Mike Broili owns and operates Living Systems Design in Shoreline, a company that “offers an integrative philosophy to on-site water management issues,” according to its Web site. As energy and environmental issues place more emphasis on the ways in which we manage our water and water systems, we thought we would check in with one of the local experts in the field to find out where he’s been, what he’s doing and where he sees things going.
Why did you start Living Systems Design?
My background is in construction, and I have always read a lot and been interested in permaculture and sustainability. I had been reading a lot about salmon and their habitats, and started thinking about how our actions affect them.
The World Commission on Environment and Development defines sustainable development as: “… development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
The more I thought about the impact of building on the environment, the more I realized it came down to water. There is always going to be a relationship between water and building design. How we design roofs, the permeability of materials we cover the ground with around buildings, and what we do with our landscapes all affect water. Every time we install a concrete driveway we are affecting the speed at which water flows. That, in turn, affects the rest of the environment. To develop sustainably, we need to think about how we are building.
The timing is right, too. Our existing hydrological infrastructure is about 100 years old and nearing the end of its life cycle. Its three systems — stormwater, sewer and potable water — were developed 2,000 years ago in Rome. Back then, they were essential to control black water and gray water. But they are obsolete. The speed of population growth has outstripped the planet’s ability to cope. The existing hydrological infrastructure ships the problem elsewhere, out of sight, out of mind. We can’t do that anymore.
How did you arrive at your company’s name, Living Systems Design?
Our name reflects our philosophy, which is that we must think on a holistic level whenever we manipulate the environment. It’s got its roots in permaculture. In The Web of Life, Fritjof Capra talks about our need to replace Cartesian ideas about the world, a mechanistic view of the world, with a systemic approach. This matches what we know about physics now — the natural world is constantly making order out of chaos and the interrelationship of everything is important to understanding how this is done. This systemic worldview is integral to permaculture.
Can you define permaculture?
The word was coined in the 1970s by two Australians, an ecologist and a scientist, concerned about environmental waste and degradation. Permaculture promotes the idea that we need to act responsibly and think about the consequences of our actions on other living beings and on the future.
I guess I’ve tended to view water battles as being who gets first dibs on the Colorado River, but that’s merely one of many problems.
How we’ve treated our water sources has damaged the environment and us. A Native American friend of mine told me we have it exactly backwards. “You white folks (defecate) in the river and drink out of the hole.” In terms of building, ideally, any water that lands on any building site should stay there, in the condition in which it got there.
What are black water and gray water?
Black water is water that is contaminated with fecal matter or bacteria harmful or toxic to living beings. It was recognition of its existence that was the impetus for the development of sewer systems. Gray water is what is left. Recycling it is one of the ways we can close the hydrological loop. Gray water includes water from, for example, a dishwashing machine or from washing produce. It can be harvested for personal uses like bathing, cooking and watering lawns and gardens.
How does one reuse gray water?
There are many ways to do this, and we will develop more. I just finished a green-gray roof for the Phinney Ridge Farmer’s Market shed. The shed contains a sink for washing produce. A solar pump takes the gray water to the vegetative roof, where it is filtered, or polished, before it drains off the roof and back into the landscape.
Who else has influenced you in your pursuits and philosophy?
Clifford Stoll, a physicist, and Michael Pollen are two people who are not afraid to think outside of the box, which is what we need. Vandara Shiva, a physicist and ecofeminist in India, and John Todd, the inventor of living machines, one of which is at Islandwood on Bainbridge Island. Here in the Pacific Northwest, Paul Stamets, a mycologist who does work using mycelium as filtering systems and advocates for bioremediation.
I’ve heard it said that we can really just do damage control, that we can never really reach zero impact. Would you agree with this?
No. Right now, buildings produce about half of the world’s carbon emissions, but I think we can reach zero waste and zero carbon. There are already plans, if not finished structures, that are restorative and regenerative, maybe not here in the U.S., but certainly in Europe.
Could you call this LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Plus?
Yes. At present we have some municipalities that are pushing for all new-constructed commercial buildings to be at least silver, if not gold level LEED certified. Some buildings have received the highest level of LEED certification, platinum.
But the most innovative and insightful individuals among involved professions — among scientists, builders, architects, engineers, designers, planners — realize we can and need to work beyond LEED. They are talking about restorative building, buildings that heal the environment in which they exist, and regenerative buildings, which are buildings that actually create a healthy natural habitat. Basically, these would be zero waste and zero impact.
The Cascadia Regional Building Council’s recent initiative, The Living Building Challenge, is intended to promote regenerative buildings. New York City’s High Performance Building Guidelines is the only document that codifies regenerative building requirements that I know of to date.
Janine Benyus has described biomimicry as the “conscious emulation of life’s genius,” where humans mimic the design principles of the natural world. How does her work fit in with what you do?
Living organisms have been adapting and surviving for millions of years. They have the balancing act down, which is to say, they do what they need to do while taking care of the place they are doing it in.
Janine Benyus’s work with biomimicry is hugely important to the design challenges that face us. She describes the incredible strength of spider webs and shows how we can use them to develop green chemistry, replacing our “industrial chemical recipes” with nature’s recipes. Separation technology benefits from looking at how microbes chelate metals out of water, and timed degradation from studying how mussels dissolve calcium at the optimal time.
When I am stumped about how to deal with something, I take a hike in the forest and ask, “How does this function?” It helps to understand the interrelationship between hydrology, the sun, growth. Essentially, what I am doing is trying to understand the natural world and how we can mimic it to sustain it.
Are municipalities doing much to address water issues in their city planning?
On the permitting side, a lot of this is new to inspectors and I think they can get frustrated because the target seems to keep changing. But, I know Seattle’s used some of my suggestions.
In terms of urban design, Seattle has done some great work. Check out the natural drainage systems the city built on Second Avenue N.W., between N.W. 117th and 120th streets. They have monitored them in the two years since they installed this and found it reduced the total volume of stormwater leaving the street by 99%. This is one of several Seattle projects dealing with sound stormwater management and other cities have similar initiatives.
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