Browsing tag: Fair Labor

  • March 8, 2019

    Are Passive Houses Also Slow?

    When it comes to building methodologies “Passive” and “Slow” sound related, don’t they? In many ways, they are. Passive House (‘passivhaus’ in German) is a building approach and certification of energy efficiency that creates healthy and comfortable living environments. The Slow Space Movement encourages wellbeing by promoting buildings that are good, clean and fair. While the core principles of Passive House align with the Slow Space Movement, the energy-focused building approach could benefit from the Slow Space Movement’s holistic credo.

    What is Passive House? 

    The Passive House approach maximizes energy efficiency to produce buildings that are not only environmentally friendly, but uniquely comfortable. Passive homes achieve such a high standard through ultra efficient insulation, orienting the building to maximize sunlight in the winter and shade in the summer, and an air-tight yet well ventilated enclosure. Passive homes often make use of solar energy to further reduce their carbon footprint. A well-insulated home takes advantage of the incidental internal heat sources such as appliances and our own body heat to add warmth in the winter. Through natural temperature regulation and fresh air circulation, passive homes improve our health and quality of life.

    Why do we like it? 

    Passive House buildings directly improve our health. These structures make use of natural daylight which helps our circadian rhythms, productivity, emotional wellbeing and more. Passive houses also constantly circulate fresh air which is not only comfortable, but reduces the risk of mold, dust, pollen and other pollutants and allergens. When we spend 90% of our time indoors, the improved air quality in passive homes has a direct affect on our health. Furthermore, these buildings are so well insulated, there is incredibly little temperature fluctuation even in extreme weather conditions, thus regulating a health body temperature.

    Passive homes also indirectly improve our wellbeing.  By creating a home that reduces the need for electricity through daylighting and temperature regulation, Passive Houses are less dependent on technology and fossil fuels. Even if the heating system breaks in the winter, the house would remain comfortable for days.  The level of insulation in a home also helps our quality of life. Imagine being able to sit in a cozy window nook in the middle of winter without the hint of a draft or cold air radiating from the glass. Moreover, a well insulated house reduces noise, creating a peaceful, quiet living environment.

    Passive Homes also need to be very well built in order to be airtight. This means they are highly resilient to weather conditions and will last much longer than the typical house. Well-constructed homes not only benefit the homeowners, but support the work of local craftspeople and the communities around them.

    What can be improved?

    Passive House is a highly effective building methodology that creates efficient and healthy environments which we love; however, it is not necessarily a wholistic approach.  One of the major issues we have with some high performance buildings is in material selection. For example, many Passive Houses are insulated with spray foam insulation which can be highly toxic.  

    The Slow Space Movement encourages the use of organic, renewable materials such as wood fiber insulation as an alternative.  Wood fiber insulation can insulate a house well enough for Passive House certification and is non-toxic to people and the planet.

    Toxic materials have a negative impact on the house’s inhabitants, the workers that build it and the planet. The Slow Space Movement promotes good design, clean healthy materials and fair labor practices. This includes creating a healthy environment for the workers during construction.

    Of course, proponents of Passive House have no intention of using toxic materials or unfair labor.  But it is all too easy in the construction industry to focus in on one goal and lose sight of the entire process.  As we strive for Passive House standards, let’s maintain a holistic approach that considers energy efficiency along with good, clean and fair practices.

  • May 1, 2017

    Built with Blood – Labor Exploitation in US Construction

    I am Mette Aamodt. I’m an architect and founder of slowspace.org, which is a community of architects, designers, builders, artisans, activists, and lots of other people who care about our built environment. Together with my partner Andrew Plumb, we are starting a movement and we call it Slow Space. It is slow food for the built environment, and we have a manifesto. “Our world is covered in junkspace: bad buildings that are ugly, poorly designed, and unpleasant to be in, composed of cheap toxic materials that make you and the planet sick, and built by unskilled workers that are exploited, enslaved and endangered on the job. Every day more of these buildings go up, but we say, ‘Enough is enough.’ The Slow Space Movement aims to end the mindless proliferation of junkspace, to educate the public on the physical and psychological dangers and to inspire architects, designers, builders and artisans to stand up for buildings that are good, clean and fair.”

    In today’s video, I’m going to talk about the issue of fairness in the construction industry and I’m going to tell you the story of Luis. This is a true story. It was reported in The Boston Globe by Beth Healy and Meg Woolhouse in September, 2016.  Luis was a 15 year old boy originally from Ecuador and living in Brockton, Massachusetts, attending high school there. One summer a couple of years ago, he took a summer job for a roofing company to make some extra money for his family. The job was in Maine. He was working on a house in Portland helping to fasten roofing shingles.

    One day he fell, and he tumbled down two stories and he severely shattered his leg. His employer did not call an ambulance. Instead, a coworker transported him 75 miles across state lines in the back of an old construction van to a Massachusetts hospital where he received emergency care. Luis was in severe pain. I don’t know how long it took them to get back to Massachusetts, but 75 miles in traffic takes a long time in these parts. He said, “I couldn’t breathe, much less talk. It’s pain you don’t forget.” The general contractor on the job said it wasn’t his responsibility because Luis was being paid by a subcontractor by the name of Force Construction. The JC had run regular background checks on Force and had confirmed at the time that they hired him that they had liability insurance and Workers’ Comp.

    Luis was actually being paid by another subcontractor called Twin Pines Construction and this was a company owned by the same person that owned Force. His name was Fernandes. That summer, Fernandes had let his Workers’ Comp policy lapse a month before Luis fell off the roof. This was not an isolated incident, by the way on the jobs of Fernandes and his companies. He and his companies have been cited for more than 100 violations and have racked up $1.5 million in fines from OSHA. Luis did eventually receive the medical care that he needed. He was transferred to Boston Children’s Hospital and a rod was surgically placed in his femur. A workers’ advocate helped him navigate all of his medical appointments and paperwork, and a Medford lawyer helped him to sort through the tree of subcontractors until they finally found one who had insurance to cover him.

    Luis is one of thousands of people, many undocumented, many children, who fill the need for cheap labor in Boston’s booming construction industry. They hold slabs of sheetrock and climb rooftops and dusty scaffolds, doing often dangerous work for contractors looking for cheap labor. They’re not on the books. They’re paid illegally in cash and for much less than the prevailing wage. The workers advocate who helped Luis said this is not about catching a few bad apples. We have evolved a system for providing subsidized labor to build our houses and it’s based on the vulnerability of the workforce.

    Luckily, at least in the US, we have laws aimed at preventing this type of thing, but enforcement is difficult and there are many ways to get around it. For example, many contractors would prefer to just pay the fines rather than to change their ways. Everyone complains about the cost of construction, but actually the true cost is not even being counted. If you take the example of Luis, his suffering subsidized the cost of the roofing job on that project.

    Many prefer to look the other way and I’ve been guilty of that in the past, but this is an issue we want to bring into the light. If you care about these issues, if this is something that’s important to you, that you’re interested in, and you care about good, clean and fair buildings for all, then please join us by subscribing to our mailing list at slowspace.org and/or liking us on our Facebook page. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you there.