 |
| PROFILE | ||||||
 Cindy Meehan-Patton is a co- founder of the WNCGBC (Western North Carolina Green Building Council) and president of her residential and light commercial design practice with a healthy buildings consultation division and a green materials store known as Shelter Ecology, Inc. Cindy has been researching indoor air quality and the important relationship it has to our health for over 15 years. She brings her college background of a bachelor's degree from UT Knoxville in Interior Design along with 10 years of continued education in architectural design and green design principles. Soon after graduating from college in 1990, Cindy began to personally experience the effects of toxic indoor air quality upon the body as she found that she was challenged with multiple chemical sensitivities and mold allergies. This personal experience has gifted Cindy with the ability to help people with similar issues. Shelter Ecology, Inc. has offered many presentations to the public on "The Healthy Home" and what it means to build healthy and green. Some venues include: The Environmental Forum in Chattanooga, TN, 1991; The North Carolina Green Building Conferences and The North Carolina Recycling Association Conferences, 1997 –1999; The Green Village Expo in Charleston, SC, 1998; The National Association of Women in Construction National Conference 2005 and various forums for the Western North Carolina Green Building Council between 2001-2005. Cindy also teaches basic architectural drafting courses at the local community college, AB Tech. Building science techniques which involve designing a home so that it stays dry, are incorporated into the teachings. Cindy has been able to experience first hand the improvements that environmentally safe products and appropriate building methods make on our health by designing and overseeing the construction of her own healthy built / green home in 1999. Many types of green products were incorporated into the first design phase of 900 square feet, including recycled materials, nontoxic wheat straw cabinets, renewable resource flooring, not toxic paint and finishes, radiant floor heating, and a recycled-wood loft. In 2001, a second phase of the Patton’s home and offices was built, utilizing a different systems approach than the first phase. The two systems of the Patton’s green built homes are monitored and compared frequently which allows Cindy to offer the most appropriate systems design principles to her projects based on experience. Mold toxicity in homes is one of the leading indoor air quality dangers of our present day with a 300% increase in asthma since 2001. Healthy and green is no longer an alternative way to build, but an essential way to build. |
||||||
|
