“This movement is all about collaboration.” So said Tammy Schwolsky, CEO of Residential Energy Assessment Services, Inc. (REAS), while giving us a sneak peek at her ZENERGY House the day before its grand opening (we covered that event here). Kevin had asked her what single aspect had surprised [...]]]>

Image courtesy of Interstyle web site

“This movement is all about collaboration.” So said Tammy Schwolsky, CEO of Residential Energy Assessment Services, Inc. (REAS), while giving us a sneak peek at her ZENERGY House the day before its grand opening (we covered that event here). Kevin had asked her what single aspect had surprised her the most during the two-year house renovation project, and without hesitation she said that it was how everyone really needed to work together to accomplish truly sustainable results. We encounter that sentiment quite often in our conversations with artists, designers, fabricators, and all the other professions whose practitioners are actively working in the sustainability movement. Yet of everyone we’ve talked to and worked with, few individuals embody that sentiment better than Robyn Palmen, Architectural Sales Manager at Interstyle Ceramic & Glass.

Several years ago, when we started looking for recycled glass tiles, our knowledge of that entire category was rather limited. We were very much still learning what questions to ask manufacturers about their products to determine whether or not they would support our pursuit of sustainable strategies. We found Interstyle right at that time, and from the onset Robyn was welcoming of our inquiries, enthusiastic about keeping us informed about new developments, and mindful to check in with us often to make sure we were well stocked with samples and product details.

I realize that you may be reading this and thinking, “What’s the big deal? That’s her job.” And all that may be trivial, but I often found that, in reaching out to other companies, I usually hit a brick wall: messages were never returned and e-mails went unanswered; or if I did manage to speak with someone, I would either get vague answers or be promised information that later would not be delivered. A few months ago I wrote a little about an experiment that Interstyle did for us (read that post here). It was Robyn who took our design specs and got that sample through their shop, all before we ever specified any of their tiles. Now, this post is not about Robyn specifically, but I find it difficult to speak of Interstyle without mentioning her because, to us, her approachability is a reflection of the company, their values, and their integrity in the sustainability movement. And when we combine that with the incredibly beautiful products that they design and manufacture, we must admit that we are huge fans – we just love what we see.

Insterstyle Ceramic & Glass is a family-owned company based in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.  It was founded in 1977 by Ernesto and Georgia Hauner. The Brazilian husband and wife team had once ran Mobilinea, a modern furniture company. Their emigration to Canada had forced them to leave that company behind. Once in British Columbia, they decided to delve into the world of ceramic tile and, thus, continue their entrepreneurial proclivity in their new home.

Image courtesy of Interstyle web site

The company started off manufacturing, importing, and distributing ceramic tile. A few years into their business, a local scrap glass dealer approached the Hauners, asking them if they could figure out a use for glass damaged during freight shipment. The dealer himself had no way of recycling it and much of it ends up in the landfill. The Hauners agreed to take a look at possible uses, and that is how their glass tile business began.

But it wasn’t an overnight transformation. Their factory was optimized for ceramic tile manufacturing, and experiments demonstrated that their machinery was not adequate for working with glass. Nevertheless, they invested in developing their capabilities in this area because they immediately saw what a unique product they could create. “They discovered the beautiful quality of the glass. There was nothing like that in the marketplace – glass tile was not around as we know it today,” says Robyn. Their gradual experimentation led to the need for different equipment. The Hauners worked with Italian contacts to develop new kilns that fired at the right temperature, and other supporting equipment, such as scoring machines, that would allow them to make a greater array of tile sizes.

While a major endeavor and certainly a difficult learning curve, the result was a factory full of very unique technology that facilitated the first-ever production of what Interstyle calls modern fused glass tile. Inspired by their experience with ceramic tile glazes, the company started applying the glazes to the glass tiles. The result is a collection whose color is integral; no matter what type of environment the tiles are set in, they will never delaminate.

