Day: January 24, 2018

Morna Hallsaxton is the lead auditor for BIFMA e3 Furniture Sustainability Standard for level certification and certification auditor for Intertek’s ETL Environmental VOC emission testing. Her Interior Design degree and Masters in Environmental Design allows her to further advocate and educate students and interested parties on sustainable design and construction. Morna obtained her LEED AP for BD+C and ID+C while working as a LEED Project Reviewer for over 250 LEED 2009 projects from all over the work. As a WELL AP, she continues to discuss healthy, energy efficient design choices with friends, acquaintances and on her website EcoCreative.design.

Job title: Sustainable Geek … better to say Sustainable Designer

David Dye, AIA, LEED AP Homes, is a Project Architect at DFD Architecture, LLC  in Spring Lake, Michigan.  He consults on commercial projects and designs sustainable homes. He is designing a LEED home for his wife Darcy on Sebascodegan Island in Maine.   He is consulting on the renovation of the Masjid Sunnah Mosque in Grand Rapids, MI.

Mr. Dye is the Secretary of the GreenHome Institute Board of Directors.   He teaches architecture courses part-time at Grand Rapids Community College(GRCC.  He retired from GRCC in 2016, where he taught as a Professor for 18 years.

While teaching at GRCC he accomplished the following:

• Created and taught classes on sustainable residential design where students designed houses for Habitat for Humanity of Kent County (HFHKC).  One design has been built and is now one of six prototypes HFHKC uses.  Another student design is being used as the first floor for another prototype.
• Established the U.S. Green Building Council Student Group of GRCC, so students could learn sustainable design and construction.  The student group was active.  In 2010, they traveled to the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Chicago.  In 2013, they volunteered at the Expo in Philadelphia and in 2015 the Expo in Washington DC.  During February 2016, they  sponsored the MIdwest Sustainable Conference which was a 3 day conference.  Some of the speakers included local experts such as Levi Gardner who talked about “The Pedagogy of Place: Fostering Community Through Urban Agriculture” and Brett Little  who presented “Introduction into Green Rating Systems and how they compare”   The student group also helped local organizations such as Dominican Center Sisters to maintain their Michigan Native Prairie Habitat.
• Coordinated GRCC’s transfer program to Lawrence Technological University’s Master of Architecture Program. Students take the first two years of classes at GRCC and then transfer to Lawrence Tech to complete the Master of Architecture program.
• Taught courses in AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit Architecture, Construction Materials, Sketching and Drafting, and Working Drawings, developing course materials.

Mr. Dye does yoga, walks, kayaks, and bicycles to stay fit.  He travels with his wife Darcy to visit friends, relatives, and to see new places in the world.