This is a part of a series of blog posts amplifying community voices.

Medford-based architect Bruce Richey’s interest in energy conservation began in the 1970s, when he learned about passive design (using solar energy with south-facing windows to harvest, store and disperse heat in the building). As an architect, he has collaborated with energy systems engineers, with a focus on low- or net-zero energy designs where possible in his work across rural Southern Oregon. He was instrumental in the net-zero design and build of the Rusted Gate Farm building, which opened last year and is designed to use no carbon energy—and in fact feed energy back to the power grid. The nonprofit demonstration farm helps small rural farmers and ranchers boost productivity.

What drew you to architecture as a career?

My dad and grandfather were both contractors, so I grew up in construction. And in high school I loved art. In the School of Architecture at the University of Oregon (UO), I took an environmental control systems class from John Reynolds, who was working on solar design, passive solar, and other energy-conscious strategies. That gave me the bug to really explore energy-conscious design in my career.

It seems like that initial exposure to passive design has become a throughline in your career.

It has, and I was lucky to have an opportunity to experiment with it when I graduated in 1977. I started work for a firm in Roseburg, Ore., and discovered the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had a passive solar home demonstration design program. I participated, and designed a passive solar home that was built in Winston, Ore. My wife and I got to live in it for a year and it was one of 10 projects nationwide that were monitored for a year to see how they performed on energy efficiency.

I later conducted passive solar greenhouse workshops and have continued to carry the goal of energy efficiency through my career.

What excites you about your work?

I love my work. I joke that I’m never going to retire. I get to design buildings that people get to live or work in. You get to walk through them and watch people use the spaces. That’s the biggest satisfaction out of all of this. It’s something people interact with every day that affects their livelihoods and health.

Each building is one of my babies, but it’s inevitable that people remodel or even add on to them eventually. That’s the life of a building and you have to let go and let people evolve their environments.

You were the architect for Rusted Gate Farm’s new net zero commercial kitchen and teaching building. What was the vision for this large, 6,336 square foot space?

I think they chose me because I understood and fully aligned with their mission of creating an educational space that fully considers the land it’s on and its resource—and being gentle with those resources. I really pushed them to go the full distance with net zero.

How did you achieve net zero in a commercial space?

A big component was the design of the building envelope (walls, floors, windows and roof) correctly. The HVAC system is technically advanced, and there is a hybrid electric heat pump water heating system. There are also three kinds of photovoltaic solar panel configurations: roof-mounted, ground mounted and pole mounted. The pole mounted panel arrays also provide shelter for picnic tables.

I have to thank the mechanical and electrical engineers at PAE for some ingenious solutions. They have worked on a lot of incredibly energy conscious buildings, and they were key for the heating, cooling and electrical systems at Rusted Gate Farm.

For the kitchen, the mechanical engineer recommended three hood vents—one for each range and one for the oven. This was more efficient than one huge vent over the entire cooking area, which would use too much energy if just one cooking appliance was in use and suck up a lot of air that would have to be made up and reheated or cooled with the HVAC system.

The lighting designers, of course, used highly efficient LEDs, but also incorporated automatic controls for when there’s enough daylight to switch off the artificial lights.

Budget seems to be the trickiest part of any project. Why did it make sense to invest so heavily in insulation, HVAC and solar?

Knowing that energy costs would be zero, the board of Rusted Gate Farm was willing to invest in the higher upfront costs. Commercial buildings can use a lot of energy on an annual basis, but this building is actually projected to be net positive, at 115 percent, so it will feed clean energy back to the grid.

Do you have any advice for people considering a career in architecture?

Anyone who’s willing to go into architecture should know that it’s a long educational process before becoming licensed—five years of college and three years of interning. And I would encourage anyone to remain at a firm for much more than three years before considering setting out on their own. I was with two different architectural firms for a total of nine years and it was invaluable. I got to work on hospital and school district projects—a whole host of valuable experiences I couldn’t have gotten had I started my own practice right away.

Are there any recent changes you’ve seen, or expect to see, in your industry?

Everyone talks about AI, but it hasn’t really touched the architecture world yet in any real way. It’s been mostly fantastical renderings, which most of the time aren’t realistic to build. But overall, the software tools we use just keep getting better, as do the renderings of real projects, with 3D digital models and, “walkthroughs” that are photorealistic—especially when using virtual reality goggles. Those are great tools that are fun to use, and help people feel like they’re in the space, as much as possible.