Green ArchiTEXT

Sustainable Skyscrapers: One Bryant Park, NYC

One Bryant Park, soon to be the greenest skyscraper in North America, was featured recently on the National Geographic Channel. Also known as Bank of America Tower, it aims to be the first high-rise to achieve LEED Platinum.

In National Geo’s series, Man Made, the BOA tower was featured in the episode “Ultimate Skyscraper”:

“In the city that never sleeps, one architects dream for a greener future has been realized. The One Bryant Park building in New York City is not only going to be the second tallest building in the city, but is set to be one of the most energy efficient skyscrapers in the world. Richard Cook and his team have taken on an exhilarating challenge to transform the modern approach to green technology. Both groups envisioned breaking new ground in the arena of environmentally conscious skyscrapers, a significant step forward in a city known for massive energy consumption.”

Manhattan’s Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park is slated to be a 1,200 ft (366 m) high, the second tallest building in New York City and the fourth tallest in the U.S. Designed by Cook+Fox Architects and Gensler, sustainable elements include:

• heavy use of daylighting – thanks to the building’s faceted crystal form
• advanced underfloor air delivery system
• onsite co-generation
• ice storage system
• ability to capture and re-use nearly all rainwater and wastewater

Jason McLennan: The Living Building Challenge

Jason McLennan, CEO of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, on The Living Building Challenge, the race to the world's first living building, and creation of LBC 2.0.

VIDEO: GreenSource Magazine

Maximum-Green “Living Buildings” Take Another Leap Forward

The idea of a Living Building, a high-performance building that produces its own power and cleans and reuses all of its water, is gaining momentum around the world. In an effort to oversee the global development of Living Buildings, the establishment of the International Living Building Institute (ILBI) was announced today at Cascadia’s annual conference, Living Future.

The Living Building Challenge began as a program of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council just three years ago. The idea has sparked the creative juices of design professionals around the globe, with more than 60 proposed Living Buildings now in some stage of design or construction in the US and Canada. A living building is a radical step forward in green building and comes at a time when there is growing consensus that the time for baby steps in green building is past.

The basic concept is that a building can work like a natural system; designed and constructed to function as elegantly and efficiently as a flower. A living building must meet 16 performance measures within six categories (or petals) including site, energy, materials, water, indoor quality and beauty and inspiration.

Jason F. McLennan, author of the Living Building Challenge and CEO of Cascadia, says, “We have been delighted to serve as the incubator for these projects. But Cascadia is a regional organization and the Living Building Challenge has now become an international phenomenon. So, the natural and logical progression is to create an international oversight body.”

Make It Right: The Houses That Pitt Built

It was move-in day earlier this month for six Lower Ninth Ward families - thanks to Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation, and an unprecedented drive to built back green.

ALL PHOTOS: Make It Right Foundation

It’s a big, big moment for Pitt. For New Orleans. And for sustainable design. Thanks to designs by Billes Architecture, Concordia, Graft and KieranTimberlake Associates – and the support of millions around the world – It even landed Brad and his MIR Project on the cover of Architectural Digest – and rightly so. Renee Peck of New Orleans’ Times-Picayune noted the significance of it all in her blog:

“Brad Pitt's Make It Right houses in the Lower 9th Ward have stirred a lot of talk -- not only because of their megastar backer, but also for their futuristic designs and cutting-edge green components, such as rain gardens and solar cells.

Most people either love 'em or hate 'em.

…

Against this backdrop of 21st-century thinking, Pitt seems to understand the sense of place and tradition that defines New Orleans and its neighborhoods. It is a place, he realizes, where people want front porches. ‘New Orleans has its own mind, its own thing," he is quoted as saying. 'It has a real spirit. It's the most authentic of all American cities.’”

Read the rest of “Make It Right creator Brad Pitt promotes a new movie and an old city – New Orleans” here.

What Green Architecture Really Means

   IBN, The Netherlands
   IMAGE: Behnisch Architekten

Architect David Cook of Behnisch Architekten takes a turn in flavorwire at describing why sustainable design/green architecture should be more than the sum of its parts: buildings for people, buildings for the planet:

“Increasingly misused in architecture, the term sustainability is in danger of becoming a mere label. In man’s relatively short occupation of the Earth, we have succeeded in acutely threatening its future and our habitat. However, we now appear to be gaining a common understanding of the urgency of these matters. Perhaps, for whatever reason, we have finally reached a “tipping point,” where we cannot remain in denial. For us sustainability is less a political issue than a humanistic issue; for qualities are just as important as quantities and a “sustainable,” or indeed “green,” architecture must not solely focus on environmental constraints or pre-defined performance criteria, but also celebrate the wealth and diversity of nature.

Buildings can only be spoken of in sustainable terms if they suit their purpose and are efficient to operate. Otherwise they consume unnecessary resources, are a burden to the owners and risk premature replacement. The process of design requires the consideration of the whole life cycle cost of a building, both in terms of economics and environmental impact; for buildings with a design life of 60 years, the cost of ownership and operation actually far exceeds the cost of construction. Therefore the design approach for any new construction should seek to maximize the efficiency of the building fabric in order to conserve resources in future operation. For us, sustainability in architecture is really about acknowledging the diversity of patterns of use and promoting the wide range of quite subtle, often conflicting, qualities in our built environment. In each project we seek to adopt design strategies which recognize that the building’s occupants and their response to their immediate environment as an integral part of these systems.”

Cook and his U.S.- and German-based partners are certainly as well qualified as anyone to address sustainability. Behnisch Architekten has designed some of the greenest built spaces on earth: The Genzyme Center near Boston, the Institute for Forestry and Nature Research (IBN) in The Netherlands, and RiverParc in Pittsburgh.

Read Cook’s full essay, “What Green Architecture Really Means“, here.

Genzyme Center, Cambridge, Mass., USA
IMAGE: Behnisch Architekten

LVA, Lubeck, Germany
IMAGE: Behnisch Architekten

What’s Your Water Footprint?