Over the decades, their glass work has come to include the use of virgin material. Of the tile lines that do incorporate recycled glass (currently nine in all), three have been around since those first experiments: Aquarius, River Crystals, and Agates (the rest are: Cobbletones, Opal-Line, Dewdrops, Glassblends, Icestix, and Grit). The first line ever created was River Crystals, manufactured from 100% recycled glass. Today, the line maintains its experimental heritage, boasting the roughest aesthetic. Agates came next. Also made from 100% recycled content, the tile shapes are sleeker, definitely more calibrated, but they teem with tiny bubbles that expose their origin. Both lines are little tiles mesh mounted into larger squares and rectangles. When they were created, small molds were the best route, explains Robyn, as “no one was making a large format glass tile.”

Aquarius, third in line, is ever more sophisticated. These are stand-alone tiles whose sizes dwarf their predecessors. Interstyle’s machinery certainly had become more sophisticated by the time they rolled off the production line. This was also the first line to incorporate a layer of brand new glass applied atop a layer of crushed recycled glass to add depth perception. The recycled content accounts for approximately 80% of the total. The recycled content for the other lines, all of which were developed in later years, hovers at around 70% (except for Grit… you’ll see why).

Image courtesy of Interstyle web site

Lately, Interstyle, now under the leadership of Mike and Kim Hauner, sons of the founders, has continued to experiment with recycled glass going beyond the confines of strict wall tiles. Under their Architectural Glass Surfaces banner, they now offer the Crush line: 100% recycled crushed glass fused into large slabs that can be used as countertops, table tops, even floor pavers. The slabs can also be cut into letters or really any other shape. Every slab is made to order, so customization options are immense and welcomed.

If none of their recycled glass options make you drool, don’t discount their new glass lines. Beyond the fundamental efforts (like reusing all of the packaging material that comes into their space), the factory acquired a white roof “prior to white roofs being the trend,” laughs Robyn. It has also been outfitted with a closed-loop water system that captures water used in glazing production, and draws fresh supply from cisterns that collect the region’s abundant rain. They also have a system in place that captures the heat generated by their kilns and funnels it into rooms to dry the coatings and glazes on other tile batches.

Image courtesy of Interstyle web site

Grit, the line mentioned above, has just recently been introduced. Composed of 50% clay and 50% post consumer recycled glass sourced in Washington state, it can’t be categorized as exclusively glass or ceramic, so Interstyle has created a whole new category: EarthenGlass. Grit is the first ever combination of their original passion for ceramic tile with their home-grown expertise with glass. We’re eager to see what new avenues will open up for Interstyle’s creative team while working with the material.

Thank you, Robyn, for your time during our latest phone call!

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In 2004, on a busy corner in Venice, CA, an old Hudson auto repair garage built in 1923 was converted to an art gallery. Abbot Kinney Boulevard, between Venice and Pacific, is a ten block long collection of trendy restaurants, custom jewelry shops, book stores, clothing stores, and consignment shops. Every medium-size [...]]]>

In 2004, on a busy corner in Venice, CA, an old Hudson auto repair garage built in 1923 was converted to an art gallery. Abbot Kinney Boulevard, between Venice and Pacific, is a ten block long collection of trendy restaurants, custom jewelry shops, book stores, clothing stores, and consignment shops. Every medium-size U.S. city has a similarly gentrified stretch. The garage was located at the southeastern end of that stretch at the corner of Venice and Abbot Kinney. Others in the community may not have given much notice to yet another gallery opening in an already artsy neighborhood. However, it was the first time the garage had been used for anything other than auto repair since it had been built. The new tenant and planned space were different, yet not in a way immediately obvious, especially to that tenant. epOxybOx (intentional spelling) was an art gallery dedicated to presenting green art and the work of fine artists using green materials or media. That idea may have been several years ahead of the curve, but that’s not what set it apart. At the time, no one could have predicted what it would become and how it would evolve.

When Deborah Guyer Greene started epOxybOx, she wasn’t fully aware of the path it would take. In fact, her new venture began on a bit of a lark. She was art director for the Foliage Theater Project and ran the Shakespeare Probation Program where she taught theater to violent offenders between 14 and 19 years old. One day, while searching for a large wall surface for a mural painting, she stumbled on the shuttered garage. She knew as soon as she saw the place she had to do something with it. During a recent interview, she referred to it as divine intervention. “It’s a terrible way to make business decisions,” she warns. Without a written business plan and before securing investment capital, Deborah signed a lease and formed epOxybOx. It quickly became a social hub, a community gathering place, an event center, and a place to party. Event and opening audiences went from small crowds to large throngs.

