Sustainable construction: a century-old concept: new technology has spurred energy savings, but the best architects and builders have always sought efficiency.

• Author: Titus, Stephen
• Position: REAL estate

IN THE EARLIEST DAYS OF FORMER GOV. BILL Ritter's tenure, he issued an executive order requiring all state-run universities to reduce energy and water usage 10 percent to 20 percent by 2012.

The private sector was way ahead of him, with new materials and technologies that could easily reach these goals and more. Campuses around the slate responded, and today many are already there with some, like CU Boulder, going beyond and already employing ways lo save twice this amount.

Sustainable construction and architecture techniques are a hot topic these days, but architects who have been around a while point out that they are nothing new. The best in this business have always sought the most efficient, livable design and even the oldest pf those structures art-still around today. What has changed is demand for energy efficiency and an overall reduction in resources and waste.

This has led to a drop in prices for materials and techniques that, when applied to age-old wisdom and new-age technology, produce energy-efficient structures that just a decade ago would have been impossible to build on a "normal" budget. These materials and techniques are now used in nearly every new building under construction today.

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"The cost of green building is going down," said Sarah Armstrong, manager of business development and marketing for Colorado-based FCI Constructors. "Building materials. like low VOC paints and carpet and recycled content material, is nearly matching the price of standard (materials). The demand is so high, the cost is going down significantly over three or four years ago."

Even buildings labeled as affordable housing are meeting the highest green-build standards and doing it on a tight budget. FCI Constructors built the award-winning Renaissance Riverfront Lofts. Designed by Page Southerland Page Architects in Denver for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, Renaissance Riverfront Lofts blends seamlessly into die neighborhood at Interstate 25 and Park Avenue. It's a five-story apartment building for the homeless and diose in need of affordable housing. It was recently completed to LEED Gold standard (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.) which is well beyond many of the high-end loft projects in the Platte River valley.

Designing buildings with an eye toward the local environment and to take advantage of passive solar heating and natural ventilation has been part of the design equation for the past 100...