I am striving to spread sustainable building practices for the health of our planet

University of Kansas faculty are striving to advance knowledge, interpret our world, solve problems, spark innovation, create beauty and catalyze imagination through their research, scholarship and creative activity. Through the “I Am Striving” series, we’ll learn more about what inspires KU researchers, as well as the goals and impact of their work. 

Q&A with Dan Rockhill, J.L. Constant Distinguished Professor of Architecture 

Explain your research as you would explain it to someone outside your field, such as your grandparents. 

I run a program at the University of Kansas referred to as studio 804. The name is actually a derivative of the course title, which is Architecture 804. I started doing this program 30 years ago because I felt a need for young architects who are aspiring to enter the profession to get a sense for building. And most people in the general public think, "Oh, of course an architect would have some exposure to building." That has never really been the case. 

I had a very supportive faculty, and they agreed. It has now become what it has been for over 30 years. We’re published internationally. It's a very unique program. 

What does your research look like? What methods do you use? 

Observation. When we do the LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) submission request, we are assigned a green rater. That person comes in and does all the testing. We're interacting with that person on a pretty regular basis. It used to be a professional that drove up here from Springfield, Missouri. That's how far the net to find a green rater had to be thrown. That person retired. After their retirement, we couldn't find a green rater. We eventually got it sorted out, but I was taken aback by the fact that we had a choice of either going to Houston, Denver or Chicago for a green rater, and those people should be local. So I was a little disappointed in the way that came to pass. Hence, the book (“Studio 804: Detailing Sustainable Architecture”).

We took advantage of what the students had done and made all of that into a book, and it's supplemented with a lot of other information, but just to demonstrate for people who are intimidated by it. I get a lot of inquiries from people in the public saying, "Hey, can I make my house more energy efficient?" 

What inspires your research? Why are you passionate about this work? 

I have tempered it in the last almost 20 years with the need for architects to look very closely at how we build, and how we should be building. And part of that came through our going to Greensburg, Kansas. Greensburg, Kansas was a little town that was wiped out by a tornado in 2007. We went down there and gave them a building, if you will. There is the art center, and we designed and built the building according to LEED standards, which had just emerged as a way for architects and others in the profession, in the industry, to address issues having to do with sustainability. You can achieve everything from silver to gold to platinum, which is the highest you can achieve. And it's done against a rigorous scale of what you bring to it and what you don't — you can't get away with just saying this or that. And so that started in Greensburg. That was actually the first LEED Platinum project in the state, and we've carried that on. I think we're on our 19th or 20th LEED Platinum project.

How does your research directly impact your field, society, Kansas and the world? 

Universities are about ideas, and I don't think I need to say any longer that we've got an idea that something's going on with the climate. Buildings are roughly 50% responsible for that, and the way we build again now, in Studio 804, attaining LEED Platinum, results in buildings that are highly sustainable. 

What is a recent study/example of work you’d like to share? 

A house we did in three years ago, a couple came to our open house, and she was telling the student she had to call her husband when she went to pay the energy bill because it was 87 cents for the month of August. August is an incredibly hot month, and air-conditioning runs constantly. And so to brag about an 87-cent bill is pretty amazing. This stuff works. We orient the houses in certain directions that attract sun and what's called passive heating. We have very sophisticated heating and air-conditioning systems. All of the materials that we choose are low VOC, meaning they're not harmful. The way in which we build is conditioned on how tight we make the building. I call it a cocoon, and there's two of them actually. We build a cocoon inside before we put the drywall on, and we build a cocoon on the outside as we begin to skin the building. And they're super insulated. Our walls are 12 inches thick, and that's how you arrive at what I'm describing here as a successful result. 

We did a house on New York Street here in town, and the person that purchased it keeps me abreast of what his energy bill is year-round, the average is $17, but $14 of that is the flat rate from Evergy. You're going to pay that even if you're on vacation. It doesn't matter. You're going to pay that all the time. So $3 average per month, every month, for energy in an all-electric house is a pretty good deal. So yes, the houses cost a little bit more. It's got to cost more to do what we're doing. But I think demonstrating what we do here to the community, as well as through our publications, does a lot to at least encourage other professionals to follow suit.

What do you hope are some of the outcomes of your research and work? 

One outcome, from my vantage point, is to have students carry the torch into the offices within which they work. 

And I think the legacy, from my standpoint, is to encourage other universities. Higher education is not easily funded, especially in architecture. We do not have the depth of resource available to us to do research. For anyone in the design arts, it just is hard. You don't have that much research opportunity, but this as a template for creating a cash flow for the program to sustain itself — a way to demonstrate that it can be done.

I was in Kansas City for maybe six years doing projects. We built them in Lawrence as prefab, and we put them on trucks and brought them into Kansas City because we didn't have any money. I said to the neighborhood housing association, "I want to continue to do this, but I also want to be able to sell the house at whatever I think the market would bear. If you give me $100,000 for six months, I'll give you $108,000 back as soon as I sell the house." We were selling houses. I couldn't meet the demand in Kansas City for houses that, at that time, were $155,000 for one of the prefab houses. So I gave them the $108,000 back, and we put money that was left over in the bank. And gradually, you do that enough times, and you have savings. Every year we try to keep building that volume up in the savings account so we can get more and more of this kind of work.