Advancing from ‘urbanists’ to ‘green urbanists’

Torti Gallas tells how it incorporated sustainability traits into its projects.

“Is New Urbanism inherently sustainable? Only partly,” says Tom Gallas, partner and chief business strategist at Torti Gallas and Partners. That’s why the Silver Spring, Maryland, planning and design firm has tried for the past several years to supplement its new urbanist orientation by adding specifically “green” techniques.
During the Green Architecture and Urbanism Council in Alexandria, Virginia, Gallas explained that his firm, which switched more than a decade ago from conventional development to New Urbanism, has recently been trying to incorporate green methods into its practice.
“A US citizen uses 30 to 40 times the resources that an average person in the rest of the world uses,” Gallas said. “We must accelerate the greening of our buildings and our communities.”
At Torti Gallas, interns were the first to insist on exploring green methods, with only passive support from the firm, Gallas noted. Beginning about eight years ago, the interns led the move to sustainability, which Gallas likens to a journey — “the Green Mile.” The 165-member firm has been attempting, he said, to transform itself from “urbanists” to “green urbanists.”
One of the first steps, Gallas said, consisted of identifying “ten materials we can use now” that are superior from an energy or environmental perspective. Since then, the firm has employed ideas and techniques such as the following:
• In the Salishan Hope VI project in Tacoma, Washington, the firm developed an environmentally low-impact master plan, using methods such as stormwater retention to reduce the effect on a nearby waterway (see photo on page 1).
• For Fort Irwin, an Army base in California’s Mojave Desert, the firm developed “a passive solar kit-of-parts.” Among the elements are large overhangs and shaded patios. The firm also designed an innovative outdoor cooling tower, now under construction at the base (see images on this page).
“It’s a very simple idea,” Gallas said of the tower, which rises from a community center building. “We pump water to the top of the tower. It’s arrayed like a screen or mesh. The winds of the desert cause water to evaporate. When it evaporates, the air becomes cooler, and it sinks and exits into a sunken and enclosed courtyard, which retains the cool air. It’s like being in an air-conditioned space outdoors.” Overall, the project has slashed energy and water use by 50 percent compared to conventional construction, according to Gallas.
• Houses have been customized so that they’re better oriented to the sun.
• A training program was started within the firm to educate staff members in environmental matters. By 2004, ten firm members became accredited in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
• The firm set out to educate its clients about environmental matters. For its first LEED project, Torti Gallas and the client split the extra costs of complying with LEED standards.
• A sustainability charrette game has been played by staff members. Within a budget, teams in the firm compete at getting the most sustainable elements into a project. The game has an instructional purpose. “We were surprised by how much we knew,” Gallas observed. “A lot was common sense.”

green building from the start
By 2006, the firm realized it needed to start incorporating sustainability into the design process from day one, so Torti Gallas started a year-long process that included research, presentations, discussions, and games. The staff carried out the process of changing the firm’s design charter — an internal document that the firm has had since the late 1990s. Produced through firm-wide discourse, the design charter  “establishes a set of principles and a common language with which we measure and discuss our architecture,” says partner John Torti. “It is the basis for our architecture as the Charter for the New Urbanism is the basis for our urban design.”
The firm reached a consensus on points such as these: Trees and slopes should be preserved. Indoor air quality should be high. Compact development should be promoted, to reduce net energy expenditures. The firm should also promote transit-oriented development and connect the users of properties to the outdoors. The method for accomplishing many of these goals, Gallas said, can be stated simply: “Pick the right projects and make them compatible with our beliefs from day one.”
A toolbox was developed, as was a database of like-minded consultants.
There remain topics of debate, such as reconciling solar orientation with good urban design, and deciding whether to use vinyl, which Gallas said is toxic but also is important in affordable developments the firm has designed.
“Do we believe in greenfield development? Or should we limit ourselves to sites that have been previously developed, are near transit, or within growth boundaries? Should we walk away from work that does not offer an opportunity for sustainable design?” Those questions still confront the firm, but, Gallas said, “we have achieved more than we thought we could.”
“We are now planning two ‘zero-carbon communities,’” he noted. “We have one LEED Platinum and three Silver buildings in a very urban environment. There is a growing portfolio of projects with LEED certification. Almost all our projects are moving in this direction, although not all clients are willing to pay the price for LEED certification. We have six pilot projects for LEED-ND.”
“We’re no longer tentative,” Gallas observed. “Now we lead our clients — without them going broke.”
Torti adds: “With a firm the scale of ours, it is important that the entire firm has an opportunity to discuss ‘big’ conceptual issues and that the firm has an articulate position on all important conceptual issues. How else can we lead?”
“The truth is, we are not totally transformed,” Torti acknowledges. “This is a journey, and we have taken a big step by ideologically aligning with sustainability and committing to it. … When all our work can be measured ‘sustainable,’ we will be there.”