Green ArchiTEXT

How's the environment doing? Ask the buildings

PHOTO: CNN

By Niicolai Hartvig

Imagine that you could double the size of your apartment as a reward for saving electricity, water and gas. It's an idea proposed by the Seoul-based design collective Randomwalks and architect Lee Min-soo for the green redevelopment of Incheon, outside the South Korean capital.

Called Data Formation, apartments would start at 90 square meters, with a system of sliding modules stretching the space according to how much energy each dweller uses and saves. Bespoke furniture would be designed to fit the size-shifting rooms.

via edition.cnn.com

UBC develops North America’s greenest building

By Glenn Drexhage

“Sustainability is about what kind of world we want to live in,” says UBC’s John Robinson. If so, then the ambitious project he’s leading – the development of the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) – should provide some valuable inspiration. The $37-million building will be greenhouse gas-positive and a net energy producer, meaning that it will help UBC reduce the energy it uses and carbon it emits. All water will be sourced from rainwater, with wastewater treatment occurring on site. There is also more carbon sequestered in the building’s wooden structure than will be emitted during its construction and eventual dismantling.

Not only does the UBC-based centre aim to be among the greenest buildings in North America, it will also serve as a living laboratory for sustainability research, development and practice. For example, building processes will be continuously monitored, including heating, cooling, lighting, equipment use, water harvesting and treatment, building occupancy, inhabitant behaviour and more.

via www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca

ALL IMAGES: Busby Perkins and Will

Deep Green Design: Bernheim Arboretum Visitors Center by McDonough + Partners

Deep Green Design is our new short series devoted to showcasing some of the greenest built projects completed and/or recognized during 2009. From lifecycle designs to living buildings and the creation of sustainable city blocks, this series offers a snapshot of selected projects that are pushing the limits of green design around the world.

First up is the Bernheim Arboretum Visitors Center, winner of the Lifecycle Building Challenge 3: Building-Professional Built; Outstanding Achievement Award for Best Greenhouse Gas Reduction. Located in Clermont, Kentucky (25 miles south of downtown Louisville) this LEED Platinum center was completed in 2007. The design by William McDonough + Partners emphasizes wood for the building’s structure and skin as a natural gateway to the 14,000-acre Arboretum and Research Forest. As the LBC3 summary states:

“The visitors' center design roots the building firmly in its woodland context by blurring distinctions between the indoors and outdoors, and by incorporating the surrounding forest into the building's lifecycle analysis. Construction emphasized safe, closed material loops of biological nutrients, which break down to safely return to forest soil; and technical nutrients, which can be remanufactured into new objects.”

In short, lifecycle building design involves the use of materials, components, systems, and practices to create buildings that facilitate and anticipate future changes and eventual recovery/reuse of those same systems, etc. As one of the top entries recognized for the 2009 LBC competition, the visitor center’s design highlights flexibility and disassembly. The bolted connections, reusable brackets and removable infill panels of its structural system allow for reconfiguration or building additions in any direction. At the end of its useful life, most elements of the center can be unbolted, loaded on a truck and delivered to another site for reassembly or repurposing with ease.

Additional design elements for the 6,408-square-foot center include passive and smart HVAC systems, integrated to make the building 51% more efficient than ASHRAE standards. Over 90% of the interior is daylit; stack-driven natural ventilation within its tall pavilions reduces energy use; the concrete floor stabilizes the interior temperature against daily extremes of heat and cold; deciduous trees and trellis vines provide summer shade but let winter sunlight warm the thermal mass.  Also, vegetated bioswales reduce runoff into downslope lakes while a planted rain garden creates habitat and allows infiltration. Reclaimed sources provide 60% of water used: the effluent of a peat moss blackwater treatment system for irrigation and rainwater for flushing toilets.

Other key green features include a vegetated roof, photovoltaics to produce energy on site, and geothermal heating and cooling systems. See more photos and details on the project at William McDonough + Partners.

ALL IMAGES: Lifecycle Building Challenge

Creating the Greenest Office Building in the U.S.

