Kevin Morrisroe is an associate at the engineering firm Buro Happold in New York, where he works on all-electric buildings that recover waste heat and reuse water. He studied civil engineering in Galway and spent three years as a project manager for a plumbing and fire protection contractor before moving to the design side. He is plain about what actually moves owners: payback, incentives and fines, not good intentions.

Kevin Morrisroe, Associate, Buro Happold

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In this conversation

Kevin's route from Galway to a New York contractor's job site to eight years designing at Buro Happold.

The phased playbook for taking an old building off fossil fuels, one window, boiler and heat pump at a time, with state funding covering much of the cost.

What a smart building means to Kevin: meters on every floor, so owners size equipment to average loads instead of design-drawing peaks.

Why he sees water as the next carbon, from rainwater and graywater reuse to treating blackwater on site.

How he uses AI today: not for structural calculations, but to find the right code section and save twenty minutes of flicking through books.

It's kind of hitting them in the wallet, and unfortunately that's the most successful way of doing it.

Kevin Morrisroe

Chapters

From contractor to designer

An Irish civil engineer learns how New York's towers work from the inside, then moves to design.

What all-electric means

No burning fossil fuels, a much bigger electrical service, and a grid that has to get cleaner.

The fine is the lever

Why New York's penalties, not good feelings, are what get owners to act, and where to start.

By the numbers

Local Law 97 in four numbers

2/3

of New York City's greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings

25,000

gross square feet: the size above which buildings are covered

40%

emissions cut targeted by 2030

2050

the year the law aims for net zero

Kevin says the city is hitting owners in the wallet because that is what works. Buildings are where most of the city's emissions come from, so they are where the law aims.

Source: NYC Department of Buildings, LL97 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions ↗

Smart buildings, right-sized

Metering real use floor by floor so oversized equipment can be replaced with something realistic.

Water is next

Rainwater, graywater, blackwater and waste heat kept in a closed loop inside the building.

By the numbers

New York City's water supply

gallons of drinking water delivered each day

9.5M+

New Yorkers served

reservoirs

125+

miles: how far the watersheds extend from the city

Kevin says water rates are low today but demand keeps climbing on a system that reaches far upstate. Every gallon reused on site is a gallon that does not travel that distance.

Source: NYC Department of Environmental Protection (2022) ↗

AI as a pointer, not an answer

Using AI to find code sections and check reports, never to do the calculations.

By far the biggest return on investment is the heating of the building.

Kevin Morrisroe

Takeaways

Start by measuring: what the building emits today, and what fines look like over five, ten, twenty and thirty years. Then study feasibility and incentives, and make the changes in phases.

Kevin finds heating is by far the biggest return on investment; for a small residential building, swapping out the boiler comes first. State funding can cover a large share of the capital cost.

Waste is a resource: heat rejected from server rooms can preheat domestic hot water, and rainwater and graywater can serve toilet flushing, irrigation and cooling tower makeup.

If you mess up on a drawing or a calculation, the building more than likely will still get built.

Kevin Morrisroe