Green ArchiTEXT

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.