There are online calculators for energy, for carbon offsets and for determining the carbon footprint of a construction site. Now there’s one for calculating your water footprint, too.

The H2O Calculator is an interactive tool designed to figure the amount water used in your home or business as well as the water used to produce food, purchase products and many other factors – including water utilized to cool power plants to produce electricity.

The calculator was created by H₂O Conserve, a project of ICCR, GRACE, Food & Water Watch, and the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future.

Dockside Green is Going Beyond Green

Dockside Green in Victoria, British Columbia is one of those transformative developments that is changing the face of real estate – and it may be the greenest project of its kind ever in North America. The first phase, a residential complex of condos and townhouses called “Synergy” opened in March 2008; a second ‘residential cluster’, known as “Balance”, will debut in early 2009. And you can expect to hear much more about Dockside Green over the next couple of years.

ArchitectureWeek just ran a fine piece by Brian Libby, capturing the significance of this 1.3 million square foot mixed-use sustainable community:

“The development's first phase recently received LEED Platinum certification and, with 63 points, set a new record for the highest number of points achieved in the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system.

That's one clue that Dockside Green seems to be meeting the triple bottom line of environmental, economic, and social performance that the City of Victoria called for in its original request for proposals. The goal of developers Windmill West and Vancity Enterprises is to achieve LEED Platinum ratings for every building in the development, which would be a North American first. Dockside is also a pilot project for the new LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system.”

I was first introduced to the project myself three years ago while writing The Ecological Engineer. “A Prototype for Green Living” describes Keen Engineering’s pioneering MEP designs that would result in a state-of-the-art biomass energy co-generation plant and on-site sewage treatment:

“There’s going to be a lot of magic happening with Dockside Green,” said Blair McCarry, the lead designer for KEEN (now Stantec). “Its real significance is that the entire concept is based on an assessment of the ‘triple bottom line.’ This development is taking that idea to a new level: creating new jobs on site, revitalizing the local economy with viable businesses, and aiming for a greenhouse gas-neutral community that’s also a net producer of clean energy.”

That magic is taking shape. Becoming real. And Dockside Green is all the more remarkable as a 15-acre former brownfield site located on the city's inner harbor and eventually home to new residential, office, commercial and light industrial space. State-of-the-art blackwater treatment – using bioreactor tanks and ultra-filter membrane technology – will be a central feature of Dockside Green.
IMAGE: Stantec

The Smart Garage

     IMAGE: RMI

For several decades now, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has become known for their cutting-edge research on renewable energy technology (Soft Energy Paths), resource planning expertise, and more. Recently, they also launched their Built Environment Team (BET) and Mobility + Vehicle Efficiency Team (MOVE).

A key part of MOVE, launched in 2007, has been to explore efficiency solutions in core automotive and trucking sectors. And a relatively new initiative in this area has been the Smart Garage, a sweeping concept that addresses the seamless integration of vehicles, homes and offices via the electric power grid. RMI hosted the Smart Garage Charrette October 8 to 10 in Portland, Oregon featuring an impressive line-up of participants who represent a wide range of transportation, technology and sustainability consulting areas.

The Smart Garage, according to RMI is:

“…is a new energy paradigm focused on the integration of how we use energy. It is made possible by the convergence of energy in the transportation, electricity grid and building sector enabled by plug-in vehicles. It combines key industry endeavors such as smart charging, Vehicle to Grid, V2Building, and the smart grid.

Smart Garage bridges the transportation, building and electric power sectors by providing electricity as a low-carbon fuel to vehicles and then using vehicle energy storage for responsive services to the power grid. This optimizes the efficiency of both sectors and enables significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”

Read more about this breakthrough concept at ForbesAutos.com and RMI/MOVE.

Earthly Ideas: Carbon Footprint Labeling

Worldchanging.com just launched its new graphic series, "Earthly Ideas", which looks at sustainability concepts and inventions "clearly and with a hefty dose of imagination". Written and drawn by cartoonist Andy Lubershane, the first in this weekly series examines carbon footprint labeling.

Habitats, Biodiversity & Ecosystems As Valued Assets

What is the true value, a full accounting, of ecosystem services within world markets? Is it possible to actually trade the broad array of systems that are essential for life – soil, water, carbon – while influencing political decisions, even consumer preferences?

Those are the fundamental questions posed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in its latest newsletter. “Natural Assets: Conservation Instruments or Instruments for Change?”, begins:

“Nobody is surprised when their water is cut off if they haven’t paid the bill. We admit that companies have to recoup their investments and maintain infrastructure (water withdrawal, treatment, distribution, etc.), on top of paying staff and suppliers.

Why don’t we apply the same logic to the services offered by nature? The answer is simple: they are perceived to be free. Year after year, plant roots have acted as enormous filter systems and, in spite of not getting compensated, they have not stopped filtering.”

“Natural Assets” cites several emerging examples: the European Union’s Water Framework Directive and the Environmental Liability Directive, which includes complementary measures to compensate for the damage caused at different sites. In addition, the EC Habitats Directive and the Biodiversity Strategy embrace the principle of no net loss, setting the target of zero biodiversity loss by 2010. In Spain, the Ministry of Environment’s WATER program has created water banks. And “Natura 2000”, Europe’s network of protected natural areas, obliges Spanish businesses to act in the fight against biodiversity loss.

The central idea, according to Fundación Entorno - BCSD Spain:

“The introduction of ecosystem services that are essential for life (soil fixation, nutrient cycles, carbon absorption, climate regulation, water supply, along with aesthetic, cultural and spiritual values) into market considerations would help to create a school of thought that is sensitive to conservation interests.

By doing so, new trading opportunities would emerge that build on the experience of carbon markets. Buyers and sellers would exchange environmental services with a net result that does not imply the loss of natural assets.”

Read the full text of “Natural Assets: Conservation Instruments or Instruments for Change?” here.

