Communicating the value of green design and sustainable home construction in residential architecture is important in today’s custom home design/build industry. However, not all designers and homebuilders are having these conversations with their clients. Phil Kean Design Group views sustainability as a core company tenet and value, and therefore partners with expert consultants and verifiers in this subject matter to ensure all Phil Kean Design Group built homes meet green building certification program standards.
In this podcast, “Luxury, Modern & Sustainable”, Drew Smith, COO of Two Trails Inc., a long-time partner of Phil Kean Design Group, speaks about the process of planning and certifying the green standards that go into Phil Kean Design Group homes. Two Trails Inc. is a proven leader in sustainable building consulting and verification and has worked with Phil Kean Design Group on sustainable design/build projects for more than a decade. Drew joins the podcast to present the basics of green design in modern luxury homes, expels myths around sustainable design, and predicts the architecture trends that will dominate in 2024 and beyond.
You can listen to the podcast at this YouTube link or read the transcript below. Enjoy!
Jon:
We are thrilled today to have Drew Smith, COO at Two Trails joining us. I want to thank you, Drew, for spending the time with us. I know we’re going to be talking about sustainable green design and what a fascinating conversation is in store for us today. So why don’t we begin today’s conversation by asking you a very direct question, and that is, how do you communicate the value of sustainable green design to clients who may not be all that familiar with it?
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
Jonathan, thank you for having me here today. To answer the first question, communication of the value of sustainable green design is an extremely important part of the initial conversations with a client. We like to start by asking questions of the client regarding their lifestyle and interests without prodding too much into their personal lives. But, we want to find out what are their hot buttons, so to speak. What are their areas of concern and well, how do they wanna address their home, and what do they want to accomplish to make it better for them? So we ask questions like are they concerned about the utility bills and wanting to reduce their utility costs? Do they have any allergies or health issues that might affect the construction of their home, and if there’s something that we need to address there? Do they have kids, grandkids, are they in interested in protecting the environment for their future generations? Do they work from home? Do the husband and wife both work from home? Are both partners having to share that space for a lot longer than just eight or ten hours when they come home from work, are they there all day long? How often do they entertain? Do they have a lot of guests over? How often are the guests over? How do they entertain? Do they open all their their doors and windows and bring the outside in? Those type of things because we’re looking at indoor air quality issues, on both of the last items and also maintenance of their home. Do they enjoy working on their home themselves? Are they concerned about the upkeep of their home and they want to reduce the maintenance on their home? And so all of those are green sustainable items that we like to get some input on upfront, because that helps us guide the design team on things that they need to address in the actual design of the home.
Jon:
Wow. That is very thorough, I’ll say, because when you are covering these questions, you’re asking things that I wouldn’t have connected necessarily to sustainable Green. When you talk about allergies, I mean, that’s a really interesting point, and I know there are a lot of people who have different health issues as well that can really be affected, negatively and conversely positively by the way that their home environment is, right? even in terms of even sleep quality.
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, we’ve had a client that allergies were so important, that every item that was going to be used on the inside envelope of the home had to spend a week with the homeowner, to make sure that particular product was not going to create allergies for them, on a long-term basis. So even the household wiring, the kitchen cabinets, the countertops, they had to live with a piece of that for a week to make sure that the homeowner was not going to develop any serious allergies from any of the products, even the products behind the walls.
Jon:
Wow. It’s fascinating when you really think about it, because as you said, there’s so many reasons to do this, and it can range from health reasons to family reasons, to maybe even energy bill and utility bills being sky high, right? So there’s so many value points around this.
I know this is something you’ve been doing for a very long time, and you’ve got a lot of very relevant, very exciting experience to share around this. I know that the approach that we take to the design and to the build on a modern luxury residential project really, really matters. I really want to get your take on your own approach, because you clearly are doing so much right, and you’re doing so many things that are different, I would say, than the standard run at the mill design and builder, that I really want to get your take on your approach. So how do you personally approach these types of designs, especially when you’re working on modern luxury residential type projects?