While converting garage to gallery, Deborah knew she wanted to use environmentally favorable building materials, but finding them was far more difficult than she expected. That struggle planted a seed in her mind. Two years later she joined forces with Sasha King to form epOxyGreen. Their idea was that green materials should be easier to find and affordable to purchase. At first they carved out 500 square feet in the garage lube room, but the new business was an instant hit and required additional space. As the showroom grew, the gallery shrank. It eventually took over all 1,500 square feet.

In July of 2009, in order to keep pace with their growth, the business moved less than a mile to their new home on a busy retail corridor. The epOxyGreen Design Center now has 5,000 square feet of showroom space on two floors. Neither Deborah nor Sasha have a design or building background, and maybe that’s a good thing. Starting from a clean slate, unrestrained by preconception, has allowed them to freely select their product offering. It’s led them to unusual discoveries that may not have happened otherwise. They didn’t know what they didn’t know. But they surrounded themselves with smart people who help expand their knowledge base. Deborah admits, however, the business probably would have gotten a jump start had she or Sasha been more connected to the local design community. Some of their largest sales orders are now coming from area designers who are starting to discover that epOxyGreen is one of the largest showrooms of it’s kind in southern California.

How do partners without design experience triple the size of their showroom? “Setting up a showroom is very much like curating a gallery show,” Deborah says. The space is a narrative where sustainable building materials are leading characters. She’s trying to create love stories between customers and environmentally favorable products. The showroom staging has clearly been influenced by her theater and art background. Aspects of the consumer experience have been crafted and choreographed. I have to admit the showroom works pretty well as a gallery exhibition. Even though they may have the largest collection in the region, they’re planning to pare back the offering. In the beginning they wanted to showcase everything they could find, but an edited collection will serve their customer base better.

At it’s core, epOxyGreen, and its two owners, represent an idea that all commerce is social. Talk with either Deborah or Sasha and five minutes will not pass without a reference to community engagement. For both, it’s not empty talk. They truly believe that commerce can have a transformative effect on people and places. They don’t view their product as only raw construction components. Instead, they want customers to have a relationship with materials that maximize the impact on people’s lives while minimizing the environmental impact. They see the showroom as a tool to educate, train, and encourage participation in a broader discussion. Already this year they’ve hosted topic specific book signings, green job training courses, LEED green building educational classes, and more.

During a follow up conversation a few days ago, Deborah excitedly told me how she’s been reading The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones and how it’s moved her to restart her work with juvenile violent offenders. She wants to develop a new program to impart green knowledge and sustainable design concepts so those kids will be better prepared to participate in what will likely be the most important conversation of their age.

Thank you Deborah for your time, energy, interest, and drive. Good luck with all that you choose to pursue.

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]]> http://threadcollaborative.com/threadpost/2010/04/stories-of-sustainability-epoxygreen/feed/ 0 http://threadcollaborative.com/threadpost/2010/04/stories-of-sustainability-american-clay/ http://threadcollaborative.com/threadpost/2010/04/stories-of-sustainability-american-clay/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:09:04 +0000 kevin http://threadcollaborative.com/threadpost/?p=3384

On July 27, 1976 members of the American Legion gathered at the Bellevue Strattford Hotel in Philadelphia, PA to celebrate the American Bicentennial. Within two days, veterans were falling ill with an unidentified ailment with symptoms similar to pneumonia. By the end of the event, more than 220 [...]]]>

On July 27, 1976 members of the American Legion gathered at the Bellevue Strattford Hotel in Philadelphia, PA to celebrate the American Bicentennial. Within two days, veterans were falling ill with an unidentified ailment with symptoms similar to pneumonia. By the end of the event, more than 220 attendees had been treated and 34 eventually died. A six month investigation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally uncovered the culprit – a bacteria breeding in a hotel cooling tower.

I grew up in New Jersey less than 60 miles from Philadelphia. I vividly recall my excitement for the 1976 American Freedom Train and the Bicentennial summer, along with my fear over what would later be named Legionnaires Disease. There was great debate at my school about whether a scheduled field trip to a Philadelphia museum would be canceled. My mother tried to reassure me that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed, but I knew something was wrong. This incident also had a profound effect on Carol Baumgartel, founder of American Clay. During a recent interview conducted in the LEED Platinum certified home of a good friend she told me how it forever altered her thinking and initiated a heightened sensitivity to the presence of toxic substances commonly found in the average indoor environment.