New Metrics for a New Metropolis

A new U.K. study just released addresses how  social and demographic changes can influence urban design “to make cities more livable, inclusive and sustainable places.” Conducted over a two-year period (October 2006 to September 2008), Metricity: Exploring New Measures of Urban Density by Paul Clarke uses applied research to explore new kinds of urban development metrics for dynamic cities like London.

Building’s Sustainability Blog previews this groundbreaking study in “Metricity: Planning sustainable communities beyond urban density”:

“In short, how we measure urban density has a profound and direct impact on the design of new developments. So in new research, Paul Clarke of the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre, Royal College of Art (RCA) set out to design a new way of looking at our metropolis. His research, Metricity, suggests innovative methods of measuring city life that can help develop sustainable communities that take account of ‘social and demographic change … ageing populations, more people living alone and rapid technological progress.’”

Access the full study here.

A Building Made of Mist, A Concert Hall That Sings

Liz Diller and her firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) are known for their unconventional ideas about architecture, urban design and art. Diller’s December 2007 lecture in Los Angeles, “Architecture is a special effects machine”, was just posted to TED.com, a storehouse of filmed lectures that focus on ‘Technology, Entertainment, Design’ from leading thinkers around the world. Here, she shares some of DS+R's more unusual work, including the Blur Building in Switzerland and New York City’s revamped Alice Tully Hall.

“Architecture,” she begins, “is nothing but a special effects machine that delights and disturbs the senses.” Blur was a temporary structure created on Lake Neuchate as an exhibition pavilion for Swiss Expo 2002 near Geneva. DS+R designers wanted to use the water as a context and a primary building material “to make an architecture of atmosphere: so no walls, no roof, no purpose – just a mass of atomized water, a big cloud”. They wanted to consciously move the project away from visual stimulation, to counter the design trend of “high definition” she believes “has become the new orthodoxy.”

Diller also turns to the firm’s current, high-profile renovation of Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan's Upper West Side. The exterior re-design will give it a new street identity by 2010; the concert hall’s interior will be transformed as well, completely covered in a glowing wood material – a high-performance skin acoustically engineered to focus sound into the house and back to the stage.

DSR’s growing reputation in the Eighties and Nineties was based largely on performance art, experimental designs and work commissioned by museums. Then, as now, their buildings remain venues, stages even, to create special effects while questioning assumptions about the direction of modern design. Diller asks: “Can we use technology that’s decidedly low definition, that also challenges the conventions of space and skin and rethinks our dependence on vision?”

Blur Building

Alice Tully Hall

Eco-Opolis @ Sustainable Living Roadshow

The Sustainable Living Roadshow is a caravan of educators and entertainers who tour the country in a fleet of renewable fuel vehicles setting up off-the-grid eco-carnivals with experiential learning villages, empowering communities to utilize sustainable living strategies for a healthier planet. On display – not far from the Solar Stage, the Clean Energy Showcase, the Conscious Carnival Midway and the Awakened Art Garden – is Eco-Opolis (pictured), "A Model Green City" made from recyclables like plastic bottles and containers, juice cartons, cups, and yogurt containers.

Next week, the Roadshow stops in New Orleans (Oct. 4/5) at the University of New Orleans; then on to Austin (Oct. 11/12).

Biomimicry Explained

SOURCE: Popular Mechanics

A nice but somewhat general introduction to the design ideas behind Biomimicry in this month's Popular Mechanics (October 2008):

"An airplane systems engineer, a shower designer and a biologist walk into a Costa Rican rain forest.

'This is the neatest thing I’ve found this week,' says the airplane engineer, from Boeing, pointing to a cluster of daddy-longleg spiders gently oscillating on the trunk of a banana tree. 'There must be some unique muscular elastic element in their legs sensing vibration and amplitude. There could be really important opportunities here for a low-energy sensor or mechanical actuator system.'

The group ambles on, stopping next at a 150-ft.-tall ajo tree with weeping vines and thick buttresses – the kind you might see in a natural history museum diorama. 'These roots are circumferentially distributed, so the tree’s strong in any direction,' notes the shower designer, from Kohler. 'These buttresses also have a nice gradient to the ground. When we want to reduce stresses in mechanical design, we try to gradually transform one shape into another – nature’s already done that here.'”

Read the rest of "Nature Inspiring Green Design for Planes, Trains, Autos & More"">here.

HOK, Biomimicry Guild Join Forces

HOK Network

On what promises to be an exciting collaboration of ideas, the architecture firm HOK and the Biomimicry Guild have embarked on a new partnership to further sustainable design strategies through nature. GreenBiz.com reports in "HOK, Biomimicry Guild Partner to Bring Nature to Cities and Buildings" the two organizations will work "to incorporate cutting-edge ideas from nature into HOK's designs for buildings, towns and cities. The two companies will bring their respective expertises – HOK in green buildings and sustainable design, the Guild in adapting natural technologies to human needs – to bear on projects around the world, with the goal of lowering the overall impact of the built environment on the planet."

                                        HOK Network

According to Mary Ann Lazarus, HOK's Sustainable Design Director: "We believe biomimicry will not only help us significantly reduce the environmental impact of our projects, but also has the potential to help define a whole new sustainable standard for our profession. Because biomimicry addresses critical environmental issues at the habitat scale, it gives us lessons on how to achieve significant results  even restorative outcomes  at all scales."

Lavasa Hill Station Development

HOK and the Biomimicry Guild have worked together since 2004 and are currently exploring ways to integrate biomimicry into the Lavasa Hill Station community under development near Pune, India in the Western Ghats. Based on the principles of New Urbanism, the HOK-developed Lavasa master plan is based on the transect model. The manmade environment here is designed to blend into the natural vegetation and existing topography while promoting sustainability in all aspects of town planning.

Room by Agreement: The Micro Park

SOURCE: Kansas City Star

Designer Kimberly Kolkovich has a revolutionary idea for downtown parking spaces: turn them into microparks, or ‘Spot Parks’. Everywhere. Her ingenious idea just might give new meaning to the term public spaces.

