Fernando Pagés on Green Building

This week’s Seven Days features a story about Fernando Pagés, an award-winning home builder from Nebraska who writes regularly about design and construction. Pagés is the keynote speaker at the Better Buildings by Design Conference at the Burlington Sheraton, a two-day event that ends tonight.

Seeing as my interview with Pagés was so interesting (to me, at least), I’m excerpting some of it here:

SEVEN DAYS: The U.S. Green Building Council reports that 70 percent of home buyers are more inclined to buy a green home in a recession, and that almost a third of the people who bought green homes in 2008 earn less than $50,000 per year. What explains that?
FERNANDO PAGÉS: First of all, there’s a lot of interest now in doing everything in general low-cost, particularly in housing, because of the crisis we’re in … But for the most part, “green building” has been approached as things you add to the house or the building, and that’s why green building has [traditionally] cost more.
My approach to green building is what you subtract: I use the other side of the pencil more than the tip in terms of design. In other words, I use the eraser … When you eliminate things, you’re using a little bit more conservative approach, in that you’re eliminating the use of natural resources. You’re also creating more space in the house. And I don’t mean that figuratively, but literally: Creating more space between studs and in structural areas for more insulation and the very materials that create the energy efficiency of the house …

SD: If you’re a homeowner thinking of buying a new house or making efficiency improvements to an existing one, is there anything you might look for from the feds?