In 1999, Carol’s oldest son Croft developed skin reactions, headaches, and respiratory conditions from prolonged exposure to caustic chemicals he used with his fine interior finishing business. Around the same time, a colleague introduced him to a European clay plaster product that was free of the potential toxins affecting his health. Although it was an improvement, he thought he could make it better. He enlisted Carol, an interior designer with a fine arts degree in ceramics, to research the product and determine its composition. With her understanding of clays and aggregates and his engineering background they were able to reverse engineer a comparable product.

We should not underestimate the potency of mixing maternal instinct and entrepreneurial spirit. In my interviews with product manufacturers, I’m often told how underlying considerations for future generations influence business decisions. When I raise this issue with Carol it brings her to tears. It’s easy to see how deep her passion runs for merging her business strengths with efforts that contribute positively. Regard for others, even people you don’t know or will never meet, is an essential ingredient of sustainability.

A year later, Carol used a new house under construction in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the company is located, to test their new formulation. In the beginning, everyone but Carol was thinking small. But she knew right from the start the product had wide commercial potential. By 2002, a refined version was ready for introduction to the building materials market. Even though everyone thought she was crazy, Carol knew how important it would be to legally protect what she and Croft had developed. “We went to see this patent attorney,” Carol tells me with full theatrical reenactment. “She’s this tiny little lady, and she said ‘Oh, I think we can get this patented, and would you put this in my house please?’ And I thought, wow there it is.” Everyone who saw the product was convinced it was something special.

Natural plasters have existed for thousands of years, and it was this issue that posed a problem with the patent office. Carol and Croft had to demonstrate that their product was significantly different than previous ones, something unique, and worth legal protection. The process took seven years to complete, but they were eventually awarded the first patent for a natural building material since 1932.

American Clay manufactures a number of beautiful, natural, interior wall finishes composed of 70% recycled and reclaimed sands, aggregates, and shells. We’ve posted about their products in the past, so I won’t go into detail about them here. But Carol pointed out a number of interesting facts that make her products different from other wall finishes. “Clay is a phase change material,” she tells me, “the molecular structure of the clay particles actually interacts with vapor within the interior environment.” That means the finish is not inert, it’s still alive. It’s been shown in a year-long study that their products help to moderate the temperature and moisture content of indoor air. In warmer weather, spaces will stay cooler, and in cooler weather, spaces will stay warmer. Other typical wall coatings, such as paint, do not have this property. In fact, most paints off-gas harmful volatile organic compounds as they dry. There’s nothing toxic or harmful in any American Clay products.

Eight years have passed since the company founding and growth continues steadily even while other sectors of the building industry have experienced marked declines. Perhaps it shows that Carol and Croft are on to something. By the way, Croft no longer suffers any ailments resulting from the materials he works with.

I would like to extend special thanks to our good friend Joseph Treves who volunteered his beautiful home as our interview location, and Julie DuBrow for helping to facilitate and schedule the interview. It could not have happened without you. But I’m especially grateful to Carol for her time, her passion, and her dedication.

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Our tour of Vetrazzo’s Richmond, CA manufacturing facility (reviewed here) introduced us to more than just a fascinating industrial process. We also learned the story behind the product from Karen Righthand, VP of Marketing, and John Sabol, VP of Manufacturing.

It all started in the mid-90s on the campus of the [...]]]>

Our tour of Vetrazzo’s Richmond, CA manufacturing facility (reviewed here) introduced us to more than just a fascinating industrial process. We also learned the story behind the product from Karen Righthand, VP of Marketing, and John Sabol, VP of Manufacturing.

It all started in the mid-90s on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. At the time, Don Macpherson, a material scientist at the school, started noticing a lot of glass heading to the landfills. Wanting to conserve the beauty that he saw in recycled glass, Don put his experience as an artist and environmentalist to work in order to develop a durable way to use that material. In collaboration with an architect friend of his, they developed the recipe for a recycled glass and cementitious matrix mix, and the process for transforming that into slabs.

