Reports from morning break-out groups

1. Border Station Group

Environmental imperatives: * Unplugged building * Pure water * Toxicity * Less damage, more restoration * Community/kids * Vernacular * Very low impact very possible

Getting alignment with people who are not here: * Historians * Transport, * Biology * Future of transport * Engage the community * Canadians in their station * Homeland security * Port authority * Bridge authority

Discussion from report: * Results to be shared tomorrow at Earth Day event * Think about future of transportation (possibilities of rail), relations between the 2 countries. * Keep asking questions!

2. 2050 Vision Group

This work group looked at the brainstormed list of 2050 vision ideas from the morning session and selected those items that were highest priority (received the most “votes” from the work group). In descending priority: * All buildings will produce/ manage their own energy, water, waste, etc. * Every city will have an eco-map with inventory and flows; permits will tell you how much food and energy you will need to provide back to the community. * Buildings will be unplugged – whole life and climatically – and will be culturally “of a place” and “drop dead beautiful”. * Buildings will no longer be “commodities”. * The vast majority of building materials will be biobased, compostable. * Buildings will be net positive for energy, food, and water. * Safe, healthy, and inspiring housing will be seen as a basic human right. * Recognition of the impact of the built environment on humans and the natural environment will lead to paradigm shifts similar to the one that occurred at NASA in the 1960s. * All building projects will be carbon-neutral or net positive. * Natural areas will still exist, without oil rigs, etc. * The built environment will enhance our ability to create schools and communities that learn and encourage learning. * Cities will revert to self-supporting communities linking food and buildings. * Project teams will be integrated, holistic, creative learning environments with no “disconnects”.

The group also presented a model that some have found useful in thinking about vision and change:

As illustrated, this model has the following components: * Vision: all buildings grow out of and reflect the unique character of their place and are an integral, value-adding reciprocal member of the living system they are a part of. * Directions (compass, “polar star”): ever increasing health-generating capacity of the whole – growing resilience through greater vitality, viability, and capacity for evolution * Grounds (drivers): * Intrinsic drivers * Innate biophilia * Power of connection to place * Extrinsic drivers * Economies divorced from reality * Built environment that is sucking the life out of natural/ social environments * Resulting in and not responding to climate change, fuel shortages, water and food shortages, increased inequity, insecurity * Instruments (means for transformations required to move toward goal) * Creation of local real economies through, for example, local currencies, cradle-to-cradle recycling * Education/ communication processes, institutions, and tools that reinforce U/S and love for the whole (place) that we inhabit (through, for example, eco map of every city, intelligence centers, training building professionals in new paradigm (start from regeneration of the whole → problem solving → component design) * Community driven design strategies that reflect community values and put planning in the hands of place-educated community planners (through, for example, the Gross National Happiness Index).

Another model was scenario planning. This non-linear process, addresses drivers (including politics, economics, environment, technology, and culture/society), uncertainties, and predetermined factors in “what if” analyses of potential futures.

The two approaches could both be used in our next steps, with the model helping to enrich the vision and scenario planning as a tool or instrument to move toward the vision. It might be useful to apply these approaches to assessment tools such as LEED.

Next Steps

The final conversation centered on next steps for this effort and the group assembled in Pocantico. Ideas included: * Participants could send reactions from their colleagues or from their own reflections; these could be posted on a project Web site. * We need modular learning opportunities for students and professionals on concepts raised at the workshop. * Engagement and dialog with LEED would perhaps be beneficial. * We should involve additional people – we aren’t “the group”! * Perhaps a opportunity could be organized at GreenBuild to continue the dialog. This might be an opportunity to bring more people into the conversation. * Participants are encouraged to take the ideas expressed in the workshop and continue the dialog with their clients, colleagues, communities. We were reminded that all comments at the Pocantico event are not for attribution. All agreed that this meeting should be viewed as the beginning of a process, not as a one-time event and all hoped that this could occur.