CONTENTS
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IGNITION How did it started?
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RESEARCH METHODS Different types of research
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DETROIT’S UP & DOWN History of Detroit
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GREEN GARAGE About the sustainable building
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COMMUNITY Interactions with the community
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INTERVIEW Q&A with Peggy Brennen
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We believe the very smallest changes you make can make the biggest differences - Peggy Brennan
If you can think about net-zero energy on a 100-year-old building, you should be able to do it in any building 2
- Tom Brennan
IGNITION
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Living a sustainable lifestyle takes learning, experimenting, exploring, committing to sustainable practices and above all creative thinking. There was two creative minds, Tom and Peggy, who wanted to build a place that people can gather and reimagine the old patterns of life to new sustainable way. They founded the Green Garage in 2011, which is a living laboratory and co-working space located in Midtown, Detroit. Green Garage leases business incubators to the startups and share ideas of living sustainable way with the community.
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RESEARCH METHODS
Awareness Study Ethnography of Detroit Semantic Differenttial SWOT Analysis Photos of the Building Persona Interview
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DETROIT’S UP & DOWN
Detroit is known for automotive heritage with expansion of the auto industry during 20th century. It was the place wherer “American System of Manufacturing” started by using machines on conveyer belt and division of labor that lead to making quality product with inexpensive price. It was the period American dream coming true. It brought big prosperity to cities near Detroit as well. Also, later the system got famous and was introduced other countriess and became a standard manufacturing system all around the globe. However, the good time didn’t last forever. Detroit’s auto industry has suffered from global competition in recent decades. Wealthy people strated to fled the cities for new dreams.
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Population has started to fallen and crime rates have rose. In 2013, Detorit filled the largest bankruptcy case in US history. Even though there were lot of concerns that Detroit will not comback from bankruptsy, but Detroit has shown their potentials by successfully exiting from the bankruptcy. Now, there are various movements, communities, and organizations helping economic development of Detroit are re-imaging their future city.
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Conference Room
Way out to Green Alley
GREEN GARAGE
04 GREEN GARAGE OPENED AT NOVEMBER 2011. BUT THERE HAS BEEN 2 YEARS OF PLANNING AND 2 YEARS OF CONSTRUCTIONS SINCE 2007. During this period, they try to figure out best way to renovate the building to sustainable and energy efficient. From their result, now they only spend 10% of the energy compare to similar size business buildings. By using insulated windows, water radient heating system from the floor, repurposing materials from deconstructions and receiving furniture from closed schools, which led them to save a lot of resource and energy. They also built, “Green Alley” next to the building, which naturally absorbs the rainwater and makes the place more clean and walkable after rain. The first thing you see when you walk up to the main entrance of Green Garage, there are logo attached on the wooden wall. The logo has three rights on top of the globe. Each circle stands for Detroit’s sustainable future, a business enterprise, and a building located in Midtown Detroit which includes community there. Building was originally 8
Busi Incub
Business Incubators
Community Meeting Place
built in 1920 and was used for Model T showroom. In the 1940s, it was purchased by Sam Kanners, who kept his shoe supply business, until 1990s. In late 2007 it was purchased by Tom and Peggy Brenan. Since then, many creative solutions have been created and continues the green revolution with the community. Finally in 2011 the Green Garge were opened as a business incubator. Their interior was redesigned mostly woods and bricks from desconstructions. They have consistent look of arch shape used in the design. In addition, they have Urban Sustainablility Library whose mission is to connect people to the resources they need to live more sustainably and place called Sustainability Labs on website that they provide measure and data that help anyone who is interested in knowing the building’s performance. Howver, they don’t have any branding materials yet, because they wanted to be careful about making brand different look than they intended. 9
05 COMMUNITY Green Garage’s main audience are the small businesses that rents the spaces and potential startups. There are now 54 businesses residing in that place. Secondly, the community in Detroit who are interested in lving a sustainable life. Even before planning for the building, Mr. and Mrs. Brenen’s hope was to help detroit economic growth and be an example for others by living sustainably for the future. There are many people who sees the positive potential from this organization. From the opening year many visitors from all around the states and even another countries visited Green Garage to see the changes happening in Detroit. The New York Times article, “In Detroit, the Green Garage Is a Different Kind of Incubator”, there was a person who responded that Brennan’s approach does run counter to the fast iteration espoused by proponents of lean startup. Also, added that urban and small town renewal should harness the power of innovation and this idea is worth spreading. Green Garage had an interview with the former employee Kevin Gardner, who is also alumni of College for Creative Studies. He spoke about his experience at the Green Garage Material selection team. He always wanted to work for organizations that solves problem for the environment issues. When he first met Green Garage, it came very refreshing especially working with different people who had same passion and goals in their mind, which made a place that he can be creative. Also, people I talked to at the community meetings on Friday, were really proud of how they helped the organization and seems like loving their place in Green Garage. Number of startups are increasing in Detroit. DC3, Techtown Detroit, Revolve Detroit are places that rent spaces for startups and there are many small and large 10
organizations for green movement that support sustainable living. All of these groups can be considered as Green Garge’s competitors. However, they don’t consider them as a competitor but more as a partners who have a similar kind of goals. They now have sister project called “El Moore” that is converting the century old apartment to a near-zero energy building that will rent spaces for yearly and nightly rental as well. It is located 2 blocks of the Green Garage, at Second Avenue. The build-
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ing was there since 1898, it has been witnessed rise and fall of the city and now it’s being redesigned to become a sustainable urban living space waiting for new residents to live. This project will become one of the steps of green movement in Detroit city that will participate in new sustainble future.
