Matt O’Malia and Alan Gibson of G•O Logic presented: Smart Houses Don’t Just Stand There at the Juice 2.0 conference last Friday. The following powerpoint was used for the presentation.
Juice 2.0 “Building Maine’s Innovation Networks” will include a number of economical leaders of technology, design, art, natural resources, history, government, education, and more. The Juice Conference in Camden, Maine provides networking opportunities for these leaders to share ideas towards building a more prosperous state.
Matt O’Malia and Alan Gibson of G•O Logic will present: Smart Houses Don’t Just Stand There. Their presentation will explore a collaborative design and construction process with a goal of producing affordable net-zero houses. G•O Logic is considering future performance, natural resources, and building science, when initiating new design. Join G•O Logic as they discuss improving future home performance in Maine.
For more information please visit: www.juiceconference.org
Elliott Elliott Norelius Architecture, with Matthew O’Malia as project architect, has received the prestigious 2009 Special Mention for Excellence in Architecture from the New England chapter of American Institute of Architects.
Photo: Paul Warchol
The New England chapter of American Institute of Architects acknowledges design excellence each year through their design awards program. Awards are given in categories consisting of: Honor, Merit, and Special Mention. This year, 4 architects were given honor awards, 11 given merits, and 6 received special mentions. Among the 6 who received special mentions were Elliott Elliott Norelius Architecture with Matthew O’Malia, partner of G•O Logic, as project architect for the house on Penobscot Bay, Maine.
Portland Press Herald’s Tux Turkel toured G·O Logic’s Belfast prototype house and the resulting front-page article is out:
‘Green’ to the Extreme: House May Cut Energy Costs by 90%’
The article reviews some of the fundamental differences between this ‘energy-frugal’ home and standard construction, from foundation to roof and beyond. The house is a model of energy-efficient design, contemporary architecture, high-performance building techniques and exacting standards (LEED and Passivhaus, to name two). Once built, it will be living proof that a self-sustaining home that cuts energy costs by 90% can be beautiful and affordable, too.
By Matthew O’Malia
Special to Roll Call
June 22, 2009, 5:43 p.m.
Read the Article at the Roll Call
(Please note that the first time you click this link you are directed to an advertisement. Click the “Close” button on the top right, and you’ll be redirected to the homepage of the Roll Call. You can click the ‘back’ button on your browser to get back the article. Since there’s no way to get around this, we’ve included the full text of the editorial below.)
I am a small-business owner and partner in G•O Logic LLC of Belfast, Maine, a design and building company building the next generation of sustainable, energy-efficient homes. So I understand first-hand the importance of investing in clean energy and the importance of Congress strengthening the Clean Energy and Security Act. If we invest in a clean energy economy now, we’ll create millions of jobs and set our country on a track to compete in a 21st century economy. Not only will my small business and thousands of others like mine be able to expand, but all of the local businesses we rely on for manufacturing, shipping, storage and many other tasks will benefit as well.
Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy produced in the United States, more energy than all of the cars on the roads today. And while automobile fuel efficiency is seriously debated as a path to save energy and money, building energy performance has not received as much scrutiny, even though we have the tools and technology to create super-efficient buildings today. A strong renewable electricity standard will mean these tools get used and these jobs created to make our buildings more efficient and begin to build the foundation of an American new energy economy.
G•O Logic has developed home designs that reduce energy consumption by 90 percent for space heating and 80 percent overall. These houses look and feel like custom-designed, conventional homes and are built for average construction costs. The energy efficiency comes from cost-effective design improvements — thicker walls with a lot more insulation, better passive-solar utilization, and an air-tight envelope coupled with a heat-recovery ventilation system. In simple terms, a 90 percent more energy-efficient home saves an enormous amount of money and energy — around $90,000 in heating costs, 22,000 gallons of heating oil, and 285 tons of CO2 over the term of a 30-year mortgage.
