Exploring Sustainable Architecture with Andrew Wright of Wright Companies

We are Upstate NY with the eponymous co-owner of Wright Companies, a Kingston based design/build firm that couples innovative strategies with high-quality design to create sustainably built homes. Sustainable home design is not a new mindset; however, the concept as a movement has gained steady momentum in recent years. Motivated by the global need for waste reduction, energy conservation, and natural resource preservation, home designers and builders are finding innovative ways to create more sustainable housing.  There are still challenges to overcome, especially in terms of public awareness, accessibility, and local regulations. But a growing number of homebuyers want houses that minimize negative impacts on the environment and personal health; with that increased customer demand, leading design-build firms like Wright Companies are finding it easier to move forward.

“We’ve always been interested in designing with sustainability in mind, and it’s much easier to build energy-saving homes today than it was decades ago,” says founder Andrew Wright, who co-owns the company with his wife, Sonia Lemus-Wright.

“There’s more interest from clients, organizations, and local governments, and at the same time, the technology is becoming more advanced and readily available. Solar panels used to be hard to find. Heat pumps have become super-efficient. And the costs have gone down.” 

Wright says his company has long been interested in sustainable design, but when he started the business in 1986, there was less awareness about it. “I think there was a general mindset toward sustainability that grew when President Carter was in office; it just had a different meaning,” Wright says. “But we’ve always done houses and apartments with an eye toward these practices. When Sonia became part of the company, she helped to push us further in that direction.”

By the early 2000s, Wright was working on a project to bring energy-efficient geothermal heating and cooling to a historic brownstone in Manhattan. “The plan was to drill a geothermal well under the house, which no one had ever tried to do before in Manhattan,” he explains. “But seven permits and nine months later, we had a 15,000-square-foot brownstone running on clean energy.” The project did come with a learning curve for all parties involved — Wright, the client, and the city. Because the subsoil and NYC water contained bacteria and iron creating a flocculent (snot) clogging the wells circulation, the well would need to occasionally be retested and cleaned. “To this day, it’s unique to have a geothermal historic brownstone in the middle of the city,” he says.  

 

On a larger scale, in 2014, he took on the challenge of transforming a 1928-built mansion into a net-zero home in a historic community. The home’s energy usage would equal the renewable energy created on-site, thus making net-zero energy consumption. 

“This was a big job; not only was it a 22,000-square-foot home,” he recalls, “but it also had two pools, a koi pond, a guest house, and more. No one had done this type of project to that scale for a residential home.” 

What resulted was an addition of 30 geothermal wells, 1,000 solar panels, 19 solar thermal panels and an intricate control platform to run it all. “The property is on 120 acres, so we first tried to get wind turbines, but NYS said no,” Wright explains. “And the electric company said that because the community’s infrastructure is so old, we would have to pay them to rebuild their infrastructure for the project to handle our 290 Kw harvest. Finally, we realized we could spend less by going off-grid and using battery power.” This was called a microgrid.

 

Wright began researching similar projects around the world to see how to do this in the most effective and reliable way. Most micogrids were very unreliable. His partner Sonia learned about Earl Bakken — inventor of the first wearable, battery-powered pacemaker — who lived on a remote island in Hawaii and ran an independent energy system. Wright reached out to gain an understanding of how the microgrid was run and put his ideas to use. 

“It took about four years, but we got it going and then would adjust from time to time to fit the owner’s lifestyle changes,” Wright explains. “For example, he enjoyed swimming in his lap pool year-round, so the pool used additional energy for heating it in the winter. On another occasion, a family member hosted an event on the property, which used considerable energy; we just needed to figure out how to balance that usage with the power on hand. But now we have a blueprint to apply to other homes.” Wright says that with equipment, inverters, and batteries all becoming more efficient and cheaper, even if a homeowner can’t go completely off-grid, they can still knock down their energy usage to cut utility bills considerably. 

Wright’s interest in quality home design began as a kid. He grew up in Chicago in an 1880s house that often needed repairs often. He learned how to fix, build and appreciate intentional design at a young age.

“As a kid, I’d walk around the University of Chicago campus and take note of the surrounding buildings. I remember there was a Franklin Lloyd Wright house that had been abandoned, and the university was going to tear it down. So, as a kid, I snuck in and saw firsthand the magic of that space. It was so beautiful,” he says.  “It was the same feeling I got when I spent some time in Europe with my family; you can just walk into a place and feel moved by it, in a similar way to what music does for some people.”

Wright went on to study architecture at Iowa State University for engineering and Washington University for design, where his enthusiasm for both engineering and design flourished. “I’ve always loved buildings, and I love creating them,” he says. “There’s just something about being able to draw up a plan, and then one day walk through it — to see how the light is going in, to feel the space, to see how it can meet the needs of the people who will live there as years go by. When I handed over the keys to the first project I ever completed, it felt like sending a child to college. I think I cried.” 

Since that first project, Wright Companies has grown into a firm that takes clients through every phase of design and build, including acquisition, community engagement, financing and more, with a focus on custom and carbon-neutral homes in the Tri-state region. Locally, their next project includes 12 townhouses and a mixed-use building in Port Ewen that will offset energy with solar power. “There’s been a need for housing in this area, and both the local government and community organizations are showing support for sustainably designed homes,” Wright says. “I hope that the energy to support the movement continues. I’d like to see more of that in my lifetime. And less waste.”

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