Green Building & Design (gb&d), #27

Steelcase designs the future of furniture A day in the life of the Bullitt Center David Gottfried’s brainy new venture Moshe Safdie reclaims Toronto’s waterfront G R E E N B U I L D I N G & D E S I G N M AY+ J U N E 2 0 14

Guest Edited by Zurich Esposito

THE

ARCHITECT’S PERSPECTIVE Six Chicago designers on new Chicago workspaces

JEANNE GANG completes a living office for the NRDC

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FLOAT

David Ritch and Mark Saffell, 5d studio

NeoCon 2014, June 9–11 Decca Showroom Merchandise Mart Space 3-101 deccacontract.com All Decca Contract products have received GreenGuard certification.

Jeanne Gang is photographed in the office she designed for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The NRDC project is one of six Chicago workspaces designed by local architects featured on p. 84.

84

The City That Works Get the architect’s perspective on six of Chicago’s most stunning workspaces, selected with the help of AIA Chicago.

Go inside offices by Studio Gang, 4240 Architecture, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, Gensler, and more.

GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

In This Issue gb&d May + June 2014 Volume 5, Issue 27

116

“We can’t design for half a business system anymore. We have to design for the societal level.”

116

PHOTOS: SAMANTHA SIMMONS

Work How You Want Angela Nahikian explains Steelcase’s flexible new office furniture and its vision for people-friendly office spaces

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122

182

Solatube’s innovative daylighting systems push DPR Construction past official Net Zero certification

A 60-acre development in downtown Honolulu is Hawaii’s first, and North America’s largest, LEED-ND Platinum community

An exploration of Seattle’s wholly sustainable showpiece from the occupant’s point of view

Our 2014 roundup of high-performance lighting technologies includes new products from Fluxwerx, Foscarini, BuzziSpace, and more

It’s Always Sunny in Phoenix

It Makes a Village

A Day in the Life of the Bullitt Center

On the Bright Side

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Table of Contents gb&d

Up Front

Approach

12 Guest Editor

24 Healthier Home Bases for Firefighters

30 New Home for Healthy House Institute

Zurich Esposito, executive vice president of AIA Chicago

14 Editor’s Picks

Kirkpatrick Architecture Studio promotes wellness

Trendsetters

The green-homebuilding website gets a home base

25 A Home for ‘Aging in Place’

32 Kum & Go Greens the Gas Station

16 Notebook

27 Building in Wetland Protection

34 Modular Solutions for Natural Disasters

From coworking spaces to classic designer chairs Dispatch from the Taiwan International Green Industry Show

18 In Profile

How Adam Bearup became “The Hybrid Home Guy”

20 Defined Design

New Orleans Bioinnovation Center by Eskew+Dumez+Ripple

H.L. Turner Group designs a net-zero home to last a lifetime

Pensacola State College’s master plan by Bullock Tice Associates

29 Modern Healthcare with a Historic Touch

Victory Healthcare plans a community-building office

How LEED Volume streamlined the company’s sustainable fuel stops

Proteus Design uses modular construction to benefit Haiti

38 David Gottfried

The USGBC founder has a new book and a brainy venture

42 Serenbe

The eco-community stems from an organic farm

51 Dave and Steve Roy

Brothers, architects, and sustainability advocates

52 16 Powerhouse

D&S Development’s LEED Platinum mixed-use building in Sacramento

Green Typologies

56 Five Star Sustainability

Slashing energy use at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Macau

60 Design Locally, Think Globally

Inside the W Taipei and its recycled-design competition

64 EarthCheck, Please

The InterContinental Hong Kong earns the stellar certification

68 Renewable Powerhouse

Using sea winds to power the Grand Hyatt Dalian

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183

Tough Builds

172 Changing of the Code

A Colorado Springs fire station wins with water

176 Wooded Urban Infill

An affordable building system for small projects

178 Brighton Beach Brownfield Inner Workings

Spaces

76 San Diego Continuing Education Building

134 Working Slide by Slide

Innovative cooling systems uses natural ocean breezes

80 Lehman College Life Sciences Building

The first LEED Platinum project at CUNY

AWeber’s offices intersect sustainability and fun

140 Red Hat in Raleigh

158 Sleight of Hand

Inside the software company’s new home

142 The Write Stuff

CCS Architecture’s inspiring work-live studios

Pappageorge Haymes’ LEED Platinum historic renovation Kennedy & Violich daylights a subterranean space at Penn

146 Meet Me at the Design Yard

164 Spotlight: Institute for Environmental Sustainability

Herman Miller brings employees back to the workplace

A greenhouse anchors Loyola Chicago’s mixeduse building

Remediating a site to get green marks

Punch List

183 Reclaimed

Antique candy dishes turned to lighting fixtures

184 Person of Interest

Jesse Blonstein advocates for consumer lighting education

186 Software Solution

Autodesk introduces cost- effective energy analytics

148 21 and Up

166 A Healing Homestead

189 Discussion Board

Austin’s Block 21 is nature-inspired, site-specific design

154 On the Edge

Great Gulf’s Safdie high-rise in Toronto

“I’m studying how to create new survival wiring, using plasticity and creating new neural networks in the brain so that we’re not killing ourselves.” 38 gb&d

157 Spotlight: Pomeroy Apartments

Healthcare and housing converge in Decathlon house

170 Spotlight: Community Hospital at Yishun

A healthcare facility modeled on the rain forest

Can we envision the office of 2050?

190 On the Boards

Emancipation Park will be a showpiece for Houston

192 On the Spot

Zurich Esposito takes our questionnaire

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

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Correction: March/April 2014 On p. 119, the name JQ appeared incorrectly. gb&d regrets the error.

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Editor’s Note Where We Work

When I was 14, I got my first job at a clay factory. We made potting clay for schools and universities throughout Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.

It was a tough job, a two-man assembly line full of machinery that threatened to pull our hands into their twisting augers. And yet the real danger was less obvious. Silica dust.

When he was 18, my brother, who also worked at the factory, was diagnosed with cancer. We can’t be sure the silica dust caused it, but the substance is a known lung carcinogen. Fortunately, my brother is alive and well.

Surgeons removed the tumor behind his ear, and he’s been healthy ever since, for which I’m eternally grateful. Angela Nahikian, the director of global environmental sustainability at Steelcase, tells a similar, more tragic story. Nahikian’s family friend grew up on a commercial fruit farm, and all her siblings developed a fatal form of cancer caused by agricultural pesticides. It is that story, in part, that drives Nahikian to push her company toward healthier, more sustainable products (p. 116).

This issue of gb&d is devoted to high-performance workspaces that respect and support human and environmental health, from the regenerative Bullitt Center (p. 122) to Studio Gang’s living office in Chicago (p. 84). A special thanks to Zurich Esposito, Emily Chan, Josh Mogerman, Samantha Snodgrass, and two hugely important individuals who are calling this issue of gb&d their last: Samantha Simmons, our inimitable staff photographer who shot the cover and every portrait in the Chicago workplace feature, and associate editor Melanie Loth, without whom this magazine would not be what it is. A sincere thank you to you both.

PHOTOS: SAMANTHA SIMMONS

Onward,

Timothy A. Schuler, Managing Editor tim@gbdmagazine.com

gb&d

NATURAL SELECTION With less than three weeks to deadline, we moved to a US printer based in the Midwest. This radically altered our timeline and—in the end—the entire issue. Here are its key evolutions.

September Our theme for this issue is workplace design, and the Bullitt Center in Seattle is net-zero everything.

We want to know how that affects the emloyees who work there. It’s the first feature we book.

October At SXSW Eco in Austin, we meet Emily Chan, who tells us about Steelcase’s Angela Nahikian and her approach to global sustainability in the office furniture world.

Feature number two.

November After a meeting, we select AIA Chicago’s Zurich Esposito as our guest editor. We conceptualize a third feature on Chicago workspaces designed by Chicago architects. We pick projects by Gensler, 4240, and three others. Studio Gang is not on the list.

January A day after the deadline changes, and despite white-out conditions, our art director and photographer drive to Steelcase in Grand Rapids, MI, to photograph Angela, potentially for the cover.

February A news story about the NRDC’s Chicago office, designed by Studio Gang, comes across the editor’s desk. It is the first commercial interiors project going for the Living Building Challenge. Now with extra time, we add the project to the Chicago feature.

March A photo shoot with Jeanne Gang at the NRDC office takes place against all odds. Jeanne has one hour for both the shoot and the interview, but that one hour—six weeks after our original deadline—produces what will become our final cover image.

April After more than six months of planning, we send the issue to print, looking nothing like it would have had our deadlines never changed. It is the first issue to be printed in the US and on FSC-certified paper. It is one of our largest issues to date and by far the best.

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Index People & Companies

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A

B

C

16 Powerhouse, 53 1871, 14 4240 Architecture, 92 802 Toyota Dealership, 51 Adams, Larry Jr., 27 AIA Chicago, 13, 83 AIA National Convention, 17 American University, 167 Anderson, Ray, 42 Andersson-Wise Architects, 148 Andersson, Arthur, 148 Autodesk, 186 AWeber Communications, 134 Bautista, Don Adam, 59 Bearup, Adam, 18 Benson, Robert, 94 Big Ass Fans, 73 Blonstein, Jesse, 184 BOKA Powell, 148 Bosch Experience Center, 44 Bosch, 26 BP Solar, 26 Bright ‘N Green, 178 Brininstool + Lynch, 98 Buderus, 26 Bullitt Center, 124 Bullitt Foundation, 124 Bullock Tice Associates, 27 BuzziSpace, 182 Capital Area Development Authority, 53 Cappellini, 14 Catholic University of America, 167 Cavaness, Kirsten, 29 CBRE, 140 CCS Architecture, 142 Center for Disease Control Foundation, 34 Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, 150 City of Colorado Springs, 172 City University of New York, 81 Clark Construction Group, 169 Clean Air Network, 67 Clean the World Foundation, 59 Cole, Ray, 40 Colorado Springs Utilities, 172 Community Hospital at Yishun, 170 Congdon, Chris, 118 Cooper Lighting, 182 Crossville, 28 Cupellex, 178 Curtis, Craig, 127 Curtis Group Architects, 29 D D&S Development, 53 David, Joe, 125 Deodhar, Aniruddha, 186 Diane Middlebrook Studios, 142

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E

F

G

H

Diaz, Pablo, 101 Djerassi Resident Artists Program, 142 Djerassi, Carl, 142 DPR Construction, 70 Dynamic Progress, 65 Earth Shelter Project Michigan, 18 EarthCheck, 65 Earthcraft Construction, 30 Enermodal Engineering, 156 Enloe, Lisa, 169 Enova, 98 Environmental Defense Fund, 39 Epstein | Metter Studio, 113 Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, 20 Esposito, Zurich, 13 Essex Police Department, 51 Every Building Conference, 17 Fennell Group, 172 Fennell, Jim, 172 Fisk, Pliny III, 150 Flanagan, Mike, 136 Flex System, 34 Fluxwerx, 182 Foggio, Michael, 34 FoodLink Foundation, 65 Fort Worth South, 29 Fortune, Johnny, 28 Foscarini, 182 Freelon Group, 190 Freelon, Phil, 190 Friends of Emancipation Park, 190 Gang, Jeanne, 88 General Growth Properties, 47 General Services Administration, 92 Gensler, 103, 170 George Washington University, 167 Georgia Institute of Technology, 42 Geotube, 179 Glazer, Breeze, 81 Glenn, Hans, 30 Goettsch Partners, 68 Gottfried, David, 39 Grand Hyatt Dalian, 68 Grand Lapa Macau, 59 Great Gulf, 155 Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association, 42 Green Power Hike, 66 GSky Plant Systems, 136 H.L. Turner Group, 25 Haitian National Laboratory, 34 Hammes, Adam, 32 Harrelson, Lee, 141 Hart, David, 25

Hayes, Denis, 124 HDR Architects, 170 Healthy House Institute, 30 Heiser, Todd, 104 Held Enloe & Associates, 169 Helms, Bob, 29 Herman Miller, 146 Historic Chicago Bungalow Association, 14 Hixson, Mark L., 30 Hong Kong Hotels Association, 65 Horst, Scott, 40 Howard Hughes Corporation, 46 Huang, Peter W. J., 16 I Ignite Glass Studios, 113 Intel, 40 InterContinental Hong Kong, 65 InterContinental Hotels Group, 65 Interface, 42 International Living Future Institute, 70 Intuit, 14 K Keller, John, 34 Kennedy & Violich Architecture, 158 Kirkpatrick Architecture Studio, 24 Kohn Pedersen Fox, 57 Kulzer, Tom, 134 Kum & Go, 32 L Laurel Environmental Associates, 178 Lehman College, 81 Levitt, Sheldon, 156 Life Sciences Building, 81 Lightbrigade Architectural Lighting Design, 184 Lightfair International, 17 Lippke, Bruce, 177 Living Office, 146 Loyola University Chicago, 164 M M3 Crane, 34 Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, 57 Mandarin Oriental Macau, 57 Manifest Digital, 103 Masters, Gil, 39 Menzak, Yuriy, 178 Mesa College, 76 Metter, Andrew, 114 Middlebrook, Diane, 142 Miniwiz, 63 Miry, Bay, 53 Moody Theater, 148 Moon, Matt, 140 N Nahikian, Angela, 116 Natural Resources Defense Council, 86

P

Q R

S

New Block, 177 New Orleans Bioinnovation Center, 20 Newman Garrison + Partners, 177 Newman, Kevin, 177 Noell, Kyle, 167 Nygren, Marie, 42 Nygren, Steve, 42 Page’s Windows, 30 Pappageorge Haymes Partners, 157 Park Landing, 177 Parsons, Greg, 146 Patterson, Devon, 109 Peasant, 42 Pensacola State College, 27 Perkins+Will, 81 Pires, Michael, 156 Point32, 125 Pomeroy Apartments, 157 Prosoco, 127 Proteus Design Company, 34 Quadrangle Architects, 155 Raimi + Associates, 48 Randle, Race, 48 Rathey, Allen, 30 Red Hat, 140 Regen Brain, 40 Regenerative Ventures, 39 Reinker, Dave, 76 Residences at W Austin, 148 Robinson, David, 24 Rocky Mountain Institute, 44 Roy, Dave, 51 Roy, Steve, 51 Sacramento Municipal Utility District, 54 Safdie Architects, 155 Safdie, Moshe, 155 San Diego Community College District, 76 San Diego Continuing Education Building, 76 Scarano Architect, 178 Scarano, Robert Jr., 178 Schneider Electric, 182 Schnider, Martin, 57 Schüco, 127 Seisco, 26 Serenbe Farms, 42 Serenbe, 42 SGPA Architecture and Planning, 76 Smith, Cass Calder, 142 Solar Decathlon, 167 Solatube International, 70 Solomon Cordwell Buenz, 106, 164 St. Joseph Hospital, 29 Starwood Hotels, 150

Steelcase, 116 Stewart, Emma, 186 Studio Gang Architects, 86 Taiwan Design Center, 63 Taiwan Design Expo, 63 Taiwan International Green Industry Show, 16 Tas Engineering, 127 Team Capitol DC, 167 The Hybrid Home Guy, 18 The Miller Hull Partnership, 127 TMR Engineering, 140 Tree Planting Challenge, 66 TriCorp Hearn, 53 Turner, Harold, 25 U University of British Columbia, 40 University of Pennsylvania, 158 University of Washington, 177 US Department of Energy, 167 V Victory Healthcare, 29 Vihant, Alan, 155 Violich, Frano, 158 Vittori, Gail, 150 W W Hotels, 148 W Taipei, 63 Ward Center, 47 Ward Village, 47 Waterfront Toronto, 155 Watson, Jay, 183 Welch, Aaron, 48 Wiemann Lamphere Architects, 51 Wilkes, Laci, 141 Wise, Chris, 150 WMS Gaming, 106 Wong, Harvey, 65 Wong, Kitty, 16 WorkSpace Futures, 116 World Green Building Council, 40 Wounded Warrior Homes, 167 Y Yanuck, Scott, 178

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

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Guest Editor

Zurich Esposito, executive vice president of AIA Chicago

14 Editor’s Picks

From coworking spaces to always-in- style designer chairs

16 Notebook

Dispatch from the Taiwan International Green Industry Show

18 In Profile

How Adam Bearup became “The Hybrid Home Guy”

20 Defined Design

New Orleans Bioinnovation Center

by Eskew+Dumez+Ripple

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PHOTO: SAMANTHA SIMMONS

With backgrounds in architecture and historic preservation, Zurich Esposito has been the executive vice president of AIA Chicago for the past eight years. This year he’ll play booster as the AIA National Convention comes to Chicago June 26–28.

UP FRONT

Guest Editor Zurich Esposito

Zurich Esposito has plenty on his plate. The executive vice president of AIA Chicago has been helping plan the 2014 AIA National Convention for almost a year. The popular annual event will bring an expected 20,000 architects, product manufacturers, and policy makers to Chicago this summer, and there are tours to map, parties to plan, and, most importantly, a city to show off.

But Chicago isn’t a hard sell for Esposito, whose glassed-in office in the 1920s-era Jewelers Building overlooks the Chicago River. He grew up in Hinsdale, just outside the city, and now lives in a 100-year-old foursquare in the historic Ravenswood Manor neighborhood. He earned a masters degree in historic preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, serves as board president of the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association, and helped oversee the latest edition of the AIA Guide to Chicago, which will be released this month by the University of Illinois Press.

As guest editor, Esposito helped us select six of Chicago’s most inspired work spaces—most of which received an AIA Chicago design award in 2013—for our cover story, “The City That Works” (p. 84). In addition, he and I met up at the AIA office to discuss the ever controversial open office concept, the rise of the linear park, Chicago’s global reputation, and much more. —Timothy A. Schuler, Managing Editor

IN CONVERSATION with Zurich Esposito

PART 1: NEW AND OPEN OFFICES gb&d: You moved into your new space in the Jewelers Building shortly after you became executive vice president. Where was the old office?

Zurich Esposito: We had a really beautiful space in the Merchandise Mart. We had been there about fifteen years, and the board felt that it was time to make a spatial change for the organization. We had done a member survey and found that a very small percentage of our members were taking advantage of the space—coming to programs, having meetings, things like that. So we thought maybe a new space would make a difference, and it really has. One of the things we did was involve our members in the design of the space by holding a young architect competition. gb&d: Right. I read about that. How do you feel the design has stood up?

Esposito: Oddly well. I can’t say I went into that process thinking it would be easy. I thought it would be much easier to engage a firm with whom we already had an existing relationship, and we had a lot of firms willing to donate their services to design the space for us. That to me seemed like a great route because there were really exceptional firms raising their hands. But our board felt it was really important to create an opportunity for emerging architects. So we did an international competition. We had a really distinguished jury, including Jeanne Gang and John Ronan, and selected a group of four young people, a few of whom were working for HOK at the time, so HOK was the architect of record.

Zurich Esposito helped create our short list for the AIA Chicago workplace design feature, curated our Editor’s Picks, selected this issue’s three Project Spotlights, and much more.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT 1. Six Chicago workspaces, p. 84 2. SCB’s urban greenhouse, p. 164 3. The office of 2050, p. 189 4. Esposito on the spot, p. 192 5. A healing hospital, p. 170 6. New life from old bones, p. 157

gb&d: Was sustainability a consideration at the time?

