 My name is Howard Wigg, think tech kawaii, cold green dealing with energy efficiency in all its forms. And we're used to thinking about energy efficiency in gas mileage and in how much energy a home or building consumes. What we don't think about very often is the embodied energy in that structure, all that wood, all that concrete, all that glass didn't just pop up from nowhere. It all required energy, usually a heck of a lot of energy to produce and install. And of course, here in Hawaii, we have to import virtually all of our building materials. It could well be that the energy embodied in these structures exceeds the energy consumed by electricity over the life of that building. Fascinating, fascinating. And perhaps one of the best experts on this subject is Mr. Todd Hasler, architect with Peter Vincent architecture. I heard a presentation of his earlier and it just blew my socks off. Mr. Hasler, are you prepared to come and blow our socks off with resource efficiency, starting with deconstruction? Of course. Hi, Howard. How are you? I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show. Yeah, you hit it on the head, you know, when you start thinking about energy efficiency and building performance, a lot of it is kind of assumed based on the renewable energy that a building has and how efficient a building envelope is and how the building actually performs. And that's certainly important, but a lot of people don't really consider the effort and energy that it takes to actually build a building. And it's, as you said, a heck of a lot of energy to do that. So here in Hawaii, we're trying to find ways to offset that energy that it takes to build homes. And right now in Hawaii, we're kind of at a critical point because in addition to being so remote and requiring all building materials to basically be manufactured elsewhere and shipped in, we're also at a point where our landfills are getting filled. And, you know, the PPT landfill is scheduled to close in 2028. So we're kind of at a critical point where we have no choice but to start to learn how we can divert, you know, our construction and demolition materials away from the landfills. And let me intervene and say that it's in my impression that about every three years the city council is ordered to launch a search for a new landfill site on Oahu. We know what Oahu looks like. I always say lots of luck, lots of luck. And sure enough, they don't come up with a new site. We need just to put less stuff into the landfills. That's right. Yeah, so the city is still reviewing possible locations for a new landfill. There are a lot of regulations that really restrict where a landfill can be and the location to, you know, residential areas and so forth. So they are looking for that. They have a few locations that they're honing in on, but there is a timeline for this. The landfill, the PPT landfill, is scheduled to close in 2028. So we're kind of running out of time. So, you know, we need to kind of prepare and do what we can to start to divert as much waste from that landfill as possible. And, you know, here and why we're running out of development space, you know, we're pretty well developed. Our downtown area is pretty well developed. And so now we're dealing with a lot of existing infrastructure. So most new projects have to in some way deal with the existing structures that we have here. So we need to decide if we're going to, you know, demolish a structure and, you know, send all of that construction waste to a landfill. Or if there's a way that we can reuse that material for another purpose. Or if we can actually reuse the structure for a different purpose. And we're seeing that a lot in downtown right now, where, you know, office spaces are kind of opening up. And, you know, we have a housing crisis here in Anahu. So there's been a lot of exploration for adaptive reuse in some of these buildings in downtown. We're seeing it with the Pacific Davis Center and 1132 Bishop Street, where they're taking these buildings. And, you know, the original use of that structure is no longer kind of applicable for our needs. So they're kind of reimagining these structures for a totally different use. That being, you know, residential development. So interesting times, but we're kind of at a critical point to address all of these items. So today I, you know, I kind of wanted to share some of the techniques and strategies that we've been using to try to address these needs. And it spans from how do we handle existing buildings here in Honolulu, and then how can we actually design, you know, efficient structures, you know, moving forward. So I'll go through some of my slides here, Howard, if that's okay. So this first slide, this is an existing house at the base of Diamond Head. And we had a client that wanted to initially renovate the house, but we quickly learned that the program that the client wanted didn't really meet the needs by the existing structure. So we were kind of in a position to start from scratch with the property. And, you know, rather than typically demolishing the house in a few days and then carting all of that material off to the landfill, we made a strategic choice to actually deconstruct the home piece by piece, which is a very delicate process. We partnered with Reuse