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
The approach to the advantages of sustainable green design with modern luxury projects is to look at the typical design aspects of the style of home and how we can use them to create a sustainable green design. In most cases on modern luxury, we typically deal with extensive amounts of glass. Most clients want to bring the outdoors in, so they want that real open feel. We have to look at the correct glass efficiencies, making sure that they’re as efficient as the budget will allow. Use large overhangs when possible to shade those glass areas from the sun. And then we look at that most of the typical modern designs are transitioning more to flat roofs. Well, they can be heat magnets if they don’t have the proper coating, the proper finish on the roof to reflect the heat, so we want to make sure that we’re minimizing that heat intrusion through that. And depending on what part of the country it is, is it going to have a snow load that we’ve got to worry about? And if it’s in a hot, humid climate like Florida, how are we dealing with rain and making sure it’s not puddling on the roof? But we also look at flat roofs as being a great platform for solar panels. It can be a very easy to transition those flat roofs into actually being a useful space to put solar panels, and if designed correctly, you can’t see them. So they become very unobtrusive as part of the design. It becomes a very easy transition for a client to put solar on it, even if they don’t put it on right when the house is built. If the roof is designed for it, they can always be added later.
Most of the new transition into modern design is minimal to no carpet, which is great for minimizing dust which is a huge indoor air quality issue now. So we try to minimize carpeting. We’re seeing more area rugs. Some people want a bit of carpeting and a little bit of warmth.
Lots of indirect lighting. Now LEDs have taken every form of indirect lighting or direct lighting that you can possibly imagine. Not only the recess cans, but the LED tape lights and all type of indirect lights that be hidden behind lights soffits above and beyond, behind cabinets, all of which are a huge energy savings from where we were 10 years ago with incandescent bulbs, you’re now saving probably 80% on your lighting bill just by transitioning everything to LED. And they’re color corrected now to where they’re not offensive like they were when they say first came out. So you can get LED lighting in pretty much any tone that you want. If you want warm white, or if you want daylighting, or if you want really bright white lighting, all of those can be accomplished now.
And minimal landscaping. We’re seeing a lot less landscaping with regard to real heavy, thick, landscaping. People are using more native vegetation to minimize their irrigation use, easy to take care of, and a lot more open space and just a different type of a landscaping design. I wouldn’t say it’s zeroscape, but we’re seeing a lot more of the very, very minimalistic clean looking landscape designs at this point. Those are just a few of the aspects. I mean, there’s lots of things that go into the new modern design, but those are some of the ones that kind of hit me right off initially.
Jon:
That’s fascinating to hear because when you think about the fact that you can take something that would be a negative, for example, this flat roof for instance, which you’re a hundred percent correct, this is such a trending thing right now. It’s a trending design that a lot of people really want, but you’re able to leverage that and actually get value from that and get some utility from that versus having it be a net negative, right? So that’s beautiful that you can take something without compromising what the homeowner wants, you’re able to give them what they want and, you can have your cake and eat it too type of scenario.
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
Oh, exactly. There are always avenues to turn a negative into a positive. And this type of design, the modern luxury, lends itself very well to be sustainable and makes it very easy to help a homeowner transition into that type of design with actually positives in most cases.
Jon:
So while we’re on this topic of the positives and negatives, I think the logical question at this point is, really asking you if you can describe some of the unique challenges and some of the unique opportunities that come with incorporating sustainable design features.
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
Sure. I’ll start with the challenges. Some of the challenges I would say would be client reluctance. Possibly because of their lack of understanding or knowledge of incorporating sustainable design features and what that really means to them with regard to, is it going to change the look or the feel of the house? Are we putting a green roof or a turf roof on the house? And that’s not the case, but the perceptions are out there, so we want to make sure that’s pretty clear upfront. So, client reluctance seems to be high on the list. Also, they don’t understand that there’s going to be an increased cost in construction because of sustainable design, and there really isn’t if it’s designed from the beginning and working with a design team that understands what it takes. It usually doesn’t cost any additional money to add a lot of these features in. There are of course some features that yes, are going to add costs when you start adding additional, or HEPA filters or things of that nature in the house. Yes, that’s an additional piece of equipment that would add add costs, but for the most part, those costs are minimal. Standard split system air conditioning system sometimes will not fit into a modern design with a flat roof, and so we end up using a ducted minis split type system, which I’ll tell you about in a second here as, as a positive. So that’s another challenge. Building codes require a very tight building envelope, that’s also a challenge we run into which builders are having to face these days. Doing what we call a blower door test or envelope leakage test to make sure that the building envelope is not leaking to the outdoors a whole lot. And also the other way around, it’s also that the building is not bringing in a lot of contaminants. So that that tightness is something that we have to address and make sure that the builder is using the right sealants methods, the right insulation products, and addressing all of those issues so that when we do test the house, it comes out and passes the code.