Esposito: Yes. Not to distill it to whether or not the space is LEED certified, but as one measurement of sustainability, it was imThe conversation continues on p. 17

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UP FRONT

Editor’s Picks Timeless Chicago Text by Zurich Esposito

▲ HISTORIC CHICAGO BUNGALOW ASSOCIATION Making energy-efficiency improvements available to everyday homeowners, the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association has distributed thousands of weatherization grants to low- and moderate-income homeowners in Chicago. Using targeted outreach strategies, the HCBA assists hard-to-reach bungalow owners, who often need the tools for energy savings the most. chicagobungalow.org

▲ INTUIT

t h i r d edi t ion

▲ 1871 By pushing the concept of the collaborative office environment to new heights, 1871 makes us forget about the plain, anonymous, and, frankly, sad shared spaces that came before. Nestled in the Merchandise Mart, Chicago’s design Mecca, the Gensler-designed workspace for digital designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs is an inspiration to the start-ups that use it and gives me plenty of ideas. Spaces modeled after 1871 are sprouting up in cities across the country.

1871.com

a m e r i ca n i n s t i t ut e of a r ch i t ect s c hica go Edited by Alice Sinkevitch & Laurie McGovern Petersen

▲ AIA GUIDE TO CHICAGO, THIRD EDITION From the city that brought us the skyscraper comes the latest edition of an undisputed go-to reference.

This indispensible guide to Chicago’s architectural treasures—big and small, new and old—includes critical essays on buildings like Studio Gang’s Aqua Tower (which graces the cover) and provides a balanced appraisal of this architecture capital’s stock. aiachicago.org

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As a nonprofit organization and gallery dedicated to presenting self-taught and outsider art, Intuit’s fantastic exhibits include works by untrained geniuses whose ability to transform found materials and objects into mind-boggling works of art is nothing short of miraculous.

A new façade, designed by Jeanne Gang, will extend across the museum’s street front on North Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago in 2014. www.art.org

CROSSOFT As part of the Haworth Collection, the simple lines of the Crossoft chair, designed by architect Piero Lissoni and manufactured by Cappellini, look right now and forever. haworth.com

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JUNE 9 -11, 2014

NeoCon is North America’s largest design exposition and conference for commercial interiors.

The Merchandise Mart

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Chicago

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NeoCon.com

UP FRONT

Notebook Dispatch from Taipei

When editor-in-chief Christopher Howe and I were invited to attend TIGIS 2013, a green building industry expo colocated with Building Taiwan, this past October, we boarded a plane to Taipei not knowing what to expect. The event officially opened with Peter W. J. Huang, president and CEO of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, and Kitty Wong, president of the Expo Union Corporation, addressing the media. The depth and breadth of sustainability work going on in the region was immediately apparent. The excitement was tangible as they shared evidence of the green economy’s growth in Taiwan.

As one of the most important green industry exhibitions in Taiwan, the TIGIS expo floor was filled with influential leaders. We met with a number of them, our conversations ranging from wind-energy policy with the Taiwan Small & Medium Wind Turbine Association to smarter energy-management systems with Panasonic Taiwan. We also stopped at the city’s booths where we learned about the Taipei City Government as well as the New Taipei City Government’s involvement in helping the city transition to adopting more sustainable practices. Among its accomplishments are the YouBike system, a bike-share program established by the Department of Transportation, and its campaign, in partnership with the Taiwan Design Center, to vie for the next World Design Capital title in 2016.

The Taiwan International Smart Green City Summit, also held in conjunction with the expo, focused on other important urban issues, specifically the impact created by rapid global urbanization.

Seeking smart solutions that rely on sustainability principles, we heard from key voices in the discussion: Tracye McDaniel, president of Choose New Jersey; Andrew Leung, president of Hong Kongbased Asian Institute of Intelligent Buildings; Stanley Yip, director of planning and development at ARUP; and Damian Tang, president of Singapore’s Institute of Landscape Architects.

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IN THIS ISSUE Check out green hotels in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and beyond on p. 56

Further emphasizing that the week was the culmination of the region’s green industry, the 2014 Eco-Products International Fair held a pre-show press conference, months before its event, presenting information on growing green markets, and identifying opportunities to expand green trade and cooperation in Taiwan.

TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL GREEN INDUSTRY SHOW The fifth annual Taiwan International Green Industry Show (TIGIS), which showcases achievements in green products and services, will take place October 6-9, at the Taiwan World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall.

The trade show—held concurrently with the Taiwan International Smart Green City Expo (Building Taiwan) and the Taiwan International Photovoltaic Exhibition (PV Taiwan)—will feature more than 180 exhibitors focusing on renewable energy, wind power systems, water technology, eco-friendly equipment, fuel-saving electric vehicles, plant factories, smart buildings, and total solutions for green city-planning.

Taiwan International Green Industry Show October 6-9, Taipei, Taiwan, greentaiwan.tw

Outside of the conference, we sat down with 3M Taiwan to take a deeper look at its sustainability initiatives. Paul Kim, its managing director, and Jack Xiong, the country’s technical leader, provided us with some insight into many of the corporation’s core initiatives including the new, state-of-the-art 3M Research and Development Center, which was designed as a showcase for sustainable solutions. This effort, along with its Water Citizen Campaign, which helps encourage water conservation in Taiwan, shows that 3M and other companies in the region are moving the small country’s green economy forward.

Overall, the trip gave us a wealth of insight into the environmental innovations, technologies, companies, and global partnerships in Taiwan. Because of shows like TIGIS and Building Taiwan, Taiwan’s green economy will only continue to improve and gain further international recognition. gb&d Laura Heidenreich is a LEED Green Associate and serves as the associate publisher of gb&d. Reach her at laura@gbdmagazine.com.

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UP FRONT

Coming Up Industry Events

IN CONVERSATION with Zurich Esposito Continued from p. 13

portant to our board—I think they started out saying, “Make sure the space is LEED certifiable.” Then it was, “Make sure the space is LEED Silver.” And then they said, “The space has to be LEED Gold.” So of course it is.

There’s the plaque (points). gb&d: Are there workplace design trends you think are particularly interesting?

Lightfair International June 1–5, Las Vegas lightfair.com

NeoCon June 9-11, Chicago neocon.com

BOMA Every Building Conference & Expo June 22–24, Orlando, FL bomaconvention.org

AIA National Convention June 26–28, Chicago convention.aia.org

Each year, design and building professionals from more than 70 countries flock to Lightfair, the lighting industry’s biggest trade show. The 25th anniversary of the show will feature more than 500 exhibitors showcasing cutting-edge technologies, products, and design; more than 200 hours of accredited courses; and an array of networking events so you can meet like-minded professionals from around the world.

The website even provides a justification letter template so you can convince your employer.

For 46 years, NeoCon has been the premier platform for learning and connecting in the commercial interiors market. The largest such show in North America, it typically boasts 40,000 attendees. This year, it will feature more than 700 exhibits and 100 seminars, association forums, and keynote presentations that showcase leading industry and business experts.

Taking place at Chicago’s noted Merchandise Mart, the three-day show will cover the spectrum of vertical commercial interior markets and offer sustainable furnishings for corporate offices, educational spaces, healthcare, and more.

If you own or manage a building, you should be involved in the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), which presents its 2014 Every Building Conference & Expo in June. Sessions offer opportunities to increase your knowledge and earn continuing education credits, and more than 400 exhibits provide access to a range of products and services that can help you increase efficiencies, save money, and drive up your property values. Networking receptions and special events provide opportunities to expand and strengthen your professional relationships.

For architects, change is inevitable, both individually and as a collective—and with that change comes the power to influence society. Where better to learn the skills necessary to be a part of the new guard than at the AIA convention? The convention will offer more than 100 seminars led by the industry’s leading architects and design professionals, allowing attendees to tailor their education experience to their needs and interests. Don’t miss the opening keynote address from Jeanne Gang, principal of Studio Gang Architects in Chicago.

Esposito: What’s interesting is the dialogue about the pros and cons of an open office.

That dialogue just continues. An open office fosters collaboration. It just does. As a staff, I think we learn a lot more from each other, whether it’s by overhearing each other’s conversations or by being able to easily chat with each other between assignments.

There’s just a lot more interaction in this space than in our old space where we all had private offices. gb&d: We just moved into an open office too. It’s been interesting. The debate has been embodied within our own staff. As you know, in our conversation with Angela Nahikian from Steelcase (p. 116), she mentions the increasing importance of a variety of spaces—open spaces and private enclosures.

Especially as work becomes more mobile.

Esposito: What I hear from employers right now, especially in our industry, is that while there are a lot of individuals to hire, there aren’t a lot of great individuals to hire. So there’s a lot of competition for the best people. When you’re a group that maybe can’t pay top dollar, you don’t have to have a high-end environment, but it has to be a well-designed environment to impress potential employees.

PART 2: TWO HIDDEN TREASURES gb&d: Do you have a favorite place in the city? A place that you really enjoy being in?

Esposito: There’s a park I like to show people. It’s Indian Boundary Park, I don’t know if you know where that is. gb&d: Up in Rogers Park?

Esposito: Yeah. It’s mostly passive landscape, and by passive I mean there are no ball fields or courts of any kind—there are a couple tennis courts—but it’s mostly landscape, a lovely fieldhouse based on a residential model, and until recently there was even a small zoo. It really is an oasis in a The conversation continues on p. 21

gb&d

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UP FRONT

In Profile Adam Bearup

30ft

Depth of one of the underground domes in Bearup’s Earth Shelter Project Michigan

72°

As a teen, Adam Bearup spent hours designing houses just because that’s what he enjoyed doing, never realizing that he was preparing for his future as The Hybrid Home Guy, a moniker he embraced at age 27 when he founded a company by the same name.

Bearup is now considered one of the leading sustainable builders in the country, known for working on “crazy, impossible projects,” as he likes to describe them, like Earth Shelter Project Michigan. At 12,000 square feet, the earth shelter is the largest in the world, and it is totally off the grid. Bearup chronicled the challenges of building the structure in a series of Web videos that was eventually turned into the PBS documentary Sheltered: Underground and Off the Grid.

Bearup also built the first-ever LEED Platinum log

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ABOVE Adam Bearup is photographed in the Downtown Market Grand Rapids in Michigan, which features a huge rooftop greenhouse, living wall, and sustainably sourced materials.

home in America and Michigan’s most energy-efficient home ever tested, and he is the author of Build Green, Make Green, Save Green: A Practical Guide for Environmentally-Responsible Home Building.

You could say that Bearup was born into a green lifestyle, although that is not exactly what his family called it. “We just called it making due,” Bearup says of his family, who also lives in Michigan. Bearup’s mother cooked meals from scratch, recycled, and refused to let her kids drink groundwater from where they lived because of the existence of a local chemical company.

“Growing up, people looked at us like we were different, and I guess we were,” Bearup says. “Sometimes I didn’t want to be different. I wanted to eat McDonalds like my friends, but now I’m grateful for the way I gbdmagazine.com

PHOTO: SAMANTHA SIMMONS

Average temperature of Earth Shelter Project Michigan during winter months without any supplemental heating

UP FRONT

Tomorrow’s Home Today As featured in the Hybrid Home Guy article

was raised. It prepared me for adulthood, like when I was painted as the oddball in the town meeting trying to get approval for wind generators in a little town in Michigan.”

The builder’s push to bring wind generators to Michigan is what put him on the map, which led to Bearup appearing on CNN and getting written about in newspapers nationwide. He says it was great to get recognition for work he loved so dearly. When he’s not building a house, he’s drawing a house, and when he’s not doing either of those things, it’s because he’s on a plane heading toward a speaking engagement where he will discuss building houses.

“The way I do things might not make a lot of business sense—like not charging a dime for projects until I’m sure they’ll work—but it’s what works for me.”

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However, after an onslaught of attention, Bearup says he began to hate his work. He began taking any job that came his way. With 20 employees, the builder felt the pressure of providing a steady stream of work, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore. Bearup knew he had to go back to the roots of his company or risk leaving the industry in which he had become a pioneer.

The Hybrid Home Guy originally began with the goal of only taking on projects no one else would, projects that reflected Bearup’s commitment to sustainability.

“I worked with a smaller team, and I went back to exclusively working on my wild projects,” Bearup says, “and I fell in love again. The way I do things might not make a lot of business sense—like not charging a dime for projects until I’m sure they’ll work—but it’s what works for me. It’s my ethical responsibility to build insane projects that are ethical to the Earth and to treat the people who hire me ethically—it’s what makes me happy. It’s why I get out of bed every day. When I stop wanting to get out of bed to do this work, I’ll quit.”

— Tina Vasquez gb&d See more from The Hybrid Home Guy in our iPad edition or at gbdmagazine.com. Learn more about Downtown Market Grand Rapids at downtownmarketgr.com.

gb&d

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may–june 2014

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UP FRONT

Defined Design New Orleans Bioinnovation Center

DETAILS LOCATION New Orleans Size 65,500 ft2 Completed 2011 Architect Eskew+Dumez+Ripple Certification LEED Gold

Architecture can do one of two things: promote the status quo, or alter the paradigm. The LEED Gold New Orleans Bioinnovation Center falls definitively into the latter category. Designed by New Orleans-based architecture firm Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, the $38 million, 65,500-square-foot biotech building serves as a foundational project for an emergent biomedical district in the city. We chose three words that define the game-changing project.

By Benjamin van Loon

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habitable (ˈha-bə-tə-bəl) adjective Suitable or fit to live in. The story of the building began in 2002 with project planning. Hurricane Katrina stalled the construction timeline, and the work couldn’t resume until years after the devastating storm, with full project completion in 2011. The center revitalizes the job market and the land by making a former brownfield site habitable for future development.

subtropical (,səb-‘trä-pi-kəl) adjective Relating to or living in an area that is close to tropical parts of the world. Because New Orleans is in a subtropical climate with an annual rainfall of 62 inches, stormwater management was a priority.

The building can handle 90 percent of rainfall on-site through rainwater harvesting, biofiltration, soil recharge, and harvested moisture from interior dehumidification.

gbdmagazine.com

PHOTOS: TIMOTHY HURSLEY (EXTERIOR), WILL CROCKER

A metal sunscreen on the building’s front façade reduces solar heat gain, energy use, and the effects of severe storms.

UP FRONT

IN CONVERSATION with Zurich Esposito Continued from p. 17

charming neighborhood that most people would not happen upon in their own typical experience of Chicago. gb&d: Do you remember the first time you came across it?

Esposito: I think probably around 1995—no, no, not that late. Probably around 1990.

Shortly after graduating from college. And then later I was able to write the National Register nomination for it, so I got to know it a little more intimately.

“It probably won’t have the impact of the High Line, but I do think [the 606] is a great way of looking at space from a different perspective.” gb&d: Did you ever spend time on the Bloomingdale Trail, or the 606, I guess, before they began construction?

Esposito: Yes, but really limited. That’s going to be an interesting development. It probably won’t have the impact of the High Line, but I do think it’s a great way of looking at space from a different perspective and creating wonderful experiences for the public in unexpected ways. gb&d: Certainly. There are inevitably going to be comparisons [to the High Line], but they’re not necessarily worth making. There are linear parks sprouting up in almost every major city, and that’s only to be applauded— Esposito: It is. And they did this in Paris a long time ago, so I was even a little surprised by the High Line’s… gb&d: Prestige.

biotechnology (ˌbī-ō-tek-‘nä-lə-jē) noun The use of living cells, bacteria, etc., to make useful products. As a bioinnovation lab in an emergent biotechnology district, the functional program of the building is mirrored in its design with ample daylighting, a stormwater-fed water feature, recycled glass, multifunctional interior spaces, and a courtyard.

Esposito: As if it’s so revolutionary. And yet the High Line is totally impressive. The economic impact it’s had in the development of the area adjacent to it is almost mind-boggling. gb&d: I don’t remember who first told me about [the Bloomingdale Trail], but it was soon after we moved to Chicago. There were access points at Ashland and farther west that were pretty easy, and you could The conversation continues on p. 22

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UP FRONT

IN CONVERSATION with Zurich Esposito Continued from p. 21

get up there and walk or run along it. But the closer it came to being totally open, they put up razor wire and all sorts of things, and it became really difficult [to access]. For the most part, I’ve been really excited by the plans I’ve seen, but I take the Blue Line to work every day, which passes right over it, and seeing it all torn up, there’s a certain sadness because it was very wild.

Esposito: Right, it was very natural. But then so was the High Line. What do you think of the name? gb&d: The 606?

Esposito: I don’t get it. gb&d: I thought the Bloomingdale Trail was a really charming name.

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AIA 2014 CONVENTION Get the scoop on this year’s AIA National Convention as it comes to Chicago, and make sure to sign up for the Dining + Design PechaKucha event at Martyr’s Pub to meet the whole gb&d team! To sign up, visit convention.aia.org. gbdmagazine.com search: AIA

Esposito: I thought there had been enough recognition built up for that name. The 606?

That could apply to anything.

PART 3: DEFINING CHICAGO gb&d: I was struck by something Colin Dyer, the CEO of Jones Lang LaSalle, said in an interview with the Chicago Grid, [the Sun-Times’] business magazine. He said, “In some ways, Chicago’s got an unclear image from people who haven’t been here or worked here. New York’s the financial center of the US and arguably the world. Boston has a tremendous educational center, which grew into a tech center. San Francisco has technology and Silicon Valley. Houston has energy. Chicago needs that clarity.” Do you agree?

gb&d: If you look at New York and Los Angeles as two extremes but also as two similar cities in terms of how overwhelming they can be, what Chicago does offer is attractive to the people who are not attracted to those types of places. But because of that, it’s almost a non-characteristic we’re looking for.

BEHIND THE SCENES Angela Nahikian does yoga, Jeanne Gang takes a reading break, and Robert Benson Instagrams himself getting his photo taken. To get in on all the behindthe-scenes fun, download the free iPad edition from the App Store or head to our pages on Facebook and Instagram.

EXTENDED INTERVIEW Did you enjoy the conversation with AIA Chicago’s Zurich Esposito? There’s more!

Including the inside scoop on the making of the new AIA Guide to Chicago. gbdmagazine.com search: Esposito

The conversation continues on p. 183

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gbdmagazine.com

PHOTOS: SAMANTHA SIMMONS

Esposito: I largely agree. For people who are familiar with Chicago or live in Chicago, I think our image seems fairly ingrained.

I’d like to think Chicago is well known for architecture and design, but I think it’s really well known for architecture and design by people who have experienced the city. More can be done hopefully to align our image with that characteristic in the future.

GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

gb&d

24 Healthier Home Bases for Firefighters

Kirkpatrick Architecture Studio promotes wellness with the firehouse

25 A Home for ‘Aging in Place’

H.L. Turner Group constructs a net-zero home designed for a lifetime

27 Building in Wetland Protection

A Pensacola State College master plan incorporates Florida’s natural bogs

29 Modern Healthcare with a Historic Touch

Victory Healthcare plans an office that will help build a neighborhood

30 New Home for Healthy House Institute

The green-homebuilding website constructs a home base in Idaho

32 Kum & Go Greens the Gas Station

How LEED Volume program streamlined the national gas station

34 Modular Solutions for Natural Disasters

Proteus Design Company uses its modular Flex System to help Haiti

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APPROACH DESIGN

Healthier home bases for firefighters  Kirkpatrick Architecture Studio turns to LEED standards to promote wellness among Texas and Oklahoma’s first responder Sustainable fire stations in Texas and Oklahoma are spreading like wildfire.

Look no further than the portfolio of Dallas-based Kirkpatrick Architecture Studio.

The firm has designed several LEED-certified fire stations in the Dallas area and others near its Norman, Oklahoma, office.

Denton Station No. 7, the first LEED Gold fire station in Texas, was completed in 2007, and Norman Station No. 8, completed in 2011, was the Oklahoma’s first LEED fire station, and two newer stations await certification.

“There has been an increasing emphasis on the health and well-being of firefighters,” says David Robinson, managing director at Kirkpatrick Architecture. “The effects of the interior environment are

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more pronounced than in an office. Even though they are smaller in size compared to most other municipal buildings, these are the places where firefighters spend a third of their lives—on 24-hour shifts— including eating, sleeping, and working out. Also, the 24/7 nature of fire stations also means there is a pronounced need for energy efficiency.” The key drivers are operating cost containment and wellness, and it doesn’t hurt that both Denton and Norman have universities that help embed an environmental mindset into the community.

