This article appeared in the May 2014 issue of Organic Hudson Valley.  (A direct link is under Links to Articles).

The latest project for Rick Alfandre, the owner of Alfandre Architecture and a proponent of construction using green technology, is a new green office building located in New Paltz that will be 5400 square feet and will be the new home for Alfandre Architecture, as well as other offices that will be leased. “I felt like we needed to set an example of what can be achieved right here in the Hudson Valley on the private owner side of things,” Alfandre said about his inspiration for the new building. “It’s actually taken a very long time to get here.”

Alfandre purchased the land the building sits on with his wife over 10 years ago. They have been through multiple approvals and waited out some of the economic downturn, but are now well on their way to their goal. “Let’s show people what it is to actually build a healthy, energy efficient, small commercial project in the Hudson Valley,” Alfandre said. “How can we do it? What are the issues? What does it cost? What’s the benefit?”

Part of answering these questions was addressing the challenges inherent in not only green building, but in construction projects of any kind. “As architects, we have a lot of experience with the puzzle, with all the pieces of zoning and parking and dimensional restraints on a particular site, but those all have a cost as well,” Alfandre explained. The project is now nearing completion and in early April they expect to be able to movie in. At that point, there will be about 2000 square feet available for leasing. “To make the business model work, we need to rent that space at a certain rate,” Alfandre said, though he thinks many businesses will be interested in the green model.

Discussing past projects, Alfandre reflects on the importance of sustainability from the owner’s point of view. “To hear from them that… they’re always comfortable,” Alfandre said. “That means we did it right.”

Alfandre is not new to working with green technology. He is the chair of the board of the New York upstate chapter of the New York Green Building Council, a local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, and has been involved with building using green technology since 1979. “Back in those days we were focusing on passive solar homes and what was called alternative energy back then,” Alfandre said. “I’ve been doing it since well before the term green building was created.”

The change in green technology since Alfandre began in 1979 is something he finds amazing. “It’s remarkable, even though it seems like a very long time ago, it’s remarkable to see how far we’ve come as a marketplace, as a culture, as an economy, with regard to green technology,” Alfandre said. “In many ways, we’re about to see a greater transformation over the coming decades. It was only 14 years ago that Dick Cheney said solar is a pie in the sky technology. How wrong was he? Even with major government resistance, there has been major transformation that’s doing good for everyone. I think we’re going to see a lot more of that. We can’t see the growth because it happens day by day incrementally, but it’s happening and that I think is wonderful.”

This change is something Alfandre sees whenever they start a new project. “To the maximum extent possible, not only are we talking about technological or practical solutions, but I’ve always been looking at kind of a bigger, I call it natural forces point of view, where whenever we assess a building, we’re always looking at where does the sun rise and set, where do the breezes come from, where are the natural forces that are a part of our lives and how do we blend that with the practicality of this project?” Alfandre said. “You can make a really ugly zero net house, but because it’s not beautiful, it’s not alive. That’s, in many ways, the joy in what we do.”