In “Proposed spot parks are right on target”, the Kansas City Star’s Steve Paul writes:

“When Kimberly Kolkovich searched for a project in her last months of architectural school, she stepped outside the Kansas City Design Center, looked around and wondered, what if …?

What if you could replace a single curbside parking spot with a micropark, a little bit of urban respite?”

In Kansas City, a place that’s undergoing a major urban makeover, this could be the perfect, humanizing element that’s needed in the midst of a new downtown arena, a new performing arts center, new headquarters buildings, and a new entertainment district – all in the span of a few years. With close attention to stormwater schemes and reliance on recycled materials, pervious paving, a micro-rain garden and sun-powered lighting, it could also go a long way to injecting sustainable landscape designs throughout the city as well.

National Park(ing) Day: San Francisco

The timing for this unveiling is perfect, as Friday was National Park(ing) Day, where volunteers in more than 80 cities across the U.S. created hundreds of temporary parks in public parking spaces. This was the 3rd annual event, created to celebrate parks and promote the need for parks in America's cities. National Park(ing) Day is sponsored by The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national conservation nonprofit, based on an idea conceived by REBAR, a San Francisco art collective.

The Bad News About Green Architecture

"I hate green architecture. I can't stand the hype, the marketing claims, the smug lists of green features that supposedly transform a garden-variety new building into a structure fit for Eden. Grassy roofs? Swell! Recycled gray water to flush the toilets? Excellent! But if 500 employees have to drive 40 miles a day to work in the place – well, how green is that? Achieving real sustainability is much more complicated than the publicity suggests. And that media roar is only getting louder. The urge to build green is exploding: more than 16,000 projects are now registered with the U.S. Green Building Council as intending to go for a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) – or sustainable – certification, up from just 573 in 2000."

And so "The Bad News About Green Architecture" begins in the September 15 issue of Newsweek. But read on. Cathleen McGuigan's terrific piece, part of the magazine's ongoing "Project Green" series, isn't simply bashing this unstoppable green movement. It's actually a thought-provoking critique that sometimes green buildings are ugly, that perhaps bigger LEED buildings aren't always better (especially "Green McMansions"), and that the true lessons of sustainability may be found in historic homes, like many of those in New Orleans that survived Katrina relatively unscathed and ready to perform for another 150 years.

Mostly, McGuigan reminds us that "sustainability is about the practical systems of building, not the beauty of great design." Good words.

Conceiving of the Living Building

The concept of the “living building” – as an inquiry of ideas, delving deeper into its meanings, how it may be achieved – that’s the subject of a beautiful essay written by Sandy Wiggins, immediate past chair of the U.S. Green Building Council and founder and principal of the consulting firm Consilience. His “Of Living Buildings” appeared recently in AIA CoteNotes and begins:

“Moss and grass. Two plant species, simple, and just a stone's throw from one another. Here is where this story begins. Or perhaps one should say here is where this story "lives." Beginning implies a start, and the reality is quite different. This is more like a chapter in a book, or, better yet, the opening of a flower, coddled in sun, seed, and water and nurtured through the mysterious processes of photosynthesis and evolution. It is part of a whole, a history with threads that, if one had the patience and imagination, could be traced through eons of chromosomes, climate, wind, and dirt. The opening of a flower is an event, though not a discrete one. The story extends backward and forward along that convention we call time, from the dawn of creation to some distant, unrevealed, and hopeful destiny.”

Mockley Point/Piscataway Creek

His thoughts are based on experiences during a four-day design charrette held at Hard Bargain Farm, an environmental center run by the Alice Ferguson Foundation not far from Mockley Point, “a kind of tiny Cape Cod turned the wrong way” that overlooks Piscataway Creek near the Potomac. During those four days, questions emerged, further explorations, how to define "Exactly what is a Living Building?:

Does it run on sunlight?
Does it bank on diversity?
Does it recycle everything?
Does it reward cooperation?
Does it curb excess by design?
Does it tap the power of limits?
Does it change with the time of day and seasons?
Does it connect to, rather than disrupt the web of life?
Does it embrace the four ancient elements?
Does it patina rather than degrade?
Is it able to adapt and evolve?
Is it Beautiful?”

Sandy presented this as a paper at the Living Future Conference in Vancouver, BC last April. Read the full text “Of Living Buildings” here.

The GreenHouse Project

In the inner-city of Johannesburg, The GreenHouse Project is turning one urban park into a seedbed for sustainable communities. The program takes a holistic approach to the city's challenges, integrating green building and design, efficient and renewable energy, recycling, organic farming and nutrition.

Moving Beyond Zero Impact

The Oregon Environmental Council is sponsoring what looks like a very interesting panel discussion: "Forum for Business and the Environment:The Next Green Building Revolution: Moving Beyond Zero Impact". The focus is on how the green building market can move above and beyond LEED:

"Our panel will address critical questions: Will the next target be zero-impact buildings or an even more aggressive goal? What does a “living building” look like and how can development actually help restore watersheds and slow global warming? How will the new LEED Neighborhood Development standard shape sustainable communities in the short term? Where is the green building industry headed?"

Speakers: Gina Franzosa, Director, Oregon Chapter, Cascadia Region Green Building Council and Scott Lewis, Founder and Principal, Brightworks.

To be held June 3, 2008 from 07:30 to 09:30 a.m. at the Doubletree Hotel and Executive Meeting Center, Lloyd Center, Portland, OR. For more information, visit http://www.oeconline.org.

Re-Thinking Platinum

This from the U.K.'s Building Sustainability blog, "US to revise LEED green assessment system":

"The main environmental assessment method used in the US and Dubai is to be revised after criticism that it allows energy-guzzling buildings to get a top rating.

It is understood that the US Green Building Council, which runs the LEED scheme, will announce proposals in the next few weeks with the aim of finalising the changes by November.