Their creation drew attention quickly. Various projects started requesting the slabs for use as countertops, tabletops, etc. But there really was no business infrastructure to support the demand. Don and his partner basically cooked this up in their garage. Under the company name of Counter Production, and already calling their product Vetrazzo, they alone handled every new order; they personally travelled to each project site, measured the area, built a mold for the surface, mixed and poured the material, and polished, cut and installed every piece. Though very time-consuming, they maintained the endeavor as little more than a hobby.

One of their earliest clients was Olivia Teter, a product designer who had a countertop installed in her home’s kitchen. A couple of years after her purchase, she was helping a friend remodel a kitchen, and she went back to Counter Production looking for another Vetrazzo countertop. Olivia “found the company in complete disrepair,” states Karen. Everything was so custom-made that larger orders from farther away were a true challenge. But the product had found its way to the other side of the country, and Olivia saw great potential. She went to James Sheppard, who was in an investment group with her, proposing to look at Vetrazzo. The two of them were already looking for something to invest in, and this was a beautiful, beloved product with a life of its own and a cool story behind it.

They brought in a financial partner, Jeff Gustafson, raised the capital, and bought all the intellectual property from Counter Production. This team scaled it for national distribution, launching production under the name of Vetrazzo, LLC. They maintained the original, proprietary manufacturing process, for which the company has recently received notification of the granting of their patent. Don continues to be involved with the company, although through an outside consultant role.

The product’s long environmental track record got a significant push forward a few years later, when the company moved into their current energy efficient manufacturing facility in Ford Point. Their formulation continues to rely solely on 100% recycled glass, most of which they work to collect from very local sources live beverage container redemption centers. The cullet makes up a precise 83.23% of the final slab mix. The remaining is composed of 12.61% Portland cement and just over 4% of two mineral powders. If in Quality Control it is determined that a slab is defective, it gets used for other purposes, such as making samples. If it is completely destroyed, it is used as road base aggregate. Vetrazzo has a take-back program that accepts not only destroyed product but also that which is still in good shape for further use. The company is a Certified B Corporation, and distinguished as a Bay Area Green Business.

Late last year, Vetrazzo published an Environmental Product Declaration through The Green Standard (available for download here) for their Glass House product, the first in the entire industry. The document is a fascinating read that provides a very detailed look at the product. Among other things, it identifies the slab’s carbon footprint to be 193.35 lbs. of CO₂ equivalent per square meter of installed countertop.

The company’s goal is to expand their manufacturing capacity. They want to build factories in other parts of the country so that they can offer slabs that use local recycled materials for their respective local market, thus helping potentially depressed economies. They may even license the technology to cooperatives around the world who can use their own local waste to develop tiles, pavers, or any number of products that can provide a way to reuse waste in the community and provide economic stability. We are eager to see how the company continues to evolve in the coming years.

Thank you, Karen and John, for your time during our talk!

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Two-hundred years ago, about 80% of the U.S. population lived and worked on farms. Today, that same percentage of the population lives in cities. The urbanization process left a large number of farmhouses, barns, and other rural structures abandoned to the elements, and for at least the last four decades, there has [...]]]>

Two-hundred years ago, about 80% of the U.S. population lived and worked on farms. Today, that same percentage of the population lives in cities. The urbanization process left a large number of farmhouses, barns, and other rural structures abandoned to the elements, and for at least the last four decades, there has been a concerted effort to reclaim the materials abandoned long ago for use in new structures. Currently, the positive impact of this reclamation is easily discernible – the preservation of live trees, diversion of waste from the landfill, etc. – but those who initially bought milled products made out of reclaimed barn wood didn’t do it for sustainability’s sake. Michael Black, founder and owner of the San Rafael, CA-based company Black’s Farmwood, found this out the hard way. His original green pitch was a bust, but when he learned to focus on the beauty of the material, he found he could infiltrate projects and guide them towards sustainable materials.

Michael came to the business of reclaiming wood rather accidentally. In the mid-90s, he was a psycho-biology major at UC Santa Cruz. He describes his career opportunities as being “in the field of prescribing drugs.” In his senior year, a particularly inspirational humanistic psychology class made him switch to a clinical psychology major, where he could explore human potential and the collective unconscious. Upon graduation, he turned down a job at a Santa Cruz biotech company, and instead sought organic personal development by traveling abroad. “I knew I didn’t want to be tied down in a lab,” he says. Once back in the U.S., jobless and with a thin pocketbook, he went to work as a carpenter for one of his friend’s father, a contractor working on a large private residence project in Marin County, CA. To further his education, Michael enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where he planned to study the same philosophical vein that he had first explored in college.