A stronger renewable energy standard in the energy bill would provide small businesses, like mine, with an important opportunity to provide quality, energy-efficient housing that people can afford to build and heat and cool. And this opportunity would not just benefit small businesses. It would also create an entirely new market for green jobs that are good-paying, skilled and valuable to the economy. And these are jobs that can never be shipped overseas.
In fact, study after study has shown that investing in clean energy creates jobs, and at a far faster rate than investments in dirty energy sources like oil and coal.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that investments in clean energy produce two to three times as many jobs as investments in dirty energy. The Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have issued similar findings.
Why settle for half as many jobs when we could have double or even triple?
And don’t forget that creating more energy-efficient homes and businesses will jump-start the local economies in a multitude of ways. Once homes and businesses stop wasting energy, it means more money in people’s pockets. The Department of Energy’s home weatherization program cuts energy costs by an average of 30 percent per home. Those savings will spur consumer spending — helping to create even more jobs.
A strong American Clean Energy and Security Act can open new doors to future green jobs, a green economy and energy security. G•O Logic, among other innovative small businesses, is ready to help lead the way, with the skills and vision necessary to implement this ambitious plan. But we need the help of elected officials. I urge Congress to act now to create a stronger energy bill that will provide the support needed for a strong green economy and a brighter future.
Matthew O’Malia is principal of G•O Logic LLC, a design and building company in Belfast, Maine.
Matthew O’Malia discusses the importance of the current energy policy being debated by the Senate, and how change is necessary to realize the benefits of a green economy and green future!
“Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy produced in the United States, more energy than all of the cars on the roads today. And while automobile fuel efficiency is seriously debated as a path to save energy and money, building energy performance has not received as much scrutiny, even though we have the tools and technology to create super-efficient buildings today. A strong renewable electricity standard will mean these tools get used and these jobs created to make our buildings more efficient and begin to build the foundation of an American new energy economy.”
Read the whole editorial here: http://www.rollcall.com/news/36132-1.html
With the launch of our website we’re offering a line of homes that prove great design, comfort, unparalleled energy performance and reasonable cost can coexist. We’re not here to throw around now-meaningless terms like “green” or “sustainable” to describe what we do. Let’s accept it: every new building on earth has an environmental cost, either initially or over the long term (or both, generally). Here in the frigid north a building can be made to produce more energy than it uses through the application of renewable technologies, but only at an enormous cost. Net-zero is possible and certainly worthy, but it’s affordable only to a very few. G•O Logic is out to show the most sensible approach to reducing energy use in buildings is to push the envelope on performance and at the same time keep costs affordable to the average homebuyer.
We’re in trouble, folks. I just read “Heat” by George Monbiot. In spite of years of official ignorance of the problem, it turns out climate change was and is happening, and the outlook is so dire it’s almost too depressing to think about. But as Mr. Monbiot is a true optimist he spells out a necessary path to survival in the next 30 years: reduce carbon emissions by 90%, nothing less. What does this mean for energy use in buildings? Again, we’re in trouble. Buildings gobble up around half of all the primary energy used in the world (way more than cars and trucks do), but since heating oil has been so cheap historically we haven’t been too compelled to do anything about horribly wasteful buildings. Monbiot cites the German Passive House concept as a reasonable, proven method to reduce energy used for space heating in buildings by 90%, the same as his target. The passive house idea is catching on the the U.S. and we at G•O Logic are designing and modeling our homes to meet that standard.
Specifically what can we do? Create buildings that use the very least amount of energy possible for the various needs we humans have: staying warm, bathing with hot water, and watching episodes of Lost on wide-screen t.v.’s. What we as designers and builders can do is build a building that does such a good job of keeping out the cold we need nothing but the most minimal amount of electricity or firewood or body-heat to keep it warm; specify the most efficient water-heating appliances coupled with a solar-thermal system to cover half the annual domestic hot water load; remove the t.v. room from the floor plan and specify furniture with built-in chess boards. Who said architecture can’t be manipulative?
But don’t these homes cost a lot to build? What level of energy efficiency are we talking about at what cost? In the next series of posts we’ll look at the numbers to see if this plan is affordable and and the reduction in energy use achievable.