The main change to LEED is understood to be the introduction of minimum standards for energy and water use.

Douglas Crawford-Brown, senior sustainability adviser at engineer Pell Frischmann has carried out research showing that 30% of buildings awarded the top platinum rating used more energy than buildings with a silver rating, two bands below."

Read the full post here.

Charlie Rose: "Design and the Elastic Mind"

Charlie Rose, without question the best interviewer on TV, spoke last night with Paola Antonelli, senior curator of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) about the incredible "Design and the Elastic Mind". Running through May 12, this major exhibition at MoMA explores the relationship between design, science and innovation and was featured here in an earlier post.

Greensburg: Re-Emerging Green

In the year since an F-5 tornado tore through and leveled the small Kansas town, Greensburg has gained the world’s attention for its plans to rebuild green – very green. On this, the one-year anniversary of the event, the town has attracted major media, documentary filmmakers, photographers, universities and some of the top sustainable design firms in the country. Greensburg, the Series, with Leo DiCaprio will even debut next month on the Discovery Channel’s new “Planet Green”.

There are a growing number of Web sites and other resources devoted to the green rebuilding efforts there. Here are a few:

Greensburg GreenTown, a nonprofit organization established after the tornado to funnel resources and expertise into creating a model green community.

Discovery’s new Planet Green channel begins its 13-part series in June, documentating the daily struggles of a community and its citizens through this massive reconstruction effort.

Kansas City’s BNIM was selected as the city’s master planner, to rebuild Greensburg around the principles of economic, social and environmental sustainability. Since then, BNIM has been retained to design the City Hall and Big Well Museum.

City of Greensburg, Kansas, which recently approved a resolution that all city building projects will be built to LEED Platinum level standards.

Studio 804, a design/build program at the University of Kansas School of Architecture and Urban Planning, is building a “Sustainable Prototype for Greensburg, KS”.

Greensburg Cubed is a project of Design + Build @ Kansas State University, College of Architecture, Planning, and Design to build several small-scale modules demonstrating sustainable structures, systems and materials.

Montgomery County, Maryland Sees Green

Montgomery County, Maryland has just passed an ambitious plan requiring that all new-home construction meet the EPA's Energy Star standards. The county is just northwest of Washington, D.C. An editorial in today's Washington Post, "The Greening of Montgomery", explains how and why they got there:

"MONTGOMERY COUNTY is part of a merry and growing band of localities and states tired of waiting for federal leadership on climate change. It has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. To help meet that ambitious target, the County Council passed seven global-warming bills last month. One of them requires that new-home construction meet the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star standards. This will add to the price of a house, but the long-term savings and positive environmental impact will be worth it."

LEED Platinum: A Season of Firsts

This spring there seems to be no shortage of new buildings being hailed as the nation’s first LEED Platinum in a given project category. Building Design and Construction (BDC) magazine reports on the first high-rise condo and museum to gain that status.

The Casey, luxury condominiums in Portland, Oregon, achieved all 55 LEED credits requested by the project developer Gerding Edlen Development – exceeding the minimum of 52 necessary for LEED Platinum. Located in the city’s Pearl District, the 16-story tower was designed by GBD Architects. In “Portland's Casey is the nation's first LEED platinum high-rise condominiums”, BDC summarized its green features:

“The building incorporates a comprehensive array of sustainable design principles, including reduced usage of fossil fuels; sustainable, regional, renewable and low-VOC materials; water-efficient fixtures and appliances; glazing to reduce glare and heat gain; an eco-roof for storm water management and to reduce the heat island effect; efficient mechanical equipment; a solar PV system to provide renewable energy to the building; and ERVs (Energy Recovery Ventilators) in each unit that recover exhausted (waste) heat and use it to preheat incoming fresh air. These features significantly reduce the building’s environmental impact and are expected to achieve a 52 percent energy savings over a code-compliant building.”

LEED Platinum was also recently awarded to the Water + Life Museums in Hemet, California (Riverside County). This 17-acre campus of buildings includes the Center for Water Education and the Western Center for Archeology and Paleontology. With design and construction by Lehrer + Gangi Design + Build, this $40-million project features indoor and outdoor spaces within a framework of “airy floor plans and abundant natural light”.

According to BDC’s “Desert complex is first LEED Platinum museum”:

“’The museums are topped by one of the largest solar-panel installations of its kind,’ said Mark Gangi, AIA, principal, explaining the 540-watt, 3000-panel photovoltaic installation that provides the complex with nearly half of its total power needs. The solar panels also shade the roof from desert sun, while special translucent panes provide dappled light to outdoor loggias.

Other green elements include translucent banners that hang across 8,000 square feet of deeply recessed, east-facing glass to both identify the museums as well as mitigate the desert sun. Thanks to heat-blocking glass, the windows also let in abundant natural light, minimizing artificial lighting needs. Interior lighting, when needed, is controlled by a network of electronic sensing devices and timers that optimize daylight harvesting. Heating and cooling are conducted through a sophisticated mechanical system of radiant flooring and forced air units.”

Greensburg Will Be Platinum

PHOTO: © Larry Schwarm

As the one-year anniversary of the Greensburg, Kansas tornado approaches, Architectural Record's "Greensburg Aims for a Platinum Shade of Green" reports on master planning, the upcoming Discovery Channel series and other recent progress by the city toward rebuilding as a completely sustainable community:

"BNIM associate Stephen Hardy, who, with colleague Rachel Weden, was largely responsible for the sustainable master plan, says of the LEED Platinum announcement, “While you wouldn’t pick western Kansas as a hotbed for sustainability, we’ve found that [Greensburg officials and residents] understand natural systems and have absorbed progressive green thinking much more deeply than their urban counterparts.” The master plan, which stresses walkability, water conservation and stormwater management, and citywide-wind power, also may contribute to the goal. Hardy imagines building owners opting into municipal wind power instead of producing their own renewable energy on site."