How are health and well-being achieved? It’s been heavily documented by many studies over several decades that worker productivity, lower absen-

Fire Station No. 8 in Norman, OK, features local materials, native landscaping, and tubular skylights.

As a result, the structure uses 29% less energy than a similar building.

teeism, and reduced fatigue as well as overall health are enhanced with natural daylighting. The design of the Norman fire station includes tubular daylighting, which transfers sunlight to interior rooms, including the bays where fire truck maintenance takes place. In all stations, the facilities’ fitness rooms are prominent features, answering a nationally documented problem associated with firefighting: cardiac disease. The US Fire Administration division of FEMA conducts national programs to promote fitness, which is more likely to occur with an onsite gym.

The less visual components of these green buildings are no less meaningful. Because the Portion of interior Texas-Oklahoma space in Denton Fire Station No. 7 that has climate includes exterior views long, hot summers, a tight building envelope and high-efficiency cooling systems are key components of the buildings. In Gallons of water collDenton, the use of ected by each of the geothermal pumps four cisterns at Denton Fire Station No. 7 and efficient light-

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APPROACH

“There has been an increasing emphasis on the health and well-being of firefighters.

These are the places where [they] spend a third of their lives.”

David Robinson, Kirkpatrick Architecture Studio

ing translates into 35 percent less energy use for a comparable 15,000-square-foot, four-bay fire station. Norman’s three-bay station uses daylight sensors to dim lights in the apparatus bay.

On water use, both certified facilities are stingy; Norman No. 8 is landscaped with native plants that require no irrigation, and at Denton No. 7, four corrugated steel cisterns each collect 5,400 gallons from the building’s roof for landscaping use. Domestic water consumption is further reduced by 40 percent at both locations with low-flow plumbing fixtures.

Eighty-five percent of carpet content in Norman is from recycled plastic and glass.

Robinson notes that in addition to the demands of similar “wear and tear” facilities, firehouses cannot be constructed with uncertain-performance components. “Failure is bad,” he says. “We are far less likely to test new products in a fire station because these are buildings that enhance public safety. Everything in the design has to facilitate that.” In addition, fire stations in this region of the country

require safe rooms, where reinforced concrete walls protect first responders in violent weather—Norman served as a major command center during extremely destructive tornadoes in 2013 in nearby Moore, Oklahoma.

A third sustainable fire station, also in Norman and designed by Kirkpatrick Architecture, opened in September 2013 and is pursuing LEED certification with geothermal HVAC, sophisticated lighting controls, and stormwater controls. Yet another station, Denton No. 2, is in the design phase, and designers plan to incorporate geothermal, photovoltaic solar panels, storm-water discharge, and, of course, a tight building envelope.

Under the close budgetary scrutiny of smaller-sized cities, the decision to seek LEED certification is not necessarily an obvious one, but Robinson says it “provides assurance that we can control the green aspects on the construction side. There is a shared vision of what we are aiming for. LEED provides a communications tool so shortcuts aren’t taken.”

To fiscally responsible city managers, that presumably is the spark of smart building. gb&d —Russ Klettke The more residential design of Fire Station No. 9 (below) helps it blend in to the neighborhood while sunshades and deep overhangs reduce solar heat gain. Denton No. 7 (left) uses no potable water for irrigation.

gb&d

A home for ‘aging in place’  H.L. Turner Group completes a net-zero cottage that meets a lifetime’s worth of needs Like many architects, Harold Turner became interested in sustainable design in the early 1980s after the energy crisis.

In 2007, he took that interest a step further and began to look for a parcel of land that would allow him to build a prototype for what he considered a truly sustainable home.

His company, H.L. Turner Group, recently completed the Rose Cottage in Concord, New Hampshire, which is a testament to the idea that LEED certification, however admirable, isn’t the end-all-be-all of sustainable building. “The idea of going net zero five years ago was outrageous in most circles, but I personally thought it was the future of all things green,” Turner says.

The 4,100-square-foot residence sits on a nearly nine-acre lot along the shoreline of Turtle Pond, but the site offered just more than two acres of buildable land (the rest consists of a conservation easement).

In response, project architect David Hart situated the cottage on multiple levels of the natural sloping terrain with the main views facing northwest toward the pond.

Achieving net-zero energy is a long process that starts with energy reduction.

“You first have to ask, ‘How little energy can I use?’” Turner says. “Then it becomes a question of how you generate what power you need with renewables.” Hart insulated the envelope of the home with R40 upper walls, R27 ICF lower walls, and R60 roofs, and he carefully selected doors and windows to reduce leakage and may–june 2014

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APPROACH DESIGN

With 0.6 air changes per hour at 50 Pascals, the home’s air leakage rate meets Passive House’s stringent standards.

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placed them to take advantage of natural lighting. Heating and cooling are provided by two Bosch ground-source heat pumps connected to a horizontal ground loop system. Together, these systems work to allow the residents of the cottage to create both warm and cool spaces.

Perhaps most notable is the home’s photovoltaic system by BP Solar. All of the electric power consumed in the house and for the outdoor spa is generated by the panels, which cover the south side of the detached carriage-style garage. Yet, the panels don’t dominate the home’s exterior. “One of the hardest things to do when using solar to generate power is making it look attractive,” Turner says. The team placed the nine Buderus Logasol SKS 4.0 panels, which, in conjunction with a Seisco on-demand water heater, provide hot water, on the roof of the home. The 60 photovoltaic panels, on the other hand, were mounted on the roof of the detached garage. “Because the panels are the same size as the roof, after a while they appear to be one and the same,” Turner says.

Equally important to the project’s green goals, the home has been designed around the concept of multigenerational living, making the house suited to the lifetime of the homeowner. Turner says the idea of “aging in place” is necessary as the marketplace demands more options for in-home care, whether provided by family members or hired caregivers.

The home suits the needs of one family through multiple generations, with an upper level that can be used as a primary residence and a lower level that can be transformed into an in-law or caregiver suite. The house specifically accommodates wheelchairs, with 36-inch-wide doors (34 for pocket doors), and there is no step down from the interior space to the three-season room. Wheelchair ramps can be added later to transition the eightinch differential height from the home’s interior to the exterior rear deck. “People who don’t have homes designed to accomgbdmagazine.com

APPROACH

“You first have to ask, ‘How little energy can I use?’ Then it becomes a question of how you generate what power you need with renewables.”

Harold Turner, H.L. Turner Group

modate the aging of the population have difficulties incorporating those changes later, so we wanted to address it as more than an afterthought,” Turner says.

Creating a net-zero home is always a challenging task, but the additional requirements of the “aging in place” concept made the project exceptionally difficult, Turner says. Still, Hart was able to complete the home at a construction cost of $175 per square foot, including all renewable technologies. In Turner’s words, “This project takes the long-term investment of a sustainable home and adds even more value by including a multigeneration-use layout and incorporating ‘aging in place’ features.” gb&d —Julie Schaeffer

PHOTO: SHAWN SANDUSKY (PENSACOLA)

Building in wetland protection

the first place. Which is why educational conscious of the wetland and discussed institutions such as Pensacola State Colit as an educational feature,” says Larry lege have begun taking wetland preservaAdams Jr., an associate partner with the firm. “Situated between the academic tion into account when expanding their buildings, access roads, and US Highway campuses.

98, the bogs create a buffer.”

Designed by Pensacola-based architecStill, with surface parking and four ture firm Bullock Tice Associates (BTA), planned structures, stormwater runoff in the college’s South Santa Rosa Center the hurricane-prone location needed to campus master plan calls for four buildbe managed. BTA added stormwater retenings to eventually be built on property donated from an estate in Gulf Breeze, tion ponds that employ a filtering system Florida. About half the acreage is covered for overflow. Due to the natural clay, that with bogs—a type of isolated wetland water does not drain and is instead harunderlined with natural clay that blocks vested for landscape irrigation. Fountains percolation—and populated by stub-knee in each of the two ponds provide necescypress trees and a salamander species sary aeration as well as a visual treat for unique to the region. Isolated bogs, students and faculty. Should a dry spell not fed by other water sources, are not occur, the campus will draw greywater regulated by the state, but one of the bogs off a nearby reclaimed water treatment on-site drains into the Santa Rosa Sound facility, eliminating any need for potable on the Gulf of Mexico, making it subject water to be used for landscaping. to state EPA protections. Thus, Pensacola In addition to nature-sensitive siting, State’s master plan and first building, the first campus building is a LEED completed in 2013, take into account its Gold-certified structure with features that distinct natural landscape. nod to other environmental Rather than look upon concerns. The building enveFlorida has 11.4 these wetlands as developmenlope is tight—air-conditioning million acres of is typically used 12 months of tal hindrances, BTA treated wetlands, so this the year here—and efficient them as assets. “The school academic buildlighting fixtures that include administrators were very ing in Gulf Breeze uses its surrounding wetlands as a teaching tool.

 Bullock Tice Associates’ master plan for Pensacola State College considers the area’s unique bogs an educational and environmental asset Rapid population growth in Florida has resumed post-recession, but building to accommodate that growth threatens some of the natural land features that make the Sunshine State so attractive in gb&d

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APPROACH DESIGN

“Situated between the academic buildings, access roads, and US Highway 98, the bogs create a buffer.”

Larry Adams Jr., Bullock Tice Associates

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sensors and timers are used throughout the 32,000-square-foot, two-story facility.

A strategic use of all that sunshine is the lynchpin to how this building works so well as a teaching facility. Deeply inset windows allow larger sun exposures, contributing to less electrical energy consumption but also providing the psychological benefits attributed to natural light. To mitigate the hottest sunshine in summer months and control the amount of light that enters, exterior solar shading devices were incorporated into the window wells. “Direct sunlight would be too much,” says Johnny Fortune, BTA’s expert on building information modeling (BIM), who employed sun-tracking software to set the angles and depths of the window shades.

Two shades adorn each window, positioned midway and three-quarters up on each window instead of protruding awning-like, as seen on many other buildings. “This allows the building overall to look more collegiate,” Adams says, adding that they are also less vulnerable in storms. As an added benefit, they bounce sunlight off interior ceilings, providing an indirect lighting source to students and faculty.

Interior materials and finishes made of recycled content include structural steel, the foundation, and carpeting. One type of floor tile used, EcoCycle by Crossville, contains an antimicrobial material and is dust resistant, which reduces the amount of cleaning required.

During the construction phase in Pensacola, the wetlands and mature trees were barricaded and buffered for protection, and heavy vehicles followed prescribed routes to minimize damage to the natural landscape. After heavy rainfalls, state officials inspected the site to ensure that runoff did not affect the natural wetlands. They found that the salamanders survived and might serve as a teaching tool for generations of students to come. gb&d —Russ Klettke gbdmagazine.com

APPROACH DEVELOPMENT

Modern healthcare with a historic touch  Victory Healthcare’s new medical center in Fort Worth delivers more efficient care without the carbon footprint  The 200-person LEED Gold facility attracts more mixed-use development attention to high-efficiency glazing. Curtis In June 2013, Victory Healthcare broke ground on its 105,000-square-foot, LEED Group Architects, the project’s core-andGold medical facility and offices in Fort shell architect, performed extensive modWorth, Texas. Intended to create a worldeling and calculations to determine the class healthcare facility and spur the best exterior materials and the building’s revitalization of the city’s South Main solar orientation. As a hospital, ensuring neighborhood, the project looks to heal the building has a tight envelope and not only residents, but also the communiefficient mechanical and HVAC systems was critical to its future performance. The ty itself. building’s largest energy saver is its roofBy bringing in more than 200 employees, the company has created a need for top HVAC unit that will use energy from key services and amenities close to the exhaust air to pretreat outside air. site. When the project was announced, The Forth Worth location will be Vicnumerous developers latched on to the tory’s largest to date and includes eight vision of a new South Main and have operating rooms, 24 patient rooms, seven announced mixed-use buildings so that dedicated ICU rooms, an on-site imaging the community can become a place center, and a restaurant-quality cafeteria. where people can live, eat, work, and “Patients are guests,” says Kirsten Cavaplay. Nonprofit organizations such as Fort ness, Victory’s director of construction.

Worth South aided the effort by providing “We are not like a typical hospital. [We] offer the comforts and hospitality of a historical resources and a vision for the hotel and a level of care that is area, informed by people with second-to-none. The ability to a vested interest.

A copper cupola provide that care starts with With notoriously hot on the new medithe design and construction of summers, temperature and cal center honors our facility.” This includes VIP humidity control are crucial Fort Worth’s archipatient rooms, which will have for any building in Texas, so tectural history. enhanced LED lighting and the Victory team paid special gb&d

spa-like bathrooms; those along Pennsylvania Avenue will have balconies. Large windows provide views of fountains and landscaping full of native plants.

The project site lent itself to a linear design, making it difficult to give all rooms—even operating rooms—windows.

Yet windows were important for both patient rooms, to deliver on Victory’s promise to create hotel-like spaces, and operating rooms, where windows can reduce the need for energy-intensive smoke-evacuation systems. Just adding windows obviated the need for an additional ventilation system.

In an effort to honor the area’s history in an environmentally sensitive way, the team used locally sourced materials that echo the look of the area’s early 20th century architecture. Victory CEO Bob Helms drove up and down the streets of Fort Worth to help shape his vision for the new facility, and he was heavily influenced by the historic Sundance Square and surrounding architecture. In the end, Helms and company chose to base the design of the building’s main Square footage of tower on that of Victory’s new medical the historic St. center in Fort Worth Joseph Hospital.

Furthering its commitment to the community, the medical center’s art gallery will display the work of Fort Worth artisans. Creating a space for local artists to showcase their work was important to Victory, who had done a similar project—albeit on a smaller scale—in the lobby of its Beaumont location. Being neighborhood-friendly also translated to finding quieter, less intrusive generators and reducing the facility’s overall carbon footprint. “Being a green builder,” Cavaness says, “and a good neighbor are interrelated.” gb&d —Christopher James Palafox

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APPROACH DEVELOPMENT

The new home creates a concrete example of the practices the organization preaches and proves that a green, healthy home can be affordable and obtainable.

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New home for Healthy House Institute  The Boise-based educator partners with Earthcraft Construction to build a budget- and energy-friendly headquarters The Healthy House Institute (HHI) is partnering with design-build firm Earthcraft Construction to build the educational organization’s new headquarters in Boise, Idaho’s Salome Terrace subdivision. It also will be HHI president Allen Rathey’s personal residence. Serving as a pilot project, Rathey and his wife are looking to “walk the talk” of living green by downsizing into the 1,800-square-foot home, certified by Energy Star and the EPA’s Indoor airPLUS. The home is a physical representation of HHI, an educational organization and website dedicated to providing consumers with information to make their homes healthier. “Websites are wonderful,” Rathey says, “but they’re not tangible.”

The new home creates a concrete example of the practices the organization preaches and proves that a green, healthy home can be affordable and obtainable to a wide demographic. “We wanted to do it right, but we didn’t have a fortune to invest,” Rathey says.

After interviewing numerous builders, Rathey connected with Mark L. Hixson, the president of Boise-based Earthcraft Construction who has more than 30 years of experience building green homes. For Rathey, the key to making green homes accessible to all budgets is partnering with a design-build firm that is aware of

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sustainable practices but is also willing mum solar heat gain in the winter and to work with clients on limited budgets. reduced exposure in the summer. The sun Earthcraft and the home’s project managis meant to heat the home’s concrete floor slab, which is insulated underneath so er, Hans Glenn, who is also Idaho’s LEED absorbed energy doesn’t escape into the for Homes advocate, designed a concept Earth. The home also features myriad edthat allowed the couple to build a healthy residence for the cost of a conventional ible plants and fruit trees in its landscapspec home in the Boise metro area with ing as well as drought-tolerant plants and the idea that it would spur similar conwater-efficient irrigation practices.

The Ratheys are relatively new to the struction in the area. world of sustainability, having acquired The team installed ductless, minithe HHI intellectual property as recently split heat pumps—which are both more as 2008 from founders John and Lynn efficient and healthier—a solar hot-water Bower. Rathey says the Bowers were piosystem, and a backup tankless water-heating unit that regulates incoming water. neers in the industry, founding the comWater treatment and filtration systems, pany in 1992 as a publishing company, which employ reverse osmosis, help save producing materials that promote healthy on heating costs, reduce detergent use, construction and a healthy lifestyle. Now preserve appliances, and most importantthat legacy lives on digitally through the HHI website. ly, save the residents money. In addition, With a background in cleaning and energy-efficient windows from Page’s facilities, Rathey’s route to HHI and Windows in Meridian, Idaho, maximize sustainability was nontraditional, but performance; advanced framing provides after creating several Web-based entities more insulation per inch; and a heat centered on healthy facilities and cleansrecovery ventilator balances saves energy through an aluminum-core transfer proing the indoor environment, he acquired HHI. Rathey believed strongly that health cess while providing fresh air. came first, then green, before coming to The largest energy saver may be the the realization that the two are synerhome’s soy-based foam insulation, which seals potential leak points and provides gistic. “You can have it all,” Rathey says. a direct thermal barrier while greatly “And you don’t have to spend a fortune. reducing VOCs compared to conventional If the homeowners and team are willing spray-foam insulation. to be disciplined and rigorous and adopt The home’s radiant floors, which have a design-build paradigm to control costs been slow to catch on in the and address the vital issues of United States, act as a backup health and sustainability, it’s Allen Rathey (left) heat source to the home, which amazing what can be done.” will use his home has been oriented for maxigb&d —Christopher James Palafox to demonstrate solar energy and other features.

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APPROACH BUILD

Kum & Go greens the gas station  LEED Volume program helps the convenience retailer certify 66 locations in three years  New innovative, reinforced canopies support future solar panels Gas stations rarely call to mind environmentally friendly practices, let alone green architecture, but top-rated convenience-store chain Kum & Go has built between 20 and 40 LEED-certified stores per year for the past three years.

With 66 total certified stores—34 Silver and seven Gold—Kum & Go boasts the highest number in its industry, and it has 15 new LEED stores under construction.

How does the gas station and convenience store provider manage to build such a high volume to such high standards? The LEED Volume program. Kum & Go joined LEED Volume in 2013, and it is the only gas station provider participating in the program, which helps streamline

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This Colorado Kum & Go location is the company’s first to feature its new reinforced canopy that can support solar panels.

the certification process for companies with multiple buildings of a similar style and scale, such as national banks or chain restaurants. “We worked for over two years with the USGBC to certify not only all of our documents for our design and construction process, but the training and quality-control checklists for all of our partners, and that’s really helped,” says

Adam Hammes, manager of sustainability for Kum & Go. Before officially joining the program, Kum & Go was already obtaining LEED certifications for its locations with an efficient model and process. The company’s start-to-finish construction benchmark is between 110 and 120 days. “Our construction department has always gbdmagazine.com

APPROACH

“We worked for over two years with the USGBC to certify not only all of our documents for our design and construction process, but the training and quality-control checklists for all of our partners.”

Adam Hammes, Kum & Go

been very process-oriented,” Hammes says. “We develop a lot of quality control and use lean management tools to map out processes and work closely with our partners to keep improving timing and how we overlap the different vendors on our sites.” Although making the changes necessary to meet LEED standards did add time and paperwork, Hammes says the company used the process to improve its operations.

Even with efficient procedures in place, Hammes says that Kum & Go is constantly looking for new ways to become even more environmentally sustainable. Solar panels, for instance, historically have been too heavy for the average service-station canopy. So Kum & Go re-engineered its design. It extended the canopy, added reinforced steel, and included stronger footings. Its New Castle, Colorado, location, was the first to receive the upgrade; topping its canopy is a solar array that provides 6 to 7 percent of the store’s energy requirements.