Some of the opportunities are increased indoor air health by doing a lot of these type of sustainable features, you automatically start gaining a better healthy indoor environment because of the type of products we’re using, because of the type of mechanical ventilation systems that are going into the house.
Reduced utility bills, it’s another positive that comes with the virtue of doing sustainable design. You reduce your utility bills because of the type of products you’re using.
Increased retail value of the home that are sustainable and have a certification can see anywhere from three to 15% increase in value on their appraisal when the client goes to sell the home. It adds additional value there.
Lowers annual maintenance costs, as we talked about earlier. Maintenance costs can reduce quite a bit because a lot of the new sustainable features require little to no maintenance.
What I was talking about earlier as a negative, now here’s the positive to the air conditioning systems, we can now use the high efficient ducted mini-split VRF systems to get around the air conditioning issues with trusses and beams. Typically when you’re de designing with a flat roof you have a lot more of a limited space to run air conditioning duct work. With these systems, they’re very small ducted systems, so it allows us to get air conditioning more efficiently to each section of the house. It also allows for quite a bit more control of the systems because they come with a multitude of thermostats. So each room or each suite can be zoned separately with its own control system. You can heat one bedroom while you’re cooling another bedroom, if that’s the client’s desire.
And also the positive with what we talked about the building code requirement for a leaky duct test or testing of the envelope, now because of some of the new equipment and the new type of technology we’re using for these sustainable type designs, we’re now actually helping to create a very tight, healthy indoor environment. There’s now systems out to introduce fresh air mechanically into the home that filters the air and dehumidifies it so that we don’t have issues with bringing contaminated outside air in. So those are a few of the opportunities that we see with designing with sustainable features.
Jon:
Wow. It’s impressive when you really think about this. It’s so incredible the amount of value that every single homeowner will get by really incorporating these types of features into their home. And as you said, this is really important for everyone who’s listening to really grasp, that it’s beyond saving on utility bills, which will be tremendous. But if you look at the valuation of the home, if you look at all of the positives that come as a byproduct of this from a health perspective, from a even a comfort perspective, as you mentioned LED lighting and the flexibility that that offers compared to the standard, right? So it’s really phenomenal. And I think there is a challenge I want to get your take on, which is how do you balance the desire for sustainability in the mind of the homeowner with the luxury aesthetics and the feel and the features that they would expect from a modern luxury residential architect?
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
Well, really it is a very easy balance. Most of the features integrate very nicely, almost invisible. It’s not like you can really point out a lot of things because they’re just part of what the modern luxury architecture and design is. You almost have to work hard to be able to find a feature. Let me start over on that one. The sustainable features are so easily incorporated and it’s probably the most easy design to incorporate them in is modern luxury. Some of the other architectural designs, it is a little more of a struggle because the product hasn’t been designed for some of the other type of architectural styles. And so, Mediterranean for example, because there isn’t the same trend for those type of designs there, the amount of product that are available for those type of designs are not as readily available as they are for modern luxury, residential.
So it’s not to say that everything out there that’s part of the modern luxury is readily available, it’s just much easier to incorporate because there are more products out there, but you can still go down the wrong path if you’re not paying attention to it. So with a company like us working with the designer, it makes it very simple to do a check and balance and make sure that we’re checking all the boxes. So if a certain tile or a certain cabinet is picked, we can make sure it’s not going to off gas. We’re going to make sure that it’s got the recycled content in it that we’re looking for, those type of things. So, I think just in the entire manufacturing world of product is moving more and more toward environmentally friendly, sustainable type engineering, because of course they’re also trying to save on their costs and if they can find a more affordable way of using a product so that it reduces their operating costs, but also it’s typically a win-win for the environment.
Jon:
Yes. While we’re speaking about that, there’s really the other aspect of this as well, which I think modern luxury really does very well, which is comfort and livability. And there is a balance as well in terms of maintaining energy efficiency, being environmentally friendly. Is there maybe a myth around that, if you were to lean more towards energy efficiency, that you would compromise on comfort and on livability?
