Proto, from the Greek, Prōto, means first in time, earliest, first formed, primitive, and original. It contains the superlative pro, meaning before. Type, from the Latin, typus, means figure, image, form, or kind and refers to a set of characteristics that causes something to be regarded as a group, defined by a class, or designated into a category. When an original or model is considered for or deserving of imitation, it is a pattern. When an original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies, an original or model may be considered a prototype. Innovation refers to the introduction of something new. When architects seek to address a problem, need or deficiency, by innovating an original model that will be repeated, they are creating a prototype. An architectural prototype is conceived as a model that is tested, refined, and tested again, until a final version is worthy of repeating.

The design of site-specific, original buildings requires communication and coordination across several disciplines and requires site-specific, original detailing, increasing the cost of construction documents and specifications. Construction is overseen by a general contractor who delegates most of the work to heavy construction and specialty trade contractors who have no responsibility for the structure as a whole. The process of completing a building is a long, drawn out, and expensive process. Prototypes on the other hand, can be mass produced, using standardized materials and construction methods that minimize material and labor costs and maximize production and profit. Prototypes can be “assembled” rather than constructed using a minimal amount of manpower, tools, and machinery. The components that make up the prototype can be manufactured in a factory or warehouse and brought to the site already assembled, partially assembled, or ready to be assembled. Prototypes can also be designed to be disassembled and reassembled in another location. Materials used for a prototype are influenced by environmental, historical, geographical, and economic, conditions.

The prototype may be fabricated as a singular form or it may be modularized and consist of separate components that are interchangeable. A prototype that is modularized consists of a sum of parts that make up the whole and it is possible to rearrange the parts or modules to respond to the environment and to reflect the needs of the user. Architects and structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineers can use an integrated design approach that incorporates all of the buildings systems into a fabricated singular form or into the modules of a prototype so that when assembled, the prototype is a fully functional building. This integrated design approach is challenging conventional construction industry standards. With advances in computer modeling software that allow for sophisticated analysis of building geometry and spatial relationships that can instantly use geographic information and building material properties and quantities to create, analyze, and refine prototypes in 3-D, in real time, the only limit is the architects imagination.

Prior to World War II, Bill Levitt joined his father’s real-estate company and later with his brother Alfred Levitt, an architect, began building high-end custom homes on Long Island in New York. The family business was successful until an embargo on the private use of raw materials during the war put a halt to new construction and led to a housing deficiency.  Bill Levitt went to serve in the Navy where he perfected the use of interchangeable parts to mass-produce military housing. After the war he was able to purchase one thousand acres of onion and potato fields on Long Island and he set out to capitalize on the government assistance that returning soldiers were receiving under the G.I. Bill, which amounted to a surplus of low-interest mortgages.

In 1947, Bill Levitt began mass producing pre-cut building materials in a factory in California and shipping them to the site in Long Island where already poured concrete slabs on grade awaited and an assembly-line approach was used  to erect 150 (16 per minute in an 8 hour work day) 750 sq.ft. Cape Cod style houses. In 1989 Bill Levitt told the New York Times that, "What it amounted to was a reversal of the Detroit assembly line. There, the car moved while the workers stayed at their stations. In the case of our houses, it was the workers who moved, doing the same jobs at different locations." The national need for new and affordable housing led to a demand for larger “Levitttowns” in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and began a national trend. Bill Levitt became known as the godfather of suburban sprawl.

Western European architect and planner Léon Krier, known as the godfather of the New Urbanist movement in America, was among the first to identify and articulate the problems associated with the concept of the disposable, adaptable, plug-in, modularized systems of architectural prototypes. He cites historical precedents and American trends that teach us that the faster-cheaper-more scenarios of standardization and mass production used to create low-density housing in rural areas, such as Levittown, are often economically, environmentally, socially and culturally unsustainable. Low-density housing in rural areas requires higher per-person infrastructure costs and higher per-capita use of energy, land, and water. Social and cultural needs are neglected as connectivity to transportation networks that provide access to social, cultural, and civic institutions and access to daily goods and services are often non-existent. Increased auto-dependency instigated by suburban low-density housing is commensurate with an increase in big box retail establishments and strip malls and a decrease in the economic infrastructure and social fabric that supports the urban core of towns and cities, ultimately resulting in a diminished quality of life for suburbanites and city dwellers alike. The faster-cheaper-more scenarios of standardization and mass production associated with architectural prototyping are often equated with poor craftsmanship and the unsightly use of products that simulate natural building materials.

