Sustainability, environmental accountability and energy efficiency have always been interwoven with design for Stateline No. 7 Architects, despite practicing in a region where governmental tax revenues rely almost entirely on fossil fuel extractions and whose client base is either directly or indirectly affected by extraction industries. For example in 1999, long before it became standard best practice and while the U.S. Green Building Council was still in its infancy, firm principal Lyle Murtha was a yet-to-be-licensed architect with a previous firm and already obsessed with low-tech sustainable strategies in designing a building with forward-thinking, environmentally responsible ground source heat pump HVAC system, high fly ash concrete, conservation-minded reuse of salvaged historic steel structural components and integration of the arts. This synthesis of energy efficiency and environmental responsibility combined with preservation as well as integrated artwork have continued on in all projects since firm inception in a "no nonsense" fashion and with a lack of formal designations, commonsensical strategies are employed on nearly every firm project, and includes everything from brownfield development to simple xeriscaped landscaping to locally sourced building materials and strategic salvage and reuse of demolition items; from sub grade structures that use the earth as insulation to reemployment of historic building mass walls; to LED lighting and cutting edge innovations in HVAC systems like bio fuel energy technologies; and from on-demand water heaters to implementing peak shaving energy facilities by exercising the emergency generator to operate during periods of maximum demand on the power grid. And the firm excels at designing projects that comply with and insure that building owners realize their local utility companies' energy incentive programs by incorporating occupancy sensors and daylight harvesting technologies. Additionally, the number of structures saved and repurposed, represented by over sixty five separate projects, represents an immeasurable conservation of cultural resourses not to mention the preservation of our rich history for future generations. |
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