City slicker Laura Burns proves green design doesn’t have to be boring or bohemian

Designer Laura Birns likes to open doors for people. And she likes to design them, too. This one is made of wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and inlaid with recomposited veneers and aluminum metals. It’s the kind of door she’d like to open for everyone. No formaldehyde. No acid. One hundred percent sustainable. Green.

Birns, a member of the American Society of Interior Designers and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), is leading the way to a greener landscape and a more responsible, eco-conscious design industry. It’s a mission she’s been passionately pursuing for eight years, long before green became a buzzword. “I’ve always wanted to do more than make pretty spaces,” she says. “Now I can beat upon the social consciousness with each of my designs.”

While she knows it would be easier to select traditional materials and processes, Birns takes the extra step to find sustainable flooring from renewable sources, rug companies certified free of child labor, and paints containing low or no volatile organic

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This home was built in the '80's, so Birns says the goal for the remodel was to "open up the space, contemporize it, clean it up and make it more airy." She did just that and , of course, installed bamboo flooring, applied paint with no- or low- VOCs, selected Energy Star appliances and used FSC certified wood and recyclable glass tiles. She also added skylights and clerestory windows for natural lighting throughout.

compounds (VOCs). She also works with various organizations to educate peers and influence policies. One of her latest involvements is with the USGBC’s task force, helping fire victims rebuild in Rancho Bernardo.

“We are the spokespeople; our projects are the showcase,” she says. “It’s our responsibility as interior designers to be on the forefront, to take risks and to make sustainable design look great so people will want it.”

Here, Birns showcases the power of green through two homes she designed in Del Mar. Two very different homeowners. Two very different palettes. Both of them green.

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An active member of the Foundation for Fighting Blindness, homeowner Jill Stone has already settled into her eco-conscious home office. Today, she's busy organizing the organization's annual fund-raising event, "Dining in the Dark," to be held in May.

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For Birns, even a small space can be a green space. In this powder room she covered the walls with recyclable glass and used recomposited wenge for cabinetry.

Island Import

In 2002, Birns was working on a remodel in Maui. When a friend of the homeowner came by, she was so busy with the installation she could barely carry on a conversation with him. Little did she then know the retired lawyer from Chicago would become her client.

“No one ever knows,” Birns says with a chuckle, when asked if her new client realized she had applied sustainable design to the Maui project. “Especially back then, when green wasn’t ‘in’ at all.”

The beauty of green home design, she says, is that it is, first and foremost, about the clients’ needs. “Green doesn’t drive the look,” she explains. “The designer drives the look using green materials. In fact, there is no ‘look’ to green—it is a means to achieving the look you desire while still being environmentally responsible.”

Back on the mainland a year and a half later, Birns began remodeling the home office of the former Chicagoan and, as she does with all her clients, opened his eyes to the possibilities of green design. It began with a desk and credenza made of kirei wood mixed with aluminum and glass—materials that are recyclable, sustainable and certified green. He fell in love with the texture and from there grew even more excited with the addition of red bibinga drawers and a natural grass wall covering applied with a water-based adhesive. To separate the office from the hallway and allow for privacy, Birns added pocket doors made of FSC-certified ash.

To achieve the “dark and dramatic” look her client wanted for the media room, she selected slate, a natural material that can be recycled. “He saw what I had done on the Maui project, where I used a slab of granite for a wall,” Birns says. “Granite wouldn’t have been the right choice here, so instead I selected oversize tiles of slate and arranged the pieces to form a very organic pattern.”

To enhance the effect, she topped the entertainment unit with black fossil stone and used sleek aluminum for the frame and legs. Cabinet doors are resin embedded with thatch. (“You actually get LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] points for the use of this resin,” Birns says.) The floor is an engineered wood from a sustainable forest in Australia.

Like her client’s art collection, the front door also had to make a statement. Birns chose FSC-certified ash for the body, then used recomposited veneers and aluminum metals for the inlay. Her client was awed by the final result.

“This client was really supportive of green design and trusted me to use these outlandish materials to create a sophisticated look,” she says. “It’s a fabulous, exciting process to see clients’ passion for green grow from one room to the next. That’s how green becomes engrained in someone’s lifestyle.”

Steps in the Right Direction

While she didn’t design new doors for this coastal home, Birns applied her green hand to just about every inch of it. The goal was to bring contemporary style and airiness to a 1980s footprint composed of enclosed spaces.

Because her clients are active in the community, environmentally sensitive and often entertain at home, Birns knew right away she would give them an eco-conscious sculptural showpiece. Why not a spiral staircase with concrete steps?

“Concrete is sustainable,” she says. “Plus it was locally made and had recycled glass imbedded in it, so we were able to make the steps slip-resistant.”

Functionality is especially important in this home, where two family members have hearing and sight impairments. Seemingly unsuitable for a winding staircase, the home was in the hands of a compassionate expert.

“We spent a lot of time looking at how the space functioned,” Birns says. “We had to make sure there was nothing edged out, and spaces were wide enough so no one would be hurt.”

The committed designer even goes so far as to push the industry beyond existing limits by requesting new products and testing them herself. If she’s skeptical about a new low- VOC topcoat, she simply applies it to reconstituted veneers, exposes the materials to heat and cold and then throws them in the trunk of her car to get banged up. After all, how else can you truly test a product’s ability to remain water- and scratch-resistant?

“I had the manufacturer test the finish. Then I tested their test,” she says of the product applied to the greenboard on the new entertainment unit. “I learn so much on every project because I take risks.”

Birns also likes to design furniture. While she has her own line of sustainable furnishings, for this particular home she designed new pieces: a headboard with natural mohair and an armoire and bedside tables from reconstituted veneers. To create more seating in the kitchen, she designed an organically shaped table of sandblasted glass with an automotive finish on the underside and a steel base.

She added skylights throughout the home and, because her clients love bright colors, found the right palette of low- VOC paints. In the kitchen, she installed cabinetry made from FSC-certified maple with a recomposited veneer of bibinga. Energy Star appliances and a bamboo floor are a natural fit.

Even the powder room was a fun challenge. Birns laid black granite on the floor and a sustainable, microbacterial, recyclable fabric on the walls. For cabinetry, she used reconstituted wenge with 3Form resin inserts embedded with aluminum threads. It’s surprising and inspiring at the same time.

“Working with and researching materials that qualify as green is a challenge worth the time and energy,” Birns says. “After all, our human energy is a renewable resource as well. And you’re not compromising the look or quality of the design.”