From the Designing the New West Conference

Designing the New West: Thoughts From Green Builders and Designers

By Greg Lemon, 4-21-09

	Dan Stevenson, middle, of CTA Architects Engineers, talks with NewWest.Net's Jonathan Weber, left, and MMW's Don MacArthur, right, Friday at the Designing the New West conference in Bozeman. Courtney Lowery/NewWest.Net photo.

Green is still the buzzword when it comes to new construction and the afternoon panel at the Designing the New West Conference Friday in Bozeman addressed the realities of it in the construction and design world.

Some of the nuggets from the panel:

“I don’t view green building as a product,” said Don MacArthur, from MMW Architects. “It’s a process toward a product.”

Robert Young, executive director of the Red Feather Development Group, builds sustainable straw bale housing on reservations. Green construction for Red Feather is almost an accident, he said. They look to utilize local material and construction to provide an energy efficient home.

“It’s always about getting a roof over somebody’s head,” Young said.

In future building conservation has to be the central theme, said Dan Stevenson of CTA Architects Engineers.

“Conservation still needs to be the base of every project of every kind,” he said.  “Conservation of area, conservation of energy, conservation of water.”

Green building also can’t overly complex or it won’t be sustainable, Stevenson said.

“If you’re going down a road and it becomes overly complex, back off and take another look,” he said. “The best solutions are simple and elegant and run on pure physics.”

Visit www.newwest.net/development for more coverage from the 2nd Annual Designing the New West conference held last week in Bozeman.

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