  • Houzz

Copyright © 2021 John Gower Design