One day, while speaking to his grandmother back on the family’s Ohio tobacco farm, she informed him that the farm’s 150-year-old antique oak tobacco barn had been blown down in a storm. Asked what she planned to do with it, she replied she would have the wood burned, and the site cleaned up. “I thought, ‘What a waste to do that!,” says Michael. The impending fate of the fallen structure connected a dot for Michael, who for a while now had been seeing a lot of wood waste piling up at the job site, in a dumpster, headed for the landfill. “I saw beautiful pieces being trashed. Intuitively, I knew that was not right. So I thought I should try to recycle the barn.”

Michael convinced a high school friend to send him a small piece of the fallen barn. The man whose residence Michael was working on at the time saw the wood and wanted it for his house. “That’s how things fell into place,” Michael recounts. With travel expenses paid for, Michael went to his farm to get the wood for that proejct. Working with just crowbars and saws, it took Michael and that high school friend a couple of weeks to completely dismantle the barn, package it up, and ship it back to Marin County.

With laughter in his voice, he admits they didn’t quite know what they were doing. “I thought this was a one-time deal. I was going to take the proceeds and put it towards my education.” But word got out, and fast. The client told his friends about the wood, the architect told people, and soon Michael was receiving calls from strangers asking him for product for their own projects. “After I had so many calls and so many inquires, I just couldn’t ignore the call to adventure. I was in school and I knew I enjoyed my studies – but this was real life. That’s why I say Black’s Farmwood chose me; I didn’t choose it.” After withdrawing from school altogether, Michael went back to Ohio and set up camp on the family property. With the help of his two grandfathers, he started taking down their neighbor’s old farms and making large stacks of boards at his camp. He used the nascent power of the Internet and, little by little, established connections with people on both coasts. After about four months, he had enough inventory to return to California and establish an actual business. Black’s Farmwood was founded on January 1, 1999.

It wasn’t a full operation at first, and even though he started the company as a way to pursue environmental principles, that foundation didn’t help him much. “I definitely was not making it in the environmental community. I would get a lot of positive feedback, but never got any purchase orders.” And the green message didn’t get him anywhere with established architecture and design firms, yet they would prove pivotal in the company’s growth. “It wasn’t until I embraced the design community that it really started to take off,” says Michael. Designers and their clients, working on Tuscan villas, French farmhouses, or Spanish mission style homes, started gravitating toward the reclaimed wood because it was rustic and beautiful, not because of any environmentally positive attributes that it might offer. “For me, that was fine, because I knew that we weren’t cutting down new trees,” Michael says. “I didn’t need to force the sustainability message on people. I focused on what they wanted, but I didn’t have to compromise my values.”

In the last decade, however, he has seen the public’s awareness make leaps and bounds towards environmental understanding. “To my satisfaction, people are still interested in the beauty and story of the reclaimed wood, but there is so much more of a consciousness regarding the environment and global climate change,” says Michael. The number of purveyors of reclaimed barn board has exploded, and with that comes the reality that at some point there will be no more barns to deconstruct and reclaim. Michael does not know when that point will be reached, but he does say that business opportunities don’t end with farm buildings. He has taken the initiative to provide greater value, variety, and accountability for his products. He has a strategic relationship with another Bay Area company to reclaim urban logs and mill them into flooring, so that for any Bay Area clients, the carbon footprint of their finished product is amazingly minuscule. Years ago he started selling FSC certified wood, and on January 18, 2010 he obtained his FSC Chain of Custody certification.

The increased national demand, and growing international use of reclaimed and sustainably harvested wood has also led him to team up with his aunt and uncle and establish a second company, Farmwood International. From an office in Manhattan, Farmwood International focuses on customers east of the Mississippi and over the Atlantic. With his business established, Michael now spends a lot of his time consulting for companies, helping them to connect the dots on increased efforts toward sustainability.

We’re eager to see what new areas his businesses explore. Thank you, Michael, for your time during out sit-down!

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