Hawaii who comes in and they take apart each item of the house. And they actually have a warehouse here in downtown in Kakaako, and they repurpose, refurbish, and resell a lot of the usable materials from the house. Everything from, you know, plumbing fixtures to appliances, roof tile, framing, you know, pretty much anything that can be salvaged and reused is delicately taken apart and, you know, taken to their warehouse where it's sold to for another use. So this slide, it shows kind of the upper left, shows the original house. And then the two slides on the right show during deconstruction. So you can see that it's a very delicate and drawn-out process. It's not your typical demolition approach where, you know, you would have large equipment just taking the house down in a few days. This process takes several weeks to take all the parts from the house delicately, you know, they remove all the nails and all of that and then take it off to the warehouse. And then ultimately the lower left corner image shows the end result where everything is stripped down to the foundation. So that's how that process goes. This project resulted in about 30 tons of material that was diverted from the landfill and was repurposed and resold for, you know, these materials that were initially put in 60, 70 years ago or now their lives are extended for hopefully the same amount of time. So, you know, the embodied energy that it took to get those materials here initially is now further offset by extending their life versus just being placed in a landfill. So that 30 tons actually equates to about 15 cars being removed from our roads for a year. So it's a significant offset of carbon emissions. So the next slide is this site also in addition to the house itself, there were several special features in the house that the owner wanted to repurpose for their own use. The images on the left show the entry courtyard had these beautiful carved gates and there were these cast-in-place plaques. And so we meticulously took them apart, refinished them, cleaned them, and then reinstalled them as you see in the two lower images to repurpose and again extend the life of those elements. Something really unique with the project is on the right you see this painting that was on, right on the sheet rock in the basement of the house. And the artist is actually John Young, who's a local artist, pretty well known here. Those who know John Young would probably recognize the style of this painting. But it was just painted right on the wall. So the owner, you know, wanted to somehow deconstruct this piece of work and reinstall it in the house. So we actually worked with a conservator who came in and and did just that. They came in and deconstructed that wall from the back and was able to take apart the piece of work, you know, clean it, refurbish it, and then ultimately we reinstalled it in the new house down below. So, you know, in addition to just building materials, we tried to incorporate, you know, elements that would, you know, are not only kind of significant and pay homage to the previous home, but it also eliminates the need to, again, ship in new materials and new items that would, you know, result in, you know, substantial embodied carbon. So the next project is a residential home. And this is not a full deconstructed project, but it's a home over in Portlock. And because of the client's budget and the timeframe, rather than, you know, taking the whole house down, we decided to do a pretty substantial renovation to this project. And although the owner did not really want the existing style of the home, the home was built in 1978, you know, so it has that kind of late 70s, early 80s style that the owner really didn't didn't care for. So they wanted kind of a more open contemporary feel. So the challenge was, well, how can we kind of maintain this structure to avoid taking it all down and still reimagining it in a new kind of archetype? And we were able to do that by maintaining the good bones of the house, but kind of stripped everything else off. Again, we did reuse Hawaii to come in and they took apart the finishes that were in the house. And this resulted in about six tons of reuse material that was diverted from the landfill. And then the new house, you can see it definitely is reimagined from that 80s style. We kind of call this our dry yacht kind of approach, because you can see from the image on the lower bottom there, you know, the idea is that we refinish the balconies with wood and stainless steel railings to make it feel kind of like you were on a ship. The building is raised way high above the sea level. So it actually does feel like you're on the bow of a ship. So we try to reimagine the house as such. And then on the right is just an exterior image on how, even though we kept the structure, we worked real hard to maximize some impervious surfaces around the perimeter and new landscaping, which is also a very key part of how we tried to reimagine these projects while maintaining what's actually able to be reused. The next project, it just shows that it goes far beyond building materials. This was a project up in Haleiva where there was a monkey pod tree on the property and the owner, you know, didn't have the heart to just kind of chop it down. So we worked with