Kum & Go now requires reinforced footings and steel on all new stores and adds extra conduit from the parking lot to the canopy. “That way, we don’t have to do that work in the future when solar is more cost effective,” Hammes says. “We continue to improve and seek changes we can implement in the prototype that will institutionalize sustainability.” gb&d —Julie Crawshaw

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APPROACH BUILD

“We wanted to produce a product or system that would be engineered to be removed and reconstituted or recombined in different forms.”

John Keller, Proteus Design Company

Modular solutions for natural disasters  Georgia-based Proteus Design Company offers its uniquely adaptable Flex System to expedite the rebuilding process After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti destroyed the country’s Ministry of Public Health and Population in Port-Au-Prince, it needed a new home—fast. “The earthquake forced health officials to work out of temporary housing or tents, and there was no place to conduct research and do training,” says John Keller, president of Proteus Design Company, an Austell, Georgia, provider of semipermanent facilities that stepped in after the earthquake. “The Center for Disease Control Foundation had heard about work we had done in Port-Au-Prince, quickly creating turnkey semipermanent offices for the Haiti government, and contacted us.”

The project consisted of two structures: a one-story building to house the Haitian minister of health and her direct staff and a two-story building that would be shared by staff from the CDC and the Haitian National Laboratory. Because the second building would be shared by CDC staff, it had to comply with special workplace requirements for US government personnel working abroad.

Proteus Design used its Flex System on the project, which is a modular building system comprising fully insulated structural steel that can be reconfigured

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ects have different physical constraints, to meet the needs of many clients. In this different aesthetic requirements, etc.,” case, the buildings were fitted with all Keller says, meaning Proteus Design’s facilities, furniture, and IT and communiprojects can incorporate several types of cations infrastructure and were made to building systems. “We use knock-downs, be earthquake- and hurricane-resistant. aluminum, inflatables, steel, and fabric to The structures were completed in just five achieve the client’s project goals quickly weeks. and on budget.”

This short time frame is not unusual The company’s work is complex, refor Proteus Design, and its Flex System was designed with that in mind. Units quiring the support of companies such as can be seamlessly integrated horizontally M3 Crane, which supplies Proteus Design or vertically to create two- or three-story with cranes, manpower, and rigging, and buildings, and the standard fiberglass exassists in the assembly of its solutions.

“Proteus’s field personnel are accommoterior can be finished to incorporate any color or material, including stone, stucco, dating and proactive in organizing the steel, glass, and wood. The Flex System locations of the cranes we supply them, is 100 percent relocatable, reusable, and which is complicated and sensitive work,” repurposable. says Michael Foggio, president of M3 The system stems from Proteus Crane “Proteus demonstrates the utmost Design’s original business plan when it professionalism and is a pleasure to work was founded in 1996, which was to create with.” semipermanent facilities to ease the overKeller says the modular concept plays out differently across continents. “When crowding of schools and jails and to do it you do project launches or exhibitions in quickly. “We wanted to produce a product the United States, you tour around makor system that would be engineered to be removed and reconstituted or recombined ing dozens of stops, so you need solutions in different forms,” Keller says. that are easily mobilized and demobilized Today, the company is also seeing by being wheeled,” he says. “Europe is business from airports, offices, and much denser, and exhibitors tend to bring even stores, but one thing has remained people from around Europe to a single consistent—the company considers itself location be that in Paris or Amsterdam, so a service provider more than temporary facility solutions are a product provider. “If we only often more complex and can be These modular used tents, we’d be a tent combuilt vertically via stacking as offices were built opposed to rolling.” gb&d pany, but that doesn’t make with the Flex sense because different proj—Julie Schaeffer System in Haiti in just five weeks.

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Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

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David Gottfried

The founder of the USGBC has a new book and a new brainy venture

42 Serenbe

An eco-community inspired by an organic farm in rural Georgia

46 Ward Village

The vision behind Hawaii’s first LEED-ND Platinum community

51 Dave and Steve Roy

Brothers and office mates, the architects describe their green goals

52 16 Powerhouse

A LEED Platinum development brings innovative features to Sacramento

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“That’s the bigg problem: the human brain.”

TRENDSETTERS

The latest venture of USGBC founder David Gottfried melds sustainability and neuroscience Interview by Timothy A. Schuler

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gbdmagazine.com

TRENDSETTERS

est

The LEED program arguably has been the building industry’s single-most powerful driver of change in the past several decades, and its success can be traced back to one man. As the creator of the US Green Building Council (USGBC) in 1992 and the World Green Building Council 10 years later, David Gottfried literally altered the course of human history—specifically, by ensuring that it continues. Currently CEO of Regenerative Ventures, Gottfried has a new book out this month, Explosion Green, which details the inception of the green building movement in the US and abroad. We sat down with the man who started it all to discuss what’s next. gb&d: You describe your tour of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Washington, DC, offices as your “first sighting of a green building.”

What made you receptive to that moment?

David Gottfried: First, I would say my studies at Stanford as an engineer and particularly this guy Gil Masters, who was my mentor.

We studied the Earth and the sun and energy. So I had that underpinning, as well as [being] a backpacker who loves Yosemite. I was already primed to spark. At a deeper level, since I was already a professional in the building industry, I was looking for greater meaning and purpose and a bigger light and spark to my work, other than do a good job and make money. This provided a transformation agenda. I think I was

raised to look for that, and I hadn’t found it in my career yet. gb&d: How do you square the fact that business success is defined by growth while sustainability is about not using more than we need?

Gottfried: Growth is at the heart of capitalism. We need to look at the definition of growth, and we need to redefine it. And then we need to reward profit on growth but on that new definition. In my book, there’s an equation called The Full Equation. It says R equals P minus I minus W. So R, the Resultant, equals the Product, minus Inputs and Waste. So R equals P when I and W go to zero. I goes to zero when there’s no cash, no energy, no physical materials, and no time—those are all inputs—and no

“We need to look at the definition of growth, and we need to redefine it.

And then we need to reward profit on growth but on that new definition.”

DAVID GOTTFRIED, REGENERATIVE VENTURES

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TRENDSETTERS David Gottfried

“Utilities are getting at the bigger buildings that have higher loads in their service territories, but with existing homes, there’s almost nothing. I’ve never gotten a bill or notice saying, ‘You’re a water hog. Let us come to your home and help.’ That should exist.”

DAVID GOTTFRIED, REGENERATIVE VENTURES

They outlawed watering your lawn and washing your car. They mandated rainwater capture. I think they even required some greywater features, capturing your sink and shower water and using that for the toilet. gb&d: It’s incredible how many municipalities in the US still don’t allow you to use greywater versus this example in Australia, where it’s illegal not to do it.

Gottfried: It’s ridiculous.

waste: no landfill waste, no pollution, no health waste, which would be toxins and endocrine disrupters. That’s the kind of growth we need. gb&d: This idea of equivalencies between all the different rating systems—establishing criteria for what equals what—seems like a huge step forward.

Gottfried: There was an initiative a few years ago of LEED, GreenStar, and BREEAM to start working together to look at that. Scott Horst, who’s head of LEED at USGBC, was part of it. I was in Israel a few months ago, which was really fun for me, and they have their own rating tool.

Intel [has] a big presence there, and they had done the Israeli standard and also LEED, and they had done equivalencies themselves.

You know who’s done the best work here is Ray Cole at University of British Columbia. Even ten years ago, he had a chart of twelve rating systems. The rating systems were at the top of an Excel spreadsheet, and on the bottom left were all the environmental categories. But it’s not that easy to map it. gb&d: Tell me about the work of the World Green Building Council.

Gottfried: Mostly what we’ve done is create a road map for what a Green Building Council (GBC) is. There’s an eight-step

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road map of how you play with us and create a GBC that the World GBC will recognize. That road map is pretty great; it’s things like you have to be a nonprofit, you have to be open for membership, you need to have bylaws, you need to have a budget. gb&d: And you’ve got over 100 GBCs at this point?

Gottfried: Yeah, so that alone is huge. But that’s just getting them to organize and join our group. The key once you do that is creating a network. Some countries are tiny and have different social values and conditions, and they might have illiteracy, and poverty, and no clean water, and war, so they bring a different agenda to the coalition. gb&d: Have you seen an emphasis on, say, water due to water scarcity stories being shared in other parts of the world?

Gottfried: Sure. Australia had the best knowledge on how to turn around drought conditions in terms of saving water.

gb&d: I was struck by the Weight Watchers analogy you use in the book, writing that we need to invite the “couch potato” buildings, the ones that don’t seem easy or worthwhile to improve, to get in the game.

Gottfried: I think we’ve barely scratched the surface on existing homes. Utilities are getting at the bigger buildings that have higher loads in their service territories, but with existing homes, there’s almost nothing. I’ve never gotten a bill or notice saying, “You’re a water hog. Let us come to your home and help.” That should exist. And they should be incentivized by the PUCs and the legislature to be proactive, especially now.

It really pisses me off. Our ancestors understood they had to capture the water or they would die. We think you can just piss it away. That’s the biggest problem: the human brain. That’s my latest work.

I’ve got a new initiative called Regen Brain. I’m studying neuroscience to try to understand why our survival wiring from a million years ago is killing us today, and how to create new survival wiring, using plasticity and creating new neural networks in the brain so that we’re not killing ourselves.

gb&d: What did they do?

Gottfried: In the Gold Coast area they almost ran out of water—in Brisbane, even Sydney. In three years, they turned it around. And not that they got more rain.

gb&d: How else can we incentivize greening existing homes?

Gottfried: I really think we need this “green corps” that just shows up at your gbdmagazine.com

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home, makes it energy efficient and water efficient, finances the first cost, and the savings pay for it. Or they ramp up and amortize it through your bill, just like we have power purchase agreements to put solar on your roof. If you want solar, you just click the box, and you pay for it over 17 years through the utility bill. They put a smart meter on my house—they should put solar on the roof. And I just check the damn box. gb&d: Are there any cities you think would consider something like this?

Gottfried: Maybe it starts in cities like Berkeley and Santa Monica, which are progressive and have an appetite for it.

I suggested this to Mayor [Tom] Bates in Berkeley eight years ago. Take 100 million dollars of our own retirement money, put solar on every roof, and give us a ten percent return every year. And I could figure it out; I just have a little too much going on. That’s why I wrote it in the book—I hope others will do it. gb&d: You’re known for living a fairly healthy lifestyle. Are you and your wife still vegan?

Gottfried: The vegan didn’t stick, but we have a very healthy diet. She’s an integrated medicine physician and writing a diet book right now called The Body Cure. We’re pretty much gluten free, almost no sugar, and I got off of caffeine. I’m actually 11 days into a cleanse—a detox really—so I haven’t had alcohol. But I don’t want to be perfect. I’d like to be 90 percent good.

Well, 95 percent. We’re in the Bay Area, and I don’t want to give up red wine. gb&d

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TRENDSETTERS

Serenbe’s Edible Urbanism How a food-versed couple built a sustainable community in Georgia on the periphery of an organic farm—and why homebuyers keep eating it up

By Russ Klettke

What does an über-green, burgeoning, and sumptuous New Urbanist community in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia, owe the restaurant industry? Plenty, if you know the story of Serenbe, a hill country eco-development created

by Steve and Marie Nygren.

Since the 1970s, the Nygrens had been building the Peasant restaurant chain, which today has 34 locations from Minnesota to Florida. While on a country drive one day in 1991, the couple stumbled upon—and bought, on a whim—a 60-acre farm outside Atlanta, thinking of the property as a retreat.

Two decades later, the Nygrens’ land has expanded to 900 acres, and 25 acres of that original farm are now the heart of a 180-home village.

The serenity of the setting gave it its name.

Serenbe is more than a collection of handsome, green homes.

It’s a community where people walk more than they drive, where front porches and shallow setbacks (three to twenty feet) encourage neighborly conversation, and where there is plenty to do. It has three restaurants, all of which serve produce from Serenbe Farms, which is certified organic, and many residents also are part of a 110-member community supported agriculture program. Homeowners gravitate toward affiliations in the

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arts, food culture, and wellness, and various events often draw together those who share interests and tastes—much like a popular restaurant.

But make no mistake, this is a real estate development. Spec homes in a range of styles list between $280,000 and $800,000, and custom-built residences are valued at up to $3 million. “These are fine homes,” Steve says. “They

BELOW Located roughly 30 miles from Atlanta, the Serenbe community is constructed on a 900-acre piece of land, 80% of which will remain undeveloped.

don’t scream ‘environmental,’ even though they are.” All are built to EarthCraft standards, the certification program established by the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association in 1999 to provide a blueprint for energy, water, and materials efficiency in the hot, humid climate of the southeast United States.

“When we first started looking at this land, we became worried about land use, about how forests and fields were bulldozed for roads and houses,” Steve says. “We spoke with our friend, Ray Anderson (the late founder of Interface who is widely recognized for his own environmental business practices), who suggested we gather thinkers on the subject.” In 2000, with the help of the Georgia Institute of Technology, they assembled two dozen experts on sustainable development to discuss the problems

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TRENDSETTERS Serenbe

“We became worried about land use, about how forests and fields were bulldozed for roads and houses. We spoke with our friend, Ray Anderson, who suggested we gather thinkers on the subject.”

STEVE NYGREN, SERENBE

of typical sprawl. It was here that Serenbe was born.

The Nygrens purchased the additional acreage of forest and farmland for Serenbe, designating that 80 percent of it remain unbuilt. Steve references research by the Rocky Mountain Institute that found that people who buy homes abutting golf courses most often aren’t golfers. “This told us there is a market for expensive homes on small lots that back up to, say, an organic farm,” Steve says. “We also felt that with attractive, well-built homes we could draw influencers.”

The developers hired an architect to study the Southern vernacular, which includes Craftsman-style homes of the early 20th century.

“But we didn’t want a cookie-cutter and bland development,” Steve says.

Serenbe homes range from cottages and townhouses to live-work lofts (which include street-level space appropriate for workshops or retail use) and grander estates in Queen Anne, Adam, and Greek Revival styles. A modernist aluminum-clad façade can easily bump up against a masonry-front building that could have been constructed in the 19th century. Lot sizes range from a half acre to one-fifth of that.

Behind the aesthetics are high-performance mechanical systems, tight envelopes, and energy-efficient appliances that do the heavy lifting. Wastewater is filtered and reused on a community-wide basis, and stormwater is directed to vegetated filter strips and bioswales. The master plan flows with the natural terrain, with pains

taken to minimize disruption to native flora and fauna. To educate visitors and prospective buyers, many of the community’s green technologies are on display at the on-site Bosch Experience Center.

Situated 25 minutes from the Atlanta airport, Serenbe serves visitors with a 19-room inn and conference facility, and a 100-room hotel expansion is in the design stage. Marie, who oversees interiors of the village’s model homes, its three restaurants, and all farm and food operations, has an easy relationship with the hospitality end of the business. “My job is food and beauty,” she says.

Like a restaurant, Serenbe offers a product that people enjoy, a destination atmosphere, and a place for people with shared tastes—satisfying palates as it nurtures the natural environment. And there’s still room to expand. There is enough land to build up to 1,400 homes without encroaching on the 80 percent set aside to remain in its natural state. gb&d

THE BOSCH EXPERIENCE CENTER AT SERENBE Six technologies on display at Bosch’s public demonstration project Geothermal heating and cooling Drawing 60- to 70-degree air from a ground loop just six feet below the surface, the technology greatly reduces energy used for heating, cooling, and hot water.

Gas-fired condensing boilers With 95% efficiency, these units deliver reliable performance with low-emissions and low costs.

Solar thermal hot water Domestic hot water and space heating can be captured from rooftop installations.

Appliances Energy Star-rated dishwashers, wall ovens, cooktops, refrigerators, and washers achieve the absolute minimum for energy and water use.

Tankless water heaters On-demand hot water from a rapid heat transfer from copper and aluminum heat exchangers provides distinct efficiency improvement over traditional heaters.

RIGHT Serenbe is located near a number of streams, which are integrated into the community’s master plan and used to help filter stormwater runoff after heavy rains.

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new resource. important connection. bright idea. distinct advantage.

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TRENDSETTERS

It Makes a Village

Planning Hawaii’s first—and North America’s largest— LEED Platinum community

By Christopher James Palafox

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Pop culture paints Hawaii as a carefree place to live, but for more than a half-century, Honolulu, the capital city and largest metro area in the archipelago, has been plagued by poor urban planning.

Although Waikiki may seem to visitors a bustling and walkable hub, for Oahu’s nearly one million residents, the island can feel as congested as Los Angeles. But Honolulu may be on the brink of a new era.

The city has an obvious economic incentive to be resource efficient—

anything not grown or made locally has to be imported from thousands of miles away—and sustainability is a core value of Hawaiian culture.

Honoring both realities, real estate development companies have taken recent strides to incorporate environmental design on a significant scale in the islands through green-building practices and smart urban planning.

One such developer is the Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC), leading the charge with gbdmagazine.com

RENDERINGS: HOWARD HUGHES CORPORATION

TRENDSETTERS

a mixed-use community located between downtown Honolulu and Waikiki. Ward Village, whose master plan is certified Platinum under LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND), will incorporate vertical construction and walkable streets while redeveloping approximately 60 acres of land along Oahu’s south shore. Over the course of the next decade, the area will gain 4,000 residences, outdoor spaces for recreation, and more than 1.2 million square feet gb&d

ABOVE With a projected completion date in 2020, Honolulu’s Ward Village will be the first LEED-ND Platinum project in Hawaii and the largest in North America.

of retail space. Ward Village not only will be Hawaii’s first LEED-ND Platinum-certified community, but it will also be the largest LEED-ND Platinum project in North America.

The village is named for Victoria Ward, the matron of a real estate holding company formed in the late 1800s. The parcel in question had remained in Ward’s family for more than a hundred years. In 2002 it was purchased by General Growth Properties, and when HHC spun out of that company in 2010,

the land came with it. HHC began master-planning Ward Village by conducting community research and meeting with stakeholders and cultural advisors to assess the neighborhood’s needs. Already on the site was Ward Center, a shopping center that includes retail stores, restaurants, and a multiplex movie theater. In 2013, HHC completed its first major project, Ward Village Shops, a 58,000-squarefoot retail space into which it has successfully relocated two of its key may–june 2014

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TRENDSETTERS Ward Village

WARD VILLAGE

tenants, Nordstrom Rack and Pier 1 Imports. In January 2014, HHC completed a renovation of the iconic IBM Building, making it Ward Village’s new information center and residential sales gallery.

The first two residential projects, high-rise luxury condominiums with retail space and public plazas, were put on pre-sale in early 2014, with an additional tower set to begin construction in fall 2014. All told, the three new towers will create more than 900 new residences.

N

ative Hawaiians have a history of land management practices that prize stewardship. However, nearly all evidence of it has disappeared as the state has grown and been developed.

In 2013, Honolulu was deemed the nation’s second worst city

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for traffic congestion, a hollow improvement over its 2012 ranking at number one. To help Hawaii residents become less dependent on their cars, Ward Village’s master plan incorporates transit-oriented and pedestrian-friendly designs.

The project’s location and size allow for smart growth in a place where jobs, amenities, and infrastructure already exist. In fact, the project’s location accounts for a good number of the LEED points the project earned in the precertification process. The plan will create a unique, coastal community where people can live, work, and play.

Race Randle is the development director at HHC and has worked on master-planned residential communities and renewable-energy projects in Hawaii for the past decade.

He has a deep understanding of the

LOCATION Honolulu Size 60 acres Completed 2020 (expected) Owner Howard Hughes Corporation Community Planner Raimi + Associates Certification LEEDND Platinum Site Aggressive focus on alternative transportation Water Native landscape, rainwater capture, irrigation controls, low-flow fixtures Materials 50% demolition debris salvaged, recycled road base and paving material Energy C entral heat exchange systems with heat recapture, vegetated and reflective roofing

BELOW Some of Ward Village’s green planning features include highly walkable streets, extensive public space, and bike-sharing stations.

community’s needs. “We are bringing local people into the equation and doing it in a responsible and thoughtful way,” Randle says.

