What We Do
Design and Operational Goals of Sustainable Buildings
1 Save Energy
2 Create a Healthy Indoor Environment
3 Create Community (make it happen financially as well as socially)
4 Minimize Pollution Generation
5 Recycle Materials
6 Reduce life cycle cost by including long term savings
7 Promote Comfort (thermal, auditory, visual, odors etc.)
8 Reduce Material Use
9 Minimize Construction Waste
10 Maximize Longevity/Durability
11 Monitor and Improve Performance ( to insure efficiency and improve systems)
12 Protect/Enhance the Site (eg. Create Gardening Opportunities)
13 Save Water (Reduce use, recycle, reuse)
14 Educational Function (for Co-Housing and Sustainable Building)
Hickory's Work
Hickory’s work has been a steady progression toward identifying and systematizing design and development rules for successful projects. Our successful initiatives have resulted from that approach, and we feel that the impact of these ideas is extensive and growing. We see our ideas permeating the industry segments we have targeted and diffusing through other teams and projects. Once in place, sustainably designed buildings apply a continuous impetus for improvement in society that persists into the future. The icons we create are guideposts toward sustainable future societies.The Whole Building Approach
The Hickory Consortium
Mark E. Kelley, III, PE
The interaction between the components of the building, equipment, the HVAC systems, and the environment is especially important for reduced energy and resource use. Climate, in fact, offers resources that can be applied to some of the important needs of the building and its occupants. Climate is more than an obstacle to be overcome, and more than a resource to exploit, it is the context for sustainable design.
Benefits of Sustainable Design for Buildings
Benefits of Sustainable Design for Buildings
The Hickory Consortium
For a wide variety of reasons, both idealistic and practical, the comprehensive approach to building known as sustainable design or green building is strongly recommended for the new mixed use development. If the designers and owners initially embrace this approach, we firmly believe it will result in a better building at no significant cost premium, or a superior building at a modest premium. Many buildings have been around for hundreds of years, there is every reason to expect that this one will also be in use for hundreds of years. This means that design with strong consideration for the future is the most rational approach. This is the underpinning of the sustainable design methodology.
Research & Development
The Hickory Consortium and its member manufacturers and engineers have conducted research and development in the areas of building products and processes for over thirty years, nine of them as R&D grantees of the Department of Energy's Building America Program. Keeping abreast of R&D provides awareness of cutting edge industry issues and allows for the kind of catalyzing efforts the Hickory Consortium provides.
Sustainable Power Program
Sustainable power is electricity generated from renewable sources (sometimes referred to as "Green Power"). It is does not deplete non-renewable resources and has minimal environmental impact. Its generation produces fewer of the emissions associated with acid rain, smog, or climate change. Because it is decentralized and distributed, catastrophic events such as the August 14, 2003 East Coast Blackout in the USA are less likely and can be recovered from more quickly. Among its many other benefits is that it augments traditional energy supplies and produces jobs though the development of a new industry. If a building is energy efficient, it becomes less expensive both to buy and to operate: This becomes even more true when the building is linked to sources that provide power sustainably.
Eco-Dynamic™ Specification
Specifications, and how they are applied, drive the way houses are built. They are complex, and crucial to integrating new technologies into the building industry. The Hickory Consortium developed the Eco-Dynamic Specification to clarify the how-to's, and in the process save energy, costs, time, people's health - and the environment. Our specification is different from most of what is offered by other consultants in that it consists of two parts: instructions on how to ride the bicycle, and personal guidance in the subtleties of doing so. The Eco-Dynamic Spec is the oldest of such specs in the country and the most comprehensive.
Construction Process Partnering Program
Providing others the whole toolkit to build sustainably lies at the heart of Hickory's interests. We know that it can be difficult to get on top of all the practical issues and risks that green building appears to entail. To that end, we offer educational workshops, presentations, and seminars; we also offer assistance in implementing actual projects.
Green Financiers Forum
This program serves as a bridge between the makers of green building and its lenders, underwriters, and third party evaluators.
Financers are key in determining whether a building project can be funded: whether it is worth the risk, and what those risks are. Therefore, lenders have the power to screen for green, energy-efficient building, as well as to create loan pools, loan products, and incentives for quality and performance. As they become informed, this powerful stakeholder group is strategically positioned to create a lending culture that promotes sustainably built housing.
Quality Modular Building Task Force
The mission of the Quality Modular Building Task Force is to advance the US modular housing industry through improvements in environmental performance and quality without increasing the cost of manufacture. Now in its sixth year, it was initiated by Hickory member Josephine Carothers, who obtained its initial funding and operating costs through the US Department of Energy Building America Program and continues to spearhead it.
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