housing – Sustainable Tucson

Tuesday, August 8 at 6pm

Join us at Sustainable Tucson’s monthly meeting, “The Future of Tucson’s Housing,” on Tuesday, August 8, at 6 pm for an inspiring and informative event that will reshape the way we think about our homes and their impact on the environment and our community.

Discover how we can take charge of our local part in a national problem and build a resilient, sustainable future for Tucson! Our focus will be on tackling the challenges of our aging homes and making them energy-efficient, cost-effective, and eco-friendly through the groundbreaking Green Retrofit II program.

At the meeting, you’ll have the opportunity to: 🏠 Learn about the current conditions of our old houses, both in the past and today. 💰 Find out what you can do to make sustainable upgrades without breaking the bank. 👷‍♂️ Discover the innovative Green Retrofit II program, for training the skilled workforce we need to repair and upgrade our homes. 🗣 Engage in a thought-provoking panel discussion on making repair, preservation, and upgrading of our homes a top community priority.

The impact can be enormous! Buildings account for 76% of electricity use and 40% of all U.S. primary energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. But with cost-effective technologies, we can cut building energy use by over 20% in the next few decades. By fixing the nation’s 56 million old homes, we have a unique chance to combat climate change while supporting economic and social stability for millions of American families.

Green Retrofit II has ambitious goals, including: 🛠 Training a skilled workforce to repair and upgrade Tucson’s 200,000 aging and uninsulated homes. 💡 Raising awareness and providing financing tools for widespread repairs and upgrades. 🏡Collaborating with neighborhoods to implement sustainability initiatives.

Who should attend? Everyone who cares about: 🌍 Housing, environment, and social justice. 👷‍♂️ Sustainable job opportunities and rehabilitation workforce training. 🏠 Affordable, comfortable, and efficient homes for all residents. 💼Supporting local businesses and financial institutions interested in sustainable home improvements. 🏘 Creating resilient and vibrant communities for the future. 🌱 Advocating for climate change mitigation and social equity.

Tucson architect Bob Vint and local sustainable building advocate David Eisenberg will explore some of the local traditional designs, materials, and building systems, as well as current and future challenges and opportunities for our buildings here in the age of climate change. This will include a look at the form and performance of historic building approaches in the Southwest, problems with our existing housing stock, and some technical insights about building performance, material choices, climate impacts, and rehabilitation strategies.

Bob will draw on his extensive study of regional architecture and his work with traditional and some alternative building materials. David will weave his three decades of building experience, and his work with alternative building materials and systems, codes and standards, and building science into potential solutions to our challenges for both new and existing buildings.

Meet Our Speakers:

David Eisenberg co-founded and has led the Tucson-based nonprofit Development Center for Appropriate Technology (DCAT) since 1992. DCAT launched their program Building Sustainability into the Codes in 1995, seeking to create a sustainable context for building codes. David’s wide-ranging building experience—from troubleshooting construction of the high-tech cover of Biosphere2, to conventional concrete, steel, masonry, wood, adobe, rammed earth, and straw bale construction—has grounded DCAT’s codes and standards work in real-world building experience. He co-authored The Straw Bale House book, and has worked extensively on developing building codes for sustainable techniques and materials, including straw bale construction, cob, and tiny houses, among others. David served two terms on the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Board of Directors where he founded and chaired USGBC’s Code Committee for nine years. David now serves on the boards of Sustainable Tucson and the Tucson 2030 District.

Bob Vint is a native Arizonan, born at Ft. Huachuca. He has practiced architecture in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Massachusetts since 1986. After working with architectural firms in Boston and Tucson, Bob established his independent practice in 1993. Among his many projects are the preservation of the Mission San Xavier del Bac; design of the San Xavier Franciscan Friary and San Xavier Mission School; Linda Ronstadt’s Tucson residence; the main entrance of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Pima County; and preservation of the Bisbee Central School. In addition to running an active architectural practice, Bob is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the School of Architecture at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where since 2011 he has taught the History & Theory of Urban Design. He also holds an annual seminar on Arid Region Urbanism, with field trips to relevant sites from Native American, Spanish, and Anglo cultures, including into the neighboring state of Sonora, Mexico.

Tuesday, March 9, 6:00-8:00 pm
See the meeting here.