Hawaii’s ethnic and cultural diversity makes it one of the country’s most unique melting pots, and Ward Village will be a reflection of that ethos with luxury condominiums to the east, and affordable rental and senior housing to the north and west. “Because Hawaii is so small, it’s important to build a community that is for everyone,” Randle says. “Ward Village will include everything from luxury residences to affordable housing for the area’s workforce, all in one diverse neighborhood.”

The project poses myriad challenges. Randle and the HHC team have kuleana, or a responsibility, to create both a unique and authentically local space. To do so, they have partnered with a combination of world-renowned designers and topranked engineering firms to bring the project to life. Among them is Raimi + Associates, California’s preeminent sustainable urban-planning consulting firm. Aaron Welch, the senior planner at Raimi + Associates who oversaw the Ward Village LEED-ND application, is an expert in neighborhood-scale sustainability and a member of the USGBC’s national Location and Planning Technical Advisory Group—the group that reviews all LEED interpretations and credit refinements or issues with LEED credits pertaining to planning, transportation, or urban design.

“Hawaii is this beautiful paradise in terms of the natural environment, and then the human environment totally sucks,” Welch says. “That’s a simplification, but people typically talk about Honolulu being ugly, and it just doesn’t have to be that way.” gbdmagazine.com

TRENDSETTERS

RENDERINGS: HOWARD HUGHES CORPORATION

W

elch has extensive experience in community planning for cities, and believes in getting to know how a neighborhood works socially, environmentally, and from a transportation perspective during the design process. Welch approached Ward Village in the same way, holding meetings to discuss all aspects of the project: the site plan, the vision, the development program. From there, the team delved deeper into topics such as stormwater and parking design, which were identified as achievable goals. Design elements that weren’t deemed adequately sustainable were either revised or cut. The final plan includes wide sidewalks and shade trees, bicycle parking, and vertical growth in an area that currently consists of one- to three-story structures and warehouses.

Because of its concentration on these neighborhood-level projects, Raimi + Associates knew how to create an extensive plan for HHC that would actually help gb&d

ABOVE Ward Village will bring a mix of affordable, market-rate, and luxury housing to 60 acres just minutes from Waikiki in Honolulu.

the developer achieve its sustainability goals. Following the design meeting, improvements were incorporated into the master plan and documented in the LEED-ND certification application. Once final certification was achieved for Ward Village in November 2013, Welch immediately began planning for implementation.

Welch says that even with his firm’s extensive expertise, it was HHC and Randle that really drove the project toward Platinum certification. At one point, Welch admits that he was ready to settle for LEED Gold because none of his

projects, and certainly no projects of this magnitude, had ever received Platinum certification.

Having 9.3 million square feet of planned buildings, each with their own unique architects and design teams, is a logistical challenge to say the least. It was Randle who was determined to achieve the highest LEED-ND certification available.

P

rior to bringing on Raimi + Associates and setting its LEED goals, HHC created its own sustainable guidelines for the community that aligned with the standards of LEED for New Con-

“Hawaii is this beautiful paradise in terms of the natural environment, and then the human environment totally sucks. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

AARON WELCH, RAIMI + ASSOCIATES

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TRENDSETTERS Ward Village

Wilson Okamoto Corporation is one of the largest multi-disciplinary firms in Hawaii.

For over 65 years, we have been providing sustainable engineering and land use planning services for a wide variety of projects.

We are proud to be a project team member on the Howard Hughes Corporation’s Ward Village Development.

“We’re just a small island in the middle of the Pacific, so we’re creating a livable, sustainable community with a proportionately small footprint.”

RACE RANDLE, HOWARD HUGHES CORPORATION

BELOW Ward Village’s wide sidewalks will be beautified with lush yet water-efficient landscaping to conserve water and promote pedestrian activity.

Civil | Traffic & Transportation | Planning

RENDERING: HOWARD HUGHES CORPORATION

1907 South Beretania Street, Suite 400 • Honolulu, HI 96826 Phone 808-946-2277 • www.wilsonokamoto.com

struction. The buildings at Ward Village implement high-performance glass to keep tropical heat out, use state-of-the-art HVAC systems, and are specially aligned to take advantage of Honolulu’s trade winds to reduce energy consumption. The key factor in achieving LEED-ND Platinum is still Ward Village’s location—the community is accessible by bus and trolley, and the city is constructing a light-rail system that will be within walking distance for every resident on the property.

The build out of Ward Village is only in its first phase. The remainder of the 60 acres will be redeveloped over the next 12–15 years. Additional residences, for instance, will be added in response to market demand for homes in Honolulu.

HHC’s vision is a community that embodies the rich culture and innate beauty of Hawaii in a relatively small urban space.

“Rather than building 4,000 new homes that encompass hundreds of acres of land, we’re building them on 60 acres, in effect freeing up more of Hawaii’s precious land,” Randle says. “We’re just a small island in the middle of the Pacific, so we’re creating a livable, sustainable community with a proportionately small footprint.” gb&d

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TRENDSETTERS

Brothers.

Architects.

Coworkers. gb&d: How do two brothers, almost a decade apart in age, both end up becoming architects?

Dave Roy: Our father was a builder in a local community in Barry, Vermont. We both grew up pounding nails and being on the work site. As I got into high school, I would do some of the drawings for houses my dad built. He’s a small contractor, but I would work directly with the owners even early on. We had high school drafting classes, and I think that’s where it took off.

“I think Dave is a better bigpicture designer, and I like to dive into the detail a little more.”

STEVE ROY, WIEMANN LAMPHERE ARCHITECTS

the construction industry. We work together pretty well, but I think Dave is a better big-picture designer, and I like to dive into the detail a little more— Dave: That’s the biggest understatement ever. He loves details, and I couldn’t get farther away from them.

Steve: It all makes sense since Dave is left-handed. gb&d: How did sustainability become a prominent facet of your work?

Dave: Steve actually brought sustainability to the forefront of the office. I believe in it— it’s part of our philosophy, and we carry it through the firm— but Steve was at the forefront.

[We’re] both LEED APs, and we’ve completed 11 LEED-certified projects and our office building is LEED Gold. gb&d: Your firm as a whole is known for being green. What are some challenges you face in your day-to-day work?

Steve Roy: I’m not sure what else I would do! I would have to do something related to the construction industry—it’s my only interest.

Dave and Steve Roy are all three.

The brothers of Colchester, Vermontbased Wiemann Lamphere Architects do have their differences, but they agree on green.

Interview by Christopher James Palafox

Steve: Trying to push the developer and contractor mentality into the green movement. It’s a struggle to get somebody to look at a payback on anything that’s more than five to seven years. gb&d: What projects are you currently working on?

Dave: We did our own net-zero homes, but there are projects ranging from police departments and fire stations to offices.

Steve: We recently completed the 802 Toyota Dealership.

They have a 63-kilowatt-hour photovoltaic array on top that makes up most of their elec-

LATEST PROJECT ESSEX POLICE DEPARTMENT LOCATION Essex, VT Size 18,000 ft2 Completed 2014 Architect Wiemann Lamphere Architects Mechanical/Electrical Engineer Engineering Services of Vermont Green 48kW PV array, heatrecovery system, recycled materials, fiberglass windows

tricity. They also burn waste oil in a way that removes the waste product. For a commercial dealership to step up like that was great.

Dave: We’re also working on a new building for the Essex Police Department, which will allow it to grow and gather together all of its separate components under one roof.

Currently the department has its main office wedged into a small building along with the Essex town offices while the police-records storage, detectives, training facilities, and vehicle storage is spread around town. gb&d: Your firm takes part in the 2030 Global Challenge— how has this affected your work?

Steve: It makes you focus by giving you a framework to look at the amount of energy used and kind of look back on projects and see what was good and what could have been better.

Dave: There are certain benchmarks, in five-year increments, leading up to 2030. That keeps us looking ahead. It’s just a good way of building up.

gb&d: How about being brothers? Did Dave’s decision to be an architect shape your choices, Steve?

gb&d: Looking at the future, what new sustainable ideas are you excited about?

Dave: I don’t think I influenced him at all.

Dave: My latest thing is trying geothermal.

Steve: There was some, but who knows? Maybe I wouldn’t have been an architect, but I would have been something in

Steve: I have an interest in getting Passive House certified, but demand is low within our office. gb&d

gb&d

Steve (left) and Dave Roy

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TRENDSETTERS

ABOVE The LEED Platinum development in downtown Sacramento will offer market-rate housing above ground-floor retail. Its mix of photovoltaic and solar-thermal panels will reduce energy costs and reliance on non-renewable sources.

RIGHT To spur resident interactions, the courtyard provides gardens, bike storage, and a dog-washing station.

Below the building is a stacked parking garage, a technique used in dense cities such as New York City and Tokyo.

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TRENDSETTERS

Sacramento’s Platinum Powerhouse The latest project from D&S Development offers California’s capital city much-needed housing stock with a green twist

By Julie Schaeffer

For developers, the perfect location isn’t easy to come by, and even when it is available, the funding could be tied up elsewhere.

Which is why D&S Development waited eight years to acquire the property for 16 Powerhouse, a LEED Platinum mixed-use development directly across from Fremont Park in Sacramento and just a few blocks from the state capitol.

For almost a decade the property was on the development firm’s radar. In 2012, D&S finally purchased the property with the help of 16 Powerhouse Investors and the Capital Area Development Authority, a state housing authority that historically has played a significant role as a public partner on key sites near the capitol.

When finished in fall of this year, the ground floor of the six-story, wood-frame building will feature almost 8,000 square feet of retail space, which is already leased by three different companies, including Insight Coffee Roasters, Orchid Thai, and Magpie Cafe.

Above the retail space will be 50 units of high-end condominium space with an average unit size of 1,050 square feet, which is significantly larger than typical projects in the area. Rounding out the

gb&d

project will be 49 parking spaces accessible via an innovative lift system used in major cities such as Tokyo and New York.

16 Powerhouse will be a unique addition to the Sacramento landscape, in part because of its more traditional offerings. “Most of the apartments built over the past 10 years, even those we’ve done, have featured smaller, loft-style floor plans, which cater to a certain demographic,” says Bay Miry of D&S. “We wanted to do a project that would cater to residents with more spending power, such as young professional couples and empty nesters who live in the suburbs and want a place in the city. Those residents often want a larger and more traditional, divided floor plan.”

Sustainability is also increasingly appealing to that demographic, which led D&S to pursue LEED Platinum certification for the project. “In recent years, we’ve tried to focus more on sustainable development, and we thought that would be an effective way to do something unique in the eyes of the residents,” Miry says. “Then as we got into the project, we realized there were a lot of ways we could justify sustainable features that you don’t see in most apartment

DETAILS LOCATION Sacramento Cost $17.2 million Size 80,000 ft2 Completion 2014 (expected) Developer D&S Development Architect / Landscape Architect LPAS Sustainability Consultants LPAS, SMUD, Stanton Engineering General Contractor T riCorp Hearn Construction MEP Engineer Stanton Engineering Civil Engineer Cunningham Engineering Structural Engineer Buehler & Buehler Engineering Financing Farmers & Merchants Bank

buildings, and you don’t see at all in projects that are market rate and higher end. LEED certification tends to be concentrated in projects that receive building subsidies, such as student housing and low-income projects. Our goal is to build the most sustainable market-rate apartment building in the region, if not the country.”

One of the most notable features of the project is the solar array that connects to the electrical meter and provides electricity for all common areas, including interior spaces and a lighted courtyard.

The project also will have solar hot water, which will allow residents to reduce electrical costs associated with water heating. Miry says this system is 75 percent more efficient than a typical water heater.

In addition to sophisticated systems that provide ultra-efficiency—a passive airflow system, high R-value insulation, LED lighting, and variable-refrigerant-flow HVAC technology—each unit comes with an energy-monitoring system that will tell owners how much energy they’re using in specific categories.

Residents will be able to check their energy use with a smartphone app. “We worked closely with our contractor, TriCorp Hearn,

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TRENDSETTERS 16 Powerhouse

ELSEWHERE IN SACRAMENTO A survey of D&S Development’s past projects Maydestone Apartments Located on the border of midtown and downtown Sacramento across from the convention center and Memorial Auditorium, the project is a registered historic building, renovated in 2011, and provides 32 rental apartments.

“Our goal is to build the most sustainable market-rate apartment building in the region, if not the country.”

BAY MIRY, D&S DEVELOPMENT

Sterling Hotel A historic Victorian mansion, which was built in 1894 by successful department-store entrepreneurs known as the Hales family, offers a 17-room hotel, a restaurant, and ballroom.

14th and R (pictured) Located in the R Street Corridor of midtown Sacramento, the historic structure was converted from a bread factory into a mixed-use project in 2009.

The Sacramento Business Journal named it “Best Project of the Year.”

Foothill Farms Senior Housing Sacramento, CA

and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, whose ‘Saving by Design’ program really helped us find areas to achieve energy savings and rebates,” Miry says. D&S used on-site natural materials for the design, choosing to repurpose three 100-foot tall redwood trees into benches and furniture for the interior courtyard and ground-floor streetscape.

Miry is hoping that 16 Powerhouse project will inspire a trend in the Sacramento real estate mar-

16 Powerhouse – IN PROGRESS Sacramento, CA

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YOUR

LICENSES CA A&B - 840505 | NV B - 077134 | HI B - 32811

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ket, where he sees a great need for high-quality housing in the urban core. “It really raises the bar for market-rate, mixed-use development both in terms of quality and sustainability,” he says. “There was a time when the cost of sustainability was thought to be too much, and this project illustrates that it isn’t. We’re hoping it will be educational and show people you can do sustainable mixed-use development and still have a successful, quality project.” gb&d

Preserve at Marin – IN PROGRESS Corte Madera, CA

Northern California 1281 Pyrites Way, Suite A Gold River, CA 95670 916.779.8010 Bakersfield 1801 Oak Street, Suite 165 Bakersfield, CA 93301 661.326.1628 Southern California 2101 Business Center Drive, Suite 135 Irvine, CA 92612 949.242.2426

www.tricorphearn.com

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

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Five Star Sustainability

Reducing energy consumption at the Mandarin Oriental, Macau

60 Design Locally, Think Globally

A photo essay of the W Taipei, plus a recycling-focused design competition

64 EarthCheck, Please

The InterContinental Hong Kong earns a stellar hospitality certification

68 Renewable Powerhouse

Goettsch Partners uses the sea winds to power the Grand Hyatt Dalian

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GREEN T YPOLOGIES

Mandarin Oriental Macau, a 213-room hotel designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, is on track to reduce its carbon emissions by 40% by 2016.

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GREEN T YPOLOGIES

C A SE STUDY

M A N DA R I N O R I E N TA L M AC AU

Five Star Sustainability Efficient operations take the environment, community, and guests into account

By Julie Schaeffer

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When Mandarin Oriental Macau opened in 2010, it joined the already established sustainability efforts of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group (MOHG).

The parent company first issued corporate guidelines for sustainability in 2006, which was a step forward for the environment, the community, and the thousands of guests who stay in its hotels each year.

“Our sustainability initiatives are a combination of all three factors,” says Martin Schnider, general manager at the Macau location. “In this age, environmental issues are forefront in everyone’s mind, and responsible companies live up to the expectations to help create a sustainable future for our world.”

Macau is one of the two special administrative regions (SARs) of the People’s Republic of China, but it isn’t at the top of the list when thinking of the world’s most sustainable regions, primarily because of its main industry.

Situated 90 miles off the mainland coast of China and just an hour from Hong Kong by ferry, Macau’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism, and gambling in particular—some 30 million people visit Macau every year, and the SAR’s annual revenue from gambling is $33 billion, more than five times that of the Las Vegas Strip.

Still, a region’s revenue source does not necessarily correlate with its sustainability measures, as evidenced by Mandarin Oriental, Macau and other green buildings in the area. Designed by noted US architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, the 213-room hotel is a tapering tower situated in a key entertainment locale. Overlooking Nam Van Lake and Macau Bay, the hotel’s dominant design feature is its façade, which is clad in rippled reflective glass that scatters and reflects light in a kaleidoscopic fashion and increases natural light in the hotel.

The building does more than just use natural light, however, and MOHG’s corporate policies provide the larger plan for minimizing consumption of energy and water and reducing both emissions and waste. By 2012, MOHG had met three of its four goals by reducing both energy use and emissions by 10 percent from their 2007 levels and developing a may–june 2014

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GREEN T YPOLOGIES

“In this age, environmental issues are forefront in everyone’s mind, and responsible companies live up to the expectations to help create a sustainable future for our world.” martin schnider, mandarin oriental macau

measurement process for the amount of waste sent to landfills. From there, however, it is up to each hotel to set goals and train colleagues to act in a manner that aligns with MOHG’s program. To that end, Mandarin Oriental Macau founded a 12-member committee of both executives and rank-and-file workers to meet once a month to determine how to take steps toward meeting the common objectives in four areas—waste management, energy management, hazardous chemicals, and social responsibility—each of which has a subcommittee. “As long as I’ve been working here, there’s always been an environmental issue that we’re concerned about and addressing,” Schnider says.

To move toward sustainability meant collecting data—determining how to measure waste, installing meters to track water use, and figuring out which chemicals are truly hazardous. In terms of social responsibility, the committee also relied on colleagues to select a reasonable local cause for the hotel to support.

One of those initiatives is a soap-recycling program. The hotel gives its partially used soap and shampoo to the Clean the World Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to reducing the waste created by discarded bath products by reconstituting and distributing the products to those in need, such as victims of the November 2013 typhoon in the Philippines. Over a six-month period in 2013, the hotel provided 200 kilograms of soap to the foundation. gb&d

ABOVE Guest-focused features such as a heated outdoor pool (right) are balanced against substantial sustainability goals at Mandarin Oriental Macau.

OPPOSITE The hotel’s luxury amenity spaces, including the Vida Rica Bar (top) and spa, are undergoing LED retrofits. Upgrades at other properties have resulted in energy savings of 88% per fixture.

The hotel is also replacing lighting in public areas and guest rooms with LED lights by the end of the first quarter in 2014. If the impact is consistent with similar projects at other MOHG hotels, it will be significant. For example, at the Grand Lapa Macau, another MOHG property, converting its neon light signage to LEDs in 2009 decreased those fixtures’ energy use by 88 percent.

So far, the efforts of Mandarin Oriental Macau have resulted in impressive numbers. Don Adam Bautista, director of engineering, says the hotel’s environmental target is to reduce energy use by 35 percent by 2016. To date, it’s already reduced that number by 27 percent, which was partly the result of a chiller optimization project to increase efficiency.

The hotel also aims to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2016, and it’s already reduced its emissions by 28 percent to date.

Schnider says that although the hotel has had few challenges along the way, one hurdle was getting the hotel’s 200 employees on board because these are the people who collect the partially used soaps without throwing them away and turn the lights off in a room that isn’t being used. “From the guest’s perspective, the more we do, the happier they are,” Schnider says. “When you go to a five-star hotel in Asia and spend a certain amount of money on accommodation, you expect a certain commitment to sustainability. Guests actually question why we’re not doing more.” gb&d may–june 2014

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GREEN T YPOLOGIES

RIGHT One of many art installations at the W Taipei, the giant chain sculpture at the entrance is meant to physically connect the hotel to the Earth.

BELOW The brightly lit lobby area is similarly grounded by the reclaimed wood that serves as both flooring and seating throughout the expansive space.