Also featured in the article are dramatic photographs taken by award-winning photographer Larry Schwarm, a native of Greensburg, whose one-man exhibition "Greensburg After the Storm" will be featured at Wichita State's Ulrich Museum of Art beginning today.

Toward a Sustainable Sweden

At Hammarby Sjöstad, a new suburb outside of Stockholm, the formula for sustainability is simple. Homes are designed to use half the energy and half the water of a conventional Swedish home from the early 1990s. Combustible waste burned in the CHP plant provides 70% of the development’s heat requirements. And all waste water goes to a treatment plant, producing biogas from sewage which is used to power buses and cooking stoves.

Writing for the Building "Sustainability Blog", Thomas Lane observes in “Sweden's green utopia”:

“The focus in the UK is to turn homes into self-sufficient islands by plastering them with expensive renewable technologies and incorporating water recycling at a very localised level. The Swedes take the opposite approach: building comparatively conventional homes and providing heat and power through carefully planned infrastructure at a district level. This is paid for upfront by the city council and the utilities companies.”

More here.

The Greening of Greensburg

The Good Fight is a new Web series debuting today on SundanceChannel.com. Created and hosted by sustainability journalist Simran Sethi, each 'webisode' looks at "places where environmentalism is a necessity, not a luxury".

Their first video project focuses on the green rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas, a community of 1,400 nearly wiped out by an F-5 tornado on May 4, 2007.

"Nearly a year after the catastrophe, dozens of FEMA trailers continue to dot a landscape of unbelievable devastation. However, the residents of this 1400-person town are coming back strong and rebuilding their homes, businesses and lives. This rebuilding effort is going green with the support of city officials, local business, and a burgeoning non-profit named Greensburg Greentown. All the reconstructed city buildings over 4,000 sq. ft. are required to be certified LEED-platinum, plans are underway for the entire town to run on wind power, and individual homes are being rebuilt slowly and sustainably.”

In five short videos (each two to 5 minutes long), Sethi provides a unique snapshot of Greensburg, describing how “...residents are transforming a crisis into an opportunity – and rebuilding green.” She interviews the mayor, business owners and at least one resident who is using a total energy solution package to rebuild his house 50 times more efficient than an EnergyStar-rated home. Also we meet Daniel Wallach, who created the Greensburg Green Town Rebuilding Project after the tornado. And the owners of Bucklin Tractor & Implement (BTI), a John Deere dealership that was completely destroyed but plans to rebuild LEED Platinum and serve as a model of sustainable construction for dealerships nationwide.

Read more about the series here and view Webisodes of "The Good Fight" here.

The Challenge: Building Life Cycle

In "Built to Last: Measuring the Life Cycle of a Facility", Sarah Fister Gale explores the tools and methods used in life cycle assessment (LCA), a holistic approach to new building construction. For the Greener Buildings article, she writes:

"Defining the carbon footprint of a building is an elusive and complex process. Unlike individual products that have well-defined shelf lives and finite ingredients, buildings stand for decades, endure climatic extremes and will be used for multiple purposes.

Every decision that goes into the design, material choice and energy use in a building has a long-term effect. "Buildings are the most long-lived products we make," says Tom Gloria, chief knowledge officer for eQuilibrium Solutions Corporation, a sustainable management services company in Boston.

Their longevity makes getting an accurate life cycle assessment (LCA) complicated. LCA is a method of holistically evaluating the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle, from the harvesting of raw materials through processing, manufacture, installation, use, and ultimately disposal or recycling or the entire envelope."

Better understanding of a building's life cycle, in fact, is an area gaining greater attention lately. The Lifecycle Building Challenge, which launched last year, just issued a call for entries for its second competition, LBC2: "Submit your innovative project, design, or idea for reducing to conserve construction and demolition materials and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by designing buildings for adaptability and disassembly."

Go here for more information.

Tree House Rising

It may look straight out of a Tolkien story, a structure of ramps, platforms and towers rising through the trees in the midst of a 40-acre woodland in southeastern England. Yet the “New Forest Tree House Study Centre” may also the next big sustainable design move in outdoor education. Located not far from the city of Southampton on the grounds of the Countryside Education Trust (CET), this complex is actually two connected tree houses carefully tied into ancient oaks and beeches.

When completed, the New Forest Tree House will be classrooms in the air to replace the Trust’s older, dilapidated buildings and used for courses and activities for adults and children. Right from the start it was important that these new buildings be inspirational, serving as a model of sustainable and environmental design, technology and energy conservation. CET also wanted the tree house spaces to be available for local community groups and the classrooms accessible for the disabled.

To generate ideas for the new tree house complex, CET turned to the Solent Centre for Architecture + Design, which then established an open design competition to all final year undergraduate students attending architecture schools in the South East Region. The winning concept came from Samantha Sherwood, 22, a third-year architecture student from Oxford Brookes University. Her innovative design incorporates photovoltaic panels, rainwater collection and a biomass boiler. Also included is a grass roof, a natural ventilation scheme, and locally-sourced English hardwood and other construction materials.

Work began on the New Forest Tree House in November and continues today. The project is led by Blue Forest, a specialist tree house contractor, with additional sustainability advice from environmental engineering consultant XCO2. View more photos and designs at the Trust’s Flickr Photostream.

North America's First Carbon Neutral Financial Institution

Vancity, Canada's largest credit union, becomes the first North American-based financial institution to become carbon neutral. This goal, set voluntarily by the Vancity group of companies for 2010, was achieved early through a rigorous emissions reduction program focusing on energy use, staff travel, paper consumption and waste.

Formed in 1946, the Vancouver City Savings Credit Union today has $14.1 billion in assets, 2,000 employees and 59 branches throughout Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and Victoria.

Over the last 10 years Vancity has cut its energy use in half and its paper consumption by 30 percent, saving well over $2 million in energy costs alone. The remaining carbon was offset through investments in high-quality, verified emission reduction projects in British Columbia and elsewhere.

