An Interview with Ned Allam

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Array International Architects Inc. is a Canadian firm of architects, planners, and development consultants. Astoria Magazine met with principal architect, Ned Allam in his office in Toronto, to discuss how environmental issues are affecting architecture today.

AM: “Does your firm find that the environment plays a more important role in the minds of your clients and how you design buildings than it did a few years ago?”

Ned: “Yes, I participated The Ontario Association of Architects Steering Committee on the Environment from 1992 to 1997. Our committee explored many new environmental concepts and technologies, however we found in practice that an implementation of environmentally friendly products and procedures increased building costs by at least 15%. That is sizeable in a large project, so most clients were not willing to implement these changes because of the costs.”

AM “I guess that was disappointing at the time.”

Ned: “Yes, we did a lot of work and research and we all agreed as architects that the day would come when factoring in the environment would be a necessity. We hoped that one day clients would be willing to pay a more in order to assure environmental sustainability.”

AM: “ So how is it now in 2007, are developers willing to pay more?”

Ned: “Well, costs are still an important factor, but there has been a tremendous awakening in the public mind regarding the fact that if we as a people don’t consider how we do things, we might not have as great a world to live in as we do now. It is becoming more advantageous in a business sense to plan with the environment in mind. It can be more expensive in the long run to design and build without taking the environmental materials and methods into consideration. ”

AM: “ What are some of the methods you are implementing in your designs and projects now?

Ned: “A more complete overview of projects is available on our website. We are very pleased to be implementing many new ways of doing things in our current designs. We consider air quality in buildings as a priority. Many older buildings are called ‘sick buildings’ because of the stale and unhealthy air. One of the most advanced methods of doing this is actually going back to nature. Genetron Systems creates indoor rainforest systems called a ‘Breathing Wall’ similar to the one at the University of Toronto and creates a system using plants to purify the air.

Green Roofs

Green Roofs are also an alternative to traditional materials, a green roof system will save energy, improve water efficiency and reduce storm water and flash flooding by reducing runoff and will also filter pollutants. Water run off is more of a problem than the public is aware of and just paving over so many areas, when they all add up are hard on the natural order of the environment, so we are looking at using different paving systems that are still smooth surfaced but have porous qualities.

Energy consumption is an important part of saving the environment and so the we look for materials that will save energy such as low E glass windows, the use of solar energy and Geo-thermal heating and cooling systems. A new collaboration as Array EcoGen will focus on finding new ways to build environmental methods into new buildings at the outset."

AM: “That is really good, I’m sure there are a lot of more natural products that can be substituted for what has been traditionally used.”

Ned: “Yes, there are more and more products that can be used all the time, it is exciting to be an architect at this point in our history. With a little effort we can turn things around now and have a better living environment in future.”