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
Typically you will not compromise. And what I always say is it what’s behind the walls that comes first and some of the most important. Some of these items that give you that energy efficient and environmentally friendly aspects of the home, you don’t even see once the home is complete. Proper insulation and air seal in efficient windows, exterior glass, efficient HVAC, HVAC systems, energy star appliances, hard surface floors, LED color correct lighting. Once those items are put into the home, they’re there forever and typically don’t compromise, Home automation systems, you’ll see that more and more clients are going to a full home automation system because not only does it control their lighting, but it controls their whole house and lifestyle. And when lighting comes on and goes off and how you open your garage door, and when the security system comes on and when the pool comes on and goes off and air conditioning systems and how they go on and go off and making sure that when they come home from work every day, the air conditioning system is to the temperature they want and all that’s set up through a home automation system.
And by doing that, it really isn’t a way of increasing energy efficiency. water saving plumbing fixtures have come a long way. You almost have to work hard anymore to find a, a plumbing fixture that doesn’t have some type of efficiency, and they can, they ratchet down to get even more efficient once you start focusing in. But, in most cases, the plumbing fixtures are going to save some water over what they were doing a few years ago. we typically, clients always talk, talk about their concern. They typically, now the trend is to have a master shower that has, numerous spray heads. I I call ’em body, body washes almost like a car wash. Well, we let the clients have that because they have to enjoy their shower every day. They can’t hate their shower. And that’s one aspect of sustainability that was usually a negative a few years ago was, I’m not putting a low flow shower head in.
I want pressure, I want, I want that water jet feeling that, that I want. Well, then we work with the client on the choices for the rest of the home so that we can help them save water on the rest of the home. And it’s kind of give, give and take and let them have what they want for the master shower because they really need to enjoy their home. And then landscaping, it’s drought tolerant, plants, turf and trees that are, native to the area. We’ll minimize, irrigation use. once plants are established in a lot of cases they don’t have to be irrigated anymore. we also go to micro and drip irrigation in little spray heads because we don’t want that water evaporating. We want it to be kept in the ground on the plants. So they’re from the, from that perspective, if you put the right system in upfront, it’s going to maintain the landscaping with little to no effort,
Jon:
Given the importance of, you just talked about, really ensuring that these modern luxury residences are energy efficient, environmentally friendly, and really also very, very comfortable to live in high, high, highly livable. We’ll say. My, my next question is, how do you think that sustainable green design will continue to evolve in the future of modern luxury residential architecture?
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
I think it’s only gonna get better, and I think it’s going to become mainstream. More and more, architects and builders are looking at, sustainable green design and it, it, I think as time goes on, we’re going to see it, grow in its interest, because costs are going to come down as well on, on a lot of those type of features to where it’s going to be something that’s just going to become part of the, part of the design. And you’re always going to have to keep trying to stay leading edge and staying ahead of that and figuring out, okay, what’s the next more efficient product to use? the efficiency ratings of insulation and air conditioning systems and glass, are going to keep coming, becoming better. We’re seeing, we’re seeing a great increase in the efficiencies right now, of glass and HVAC systems.
So those are two big ones right now that we’re seeing become much better and give builders and architects a lot better choices of what, what they use to be able to design and build what the client wants without them sacrificing efficiencies. And over time, all products, they’re probably gonna be manufactured with zero to very low VOCs, the organic compounds and the off-gassing. A lot of that is because of some of the type of products that are being used to manufacture certain products. And if we, start moving to things that will off-gas less and we use more sustainable ingredients in the products, which is where I think the it’s, seems to be going at this point, I think that’s really where I think the future is leading itself as far as sustainable products.
Jon:
Wow. So building on the previous question regarding this bright future that you’re painting for us right now, which frankly is very exciting to see, because I love to hear that not only are we able today to have these amazing features & enhancements to our living and to our home environments, but also moving into the future, this is something that it really appears to be becoming more and more prevalent and more resource and investment is being placed into that by the industry in general. I would love to ask you to provide just maybe a story or an example of a really interesting or successful sustainable design project where the sustainable features were really a top priority, specifically, could you walk us through some of the sustainable features as well that you incorporated into the home and how they contributed to the overall success of that project?
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
Sure. Let me share one of my favorite projects which was we’ve been doing now for the perhaps 14 years, is doing The New American Home for the International Builders Show. And one of the thrusts of those projects, and I’ll hit a specific one, which is The New American Home 2022, that was designed and built by Phil Keen Design Group, which was very, very interesting because it was what I call a cubic type design, a three stack story box, very efficient to build because you literally have one floor over the other with a very, very tight and controllable envelope when it comes to efficiency. The important part of those projects is they have to hit the Emerald level certification with the National Green Building Standard.
