Green ArchiTEXT

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.

Windy City, Wind Turbine Tower

Emphasizing the principles of biomimicry, Chicago’s soon-to-be “Clean Technology Tower” has been designed to produce its own energy using advanced technologies and climate-appropriate building systems. The 1.8 million-square-foot tower complex is sited to capture the power of natural forces and significantly increase efficiency.

Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture LLP (AS+GG) of Chicago, the project features wind turbines located at the building’s corners to harness wind at its highest velocity while it accelerates around the tower. At the apex of this highly-efficient building, where wind speeds are at a maximum, a domed double roof cavity directs the wind towards an array of wind turbines. The negative pressure created by the turbines is used to ventilate interior spaces. The roof-top dome is shaded by solar cells that capture the southern sun.

Mainstream GreenHome

IMAGE: Cherokee

The showcase “Mainstream GreenHome” in Raleigh, North Carolina has just been awarded LEED Platinum under the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED for Homes program. This certification becomes the first LEED for Homes Platinum in the Southeast and the first in the state.

A project funded by Cherokee Investment Partners, LLC, this is clearly an extreme green home, what BusinessWeek recently declared “a residential laboratory for green building practices they believe will protect the environment and provide solid returns to investors”. Cherokee, you may recall, is also one of the forces behind Brad Pitt’s Make It Right project in New Orleans. Mainstream GreenHome made its public debut in December.

A recent BusinessWeek article by Nanette Byrnes, “Bringing Green Mainstream”, sums up this cutting-edge project nicely, explaining that the house:

“...requires 96% less energy to heat hot water than a comparable dwelling – and is predicted to save 80,000 gallons of water per year through smart conservation methods. It was built under the National Association of Home Builders' Model Green Home Building Guidelines and just last month won a Gold Award in the NAHB Research Center's 2008 EnergyValue Housing awards. It also got one of the best scores ever in the Environmental Protection Agency/Energy Dept.'s Energy Star home efficiency rating system. In short, Cherokee claims it's one of the most environmentally friendly homes in the country – and yet it's maybe the only one that looks 100% typical. Boring even. No grass grows on the roof. Good luck spotting a solar panel. All of this is intentional – the point of building the house was to show just how normal an environmentally sensitive home can look.”

There are so many green elements in and around Mainstream GreenHome, it’s hard to know where to begin. Selected features include:

• Materials: The house includes flooring manufactured from logs salvaged and milled in nearby Wilmington, N.C. More than 90% of products in this house will be labeled as no- or low-VOCs. The target goal for the recycling or reuse of construction and demolition waste is more than 75%.


• Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy: The GreenHome is designed to operate as carbon neutral. This will be achieved by maximizing energy efficiency and reducing demand through the use of ground-source heat pumps, lighting controls, spray-foam blown-in insulation, a sealed crawl space and attic, rigid foam insulation, ENERGY STAR-certified windows and a roof with more than three times the solar reflectivity of conventional roofs. Supplementing these features are an under-roof solar thermal system, a 10-kilowatt solar photovoltaic array and a de-superheater on the ground-source heat system for hot water heating.


• Water Quality/Conservation: The GreenHome uses a high-efficiency irrigation system that relies on soil moisture sensors to minimize outdoor water use. Interior fixtures, including toilets and faucets, reduce indoor water use 20% to 80%. Potable water used for landscaping, toilet and laundry needs is greatly diminished through rainwater harvesting and re-use.

Learn more at Mainstream GreenHome or download this “Summary of Features”.

Green Buildings = Easiest Way to Cut CO2 Emissions

Green design, construction, renovation and operation of buildings could cut North American greenhouse gas emissions faster and more economically than any other available means according to environmental experts from Canada, Mexico and the United States. That’s the conclusion of a new report issued by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).

North America’s buildings release more than 2,200 megatons of CO2 annually into the atmosphere, more than one-third of the continent’s total. The report says that by rapidly adopting current and emerging energy-saving technologies, the construction market could slash 1,700 megatons of CO2 emissions by 2030.