P H O T O G R A P H I C E S S AY W TA I P E I

Design Locally, Think Globally The W Taipei taps local artists for signature elements and inspires local designers to create luxury amenities from the hotel’s trash

By Julie Schaeffer

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YEN Bar on the top floor of the W Taipei serves up Asian tapas and views of the Taipei 101 skyscraper, formerly known as the Taipei World Financial Center, the world’s tallest building until 2010 when it was surpassed by the Burj Khalifa.

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GREEN T YPOLOGIES

London’s GA Design International conceptualized the W Taipei as “nature, electrified,” blending the energy and technology of the urban center with the area’s natural beauty.

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Lollypop Coaster

by Yu-Jui Chou

Upcycled

THIS PAGE The design competition used two innovative recycled materials products: POLLI-BER, a composite polymer made from recycled plastic and agricultural waste, and NATRILON, made from 100% recycled bottles and rice husks.

In September 2013, the W Taipei, along with the Taiwan Design Center and sustainability innovator Miniwiz, wrapped its “Trash Re-design” project with a display of seven eco-friendly products upcycled from the hotel’s trash. Over a four-month period, seven designers transformed recycled hotel waste—from plastic bottles (of which the hotel uses 300,000 per year) to in-room slippers—into innovative items that can be used in a luxury hotel. The results, presented at the Taiwan Design Expo, ranged from ring holders and interactive coasters to a personal pinball game and a “W” coat hanger. At the end of the competition, the hotel purchased three of the seven products for production as guest amenities and experience enhancements. gb&d

Jewelry Holder

by Fanny Kuo

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C A S E S T U DY I N T E R C O N T I N E N TA L H O N G KO N G

EarthCheck, Please With its new programs, the InterContinental Hong Kong was able to recycle 20% of its waste in 2012. Other initiatives tackle energy efficiency and community engagement.

The first hotel in Hong Kong to achieve EarthCheck Gold certification is greening its facilities to battle air pollution and climate change

By Julie Schaeffer

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In 2007, the InterContinental Hong Kong wanted to increase its sustainable measures and programs, so it formed a “green committee” to attend to all aspects of environmental impact—a move that resulted in InterContinental Hong Kong becoming the first hotel in the city and also the first property within InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) globally to achieve Gold certification through EarthCheck, a strenuous environmental certification and benchmarking platform for the travel and tourism sector. Gold is its highest level.

“In recent years, Hong Kong businesses have been more environmentally aware, so we began looking at what we could do to ensure we run an environmentally responsible business,” says Harvey Wong, head of InterContinental Hong Kong’s green committee and its director of engineering. With that goal in mind, the green committee decided to adopt an international sustainability standard to guide its efforts, and EarthCheck fit the bill. “There is simply no shortcut in the EarthCheck certification process,” Wong says of the hotel’s efforts, which took six years, “but the achievement was worth the effort.”

The hotel’s sustainable initiatives all fall into one of four categories: recycling, energy efficiency, green purchasing and environmental activities, and community engagement. For the first category, the InterContinental chose to focus on waste reduction and recycling in its kitchen facilities. The hotel worked to accurately forecast business levels to reduce food waste. Additionally, the hotel donates untouched whole-fruit items daily to a local charity called the FoodLink Foundation. The hotel also gives used food waste to two local organizations to be used as fertilizer and fish feed, and used cooking oil goes to local company Dynamic Progress for conversion to biodiesel. Also recycled are aluminum cans, plastic, paper, and glass through the Hong Kong Hotels Association and a local factory that runs a program converting glass bottles to tiles. “Our total general waste in the first 10 months of 2013 was reduced by over 10 percent versus the same period in 2011, and may–june 2014

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GREEN T YPOLOGIES

“Not only do we have exacting standards to follow, but we’re also able to monitor how well we’re doing through the EarthCheck global database.” harvey wong, intercontinental hong kong

we recycled over 20 percent of total garbage in weight in 2012,” Wong says.

In order to achieve EarthCheck certification, the hotel had to look at energy efficiency. Wong’s team converted guest rooms, corridors, and back-of-house areas to LED lights; installed a steam-based heat-recovery system to preheat cold water before it enters a boiler; and moved the hotel’s signature three-temperature spa pools to a heat-pump system. In addition, the team implemented a building-management system that monitors and controls the building’s HVAC systems to use energy more efficiently. Wong says that with the energy-saving solutions in place, in two years the hotel reduced energy consumption by nine percent even though occupancy levels were higher in 2013 than in 2011.

Materials selection played a very large part in achieving certification. The hotel uses environmen-

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ABOVE The hotel emphasizes green purchasing and buys FSC-certified paper products, biodegradable plastic bags, and low- or noVOC paints.

OPPOSITE To reduce energy consumption, the hotel switched to LED lighting in guest rooms, corridors, and back-of-house areas.

tally friendly products including FSC-certified paper products, biodegradable plastic bags, and cleaning products that are free of chemicals and pesticides; it also purchases sustainable seafood and food items from local farms. “In addition, on an ongoing basis, we offer the option of a low-carbon menu and sustainable seafood menu for our banquet and event guests, and we serve low-carbon dishes in our staff cafeteria,” Wong says.

The green committee organizes and participates in activities within the hotel and the community, including the annual Green Power Hike and Tree Planting Challenge, which are fundraising activities for local environmental protection organizations. In April 2013—“green month” at InterContinental Hong Kong—the hotel offered a sustainable seafood seminar, a low-carbon cooking class, an upcycle workshop, and organized a fundraising campaign and video gbdmagazine.com

GREEN T YPOLOGIES

contest with the Clean Air Network and EarthCheck to increase awareness about air pollution in Hong Kong, among other activities.

One of the benefits of following the EarthCheck guidelines, Wong says, is measurability. “Not only do we have exacting standards to follow, but we’re also able to monitor how well we’re doing and to identify the areas for improvement through benchmarking our environmental performance with the EarthCheck global database every year,” he says. “We’re also audited by EarthCheck’s independent third party auditor on-site every two years.”

And guests notice that the hotel is greener. “We often receive both compliments and suggestions from our guests regarding our green efforts, and the feedback helps motivate us,” Wong says. “We’re now planning another environmental campaign for the community for 2014.” gb&d gb&d

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S P O T L I G H T G R A N D H YAT T DA L I A N

Renewable Powerhouse A triangular tower helps redirect coastal winds for maximum wind turbine output

By Julie Schaeffer

Located on a peninsula across the Bohai Sea from Beijing is the coastal Chinese city of Dalian, and the new Grand Hyatt Dalian, to be completed this year, will be a landmark for the city’s skyline. The 44-story tower, designed by Goettsch Partners, allows sunlight to enter all corridors and rooms while offering views of the sea and the mountains nearby. Being on the coast, Dalian experiences high winds, and the triangular shape of the building directs those winds to its three corners, where vertical wind turbines will be installed. The low-noise and vibration-free turbines will produce up to 2.4 million kilowatt-hours of power annually, meeting 80 percent of the tower’s energy requirements. The glass façade will be covered in glazing to reduce solar heat gain, which will be further enhanced by the metal sunshades on the south side of the tower. gb&d

THIS PAGE The hotel will be clad in high-performance glazing and horizontal sunshades to temper solar heat gain. Its round corners accelerate the area’s high-velocity winds, which will be harnessed by wind rotors to generate electricity.

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Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

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DPR Construction Phoenix Office

Advanced daylighting solutions push the work space to net-zero energy

76 San Diego Continuing Education Building

An innovative cooling system uses natural ocean breezes

80 Lehman College Life Sciences Building

CUNY’s first LEED Platinum project acts as classroom and curriculum

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INNER WORKINGS

DPR Construction Phoenix Office Innovations in skylights and daylighting play a key role in the builder’s net-zero showpiece

Rome may not have been built in a day, but the DPR Construction’s Phoenix office practically was. It took less than a year for the company to purchase the building—an abandoned cement retail structure—get the permits, complete the design, and build its new regional headquarters. The national contractor proved a quick build could also achieve one of green design’s highest callings—net-zero energy. This is the first building in Arizona to achieve Net Zero certification from the International Living Future Institute, and the largest so far in the world. Here’s how they did it. By Lindsey Howald Patton

PROJECT

GREEN

LOCATION Phoenix Size 16,500 ft2 Completed 2 011 Program Corporate office renovation Awards NAIOP Best of 2011, 2012 ENR Southwest Project of the Year

CERTIFICATION Net-Zero Energy, International Living Future Institute; LEED-NC Platinum Site Renovated building on previously developed site, 78% of construction materials recycled and removed Materials Renewable bamboo wall slats, 97% FSC-certified wood, low- or no-VOC finishes, reuse of existing workstations, 33% recycled materials Water Solar-thermal system over parking canopy; low-flow, ratemetered faucets Energy Big Ass Fans, Solatube Daylighting Systems, LED exterior lighting, PV-covered parking canopy Landscape Native- and desertadapted plantings, green screen

TEAM ARCHITECT SmithGroupJJR Owner/Contractor DPR Construction Mechanical Contractor B elAire Mechanical Sustainability Consultant D MV KEMA Engineering Daylighting Solatube

SUNLIGHT SOLUTIONS DPR Construction tapped Solatube International, whose

daylighting systems it had already used in its LEED Platinum San Diego office, to install 82 units that distribute the region’s abundant sunlight throughout the office spaces (1). These provide major benefits, from better circadian rhythms to feeling connected to the outdoors. Best of all, 100 percent of the interior is naturally lit via Solatube Daylighting Systems during daytime hours. The units are even used in the conference rooms, which are fitted with a daylight dimmer that can dial down the brightness to about two percent for presentations.

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In addition to showing that netzero structures are possible for office environments in demanding climates, DPR’s Phoenix offices were completed in just 10 months.

OPEN INTERIOR

LIGHT IN, HEAT OUT

The original structure of

For reducing reliance on electric lighting, it’s hard to beat

the retail building, which was built in 1972, was intact and played perfectly into the open interior layout DPR wanted. The original walls remain on the south and west elevations, and 13 large glass bay windows with horizontal shading devices were installed on the east and north façades. One of the stated goals of the project was to “bring the outdoors inside,” so three-quarters of the workspaces have exterior views of the surrounding urban area.

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the cloudless Phoenix sky, but solar heat gain and thermal comfort are another story. On an average of 169 days per year, temperatures in the city hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. Although glass is limited to the east and north façades, nearly 100 skylights could be installed throughout the facility because Solatube’s daylighting fixtures use Raybender 3000 technology to deflect high-angle sunlight as it passes overhead (2). In addition, the Spectralight Infinity tubing with cool-tube technology filters out the majority of the infrared spectrum of light, preventing heat gain and focusing on delivering only the visible spectrum of light into the workspace.

ABOVE Solatube units beam natural sunlight into the DPR offices, boosting employee health and reducing energy use—just one of the many metrics tracked with the building’s Lucid dashboard.

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OUTDOOR OASIS

POWER IN PARKING

KILL SWITCH

Unique to the Living Building Chal-

To make way for the Solatube sys-

A tempting, palm-sized red button

lenge program are requirements like Rights to Nature, Beauty, and Equity. Communal outdoor spaces like DPR’s courtyard—accessible to all by a massive operable door on the north side of the building—help satisfy those objectives (3). The courtyard has a defining green wall that cools and shades the area while creating a soft, inviting, flora-filled space for employees to enjoy (4).

tem, no solar panels were installed on the office building’s rooftop.

Instead, a parking canopy plays a dual function of gathering energy while shading employees’ vehicles.

A 79-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array and solar-thermal system covers the parking canopy. Made up of more than three-hundred 235-watt Kyocera modules, the photovoltaic array produces nearly 150,000 kilowatt-hours annually—more than DPR needed in 2012.

by the main entrance is known as the “vampire switch.” It’s connected to 95 percent of the building’s noncritical plug loads—such as those attached to microwaves, cell phone chargers, and desk lamps. The last person out at the end of the day can just punch it and kill the power leaking out of those outlets. Not only do the employees love the rush, it reduces plug-load energy by 37 percent.

ABOVE Creeping vines clamber over the raw steel between the parking lot and courtyard, and cacti, shrubs, and Palo Verde trees were used in the landscaping of the project as they are perfectly suited to the arid environment.

EXCLUSIVE EXTRAS Take a video tour of DPR’s Phoenix office at gbdmagazine.com.

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ABOVE The office has 82 Solatube lights, 12 Isis fans, and 87 operable windows, the last of which are linked to the building monitoring system to open and close as needed.

BELOW Plyboo, a plywood-style material made from bamboo instead of the traditional wood, is used for slat structures that divide the open office.

COMFORT IS KEY A variety of

HVAC solutions work in concert to make interiors comfortable even in the desert heat.

Operable windows—87 of them on the north and east façades—respond to the outdoor climate, adjusting to ventilate and cool the office. At the same time, a dozen sleek Isis ceiling fans by Big Ass Fans, each with a wingspan of eight feet, circulate the air above the workstations (5). On the exterior, four passive evaporative cooling towers function in tandem with the largest solar chimney in the state to release heat, draw in cool air, and automatically sense and adjust for outside changes like wind speed and temperature.

FOCAL AND FUNCTIONAL The building’s iconic architectural

feature is an 87-foot-high solar chimney clad in zinc. A riff on the adobe chimneys of Arizona’s American Indian architectural heritage, the structure captures heat as it rises in the office interior and releases it via operable louvers. That transfer draws a breeze through the operable windows on the façade, cooling the space and drawing in fresh air. Viewed from inside, the tower—which is fitted with Solatube lenses—raises the ceiling, creating a dramatic, grand hall effect. gb&d

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INNER WORKINGS

San Diego Continuing Education Building SGPA principal Dave Reinker explains his operable natural ventilation system, which harnesses coastal breezes for optimal performance By Tina Vasquez

PROJECT

GREEN

LOCATION San Diego, CA Size 37,500 ft2 Completed 2012 Program O ffices, classrooms, multipurpose rooms, teaching kitchen Awards ENR California’s 2013 Best Project Award, Higher Education/ Research

CERTIFICATION LEED Silver Site Oriented to harness ocean breeze for passive ventilation and daylighting Materials HardiePanels, recycled steel, CMU, fly-ash concrete, low-VOC paint and carpet Water Low-flow toilets, water-efficient plumbing fixtures Energy Innovative ventilation system that uses coastal breezes for passive cooling, daylighting, responsive lighting system Landscape Bioswales filter surface runoff

TEAM ARCHITECT SGPA Architecture and Planning Client San Diego Community College District Structural Engineer KNA Consulting Engineers Mechanical Engineer M A Engineers Electrical Engineer J ohnson Consulting Engineers Civil Engineer Latitude 33 Planning & Engineering General Contractor PCL Landscape Architecture MW Peltz + Associates

When the San Diego Community College District began discussing a new building at Mesa College, the two major requirements were that it had to meet LEED Silver certification and be designed by an architecture firm that focused on sustainability. Which is why the college hired SGPA Architecture and Planning, a company that specializes in educational facilities and spends 80 percent of its time on the implementation of environmentally conscious building strategies. This time, however, those strategies were untested.

When the $12.5 million, 37,500-squarefoot San Diego Continuing Education Building opened in January 2013, it received considerable praise—wasting no time in bringing home ENR California’s Best Project Award in the category of higher education and research—in part due to a unique strategy that Dave Reinker, SGPA’s principal in charge of the project, used for the first time.

Because the continuing education building is adjacent to an athletic field but sits above it, SGPA took advantage of San Diego’s coastal breezes by combining mechanically operated windows with open-air corridors. Reinker calls the strategy the “wind scoop;” when breezes flow into the central hallway through screens located in the stairwells and clerestories, a funnel-shaped feature harnesses the wind and distributes airflow into each classroom. Each classroom has a switch that allows the users to control whether the room has natural ventilation or mechanical cooling. Reinker says that

PHOTOS: MIKE TORREY

RIGHT A unique natural ventilation system harnesses outside air with a “wind scoop” (curved feature) that distributes it to classrooms, each of which can control its individual temperature.

OPPOSITE On the exterior of the building, large overhangs and sunshades prevent solar heat gain in the warmer months.

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“The comfort range changes pretty significantly—76 or 77 degrees feels pretty comfortable when there’s movement of natural air.”

Dave Reinker, SGPA Architecture and Planning

Custom Engineered and Fabricated To Your Design Objectives

Architectural Appearance Inside and Out www.renlitadoors.com | P 903.583.7500 ABOVE Building users said that they love opening doors and windows to let in fresh air. In response, SGPA added a garage-style door to the Parent/ Child area.

PHOTOS: MIKE TORREY

OPPOSITE Secondstory skylights, plus large windows and doors bring natural light into the atrium.

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although natural ventilation isn’t a new concept, the way it is employed at Mesa College is. “The person in charge of the classroom can adjust the temperature in the room with natural ventilation,” Reinker says. “It’s interesting because the comfort range changes pretty significantly—76 or 77 degrees feels pretty comfortable when there’s movement of natural air.”

The Southern California climate has more to offer than great breezes, and the team also capitalized on the region’s near-perpetual sunshine. Large windows maximize natural light while overhangs and sunshades shelter occupants from direct sunlight. To reduce energy use, Reinker and his team installed a responsive lighting system triggered by sensors that dim electric lights during the day.

The facility includes skylights on the second floor and light shelves on top of architectural elements that cast additional daylight.

SGPA currently is working on Mesa’s new cafeteria and bookstore on the main campus, which will be integrated into the existing campus style and serve as a cultural hub. “I’m hoping we can make it as energy efficient as the continuing education facility, which surpassed California’s energy-efficiency requirements by 43 percent,” Reinker says. “Our natural ventilation concept was about more than cost savings—it was about environmental stewardship.” gb&d

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TEAM

GREEN

LOCATION Bronx, NY Size 69,000 ft2 Completed 2 013 Program Classrooms, laboratories, greenhouse, offices

OWNER Lehman College, City University of New York Architect Perkins+Will Construction Manager Gilbane General Contractor Calcedo Construction Corporation Mechanical Engineer BP Mechanical Electrical Engineer B&G Electric Plumbing Engineer Aspro Plumbing

CERTIFICATION LEED Platinum Site Reused existing site, native grasses, constructed wetland Energy H igh-efficiency fume hoods, occupancy-sensored ventilation, rooftop greenhouse with in-slab radiant floor heating, solar hot water Materials Recycled content, local materials, low-E glass Air Carbon dioxide monitors Water Water-efficient fixtures

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Lehman College Life Sciences Building CUNY’s first LEED Platinum building acts as both classroom and curriculum

The central courtyard of Lehman College’s new Life Sciences Building features a constructed wetland both to collect and filter stormwater and to be used as a teaching aide for the associated curriculum.

PHOTO: EDUARD HUEBER

Most teachers agree: The best way to learn about something is to immerse yourself in it. Faced with the national challenge of recapturing America’s scientific leadership, the City University of New York (CUNY) designated the years 2005 to 2015 as the “Decade of Science” and resolved to create an educational pipeline to STEM superiority. In conjunction, it built a new 69,000-squarefoot Life Sciences Building at Lehman College in the Bronx— CUNY’s first LEED Platinum building—which welcomed students in spring 2013. For the college, Perkins+Will conceived a structure that not only houses the life sciences department, but also actively participates in it. Breeze Glazer, research knowledge manager and sustainability leader at Perkins+Will, offers a tour of the building. By Matt Alderton

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INNER WORKINGS Lehman College Life Sciences Building

“You can talk about the role of plants in cleaning stormwater, then you can go right outside and see that plant and take water, soil, and plant samples to analyze in the lab.”

Breeze Glazer, Perkins+Will

WETLAND WORK

ADVANCING EFFICIENCY

SMART SYSTEMS

The science building is phase one

The building’s centerpiece is its

Because the building includes

Good ventilation is important in

of a 15-year, three-phase effort to create a 300,000-square-foot science campus at Lehman College.

