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Lorri Kershner, L. Kershner Design
You can’t spend any time with Lorri Kershner without having your eyes opened. One of the few interior designers in Santa Cruz capable of implementing LEED-certified design (that’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a national certification standard for green building, for those behind on their buzzwords), Kershner delights in pointing out the hidden aspects of design, the details that go beyond the obvious finish of a room. “It really goes much deeper than what the end user experiences,” she says. “When I give tours of Santa Cruz County Bank,” a recent project of hers (see page 20), “I point out that you don’t smell anything. You don’t smell the paint, or that new carpet smell. That’s because we selected materials that don’t give off volatile organic compounds.” 
Part of doing responsible design, according to Kershner, is going beyond the various green claims and climbing up the manufacturing chain to make sure sustainable practices are followed from the moment of inception. She seeks out wood that has been harvested from sustainable forestry practices, and insists that her cabinetmakers and flooring contractors use it, along with non-toxic adhesives. “There’s a rubber gym floor product out there marketing itself as green,” she says, “but it’s made from recycled tires, which contain a lot of heavy metals. You really have to do research and get all the specifications to make sure you know what you’re using.” The biggest frontier for green design isn’t necessarily the home, but the office. Workspaces use the vast majority of heating and electricity in this country, and making some efficiency differences in commercial buildings can make vast reductions in a city’s carbon footprint. What makes Kershner so excited is that manufacturers are finally starting to catch up to demand, and putting out more attractive green products to work with. “My clients think they’re going to get an unattractive yurt,” Kershner says. “You know, the Birkenstock thing. But green design is very sexy. Green technology is no longer about deprivation. It’s about innovation. “There are high rises now being designed using biomimicry,” she continues. “People are looking at how trees breathe in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, and are trying to create technology that does that, so that buildings breathe like trees. And living roofs are exciting, with whole environments being created up there instead of a hard dirty surface. You get a living surface that absorbs water and gives back oxygen. It’s about learning how to use our environment.” I look across the rooftops of downtown Santa Cruz from the GT office and imagine all the pigeon spikes being replaced by little lawns for pigeons to peck through. Then I try to imagine our building breathing like a tree, and the new carpet in our staircase not smelling like rubber cement. Kershner’s right: this green stuff isn’t just about humans doing their penance anymore; it’s about a happier environment. “It’s just good business,” she says. “It’s more cost effective, you have happier and healthier employees … you don’t have to convince anyone anymore, because aesthetically it’s extremely pleasing, psychologically it’s pleasing, and physically it’s healthier. Why wouldn’t you do it?” This isn’t just local bubble thinking, either. Kershner splits time between her Santa Cruz office and a home she bought in West Texas, and she says the green movement is as big on the prairie as the coast. “It’s the middle of nowhere,” she says, “and already there are two green prefab houses in town. And most of the existing ones are adobe, which is extremely energy efficient. It’s not a trend. It’s not a fad. This is the future. And when I go to the U.S. Green Design Conference, there’s people from all over the country, me and 20,000 of my new best friends.” Find out more about Kershner’s work at lkershnerdesign.com.
-Chris J. Magyar
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