The financial crisis of 2007–present, which has resulted in the collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, the downturn in stock markets around the world, and the worst crisis in the construction industry in ninety years, as well as millions of foreclosures, has slowed suburban sprawl for now. A new national trend towards the renovation and “greening” of existing buildings and a newfound respect for the inner core of towns and cities has begun. Can architectural prototyping be used to revitalize neglected urban cores and create a healthy urban effect? Can architectural prototyping be used to counteract the environmental, social and civic degradation that is a by-product of the American suburban drive-in utopia? And finally, can architectural prototyping be used to create value in architecture via the resurgence of fine craftsmanship to create places that history will respect? Today’s architects, planners, and civic leaders will decide.

Less than two-tenths of one percent of the planet's water is drinkable. In many developing countries the majority of the population does not have access to clean, safe water. Out of desperation people drink contaminated water, even though it carries deadly diseases and heavy metals that are toxic to tissues and organs. Open sewers ensure that contaminants reach the water table and remain in the water supply. As Americans we are privileged to live with the luxury of being able to turn on a tap and have clean, fresh, potable water (water that is safe for drinking and cooking) that is enriched with fluoride for dental health.

We use potable water to drink, cook, bathe, and to wash our dishes, to flush our toilets, water our landscaping, wash our cars, hose down our driveways, fill our pools and fountains, and we use it in our heating and cooling systems. Eighty percent of our nation’s potable water is used in the construction and operations of our buildings. We need potable water only for drinking, cooking, bathing, and washing our dishes. Harvested rain water and reclaimed gray water (domestic wastewater composed of wash water from kitchen, bathroom, and laundry sinks, and from bathtubs, showers, dish washers and clothes washers) can be used to flush our toilets, water our landscaping, wash our cars, hose down our driveways, fill our pools and fountains, and in our heating and cooling systems. If a community can recycle and reuse eighty percent of the water it uses, it can increase its’ water supply by four hundred percent!

In urban China, where water scarcity, contamination and pollution pose great challenges, a dual piping system is used to supply both potable and reclaimed water to homes and businesses. A separate tap delivers the potable water. The system prevents the mixing of the two water supplies and allows for the recycling and reuse of gray water. With proper planning, beginning in the early stages of the design of the landscape, architecture, and engineering processes of a community, the recycling and reuse of gray water can be commonplace. The problem of black water, (water that contains animal, human, or food waste) can be mediated by the use of composting toilets that allow for the use of harmless humanure as fertilizer for landscaping and vegetable gardens.

Water purification occurs in nature as rainwater, flood waters, and runoff move through estuaries, swamps, marshes, bogs (areas of soft, marshy land where moss and rare plants thrive), and riparian areas (the zone between a stream or river and the adjacent land). Infiltration occurs as water soaks into the ground and flows through soil, rock, and gravel. Tightly packed particles that make up the soil filter out impurities and absorb excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous while pollutants and waste  are filtered out. Water is also absorbed by the roots of specially adapted plants and moves up through the xylem of the plant and is transpired into the atmosphere as vapor, leaving waste particles behind to be broken down by the plant. By the time the water flows into lakes, streams, rivers, and oceans it is often cleaner than tap water.

However, the earth’s ability to purify its water is being severely compromised by humans. Overdevelopment is causing a loss in acreage of wetlands and an increase in impervious surfaces such as roads, highways, and parking lots, accelerating runoff, increasing flooding, and funneling contaminated water directly into lakes, streams, rivers and oceans, completely bypassing natural filtration systems. The natural flow of surface water and groundwater is being altered by hydrologic modifications and the reconfiguration of waterways, increasing invasive plant and animal species, disrupting entire ecosystems, and thus destroying nature’s water purification systems. Periods of heavy rain or snow melts intensified by global warming are overwhelming the natural filtering systems that we have left.

Storm water is rain and snow melt that runs off surfaces, such as, rooftops, paved streets, highways, and parking lots. It does not infiltrate the ground and flows into trench drains and storm sewers where it is usually routed directly into lakes, rivers and streams, taking harmful toxins and pollutants with it. The first step in managing storm water is reducing the amount of paved surfaces. Alternative paving materials are porous asphalt, porous concrete, block pavers, and plastic grid systems. Each of these products is designed to allow percolation and infiltration of storm water through the surface into the soil below where pollutants are removed through natural processes. If storm water is properly managed, the need for trench drains and storm sewers is eliminated.

Storm water can be directed to a permeable surface or rain garden (a collection of plants that can survive on the rainfall and do not require watering), via a bio-swale (a mechanism for directing the flow of storm water) where it can be naturally purified and filtered down to replenish the ground water  supply (any subsurface water that occurs beneath the water table in soil and other geologic forms). Storm water can also be harvested, using rain water barrels or cisterns, and reused to flush toilets, water landscaping, wash cars, hose down driveways, fill pools and fountains, and in heating and cooling systems.