It’s a large footprint, but its location means it will have minimal environmental impact. “It reuses an existing site on an existing campus,” Glazer says. “What’s interesting about this project is that the adjacent building at Lehman College has a very specific architecture already—a traditional, Gothic Revival style. We have shown that you can design a building that complements the existing architecture and still accomplishes pretty amazing things around sustainability.” The science hall contains 20 percent recycled content and 20 percent regionally sourced content. Additionally, it uses FSC-certified wood and incorporates a substantial amount of low-E glass for daylighting purposes, which maximizes natural light while minimizing passive solar gain.

courtyard, onto which all buildings on Lehman College’s planned science campus eventually will face. Also known as the “science quadrangle,” it features a constructed wetland of native grasses that cleans stormwater runoff for reuse within the building.

In combination with water-efficient fixtures and urinals inside the facility, the system has significant resource savings, gained by relieving the city and municipal utilities from the burden of removing and treating greywater that can be managed on-site.

“Rainwater is gathered on the roof and in the courtyard, then it’s cleaned, filtered, and held in an underground cistern for reuse in flushing toilets back inside the building,” Glazer says. “The wetland itself can become part of an academic class; you can talk about the role of plants in cleaning stormwater, then you can go right outside and see that plant and take water, soil, and plant samples to analyze in the lab.”

classrooms and research laboratories, its energy footprint is unusually large. “Laboratory and healthcare buildings are the two project types that are the most difficult to make green,” Glazer says. “But they also provide the most opportunity because their baseline designs are so energy- and water-intensive; designing a green lab building or a green healthcare building saves a tremendous amount of resources.” That’s especially important for CUNY, which has committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2017. “They wanted this building to enhance that goal rather than be a roadblock to it,” Glazer notes. The building’s energy-efficient features include solar-thermal panels that shade the roof and produce hot water for the building; an exhaust system that uses energy-efficient fume hoods and occupancy sensors to ventilate laboratories only when they’re occupied; and a rooftop greenhouse, which is heated using an in-slab radiant-floor heating system that is part of Lehman’s academic curriculum.

academic and laboratory buildings alike. The Life Sciences Building is both, so Perkins+Will paid special attention to it. Because of the potential for toxicity, the laboratories are directly ventilated to the outdoors. Classrooms and offices, likewise, receive as much fresh air as possible. “There have been many studies… showing links between good ventilation in academic settings and quantifiable benefits around student attendance, productivity, and concentration,” Glazer says. “With that in mind, [we’re monitoring] outdoor air delivery in the form of CO2 sensors, which is a smarter way to ventilate a building.

These sensors can gauge how many people are in a room. If they detect fewer people than the designed occupancy, they decrease ventilation; if they detect more people than the designed occupancy, they increase ventilation. We also increased the amount of fresh air that’s pumped into the building by 30 percent above code; that could have potential energy impacts, but we think it’s a good trade-off.” gb&d

PHOTO: BRENDAN MCGIBNEY (LEFT); EDUARD HUEBER (RIGHT)

BLENDING IN

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GREEN BUILDINGFEATURES & DESIGN

Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

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84 The City That Works

Six Chicago workspaces from the architects’ perspectives

116 Work How You Want

Steelcase’s Angela Nahikian is making work a place for people

122 Life Inside a Living Building

At work in the Bullitt Center, the world’s greenest office building

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FEATURES

AIA Chicago and gb&d present

The City That Works — Six Chicago workspaces from the architects’ perspectives

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FEATURES

Chicago has long been known as ‘the city that works,’ and the nickname has never been more apt. In 2012, a startup launched every 24 hours. Google, Motorola, and United Airlines have relocated to the city’s core.

Demand is rising for healthier, higher performing workspaces. We worked with AIA Chicago to select INTERVIEWS by Lindsey Howald Patton and PORTRAITS by Samantha Simmons

six projects by local architects that represent the best Chicago has to offer. Tenant fit-outs by Studio Gang, NRDC MIDWEST — Jeanne Gang

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Gensler, and Brininstool + Lynch push the envelope MANIFEST DIGITAL — Todd Heiser

ENOVA — Pablo Diaz

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in daylighting and materiality, 4240 Architecture and GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION — Robert Benson

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Epstein | Metter Studio adapt existing buildings to new IGNITE GLASS STUDIOS — Andrew Metter

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uses, and Solomon Cordwell Buenz designs a superWMS GAMING — Devon Patterson

efficient new headquarters from the ground up. Here, we present each space and the architect who designed it, with the hope of showing the world that Chicago is a city that works and that where we work matters. gb&d

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FEATURES

LOCATION 20 N. Wacker Dr. Suite 1600 COMPLETED 2013 SIZE 7,800 ft2 CERTIFICATION Living Building Challenge, LEED Platinum

Studio Gang Architects Natural Resources Defense Council Midwest —

01

02

—

01 The 7,800-square-foot office has cutouts throughout the ceiling that reveal fluorescent tube lighting and the space’s original ceiling height.

The reception desk uses reclaimed Douglas fir.

02 An open layout fosters a collaborative environment, but it is also the most energy-saving scheme.

By removing all perimeter offices, natural light floods the space from three sides.

PHOTOS: STEVE HALL, HEDRICH BLESSING

03 To clean the air and cover structural columns, Studio Gang planted climbing philodendrons within hanging rope trellises.

Although living wall systems were considered, their many plastic components contained chemicals banned by the Living Building Challenge’s Red List.

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03

PHOTO: SAMANTHA SIMMONS

Jeanne Gang, founder and principal Studio Gang Architects

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“We have a longstanding relationship with the National Resources Defense Council, having worked with them on a number of projects—including the book Reverse Effect, an advocacy piece about the Chicago River. That this office literally overlooks the river is symbolic of the organization’s efforts to protect it.

We knew the NRDC would have high sustainability goals for the workspace, and we also knew that they are a lot of attorneys with a lot of opinions [laughs]. Our research process was about engaging them collaboratively in the design, so we brought in a large-plan layout and let the employees get involved by literally moving around the workstations, quiet rooms, and social kitchen area.

This is the first tenant improvement project in the world to achieve certification through the Living Building Challenge, and we hope people will realize it’s achievable. We want to be part of pushing the manufacturing industry toward cleaning up their materials and processes.”

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04 To help mitigate noise traveling through the space, Studio Gang oriented the office around a central core of glassed-in breakout rooms and strategically located the social kitchen area away from the work spaces. Wood-fiber ceiling panels help absorb any remaining sound.

05 The curving plane of the reclaimed wood trim, propped vertically and painted white, forms a sculptural wall fill defined by the flow of natural light into the space.

Wood trim is often harvested during demolition, and once stripped of finishes, it becomes an acceptable Living Building Challenge material.

06 The central heart of the office, where the conference and breakout rooms are located, resembles the shape of Illinois, starting with the south end of the state at reception.

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LOCATION 11 W. Quincy Ct. COMPLETED 2012 SIZE 133,000 ft2 CERTIFICATION LEED Gold AWARD 2013 AIA Chicago Distinguished Building Award, Citation of Merit

4240 Architecture General Services Administration —

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01 To maximize daylighting without sacrificing performance, the architects installed three-part glazing units with 5/16-inch exterior low-iron glass, a half-inch airspace filled with argon, and a quarter-inch tempered Starphire glass coated with low-E PPG Solarban 60.

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03 L ike the exterior curtainwall glass, the lobby’s colored panels are etched with a pattern meant to invoke Sol LeWitt’s Lines in Four Directions, a public artwork on the building’s west wall. The yellow glow in the background is actually a reflection of the opposite wall.

PHOTOS: CHRISTOPHER BARRETT PHOTOGRAPHER

02 Once just a solid wall, the façade of 11 West Quincy Court now is covered in windows that let natural light in and allow building occupants to see adjacent structures, including the historic Monadnock Building and the rest of the Federal Campus.

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Robert Benson, design director 4240 Architecture

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“The most important thing about the General Service Administration’s 11 West Quincy Court is the dimension of vitality and lightness it contributes to the Chicago Federal Center. The building is adjacent to Mies van der Rohe’s Everett M. Dirksen US Courthouse, which was built at a time when it was important to architecturally convey that the government was efficient and bold. In contrast, we created a luminous, engaging entry using light and color to project an inviting, open, democratic government. From small touches like the LED-lit colored glass panels creating a warm welcome in the new Quincy Court entrance, to major changes, including the installation of a custom curtainwall with about 500 new insulated glazing units, light itself became the project’s key material.”

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04 The digital frit in the highefficiency glazing is actually tiny lines of text, which repeat the nation’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

PHOTOS: CHRISTOPHER BARRETT PHOTOGRAPHER

05 The north façade’s sloping curtainwall is meant as a symbolic and actual counterpoint to Mies van der Rohe’s modern Everett M. Dirksen US Courthouse to the west.

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DO yOu Design with PurPOse? AiA Convention 2014 June 26-28, Chicago For more information or to register, visit: www.aia.org/convention

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Brininstool + Lynch Enova —

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01 The long, textural wall was designed once it was determined that the wall could not be opened to the outdoors. The resulting feature uses noise-reducing recycled fiberboard fins to become an intriguing and functional asset.

LOCATION 200 W. Jackson Blvd.

Suite 2400 COMPLETED 2012 SIZE 18,000 ft2 AWARD 2013 AIA Chicago Interior Architecture Award, Citation of Merit

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02 An acoustic foam was sprayed on the ceiling above the aluminum baffles in the cafeteria and then backlit, creating a loft-like feel and exaggerating the height of the workspace.

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PHOTOS: CHRISTOPHER BARRETT PHOTOGRAPHER, SAMANTHA SIMMONS (PORTRAIT)

03 The distinctive blue acrylic panels wrapping the office’s core create a striking visual detail that subtly reflects light and animates the space. Conference and breakout rooms are encased in glass to maximize daylighting and highlight the location’s 270-degree views of downtown Chicago.

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Pablo Diaz, project manager Brininstool + Lynch

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“Enova, a financial services company, approached us to energize their existing technology department. We focused on leveraging the space itself as a tool to help the team collaborate. Opening up the large floor plate allowed us to increase daylight in the interior while a sense of order and intimacy was maintained with the division of the space into distinctive zones. The biggest challenge was a 150-foot-long blank wall, which couldn’t be opened to the exterior because of its adjacency to another downtown high-rise. So we made it into an asset by creating an artistic yet functional feature wall. The recycled fiberboard material was a collaboration between our firm and Tietz-Baccon.

The abstracted undulating fins of the feature act as an acoustic panel, trapping any airborne noise traveling through the space.”

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Gensler Manifest Digital —

LOCATION 35 E. Wacker Dr. Suite 1000 COMPLETED 2012 SIZE 23,000 ft2 AWARD 2013 AIA Chicago Interior Architecture Award, Citation of Merit

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01 Wanting to show off the beautiful statuary stone slab floor at the office’s entrance, the project team ground down the slab and patched it with the same lightweight concrete that makes up the rest of the office’s floor, creating an organic border between the two surfaces.

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Todd Heiser, design principal Gensler

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“Manifest Digital chose 35 East Wacker, constructed in 1925 and also known as the Jewelers Building, for its new office space because they loved the historical architecture. Although that presented challenges—such as smaller windows, lower ceilings, and the scars of a building that’s been lived in for over 80 years—I feel passionately about historically relevant interior demay–june 2014

sign. Rather than restore it to its original grandeur, we decided to treat anything we found in the space—from cross-bracing to a stone floor to the articulated iron elevator doors—as a remnant.

Rather than cover up the wounds and wrinkles accrued by the building throughout time, we treated them as part of its story that needed to be told.”

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02 The raw, modern workspace embodies the “rough luxe” concept that sparked the imaginations of Manifest Digital founder Jim Jacoby and architect Todd Heiser during the design phase.

03 Sustainable features include lowVOC paint throughout the interior, much of which consists of functional chalkboards covered in employee notes and artwork.

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Solomon Cordwell Buenz WMS Gaming —

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he crinkled roofline above the T main entrance serves both as an on-site rain harvesting system for toilet flushing and irrigation and as an aesthetic gesture connecting the new building with WMS Gaming’s former warehouse building.

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01 The light-filled main lobby marries the existing WMS building with the new one, which features an evaporative condensing airconditioning system that reduces energy, water, and chemical use.

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03 Sited on the north branch of the Chicago River across from a burgeoning recreational area, the WMS Gaming building is also near public transportation, local restaurants, and other amenities.

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LOCATION 3401 N. California Ave. COMPLETED 2012 SIZE 125,000 ft2 CERTIFICATION LEED Platinum

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Devon Patterson, design principal Solomon Cordwell Buenz

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“WMS Gaming wanted a state-of-the-art facility with a dynamic, inviting environment and fantastic amenities package for its game developers. The most exciting part for me was the opportunity to create a space that competes with the design and amenities that technology companies offer on the West Coast, helping keep technology professionals right here in Chicago. To achieve LEED Platinum in a four-story building where running slot

machines and advanced software programs are part of daily life, we needed to reduce the energy load. The developers actually prefer to work in a dark space similar to a casino interior, so we dimmed the lights, significantly reduced the lighting density per square foot, and utilized an automated daylight shading system.

We also limited glass on the exterior walls, resulting in U-values ranging between 0.0033 and 0.36.�

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04 Gathering areas such as this informal cafe space were given natural light and views. Spectrally selective glazing lets in visible light without solar gain.

05 A landscaped rooftop terrace overlooking the Chicago River to provides an attractive outdoor area for employees and to mitigate urban heat island effect.

06 Because WMS employees can work long hours, the ground floor was given over to amenities, including a basketball court, fitness center, and café.

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Epstein | Metter Studio Ignite Glass Studios —

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LOCATION 401 N. Armour St. COMPLETED 2012 SIZE 12,000 ft2 AWARD 2013 AIA Chicago SustainABILITY Leadership Award, Honor Award

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01 Ignite’s three buildings house offices, artist studios, an art gallery, a hot shop, and event space used for private events. A glass garden wall is oriented to the north to reduce solar heat gain.

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Andrew Metter, principal design architect Epstein | Metter Studio

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“Keeping in mind the adage that the greenest building is the one that’s already there, we repurposed two of three existing structures and added 4,000 square feet of event space. How to distribute the program quickly became self-evident. It was a natural choice for the art gallery to be in the front of the mid-20th-century brick building. We incorporated generous windows into the façade, allowing natural light to flood the gallery and showcase the glassworks on display. On the other hand, the hot shop—where glass production takes place—was built inside an existing steel-framed structure. You don’t want natural light in the glassblowing areas at all. It changes perception of the glass’s character and color.”

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02 Operable glass doors allow the studio’s hot shop to be naturally ventilated through the event space. Similarly, the event space is designed to be warmed by waste heat from the glassblowers’ furnaces.

03 An enclosed sculpture garden now occupies what had been a loading dock and parking lot. The garden’s elevation was raised using demolition remains from the project.

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PHOTOS: MARK BALLOGG, BALLOGG PHOTOGRAPHY; SAMANTHA SIMMONS (PORTRAIT)

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Work How You Want —

Angela Nahikian, director of global environmental sustainability at Steelcase, is intimately familiar with the ‘multiple work personalities’ of today’s office environments.

Armed with anthropological studies conducted by the company’s research group, WorkSpace Futures, Nahikian has steered Steelcase toward flexible, sustainable products that help make the modern workplace ‘a place for people.’

— Interview by Lindsey Howald Patton Photo Illustration by Samantha Simmons

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WHERE STEELCASE WORKS Angela Nahikian illustrates various interactions inside Steelcase’s WorkLab in Grand Rapids, MI. The LEED Platinum showroom offers holistically designed workscapes and products, including a grouping of i2i lounge chairs, which are up to 84% recyclable and Cradle to Cradle certified.

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everything from product to financial, legal, social, and technical. We have people focused on driving the environmental performance of our products, and we have platforms around materials chemistry and life cycle assessment. We also have a communications platform creating transparency around what we’re doing—they’re our storytellers.

gb&d: Angela, how does your department connect with the rest of the company?

Chris Congdon: (Laughs) We’re spoiled.

Angela Nahikian: I remember a salesperson saying to one of our team members early on, “Oh, I get it—sustainability touches everything.” It does.

Sustainability touches everything and everybody in the company. Our corporate sustainability steering committee is made up of members from

gb&d: What does sustainability mean to Steelcase?

Nahikian: Like our research, our strategy is very people-centered. Humans are at the center of sustainability. For example, we’re precautionary about the material choices we make.

A chair might have 200 or 250 separate parts, and we’re so committed to materials chemistry that we drill all the way down to the bottom of the supply chain to get the chemical formulation. gb&d: I’m imagining that with all the research you have at your fingertips and Steelcase’s reputation for workspace design, you must have an incredible office.

Nahikian: We wouldn’t be sincere if we didn’t tell you that.

We’re sitting here in the conference room overlooking a Dale Chihuly sculpture in our courtyard. We have a pretty great environment.

Congdon: We do. And our spaces are patterned after the years of research we’ve put into ungbdmagazine.com

PHOTO: SAMANTHA SIMMONS

a 2012 short film commemorating Steelcase’s 100th anniversary, a young girl from Mumbai talks about the future. With the simple wisdom and clarity that children often exhibit, she says, “Think about the world before making new things.” ¶ Angela Nahikian, Steelcase’s director of global environmental sustainability, is inspired by that little girl. When Nahikian was a little girl herself, she lived in an idyllic agricultural corner of northern Michigan. Her grandfather was a small-scale organic farmer whose fresh produce fed her and her extended family.

Nearby, a different story played out. Her family friend grew up on an industrial fruit farm with older siblings, and each of them developed a rare and fatal form of cancer by their 30s. “As children, they all ran through the pesticide spray,” Nahikian says. ¶ Think about the world before making new things.

Steelcase is a global name in office furniture and a leader in sustainability. It makes more Cradle to Cradle-certified products than any other company in the industry, relentlessly drilling through the product chain to find out exactly what questionable chemicals might be lurking in an adhesive or a screw. Not forgetting its own inefficiencies, Steelcase has set ambitious goals for in-house waste and energy reductions.

Behind the product innovations and workplace solutions is a group of researchers known as WorkSpace Futures. This arm of the company is manned by engineers, scientists, market researchers, designers, and others who borrow techniques from the fields of ethnography and cultural anthropology to discover what exactly people need from their work environments to be healthy, happy, and productive.

Nahikian, along with Chris Congdon, Steelcase’s global director of research communications, joined us for a conversation about how sustainability informs what Steelcase designers think about before they make new things.

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A NOBLE GESTURE Angela Nahikian strikes a relaxed pose in Steelcase’s Gesture chair.

The company’s director of global environmental sustainability leads interdepartmental initiatives that cover everything from assessing materials chemistry to reducing the company’s overall carbon footprint.

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derstanding what people need to be able to work their best. In addition to great exterior views and a lot of natural light, one of the key concepts we embrace is giving people control and choice over where and how they work. We often talk about the notion of a palette of place, a palette of postures, and even a palette of presences. There needs to be a range of all kinds of different spaces for people to choose, based on what is most conducive to what they have to achieve.

age creativity for everyone? You take something like Steelcase’s Gesture chair, which adapts to literally any posture you want, and that looks like a place we weren’t at ten years ago.

gb&d: What types of different spaces are we talking about?

Congdon: So some of the time I might prefer to be in an open environment where people are walking by, and I feel very energized and part of the organization. But other times maybe I need to really focus on something together with Angela, and we need a place where we can collaborate without being disrupted. If people feel like they have control and choice over where they work, it’s much easier for them to be engaged, to feel a sense of belonging and purpose, and to feel a sense of authenticity that they can be who they are. gb&d: It’s interesting that this wide, overarching philosophy of how people work is a part of the discussion, when Steelcase is best known for the furniture part.

Nahikian: It’s really a result of the people-centered research and the thinking processes that we go through to arrive at product applications. When I was in research, we had something we nicknamed “crimes against users”—things that we would see that were clearly not working for people in the workspace. gb&d: What are some examples?

