Sustainable Design
"Living Green is more than a label, it's a healthy way of living."
 More than a checklist of green materials and building systems, BA’s Sustainable Designs strive to integrate the architectural expression with the local ecology of a site. Living Green is more than a label or a natural material, it’s a healthy way of living. Our Sustainable Designs start small, because a home should be intimate and comforting. Our work uses as its foundation the three most critical aspects of sustainable buildings: a high performance “building envelope” (floors/walls/roof), state-of- the-art, high-efficiency building systems, and a minimally-invasive site design. In short, a better box with a super engine parked lightly on the landscape.
We utilize the most advanced techniques and materials available for green construction, including recycled and sustainable materials, high-performance glazing, high-efficiency spray foam insulation, “rainscreen” vented walls, and BA’s trademarked “Umbrella Roof” system for passive cooling and healthy air quality. Building systems include radiant heating systems embedded into high-mass concrete flooring providing thermal mass for comfort and efficiency, modulating temperature propane boilers that are over 95% efficient with computer-controlled outdoor thermostatic controls delivering just the right heat to the radiant floor, and energy-recovery units maintaining air quality without compromising energy efficiency. Cooling in our sustainable buildings is passive, using a central stair thermo-siphon and whole house fans to vent warm air out of the building.
At BA we analyze every aspect of the building’s design to ensure comfort and affordability while producing buildings that use over 50% less energy than current NYS Energy Code designs. What makes BA’s designs truly unique, however, is that they become analogs of the surrounding environment, using materials and forms directly from the landscape to realize a “constructed landscape;” the house as a garden. Natural materials for flooring, walls and structural framing pass seamlessly from interior to exterior, helping to dissolve the normal boundaries between site and structure. We see the landscape as a series of spaces, the “rooms” of nature, with the house merely becoming another space in that continuous garden. The entire experience is one where the day to day wonders of nature are experienced everyday throughout the entire house.
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 Umbrella Roof System: Named for its inherent shading qualities, the Umbrella Roof is designed to dissipate summer heat gain and passively cool the structure via a unique layered system of high-performance insulation with a bonded aluminum radiant barrier under recycled metal roof panels. The vented air space between the radiant barrier and the roof panels naturally convects the unwanted heat gain to the exterior and away from the building. This trademark system is another example of our commitment to innovation and efficiency in sustainable design.
 Radiant Systems: A high-efficiency radiant heating system circulates warm water through hundreds of tubes beneath the floor. Unlike hot air or convective systems, the radiant system does not attempt to heat the entire volume of air in the space. It warms the user directly. Heat is focused where you need it, at the lower room levels, and not at the ceiling.
 Thermo-siphon: The inclusion of a thermo-siphon allows cool, prevailing winds to ventilate a building naturally during the warm summer months. Warm air rises up and out through windows in the tall, central monitor.
 Thermal Mass: Since heat always moves to colder surfaces, BA strives to include in its designs large stone and masonry features. The heat from the air and the radiant system is absorbed into the stone and masonry, which is cooler. When the sun sets and air temperature falls, the heat stored in the stone and masonry seeks out the cold and returns to the room.
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