Headquartered in Calgary, Canada, DIRTT (which stands for Doing It Right This Time) has redefined workplace interiors throughout North America with their "Agile Architectural Solutions." The passionate young company—where employees affectionately refer to themselves as DIRTT Bags—has quickly flourished, being listed in Alberta Venture Magazine as one of the province's fastest growing companies, and even opening a new branch in Savannah, GA last spring. Meanwhile, DIRTT has become most famous for their sustainable, pre-manufactured and pre-engineered floors and walls, which can be easily moved and reconfigured. Environmental Lead, Kristin J. Moore, shared more DIRTT with MGB and revealed why recycling isn't their number one priority when it comes to sustainable building.
How and when was DIRTT Environmental Solutions founded? Why is it so important to your company to create sustainable, but also affordable, work spaces?
DIRTT was founded February 2004, and marketing and sales started May 2005. Sustainability was and is the most important aspect of our company. It is not simply an altruistic venture—it is profitable for us and our clients. By reducing waste and making architectural and technological elements reusable our clients not only create an environmentally sustainable space, they save themselves huge amounts of capital.
Your company has become known for its environmentally-responsible wall and floor products. What makes them practical for both the workplace and the environment?
For the workplace they are able to combine functionality, aesthetics, and customization on a much shorter schedule than conventional construction. One of the powerful innovations we’ve introduced to movable walls is the ability to hang furniture and accessories anywhere along the wall, not just at the vertical connections between frames. Our floor solution is perfect for retrofits, ceiling-height challenged spaces, and to run plug and play power and data where it’s needed.
For the environment, all these advantages play out in less material waste during initial construction and dramatically so in reconfigurations. For every square foot of drywall installed in a space, one pound of virgin material goes to the dumpster during initial construction.
On your website, you state that out of the "Three Rs" of environmental stewardship, Recycling should be a last resort. Instead, many sustainable projects emphasize recycling rather than Reducing or Reusing. Why does DIRTT believe that recycling is not as effective as it appears and how is this idea reflected in your projects?
Recycling should definitely be a part of every company’s sustainable mandate, but it shouldn’t come before you’ve done everything to reduce your waste in the first place and reuse as much as you sensibly can. Recycling itself uses a lot of energy and creates a lot of pollution in transportation, reinventing as another product, and delivering it to the marketplace. Recycling isn’t a bad thing—it just shouldn’t be the first thing you think of. Building a space with recycled materials doesn’t give it a longer lifecycle. It is just as likely to be torn down as virgin materials when changes are needed. It is like saying organ donation gives you a longer lifespan.
Does DIRTT have any in-house initiatives it takes in order to maintain a sustainable existence? How do your own offices and manufacturing plants reduce energy consumption or waste?
By leveraging technology, DIRTT has been able to substantially reduce our factory foot print over what a typical manufacturing facility needs. Less square footage required means we reduce the amount of energy needed to heat or cool and light our facilities. Beyond the building, DIRTT uses exclusively water-based, non-toxic finishes and we cure all of our products using UV Cold Rays instead of natural gas fired ovens.
Our technology platform called ICE means we have no paper catalogues, and our whole manufacturing process is driven electronically through the software meaning for efficiencies. This also means less chance of human error, which substantially reduces rebuilds or deficiencies. DIRTT has veneer wrapping technology from Europe that allows us to directly adhere veneer onto the aluminum extrusion. By eliminating a wood substrate we are able to save forests of trees. DIRTT also has the largest corporate solar array in the city of Calgary, which runs all the computers in the company’s HQ. The lighting in the factory is low-mercury, long-life compact fluorescent. We have a carpooling raffle every month and we offer employees with Smart Cars and hybrids a monthly stipend. Water-less urinals, low-flow appliances and compact fluorescents in the office round out our current initiatives.
Can DIRTT help projects achieve LEED certification? What are some recent office space projects, retrofits, or constructions that you have contributed to recently?
Presently, LEED does not recognize changing behaviors on the interior build-out by the inherent sustainability of using a modular wall as opposed to dry wall construction. Instead LEED focuses on material choices within the wall. It is sort of like doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. That being said, DIRTT has several different material options that can contribute to achieving various credits within the LEED platform.
For example, DIRTT is FSC Certified, so a client can specify FSC veneers and MDF, or even urea formaldehyde-free FSC certified MDF. Our water based finishes help achieve lower VOCs in the client’s environment which contributes to indoor air quality. The fact that the finishes are not applied in the client’s space, rather they’re applied in our factory, positively impacts things like indoor air quality. Depending on where the project is, DIRTT can contribute to the regional materials credit from either our Savannah factory or Calgary factory. Our tiles in our walls also have a high level of recycled content.
LEED projects that DIRTT has had the honor of being part of include Johnson County’s innovative new building (LEED Gold), Exelon’s Corporate headquarters in Chicago (LEED Platinum), HSBC in Chicago (LEED Gold), Google’s Mountain View Campus (LEED Gold), Chevron in Anchorage (LEED Gold Pending) and Houston (LEED Platinum Pending), multiple projects with the Army Corp of Engineers (LEED Silver), Petrobras in Houston (LEED Gold Pending), and the National Resource Defense Council in New York City (LEED Gold Pending), to name just a few.
At DIRTT, sustainability and green building is really about taking it to the next level by helping our clients change their behaviors and focus on reducing the materials needed to build out the environments and reusing the walls over a long period of time.
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