INDEPTH
High Design, Low Carbon
Architect Nathan Kipnis designs with the planet in mind
Membership in the green brigade today is not out of the ordinary, but Evanston architect Nathan Kipnis, 46, was ahead of the troops when he signed on in 1973—at age 12. “That’s when the oil embargo hit. I realized that our resources are limited and we’re all going to have to become energy conscious,” he recalls.
Kipnis already knew he wanted to be an architect; applying his environmental commitment to his chosen profession was a logical progression. “I always knew I wanted to specialize in green design. There just wasn’t a name for it yet,” he says.
But Kipnis didn’t let semantics stand in his way. He earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental design from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and later earned a Master of Architecture with a focus on energy-conscious design from Arizona State University. True to his calling, green design was his priority when he began practicing in 1985.
“At first I’d be lucky to do one green project a year,” he says. But when Mayor Daley’s 1999 Green Homes for Chicago initiative kick-started sustainable building, Kipnis designed one of the five homes selected to be built. Ever since, he has been doing green work through his eponymous firm full-tilt.
Kipnis’ green designs include a pair of recently completed 2,800-square-foot townhouses on a tight Evanston lot that sport a sleekly modern aesthetic and are fully loaded with green features—passive solar and thermal panels for hot water and heating, bamboo floors, a cement fiberboard rain screen system, recycled paper countertops, and recycled tire roof decking. The townhouses earned Energy Star’s Five-Plus rating, the federal program’s highest level.
So did two graciously detailed traditional homes Kipnis just completed in Highland Park. Both 5,000-square-foot houses include geothermal heating and cooling, radiant floors, recycled roof shingles and insulation, cement fiberboard siding, and site-harvested lumber from a massive old oak tree. “We used it for flooring, front doors, and hearths,” he says.
Today, Kipnis applies his enthusiasm to an astonishing range of projects. Cases in point: the first home on a 63-acre, almost entirely off-the-grid development in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and a sustainability study for a rock-and-roll amusement park in Arizona.
The common theme? “You could say ‘high design, low carbon,’” he says. “Each project is an opportunity and a challenge. You have to do what makes sense for a specific client and site, and make it the best home of its kind in its category.” MH