El Moore Project Building
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06
INTERVIEW
Peggy Brennen
Co-founder Green Garage Masters Degree in Speech Pathology Knowledge manager at the Green Garage, managing the website, blog, and social networking accounts
Q: History of the building? Peggy: Green Garage dates back to 1920, it was build for Ford’s Model T showroom. (Looking at the old photos of the building) So when we bought the building this is how it looked. And do you this one right here this was the original window glass that are now used in green house room. This building was used as a warehouse before we bought it. This is how exterior looked like when we bought it. You see all the windows are bricked up? They were bricked up because 1967 there were riot happening at that time and insurance company didn’t want to insure the building because it kept getting broken. What ended up happen was insurance company aquired us to block the window with the brick, if they want to keep the insurance. So after purchasing the building we restore the windows like how it looked like in 1920s. Q: Process of planning the building? We came to this project as people who has been studying sustainably based project for five years. We have changed our own lifestyle in our own house. We have done things like bought energy efficient cars, we recycle and do water harvesting and what we wanted to do is used the 13
idea that we learned in a setting that is outside of our home. So what we did was we looked for a building we could rehabilitate into green building and this is the building that we found. So we purchased this building, and then we spent two years doing design work figuring out what we are going to do with this building and then we spent two years doing construction and we opened up the business at Noveber of 2011. We started leasing business incubators at that time with one business, and now we have.. I think it’s about 54 business. Q: Sustainble practices in the buidling? One of the unique thinngs about the building, we only use about 10% of the energy compare the traditional offices. Reasons for that is we use plenty of installations in the building like super insulated window and we make sure the building envelope is very tight. In order to heat the building, we take water that runs to tubes underneath our floor in a radiant system. So water goes from the annex that we got 5000 gallons of it. It get’s pumped up into solar panels and then it gets heated and goes back down under the floor and warms of the building from the bottom. We also repurpose lot of materials. (looking at the image) When we did deconstruction on the building, this is our installation we had all stacked up before it went to the walls, but here are boxes full of extra woods, plastics, and steel pipes that we try to reuse. So figure out a way to reuse these materials within the building somehow. We didn’t want to throw them away. We only took away one and a half dumpster from this building, everything else we repurposed. That stair case is made with old gas pipe and steam pipe that was use to heat the building. Also, we received lot of donations. This wood came from high school shop class, and old cabinet that we repainted, furniture from detroit public school. We provide bike racks and shower room for people who commute to the building with their bike. We have a green alley here, which is Detroit’s first green alley. We took out all of the old cement and made a green alley. Green doesn’t just mean plants, but alley that obsorbs the rainwater. So instead of rain water going down to our sewer, where sometimes it mixes with raw sewage and can go out to lakes and streams. 14
We have system that we use middle section brick and sement, but on either side we have diamond shape pieces of cement that are open so rain can go down and we got plants that border either side. This organization is for profit. By renting business spaces we receive money from the business every month and that’s how we sustain.
Green Alley’s Before & After
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INFORM, INSPIRE, AND ENFORCE SUSTAINABLE LIFE
REFERENCE: Avalonbreads http://www.avalonbreads.net/eat-well-do-good/do-good-detroit-acity-of-greener-pastures/ Alternet http://www.alternet.org/story/146577/green_detroit%3A_why_ the_city_is_ground_zero_for_the_sustainability_movement Citylab http://www.citylab.com/work/2012/05/how-detroit-rising/1997/ Freep http://archive.freep.com/article/20100418/ GREEN01/4180457/Green-Garage Metromodemedia http://www.metromodemedia.com/blogs/bloggers/peggybrennan0132.aspx Green Garage http://greengaragedetroit.com/
Research on Green Garage October 2015 16