some local entities and carpenters that actually took the tree down and then used it to build a custom dining room table, which you see on the right. And then there's also some custom totems that were also made and carved out of the existing monkey pod that was taken down. So even beyond just the building structure and materials, we try to take a look at the overall site and see what opportunities the actual site provides for any future development on the property. And then, you know, next we try to say we kind of walk the walk. So our office just relocated. We were in a space for 31 years in Chinatown and we recently relocated to Harbor Court. And we decided consciously to take as much as we possibly could from our old space and reuse it. So on the left top, you can see that there was our former entry which has these pendant lights and doorway into a conference room on the right. We ended up taking all those and reinstalling them so the two lower images show them reinstalled in the new space. And then on the right was our original front door, which we also took down and we used it for one of our executive offices. All of our furniture we took, we tried to reuse as much as we possibly could from that old office. And again, it's kind of both maximizing the embodied energy from these elements. And it's also kind of carrying our love for the old office and some of those elements and bringing them on to the new space and celebrating that as well. So I wanted to also just quickly get into some of the backend strategies. A lot of this what do we do with existing structures? But I also wanted to talk a little bit about our kind of design process and how our sustainable strategies play a critical part in our building performance and the overall energy consumption of these homes. So this next slide shows a typical site analysis, which is what we always do when we start a project before we put any pen to paper. We try to immerse ourselves in the existing site and understand all the natural aspects of the site, which includes, you know, trade wind direction, sun paths, topography, existing site features, views, all of that orientation. And so we have a really good understanding of the opportunities that that natural site can provide as we start to develop our concepts. So that's always a given on all of our projects and that's how we always start. Another critical aspect, the next slide shows how we strategize our overall site development and our landscape design is always super critical. And again, this addresses kind of the items that we discovered during our site analysis. And we try to take advantage of the natural topography on the site. We try to take advantage of the natural trade winds to maximize our building ventilation. We try to take advantage of the sun paths and providing shade over areas that would require it to minimize heat gain. You know, we try to use native plants and landscaping so that it minimizes irrigation and water consumption. So we try to take all of that into account as we start to develop the site design. I'll speed up a little bit, Howard, so that we have time to chat too. Okay, the next slide here, this is really the implementation of the vertical design of our structures. And it just kind of incorporates several sustainable strategies that we carry through many of our projects, again, based on site-specific elements. So this is actually a section through the Hauakalei Country Club House. And it's perfectly oriented north-south, so that, you know, the south side of this project, which is on the right, has a large covered porch, which protects the windows from getting direct sun in the summertime. And it avoids that heat gain, which limits the need for air conditioning. The whole entry space you see is totally open and allows the trade winds to naturally go through that space and naturally ventilate the building. The envelope is actually a light-skinned kind of envelope. Both the roof and the walls are light colors, and the idea is that they will reflect the sun rays and, again, minimize heat gain. And for this project, we actually incorporated some solar light tubes you see at the very top of the roof, which allows natural light to kind of come down through the core of the building, providing natural ventilation, and a light, which, again, you know, minimizes energy consumption from lights and the mechanical system. So the next slide shows this project kind of an aerial photograph, and one of the key elements in most of our designs that really allow us to offset energy costs are renewable energy sources. So this project actually, you know, you'll notice the sunshades over the parking lot, which actually have photo-photogenic cells on top of it. So it kind of doubles as a renewable energy source, as well as shade for the cars, which is kind of a nice double benefit there. And that energy source actually provides energy for their 77 electric golf carts. So no energy is required to power the golf carts. It's all generated from the on-site renewable energy. So there are 936 modules on the carport, on the total carport, and it's a 370 kilowatt structure. So this project, it won several awards, but we're most proud that it won the Hawaii Energy Award through the American Institute of Architects, kind of recognizing