David Suzuki joined Vancity’s CEO and others to make the announcement April 9 in this video.

Zerofootprint Cities

WorldChanging.com recently highlighted the work of Zerofootprint, a Canadian not-for-profit that works with large organizations – cities, multinational corporations, universities, schools and multinational communities – to help them create the infrastructure to measure, aggregate, track and manage their individual and combined footprints.

Zerofootprint also provides links to a whole range of carbon offsets and zero footprint calculators, publications and carbon-neutral services.

In "Zerofootprint Cities", Ron Dembo of Zerofootprint explains the concept of the groups "Cities" initiative"

"Imagine a tool that could link the citizens of large world cities around issues involving climate change. Imagine further that these citizens could be mobilized to reduce their environmental footprint and their collective actions could be measured and celebrated.

...

Imagine that we could motivate millions of citizens of many cities around the world to measure their footprint. In doing so, we would build up a picture of where their footprint originates and would understand where the biggest opportunities were to reduce their collective impact. Using the Internet and appropriate software, we could track and report changes, encourage and report pledges, and help individuals understand the relative benefits of their various actions. We could launch initiatives and understand how well they worked in short order. We could discover what concerned citizens most and where they would be most willing to act. We could go further and use the tremendous buying power of large groups of citizens to create the economies of scale needed to reduce the “price of green”. And, all of this does not need a willing President or Minister of the Environment to decide on policy or the World Trade Council to come up with new rulings. Nor does it need a tortuous set of discussions over 10 years to reach a new Kyoto accord, with all its watered-down language to satisfy the all the political constraints of the countries involved."

Read his full essay here.

Sneak Peak at Global Green Project

Doug MacCash, art critic for The Times-Picayune (New Orleans) recently got an advance look at Global Green’s newly-completed first phase of its Holy Cross Project – affordable housing that’s very green.

“The design of the Global Green model home in Holy Cross is smart. I'm not talking about all the futuristic energy saving features; I'm just talking about the appearance.

To do its job, it had to be jazzy enough to draw attention to itself, but stay pretty much within the scale and prevailing taste of the neighborhood. I think it does both.
...
Overall, the house is a beauty -- nicely proportioned, airy and comfortable. Hand me the keys and I'll move in next Tuesday.

In August 2006 Kotchen and Berman won Global Green's Sustainable Design Competition, overseen by actor/activist Brad Pitt. Kotchen said that he and Berman ‘did a lot of homework in understanding Creole cottages and camelbacks,’ before they began the plans. He said they tried to blend up-to-date design with the feel of the New Orleans neighborhood vernacular to produce a ‘21st-century shotgun.’

Mission accomplished.”

Read his full blog, plus a video of what he saw, at “Global Green's 21st Century Shotgun blends traditional and modern”.

HOK: “Go Barefoot”

Architectural firm HOK is challenging its more than 2,500 employees – as well as clients, partners and local communities – on four continents to “Go Barefoot,” this Earth Day, April 22. The campaign is designed remind employees of the tangible steps they can take to reduce their carbon footprint: taking public transportation or biking to work, eliminating paper usage, reducing use of disposable packaging.

“We are using Earth Day as a catalyst for making simple behavioral changes that will have a profound impact on our collective carbon footprint,” says HOK Sustainable Design Director Mary Ann Lazarus. “After making this single-day commitment, we hope our people are inspired to make permanent, positive changes to their travel and work habits.”

HOK's "Go Barefoot Day" initiative supports the firm’ s commitment to reduce carbon emissions from its projects and practice by 50 percent by 2010. They’ve developed a “Barefoot blog” and educational poster to go along with the campaign.

ScrapHouse Revisited

PHOTOS: Cesar Rubio Photography, Public Architecture

ScrapHouse gives whole new meaning to the idea of re-use, recycling and sustainability. In preparation for World Environment Day 2005, this temporary demonstration home was designed and blitz-built over two weeks using scrap and salvaged materials for display on Civic Center Plaza next to San Francisco City Hall from June 2 to 5, 2005. It was later featured on the National Geographic Channel (September 2006) and will be on display again at San Francisco’s Econnovation design show later this month.

The project was originally conceived as a documentary film by Emmy award-winner Anna Fitch. She and a team of San Francisco architects, artists, contractors, city officials and engineers wanted to completely rethink the design of a single-family home with elegant solutions inspired by the abundance of scrap material.

IMAGE: Sean Ahlquist

They spent three weeks scouring Bay Area dumps, salvage yards and active construction sites for building materials, furnishings and finishes. In this prototypical design, every material, from the foundation to the front door, was reclaimed and re-used. Walls were sheathed with street signs and shower doors. Solid core doors were repurposed as flooring material. Outdated phone books became a textured insulating wall. Retired fire hoses from the San Francisco Fire Department were deployed as wall paneling.

With sponsorship from the group Public Architecture, ScrapHouse lives on in print, film and online. You can learn more at the ScrapHouse Web site.

2030 Blueprint

The 2030 Blueprint is the latest from Ed Mazria’s 2030 Challenge initiative. This new study illustrates how an investment of just $21.6 billion towards building energy efficiency would replace 22.3 conventional coal-fired plants, reduce CO2 emissions by 86.7 MMT, save 204 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 10.7 million barrels of oil, save consumers $8.46 billion in energy bills and create 216,000 new jobs.

You may recall the 2030 Challenge was launched in January 2006, outlining a measurable, achievable strategy to reduce global GHG emissions and fossil-fuel consumption in the building sector by the year 2030. The 2030 Blueprint now provides a comparative analysis of three distinct approaches to addressing climate change: building energy efficiency, ‘clean’ coal (with carbon capture and sequestration) and nuclear power.