Gray water from wash water from kitchen, bathroom, and laundry sinks, and from bathtubs, showers, dish washers and clothes washers can be collected in an internal tank or external container and, after mimicking water filtration and purification processes that occur in nature, can be reused to flush toilets, water landscaping, wash cars, hose down driveways, fill pools and fountains, and in heating and cooling systems. Green cleaning products should be used so as not to taint the gray water supply. Garbage disposals should not be used. Garbage disposals dispose of food waste into gray water, making it more complicated to treat. Food waste should be composted and the compost should be used to fertilize landscaping and gardens.

Harvested storm water and collected gray water can be combined and the two water sources can be naturally treated and reused simultaneously for non-potable uses, vastly increasing the water supply. Gray water from kitchen, bathroom, and laundry sinks, and from bathtubs, showers, dish washers and clothes washers, can be directed into the same cistern that is being used to harvest storm water from roofs. Storm water and gray water from the cistern can then be directed to a contained, below grade or above grade sandbox, where waste particles are filtered out.

Gravity or an adjacent pump, which can be run with electricity generated from solar panels, can move the water to the next station, a planter box, where water will percolate through vegetated soil and gravel filters, removing more pollutants such as phosphorus and nitrogen, as microbes in the plants' roots capture chemical toxins and release them as harmful gases. Sustainability can be maximized by using plants that produce fruits or vegetables in the planter box. Next, gravity, or a secondary pump, running on electricity from solar panels, will then direct the clean water to another cistern. The cleaned water can then be routed, with the assistance of gravity or another pump, back to kitchen, bathroom, and laundry sinks, and to bathtubs, showers, dish washers and clothes washers for reuse. It can also be used to water landscaping, power wash decks, hose down driveways, etc.

Planter boxes can be designed to create courtyards and outdoor rooms. Cisterns and sand box containers can be placed out of sight, under the house, on the roof, or in enclosed quarters, situated in such a way so that the use of pumps is minimized and the use of gravity to move water through the filtration process is maximized. Black water can also be treated and reused as gray water, but additional steps are required. First solids must be trapped, removed and stored for later use as humanure.  A retention pond can be added and designed to mimic natural wetlands where aerobic conditions can be sustained and the breakdown of organic nitrogen can occur. The ponds can be integrated into the landscape. Fish can be added to aid in the particle removal process. Waterfalls and recirculating fountains can also be used as addition cleansing mechanisms and can enhance the built environment. Storm water, gray water, and black water recycling and reuse can be simple and affordable if we use natural ecosystems as our guide.

I had the privilege of having Gail Lindsey as my professor for two architecture studios at N.C. State while earning my Bachelor of Environmental Design in Architecture. I was her student in the early 90's while she was developing her ideas and organizing her thoughts about green building standards, technical criteria, and the rating system that later became LEED. I benefited directly from her enthusiasm and pioneering spirit.

Gail introduced me to Cohousing. One of our studio projects was to do a master plan for the Arcadia Cohousing Community in Chapel Hill, N.C. under the direction of lead architect, Giles Blunden. We learned to carefully analyze the site and incorporate key green, sustainable planning strategies into the master plan. Arcadia later developed into one of the best examples of sustainable community oriented design in the southeast.

Another studio project assigned by Gail was the first green, sustainable, passive solar house at the Potluck Community Farm, an intentional community of 13 families in Rougemont, North Carolina. Gail taught us to consider sustainable design solutions and green building practices from the early stages of master planning to the final touches on the building. She encouraged us to view green design as the norm and not the exception.

Gail was born in Miami, Florida. She disliked it there because she felt that overdevelopment was destroying the beautiful South Florida environment. She attended Columbia University, where her passion for everything green flourished. Gail later settled in Wake Forrest, N.C. where she founded the green consulting firm, Design Harmony. After three successful rounds of chemotherapy for breast cancer, Gail died on February 2, 2009 due to complications from a recurrence of liver cancer.

Gail Lindsey was the co-creator of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, and a founding member of the American Institute of Architect’s Committee on the Environment. She was among the first LEED trainers, and she helped create the AIA’s Top Ten Green Projects program. She headed the greening of the White House, the greening of the Pentagon, and the greening of Habitat for Humanity.

Gail was also responsible for the Sustainable Design Initiatives for the National Park Service, the International Green Building Challenge and companion GBTool, and the interactive CD ROM known as the Green Building Advisor. She also developed the Department of Energy’s web-based high performance case study database, the Department of Defense’s Sustainable Design Training Program, and the U.S. EPA’s Energy Star Program.

These are just a few of Gail Lindsey's many achievements. She was without a doubt, the godmother of the green building movement.