Green Building in North America: Opportunities and Challenges is the result of a two-year study by the CEC, a tri-national panel established to address environmental concerns raised by the North American Free Trade Agreement. The report was prepared with advice from an international advisory group of prominent developers and architects, sustainability and energy experts, real estate appraisers and brokers, together with local and national government representatives.

“Improving our built environment is probably the single greatest opportunity to protect and enhance the natural environment. This report is a blueprint for dramatic environmental progress throughout North America – mostly using the tools and technology we have on hand today,” says CEC Executive Director Adrián Vázquez. “Green building represents some of the ripest ‘low-hanging fruit’ for achieving significant reductions in climate change emissions.”

Download the full report here.

The Living Museum

IMAGE: PopSci.com

PHOTO: Tim Griffith/
California Academy of Sciences

When the newly-transformed California Academy of Sciences opens this year in San Francisco, it will be the world’s greenest museum and, once certified, the largest LEED Platinum public space anywhere. As Popular Science puts it, “green architecture is the main exhibit”:

“From a bird’s-eye view, the domes of the California Academy of Sciences, set to open in the fall, bulge out of the ground like giant scoops of green ice cream. These undulating hills built into the museum’s 2.5-acre, flora-covered roof integrate the building into the green space of surrounding Golden Gate Park. They also conserve energy, since the roof insulates and ventilates the 400,000-square-foot museum below.
...
Beneath the roof, museum goers will find a natural-history museum, a planetarium, a rainforest with free-flying birds, a coral reef inhabited by 4,000 fish, and an aquarium filled with saltwater pumped in from the Pacific Ocean. The most influential display, though, may well be the marriage of the museum’s physical design with its educational mission. “It’s not about dusty stuffed animals,” says executive director Greg Farrington. ‘It’s about human survival and living in harmony on planet Earth.’”

The museum’s design was led by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano through the Genoa-based Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) and in collaboration with Chong Partners of San Francisco.

PHOTOS: Tim Griffith/California Academy of Sciences (left), Graham Murdoch/PopSci (bottom)

The new $484-million structure features a 2.5-acre living roof, planted with nine local species and designed to absorb 98 percent of rainwater. According to PopSci, the rooftop is tiled with 50,000 biodegradable trays made of coconut husks, with each tray specially layered to keep plants from slipping down the roof’s steep slopes. Natural lighting is extensive, thanks to a retractable roof and floor-to-ceiling walls of glass so that light sources reach 90 percent of interior offices. Sustainable design elements also include soil as Insulation, radiant floor heating and denim insulation – plus all of the building’s structural steel comes from recycled sources.

Popular Science also offers animated tour of the facility as well as a photo gallery. The California Academy of Sciences also provides extensive coverage of the museum’s concept, design and construction in addition to floor plans, a virtual building tour and interviews with Piano.

Biophilic Design: The Book

Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life is an incredible new resource from Wiley to advance the art and science of this emerging design practice in architecture. As the book states, "Biophilic design is a new approach to sustainable development that incorporates the positive experience of nature into the design of the built environment."

Edited by Stephen R. Kellert, Judith Heerwagen and Martin Mador, the list of contributors dedicated to the "Theory", "Science" and "Practice" of biophilic design reads like a who's who of today's leading architects, planners, academics and other 'green thinkers':

Chapter 2: The Nature of Human Nature (Edward O. Wilson)

Chapter 3: A Good Place to Settle: Biomimicry, Biophilia, and the Return of Nature’s Inspiration to Architecture (Janine Benyus)

Chapter 12: The Extinction of Natural Experience in the Built Environment (Robert Pyle and David Orr)

Chapter 13: Biophilia and Sensory Aesthetics (Judith Heerwagen and Bert Gregory)

Chapter 17: Towards Biophilic Cities: Strategies for Integrating Nature into Urban Design (Tim Beatley)

Chapter 19: The Greening of the Brain (Pliny Fisk)

Chapter 22: Transforming Building Practices through Biophilic Design (Jenifer Seal Cramer and William Browning)

Chapter 23: Reflections on Implementing Biophilic Design (Robert Fox and Robert Berkebile)

More information here.