From the driver’s seat of his black Chevy pickup, Albert Cummings, BCS ’87, points to the First Congregational Church in the center of Williamstown, Mass., as he heads east on Main Street.
“My grandfather worked on that church, putting clapboards on it,” he says, noting that the building used to be brick. “They changed the whole style of it and modeled it after a church in Connecticut.”
Cummings, the fourth in a line of Williamstown homebuilders, knows these kinds of details about his hometown and its architecture. It’s appropriate, then, that his current project involves one of the oldest and most historic buildings in town—Kellogg House at Williams College, once home to four presidents of the college and now the focal point of a landmark sustainability effort.
Accepting the Challenge
The project involves the renovation of the 220-year-old Kellogg House as well as construction of a brand-new addition. The completed building will house the Center for Environmental Studies and the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives. Williams is pursuing the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification for the project, a performance-based standard that has been awarded to just four buildings in the world to date. About 20 current projects are in the queue for certification, although approval is hardly a guarantee. Buildings must be open for one year and meet a set of rigorous standards before being certified. Kellogg House is expected to open this winter.
“It is the most sustainable kind of construction ever done, and it’s never been done with this kind of an arrangement,” Cummings says of the merging of old and new construction. As the builder on the job, Cummings works in tandem with construction manager Consigli and a host of subcontractors on the building, which was designed by Vermont-based Black River Design. Although luxury residential projects are Cummings’s specialty, Kellogg House was a natural fit for his team. “This job is perfect,” he says, “because it’s all residential details in a commercial environment.”
Standards for the Living Building Challenge are extremely rigid. Contractors are provided with a “red list” of prohibited materials and chemicals, lumber must meet Forest Services Council (FSC) standards, and source locations for materials and services are required to meet specific guidelines. Recycling and disposal of materials on site is also closely regulated.
A walk through Kellogg House, in full construction mode in July, reveals thumbprints of the Living Building Challenge at every turn. “Every piece of wood in the building has an FSC stamp,” Cummings says as he walks through the space. Motioning toward the ceiling, where laminated veneer lumber (LVL) beams support the polished concrete floor above, he notes that even those fabricated joists must be FSC approved. “The whole concept is to leave the earth better than you found it,” Cummings says.
Pattern of Success
Looking back on his Wentworth days, Cummings recalls being impressed that many of his professors were not only teachers, but active practitioners in their fields.
“That’s what was cool about Wentworth,” he says. “The guy who taught masonry was an actual mason. It was neat to have teachers that had active businesses going on.” The practical spirit of the Institute also made an impression. “At your average school, you’re sitting in class. There, you’re hands-on, you’re working, you’re doing things. You’ve got something to call home about.”
It wasn’t all work for Cummings during his time at Wentworth. One night at the Orpheum in 1986, he first saw guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan perform
—an event that sent Cummings, then a tinkering banjo and guitar player, on a path toward the side career he enjoys today as a renowned blues singer and guitarist. His 2003 debut album, From the Heart, was produced by Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon—well known as Vaughan’s band Double Trouble—who also performed on the album. His latest release, No Regrets, earned accolades from Guitar Player magazine, which named it the 11th best album of 2012. In July, Cummings played the Pittsburgh Blues Festival, where he shared a bill with the legendary Dr. John.
“It’s interesting how the two trades come together,” says Cummings, who is quick to credit his wife, Christina, who works hand-in-hand with Cummings in both careers. “If you’ve got a good foundation, you put good sill plates on it, you put good studs on it, and you install them correctly, the building has to be a success. It’s the same with music—every solo, every note. It might sound quirky, but I use the same thought pattern with both. And that thought pattern has made me excel.”
To learn more about the Living Building Challenge, visit http://living-future.org/lbc.
For Albert Cummings news, tour dates, and more, visit http://albertcummings.com.
–Caleb Cochran