It takes a certain ruthlessness to create the greenest office building in the nation.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a unit of the U.S. Department of Energy, is midway through construction of a $64 million project that lays claim to that title. The architects and engineers have spent hundreds of hours calculating the energy use of every aspect of the building, from the elevator to the exit signs. They have tweaked the design again and again with the aim of getting the 218,000-square-foot building to perform at net zero—meaning it will consume so little energy that it won't need to draw a single electron from the grid.

via online.wsj.com

UIA's "Sustainable by Design Strategy" for Copenhagen

The UIA (International Union of Architects) is launching its “Sustainable by Design Strategy” in Copenhagen. During COP15, UIA is organizing an Open Forum by the title ‘Sustainable by Design’ – featuring films, lectures, exhibitions, workshops and awards at the Copenhagen School of Architecture.

“Architecture must utilise holistic, integrative methods from the smallest scale up through that of city and regional planning, never forgetting that buildings, landscapes, the natural environment and infrastructures are all essential elements in creating a sustainable future. A careful and considerate design of forms, geometry and spatial strategies, married with the appropriate materials, equipment and functional distribution can reduce the use of resources, greenhouse gas emissions and overall environmental impact by 50% to 80%.”

via www.uia-architectes.org

Water 2.0 Aquatic Dysfunctions

By Jason F. McLennan

"The solutions to the water challenges we face exist today. It is possible to build living buildings (www.ilbi.org) and living communities that are completely water independent—even in the driest parts of the country. Living Buildings use water super-efficiently; they capture all of their water needs through rainfall and snowmelt. Water is then reused multiple times and treated on-site without chemicals in a nearly closed-loop process. As more and more projects are proving, it is now possible to completely transform our relationship with water and waste from a psychopathic one to one which is balanced and well-adjusted."

via www.arcadejournal.com

Return to IslandWood

I was pleasantly surprised to come across a “Virtual Tour of IslandWood” posted recently on Mithun Inc.’s blog. This may be one of the greenest, restorative, 255 acres on the planet. IslandWood is more than just an environmental education center; it’s an experience in design: integrated, biophilic, educational, transformational. The slideshow recaps the visit made by a group of ‘Mithunees’ in July, from IslandWood’s ‘entrance sequence’ out front and throughout the heavily-wooded site.

Even after seven years, IslandWood stands out as one of our best examples of green design, a place I was privileged to visit for nearly a full day while writing Integrated Design: Mithun. As described in "IslandWood, A Light in the Forest", the center’s very concept was experimental, with Mithun’s design process a mix equally of exploration and collaboration. Overarching goals for the project included:

• Protection of the entire property through environmentally-intelligent design
• Best practices in environmental education for a state-of-the-art facility
• Buildings that function as interactive learning tools
• Connections to nature

Located only a few miles from downtown Seattle on Bainbridge Island, IslandWood is both a return to another time and a glimpse of a possible future. In addition to the six-acre campus of buildings (3 of them LEED Gold), the site features a solar meadow, living machine, tree house, PV arrays, and healthy use of sustainable design strategies for daylighting, rainwater collection, natural ventilation, recycled materials, and more.

For more on IslandWood, see Mithun’s IslandWood and “A Light in the Forest”.

Architecture Of Change 2: Sustainability And Humanity In The Built Environment

Fast Company’s new slideshow features several amazing green projects from around the world. All are captured in the new book, Architecture Of Change 2: Sustainability And Humanity In The Built Environment by editors Kristen and Lukas Feireiss, due out in October 2009.

Among these transformative projects are: the Garden Building for Host and Nectar Plants for Cali's Butterflies (GBHNPCB), a prototype garden building in Cali, Columbia [top]; Kieran Timberlake’s Make It Right home in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward [middle]; and the Meydan Retail Complex, in Istanbul, Turkey, a 70,000-square-meter shopping center that incorporates local geothermal heating [bottom].

See the full slideshow, “Architecture of Change: 8 Real-World Examples”.


ALL PHOTOS: Fast Company

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.

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.