the sustainable strategies and renewable energy trying to kind of balance the two, trying to get to a net zero place. And that'll lead us to the next project, which is a single family home. And, you know, incorporating renewable energy is certainly a critical factor, but in order to really reach that net zero goal, you need to provide super efficient active systems in your building. So your mechanical systems, your lighting, all of that needs to be super efficient so that your renewable energy source can kind of balance each other out with the goal of reaching that net zero. So this is a single family home. It's a lead platinum home, and it has many sustainable features, which include the active equipment. We have tankless water heaters, which you see in the photo there, and, you know, both the mechanical, the heating, and the air conditioning is super efficient to, again, try to offset the energy being drawn from the PV. And then this last project that I have, I just show it as an example of, you know, this project was completed a few years ago, and it's actually the first lead platinum home under the single family home category of the USGBC Sustainable Measure. So we're super proud of it, and I bring it up because, you know, one thing that I think is really critical with how our process is here is that we don't necessarily set sustainability as a goal. We don't really talk to clients with providing a certain level of sustainability. You know, all of that is really ingrained in how we design, and because, you know, we don't have these separate conversations, we kind of synergize them into basically one approach. And ultimately, we find that, you know, many of our projects and homes, you know, are lead certified without really much intent, specific intent of reaching those levels. It's just the inevitable result of how we design. You know, we work with really great contractors who are very meticulous in product selection and product procurement, and all of that really takes into account the need for sustainability in our projects. And we're super proud that it's just kind of a natural result of how our design process is. Sorry, Howard, was that too long? I wanted to give you an opportunity to chime in. I've still got a couple of minutes. They were so fascinating. Really important, the key word here is deconstruction. And you and I were talking about the fact that the energy embodied in a home or a building can exceed all the energy that is consumed by that structure over its lifetime. Can you reiterate that, please? Yeah, sure. So if you think of the amount of time and energy that it takes for a window per se, you know, to fabricate a window, you need glass, you need wood, and then you need to put all of those pieces together. You need fasteners. So all of those elements are coming from sometimes all over the world. And then they come together to a location where they're fabricated and put together. And then they have to be shipped to get to us. Then they have to come from the shipping yards and get trucked over to the job site. So there's a lot of work and effort for these building materials to just make it to the site. And if you take all the materials and elements required to build a structure, all of that adds up very quickly. And you see that the embodied energy or the embodied carbon to just build these structures is immense compared to the actual performance of the building. Performance is certainly critical, but it's really just a small portion of what it takes to actually build a house. And it's even more so important, you know, here in Hawaii where there's very limited materials that we get locally. Everything really needs to be shipped in. So it's super critical for us. And then finally, one of my favorite topics, reflectance on at least two of your projects, you had high reflectance of walls. I want to say, especially here in Hawaii, best statistic I've seen is a before measurement of a roof, a rough dark roof, 178 degrees. They coated it with a highly reflective white roof, 170 degrees, a temperature drop of 70 degrees. So very happy that you're using reflective surfaces there. Yeah. And we use a little bit of the built-in suspenders approach, because in addition to those light colored exterior surfaces, we also incorporate both rain screens on the walls and then what, you know, what we typically call an umbrella roof on the top, which basically creates an air gap between the finished material and the structure so that any, you know, heat that is absorbed has the opportunity to actually naturally ventilate out of the structure and doesn't get absorbed into the building. So we try to use the built-in suspender approach as well. And speaking of the umbrella approach, how about using PV panels or the umbrella? Because it's about six inches above the surface. You're absolutely correct. Yeah. The PVs over top of a roof definitely help in shading the actual roof finish, which is below the PV. Yeah. You're absolutely right, Howard. And on that cherry note, we must bid Fawn Adyut, Todd Hasler of Peter Vincent Architects. Thank you so, so, so much. This program will be archived. You can use it for study purposes after this. So Todd, again, thank you so much. This is Code Green, Think Heck, Tawai'i, Howard Wigg. See you next time.