We need the HERS index to be as low as possible. We want it to be zero energy if at all possible. So all of those challenges, and we have to check all these boxes and make sure that we hit all of these and which we did on this particular home. Working with the Phil Kean Design Group on this one, we were able to get the HERS index with a 13.2 kw, photovoltaic system. We got the HERS index down to a m-14, so basically the home is producing more energy than it can actually use. So that’s the type of design we try to look for. We incorporated a lot of products like Unvented Attic. We used open cell foam insulation to capture and seal the entire envelope, very high efficient windows and doors. We also use a product called Aero Barrier, which is an aerosol thermal sealant that goes into the air, and actually I like to call it “fix a flat” for the house. So it finds all the little tiny leaks and cracks around the house, and it fills all those so that the envelope air leakage is very minimal. This is one of those homes where we use the VRF, Mitsubishi air conditioning systems, the ducted mini-splits that I like to call them because of the tight constraints that we had with space between the floors and also in the attic. Wanted that controllability. And also this was coming out of the pandemic, so we wanted to make sure that the ventilation systems were as good as they possibly can be, so we made sure we incorporated MERV 13 air conditioning filters. We had mechanical ventilations and energy recovery ventilators by Panasonic. So the home was basically breathing mechanically, almost like a respirator for the tankless water heaters. Also a product we’ve been using the past few years is a on demand hot water recirculating pump, as opposed to your standard recirculating pumps that are typically on a timer and run whether you need the hot water or not. These are only on demand, so you don’t cool water off moving it back and forth between the water tank and the faucets. So it basically only brings you hot water when you want hot water there. So those are some of the things, a house like this is under a huge microscope. We have to do everything we possibly can to make it as sustainable as possible. So those are just a few of the features. But I mean, a house like this really, it almost pays itself back on a daily operating basis because there’s so little on the utility bill side and also on the maintenance side. So it’s a win-win for the homeowner and, kind of the way we see a lot of product going these days.
Jon:
Amazing. This has been such a fantastic conversation, Drew. Before we conclude with our final question, I just want to thank you for taking us through this. It’s very enlightening and I should say, no pun intended here, but it is been very enlightening to understand what you’re saying, and to really see not only the impact, but the value and the use cases for this and the technology that’s behind this. As I hear you explain these points, it really drives home the fact that these are features that any real serious homeowner who’s building their home today should be considering. Not just from the perspective of energy savings, et cetera, but the real tangible value in terms of quality of life, as you’ve mentioned. I really want to thank you, Drew, for going through with us on this and ensuring this.
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
My pleasure. It’s fun to talk about. We’ve been involved in it for so many years now that we see the trends on a daily basis, and it’s just fun to be part of it. We really look for ways that we can keep improving and and helping our builder clients and their homeowners get to that sweet spot where they’re really enjoying their home, not only from the design aspect, but from the livability standpoint of the home.
Jon:
Yeah, that’s so important. I want to ask you a surprise question here, I’d love to hear what your answer is on this as we wrap up. My final question would be if you could leave us with an interesting or surprising detail about sustainable design that most folks simply may not be aware of right now.
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
I would say it has to be just by the nature of the basic design concepts of modern luxury. The concepts of cubic spaces, flat reflective roofs, large overhangs, shading, large expanses of glass and bringing the outdoors in is what I’d like to say is probably one of the most sustainable aspects of modern luxury design that we see. It really just lends itself well to sustainability and kind of makes it, I would say, easy for a designer for us to work with, because that’s half of the battle right there is the making the spaces where they function correctly and efficiently.
Jon:
Amazing, Drew. As we wrap up here, I want to thank you for your time. Thank you for being with us. Thanks for sharing these amazing points. What a fun conversation, fascinating conversation. And I just want to wrap up by thanking you for that, for that investment of time you made with us today.
Drew Smith – Two Trails Inc.:
Oh, my pleasure. Happy to be here. Thank you very much for having me.
We’re incredibly grateful to have worked with the Two Trails Sustainable Building Consultants team for many years! They are an absolute competitive advantage, and look forward to bringing more sustainable modern homes to life!
If you have questions or are ready to build your dream home, contact Phil Kean Design Group for a consultation at any time.