Mazria and and his co-author Kristina Kershner conclude in the 2030 Blueprint:

“There is a clear, simple, realistic and achievable solution to climate change that also offers significant additional benefits: building energy efficiency. Of the energy and climate change solutions proposed today, building energy efficiency is the one that can be implemented immediately, costs the least and offers the greatest benefits to both the planet and the economy. With a single action, the U.S. can begin replacing coal, reduce CO2 emissions, strengthen the U.S. economy, save consumers billions of dollars and create jobs.”

Read the full report here.

"Primary Victory", by Suzanne LaBarre for the April 2008 issue of Metropolis Magazine, details Ed Mazria's unrelenting push to make the 2030 Challenge a reality. She writes:

"On December 19, 2007, President Bush signed into law a sweeping energy bill that, among other things, handed down the stiffest green-building standards in U.S. government history. It was heralded in the popular press as a momentous leap forward: 'From Bulbs to Cars, This Bill Will Change Your Life,' the Houston Chronicle crowed. 'More than we’ve ever done,' effused a Democratic senator to Newsweek.com. And from the New York Times: 'Its passage is one of the largest steps on energy the nation has taken since the oil crises of the 1970s.' Going by the articles, you’d think Bush approved the environmental equivalent of universal health care.

So why hasn’t Ed Mazria – the New Mexico architect who propelled the bill’s green-building regulations to the fore – declared victory? Five years ago Mazria floated the seemingly incredible notion that the nation’s biggest greenhouse-gas emitter isn’t transportation or industry; it’s the building sector. Before long, he and a cohort of fellow architects were hawking statis t ics on Capitol Hill. The legislation that resulted requires federal facilities to eliminate carbon emis sions by 2030, regulates home appliances, and offers some financial incentives for sustainable design. (Not even Al Gore can claim such rapid head way.) Still, Mazria says, these provisions represent a sliver of what could have been. Bowing to political pressure, congressional leaders scotched key language that would have slashed dependence on fossil fuels, though they managed to improve energy conservation in public and private buildings. 'The building sector is the 800-pound gorilla in the closet you have to deal with,' Mazria says. 'We’re moving quickly, but we still have a long way to go.' The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, as it was optimistically dubbed, was in-deed the nation’s largest step on energy since the 1970s and the largest step on green building ever. Maybe that was part of the problem."

Living Future 08

Billed as the leading conference for green design, focusing on “deep solutions to the most daunting global issues of our time”, Living Future 08 is coming soon: Wednesday April 16 to Friday April 18 in Vancouver, BC.

This annual event has attracted some of the biggest names in sustainability. The keynote speaker will be Paul Hawken (on Wednesday, April 16), author of The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism, who will address “How the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice and beauty to the world.” Sim Van der Ryn of Berkeley, an internationally-distinguished pioneer in ecological design, presents at Friday’s Opening Plenary.

Living Future focuses on solutions to the built environment requiring new tools, new perspectives and better collaboration. In addition to attracting some of the region’s top green architects, engineers and other experts in design and construction as speakers, the format for this “UnConference” is something quite different. After each panelist spends 15 to 20 minutes sharing his/her ideas and experiences, participants form small groups with each facilitated by one of the panelists for a 45-minute, interactive session.

Sessions include “Living Building: Energy and Carbon Neutrality”, presented by Vancouver’s Peter Busby, Busby Perkins + Will, and Jennifer Sanguinetti of Stantec. Also scheduled for the program: “Wholistic Engineering: Applied to a Living Building Water System”; “Green Land Development of Year” (about the highest rated LEED home in Canada to date); “Charting a Course Towards Water Independence: Achieving Net-Zero Water in Living Buildings”; and “Living Cities – Remaking our cities one neighborhood at a time”.

For more information or to register, go here.

Dell Headquarters Is 100% Green Powered

With its Austin, Texas headquarters now 100 percent powered by renewable energy, Dell has achieved a major milestone in its bid to make all company-owned and -leased facilities “carbon neutral” in 2008. The global campus is home to more than 10,000 employees. According to GreenBiz.com:

“Energy from wind and landfill gas sources now completely powers Dell Inc.'s 2.1 million square foot headquarters in Austin, Texas, the computer maker said Wednesday. 

Dell's announcement of a deal with Waste Management and TXU Energy Wind Power is part of its bid to achieve carbon neutrality at its owned and leased facilities this year.

Waste Management's Austin Community Landfill gas-to-energy facility will supply about 40 percent of the power needs at Dell’s headquarters, with the remainder coming from existing wind farms in the state through TXU Energy.”

Read more of “Dell's HQ Switches to 100 Percent Renewable Energy”.

More on Dell’s strategy to improve energy efficiency in its operations and Green Power plans is available here.

San Francisco: Will It Be the Greenest?

The U.K.'s New Scientist magazine reports that the City of San Francisco is poised to implement the country's most stringent green building codes:

"San Francisco may soon boast the greenest buildings in the US. Last week, the local government took a decisive step towards agreeing what are probably the toughest environmental construction standards in the country. Families and companies planning to build offices and homes will be required to earn green points by introducing energy and water-saving measures - or they risk losing their construction permits"

The San Francisco Chronicle expands on this further, explaining: "City officials estimate that by 2012, the new green building codes could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60,000 tons and save 220,000 megawatt hours of power and 100 million gallons of drinking water." More at "S.F. moves to greenest building codes in U.S."

Southern Cal: A Million Solar Roofs

It's always sunny in Southern California, so why not tap that in a big way? At least, that's the premise behind California's “Million Solar Roofs Initiative”, passed and signed in 2006 as California SB 1 and apparently going ‘full steam ahead' in 2007 and into 2008. According to Sustainable Business News in the article “SoCal Edison Taps Commercial Roofs for Largest U.S. Solar Installation”:

“Southern California Edison has leased 65 million square feet of roof space on California commercial buildings for what will be the largest solar cell installation in the U.S.

The utility is currently seeking approval from the California Public Utilities Commission for the five-year, $875 million solar installation. When complete, the project is expected to generate enough electricity to power more than 160,000 homes.”

Read more here.