Congdon: There are millions of things that we do to people that aren’t that great—like make it cheaper to buy a burger than get a salad; confine them to a chair all day, instead of making it easy to get up and move around and get their circulation flowing; create environments that are dark and dull and drab without natural light or good views to the exterior; meet at long rectangular tables where people are leaning back and forth because they can’t see what’s going on at the other end. All you have to do [to see this] is watch Office Space (laughs). gb&d: How did you arrive at this concept of a “palette of choices” as a solution to some of these issues, rather than following one model for what’s good for us—like, this is the healthy way of sitting for the human body, or this is what it looks like to encour-

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“We often talk about the notion of a palette of place, a palette of postures, and even a palette of presences.

There needs to be a range of all kinds of different spaces.”

CHRIS CONGDON, STEELCASE

Congdon: We’re big believers in observing how people work in their natural habitat, and watching how they deal with these “crimes”—rather than doing a bunch of surveys. People may or may not be able to tell you what’s working or what doesn’t work.

We’ve watched people move their chair at a certain angle or pile up boxes on top of their desk. Why would they resort to piling up boxes? We found out later it was because they needed some privacy and didn’t have any way to get it. gb&d: What kind of approach does Steelcase take to creating solutions?

Congdon: We often do something we call a behavioral prototype, and build out these spaces—oftentimes in our own facilities— as a way to test a concept. Then we observe our own people working in these environments and see what happens.

Nahikian: Sometimes the changes are dramatic, but sometimes they only need to be very subtle. A simple change in the radius and contour of a work surface, for instance. We combine ergonomics and insights around work process and what natural human behavior would be if we didn’t put obstacles in the way. gb&d: What’s an example of a product you’ve tested in this way that worked?

Nahikian: Chris mentioned being at one of those long tables in a meeting. You’re leaning backward trying to see the information on a screen at the other end of the table; you can’t see people’s faces and read nonverbal cues; and only one person is controlling the content of the meeting. We found that if we took the elongated table and curved the edges, and put a display at each end, then people could see both one another and the content. To democratize the meeting and generate dialogue, we integrated technology that allows you to plug in where you sit. Anytime during the meeting, with the permission of the person whose content is currently up on the display, you can flip your content up. This makes the exchanges in the meeting much richer, and the iteration of ideas and decision-making much faster. And the final problem was, “What about some alternative postures?” Like you were saying with Gesture. We want people to be moving and get their circulation going in the blood—not sitting. So a lot of the tables are gbdmagazine.com

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LUNCH BREAK, REDEFINED The Steelcase WorkCafé, where many employees take their lunch break, includes cozy enclaves for private meetings, open areas with scheduled telepresence options for a cross-cultural working meal, and outdoor seating areas complete with a fire pit.

at standing heights with elevated stools around. You can stand or sit, but everyone remains at eye level. gb&d: After creating something like this, how do you approach sales? Are your customers coming to you and saying, “I need a table where everyone’s at eye level, that’s very important to me,” or are you, with that deep understanding of what people need to feel comfortable, providing context for them?

Nahikian: Customers will articulate their needs in ways that are perhaps seemingly unrelated to a table. They’ll say, “Things are too slow in my company. We need to accelerate the speed at which we implement.”

Or they might say, “One of the things we have trouble with in our culture is really aligning.” Or, “We have a global organization, and we need people to have trust.” So an object like a table might help, or perhaps technology, like telepresence for a global team so they can meet face-to-face.

It’s a holistic level of design we’re going after, with many elements supporting the overall capabilities of humans. gb&d: Steelcase had in-house goals of 25 percent waste and energy reductions by 2012, and it looks like you’ve set new benchmarks for 2020.

Nahikian: Yeah, another 25 percent reduction across the board. We made a conscious decision never to make 100 percent or zero percent goals around sustainability. People ask why we don’t, but those goals are misleading and cause you to become comgb&d

A CHAIR FOR EVERY POSTURE Steelcase conducted a posture study throughout 11 countries and identified nine new postures surrounding how people use technology such as phones, tablets, and laptops. To accommodate these many ways of sitting, Steelcase launched the Gesture chair, responding to the way humans tend to lounge informally even while at work.

placent about the fact that you still have a footprint. gb&d: I’m sure the first 25 percent was challenging, but compared to the next few years, I bet it looks like low-hanging fruit.

What are some concrete ways you’re going to hit that next target?

Nahikian: It’s going to be a lot harder.

We’re looking at a carbon reduction strategy. We’re moving and consolidating plants to optimize our footprint. We’re regionalizing plants so we’re not shipping things around the planet that don’t need to be shipped around the planet. We’re significantly increasing our renewable energy commitment in the form of supporting the growth of those markets around the world. We’re not thinking of it as offsetting; we’re thinking of it as creating a renewables market as big as we are. gb&d: What was it about that child’s quote from the 100th anniversary interviews, “Think about the world before making new things,” that so inspired you?

Nahikian: I think children understand better than we do in some ways. Their minds are very open, and they experience the world differently. For young people today, the world is very small. The average age of my team is probably 30 years [old], which isn’t typical. But that age has a deep literacy of how the various aspects of sustainability come together to form a virtuous cycle. We can’t design for half a business system anymore—we have to design for the societal level. gb&d may–june 2014

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Life INSIDE a Living Building The Bullitt Center in Seattle set a new precedent for what a commercial office building can and should be. Now that it’s occupied, how does a building of this green magnitude affect the people who use it every day?

PHOTO: NIC LEHOUX

By Lindsey Howald Patton

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An average Seattle office building uses 1.1 million kWh annually, but the Bullitt Center uses just one fifth of that and generates every kilowatt itself.

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The green movement thinks big.

It thinks in terms of entire ecosystems, of how thick the layers of the Earth’s gaseous atmosphere are, of what’s left of impossibly ancient glaciers. It calculates: if we use LED lighting, then the nation’s infrastructure can power millions of homes with the energy saved. It conjectures: if we use green cleaning solutions, then we won’t send chemicals into the ocean to meet with unsuspecting plankton. ¶ This industry’s passion and persistence in the journey toward sustainability has only increased despite facing such large, systemic issues. But green building’s efforts are experienced on a smaller scale. What about the people who live and work in our buildings? Does net-zero energy and sustainable, local materials improve a person’s quality of life as much as they do for plankton?

We decided to find out.

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The Bullitt Center has been called the “greenest commercial building in the world” and has received as much buzz as a new Frank Gehry design— all for good reason. Located in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, it’s the first urban mid-rise office building to go for the industry’s most stringent and results-based accolade, the Living Building Challenge. If the Bullitt Center passes the certification’s year-long test, which begins only after it is fully occupied, it will have absolutely zero impact on the environment.

Zilch. ¶ But let’s focus on the impacts the Bullitt Center does have—the positive kind. The idea of sustainability—to be able to maintain or balance at a desired level—can be as easily applied to a human being as to the environment. The Bullitt Center’s tenants are sold on that forward-thinking vision. “It’s a self-selecting thing,” says Denis Hayes, who is the CEO of the Bullitt Foundation and the visionary behind the building. Hayes began working in the Bullitt Center after its grand opening on Earth Day 2013 and says his fellow tenants, from public relations firms to engineering startups, “have longed for something like this.” ¶ Although certain design choices help the office spaces feel comfortable and familiar, a day working at the Bullitt Center just isn’t like one anywhere else, thanks to systems and features that have, at their heart, the occupant in mind.

OWNER Bullitt Foundation ARCHITECT The Miller Hull Partnership DEVELOPER Point32 CIVIL ENGINEER 2020 Engineering MEP ENGINEER PAE Consulting Engineers GENERAL CONTRACTOR Schuchart LIGHTING DESIGNER Luma Lighting Design LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Berger Partnership GLASS SUPPLIER PPG Industries GLAZING SYSTEMS Schüco THERMAL SPACER Technoform Glass Insulation

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— HELLO SEATTLE Seattle gets fewer sunny days annually than any other major city in the lower 48, and although the overhanging 14,300-square-foot solar array—a unique form-follows-function design element like a flat-brimmed hat atop the building—is designed to maximize whatever light peeks through the clouds in the sky, those clouds are actually a boon for the interior, creating a softly filtered light perfect for working.

“The ambient lighting is almost entirely set by natural daylight,” says Joe David. David was the point person on the project for developer Point32, whose office now occupies a portion of the Bullitt Center’s co-working floor. “That’s one thing people notice right away when they walk into the space—the office floors are truly floor-toceiling glass, 13-and-a-half feet of glazing from the slab edge to the ceiling,” David says.

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Anticipated lifespan of the Bullitt Center in years

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Percent of energy savings over a comparable office building

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— FOR YOUR COMFORT The building has a deft response to thermal comfort. By the time a person begins feeling too warm, an automated system has responded by cracking a window and letting in the breeze—not to mention the song of birds, the whoosh of cars passing by on the street, and the tap-tap of people playing table tennis in the neighborhood park nearby, which the Bullitt Foundation rehabbed for the public. On chillier days, a water-source heat pump transfers solar heat back to the building. The building mechanical system is so minimal that it nearly escapes the eye. “The beautiful wood ceiling has virtually no ductwork,” says Craig Curtis, a partner at The Miller Hull Partnership, the lead design architect on the project. “Because the building uses a geothermal exchange and radiant floors, we only have one simple little duct that runs a small amount of fresh air into these spaces for air quality.”

“Because the building uses a geothermal exchange and radiant floors, we only have one simple little duct.”

— ELEGANTLY EFFICIENT

— BREATHE DEEP

The huge windows were a challenge for Miller Hull. Curtis says it was a balancing act to weigh aesthetics and views against the Living Building Challenge’s demand for a super-efficient skin and infiltration rates. “Green or sustainable buildings often come with a preconceived idea of what they will look like,” Curtis says. “But when designing these super-efficient, low-impact buildings, you have to do more with less.”

To meet an ideal energy use intensity of 16 kBtu per square foot—about a third of what the current Seattle Energy Code requires for office buildings—a supertight, responsive curtainwall system by Schüco was the perfect solution.

The triple-paned windows, insulated with Technoform’s TGI-Spacer, are two inches thick, and the largest units weigh 468 pounds each. A pressure cap completes the seal on the exterior as Schüco flaps keep every wisp of cold air out.

The Living Building Challenge’s Red List of forbidden chemicals is, for any building project, one of the toughest challenges. Materials containing lead, mercury, CFCs, and other harmful chemicals are prohibited anywhere in the building. “It’s 14 chemical groups, but when you actually get down to it, that list quickly expands to be over 350 chemicals—for example, formaldehyde has 40 or 50 aliases and compound variations,” David says. “We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure we have extremely healthy, clean air.” Take Prosoco’s conversion layer, a fluid treatment that creates a weather and air barrier for the building’s envelope.

Originally the product contained phthalates, which are plastics that increase flexibility but that are on the Red List. After hearing from David, the company reformulated the product to meet the requirements.

CRAIG CURTIS, THE MILLER HULL PARTNERSHIP

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230,000

Annual energy use and generation in kWh

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Total square footage

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— IRRESISTIBLE EXERCISE

“The blinds are moving and living in response to the climate throughout the day. As a tenant, the experience is pretty cool.”

JOE DAVID, POINT32

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OFFICE GAMES

Energy use in the building capitalizes on our innate love for games. Meters in clear public view show how much energy each floor is consuming, creating a friendly competition among tenants as they strive to meet their objectives, which are based on square footage and calculated against the building’s annual goal of 230,000 kilowatt-hours. Tracking kilowatts becomes a fun daily mission of shaving down any energy-consuming activity, and every little bit counts. If employees walk away from their desks for even a couple of minutes, they reportedly will put computers into sleep mode rather than let the screen saver pop up.

PHOTOS: NIC LEHOUX, BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER (OFFICE)

“Denis challenged us to put an ‘irresistible staircase’ in the building from the very beginning,” Curtis says. “And not only because the elevator uses power, but also to utilize the building itself to encourage healthy habits in the work environment.” The glass-enclosed staircase extends over the sidewalk at the point of entry, and offers panoramic views of the surrounding cityscape. Between this and a total lack of car parking, “it’s so much better than the lethargic life of a typical office worker,” Hayes says. Hayes even reports losing a few pounds since moving into the building.

FEATURES

— THE LIGHT SHOW Studies have shown that exposure to daylight makes people feel happier and sleep better. Yet in most office buildings, employees close the blinds against the sun’s glare and turn on the electric lights.

If the sunlight shifts to a more comfortable level, it’s likely that no one remembers to readjust. As a result, a lot of offices have their blinds drawn 24/7. “The first thing you typically do when you go to an office in the morning is turn on the lights,” Hayes says. “Nobody does that here. I’ve had a light on near my desk”—a small seven-watt desk lamp available to all tenants—“for maybe a total of two hours since moving into the building. And that was all in one night.”

Because Seattle’s sun can flit in and out of the clouds within the span of minutes, the windows of the Bullitt Center are fitted with exterior solar shades that take their cues from a weather station on the rooftop. By tracking the angle and brightness of the sun as it shifts throughout the day, these shades can deploy to deflect direct sun and heat from the appropriate façade.

Small slats in the shades adjust to angle that sunlight and bounce it off of the interior ceiling—giving workers all of the daylight, and none of the glare. “The blinds are moving and living in response to the climate throughout the day,” David says. “As a tenant, the experience is pretty cool.”

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DIALOGUE DENIS HAYES What was your vision for this project at the beginning?

I wanted to build a super-green building back in the late 1970s for the Federal Solar Energy Research Institute, but the plug was pulled on that project by the federal government, so it’s been a secret dream since then.

Why the Living Building Challenge? Ultimately, I would love to see the built environment be very much like the natural environment—covered with things that perform photosynthesis, harvesting energy from all surfaces with light falling on them. That’s the direction I want to see society move, and the Living Building Challenge is a big and important step toward that.

What’s something you really wanted to see in the building’s design? I feel pretty forcefully that where wood is appropriate, it should be used. Beyond being beautiful, helping the local economy, and helping the Forest Stewardship Council certification process, it’s also a great way to sequester carbon, it’s enormously resilient in an earthquake, and it’s part of the design aesthetic of the Pacific Northwest.

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FEATURES

“At home, food waste eventually goes into the sanitary sewer. But in our building, there is no sanitary sewer.”

DENIS HAYES, BULLITT FOUNDATION

— WASTE NOT

PHOTOS: BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER (OFFICE), NIC LEHOUX

It’s accepted wisdom that a dishwasher is more efficient with your water than you are, and at home, those with a garbage disposal often skip the pre-wash in the sink and stack dishes straight inside the machine. But with a closed-loop waste-treatment system, some of those norms have to be rehashed. “At home, food waste eventually goes into the sanitary sewer,” Hayes says.

“But in our building, there is no sanitary sewer. Everything goes into our greywater system.” At the Bullitt Center, tenants scrape their plates into composting bins before loading them into the dishwater in order to prevent overloading the greywater system with too many biological compostables.

Speaking of composting, there are 10 Phoenix R-200 composting units in the basement of the Bullitt Center.

These are the foundation of the world’s first six-story composting toilet system. The units get about a gallon of wood chips added per week and can produce 12 cubic feet of compost every 18 months for use as fertilizer, which is commingled with other compost streams at a separate facility. The toilets use environmentally friendly foam to wash the waste away with a fraction of the water, but other than that, employees hardly notice a difference—they’re designed to masquerade as run-of-the-mill johns. gb&d

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

134 Working Slide by Slide

AWeber’s amenity-filled offices sit at the intersection of green and fun

140 Red Hat in Raleigh

Inside the software company’s happier, healthier new headquarters

142 The Write Stuff

Cass Calder Smith’s work-live studios provide sustainable inspiration

146 Meet Me at the Design Yard

Herman Miller’s Living Office brings employees back to the workplace

148 21 and Up

Austin’s Block 21 raises the bar for nature-inspired, site-specific design

154 On the Edge

Waterfront Toronto pins its hopes on a dramatic, Safdie-designed high-rise

157 Spotlight: Pomeroy Apartments

Pappageorge Haymes creates a LEED Platinum showpiece in Chicago

158 Sleight of Hand

Kennedy & Violich daylights a subterranean law school building

164 Spotlight: Institute for

Environmental Sustainability

An enormous greenhouse anchors Loyola Chicago’s mixed-use building

166 A Healing Homestead

Healthcare meets housing in a regenerative home for veterans

170 Spotlight: Community Hospital

at Yishun

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A Singapore healthcare facility is modeled on the rain forest

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S PAC E S WO R K

By Christopher James Palafox

With a biowall, open layouts, and an all-natural cafeteria, AWeber’s new offices reflect the ever-evolving workplace If you ask Tom Kulzer why he decided to include not just one slide but two in the new headquarters for his e-mail marketing software company, AWeber Communications, he turns the question back on you: “Why not?” Everybody loves going down slides, they’re a greener alternative to elevators, and they’re quicker than taking the stairs. Okay, they only go one way, but ultimately, slides are just plain fun. Even Kulzer’s 87-year-old grandpa has taken a ride.

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Most designers are well aware of the phenomenon of the “fun” office, blurring the lines between work and play with amenities we didn’t put in offices 10 years ago. When Kulzer decided to move his company out of its old office space, which no longer met AWeber’s climate-control needs, he saw an opportunity to create a space that was more comfortable and reflective of the company’s core values— collaboration, innovation, sustainability, and fun. ➤ gbdmagazine.com

SPACES

In addition to its twin slides, the entrance to AWeber’s new headquarters features a giant green wall by GSky Plant Systems, which improves indoor air quality.

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PROJECT LOCATION Chalfont, PA Size 7 1,000 ft2 Completed 2013 Program Office space, restaurant, recreational facilities Awards Philadelphia International Interior Design Association 2013, People’s Choice Award

TEAM

A far cry from the company’s 1998 beginnings in Kulzer’s two-bedroom apartment, the 71,000-square-foot facility serves as the foundation for the company’s culture and employees. The new headquarters is a renovation of an old DaimlerChrysler building in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, one hour outside Philadelphia.

AWeber opened the space by adding a light-filled atrium, and now when guests enter, they are met with two giant slides—one white and one blue—a large living wall by GSky Plant Systems, and a two-story rain curtain. With this initial space, the tone is set immediately; the lobby alone hits on all four of AWeber’s core values.

“People don’t get excited about buildings; they get excited about working together,” Kulzer says. “It’s about the team coming together and being able to smile and help others around the world.”

This people-based approach manifests itself in a facility that allows collaboration in all its workspaces. The office has flexible, mobile workstations with equipment and furniture that allow desks, chairs, and computers to be mixed and matched with other spaces. AWeber recently had to affix name badge signs to everyone’s desks because they would become lost from moving around so often, making dropping packages or memos to a desk nearly impossible.

The office also includes 3,500 square feet of writable wall surface and numerous informal gathering spaces, allowing inspiration and creativity to

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CLIENT AWeber Communications Architect Wulff Architects General Contractor Norwood Construction MEP Engineer / Commissioning BALA Consulting Engineers Mechanical Contractor Carter Mechanical Legal Services Fineman Krekstein & Harris Building Automation System Tozour Energy Systems Lighting Controls Lutron Electronics Green Wall GSky Plant Systems Rain Curtain Bluworld Construction Waste Recycling Revolution Recovery

GREEN CERTIFICATION LEED Gold Water Closed-loop irrigated biowall, two-story rain curtain, low-flow toilets, LK Oasis water-filtration system, potable water fillers Materials 98% of construction waste diverted, company recycling program Energy Daylight harvesting, active shading, advanced building automation system Air S ensors adjust indoor climate every 15 seconds to ensure thermal comfort

take hold at any moment. Kulzer himself works in an open workstation identical to the other team members, creating a more interesting and accessible space.

All these interactive aspects can be seen as just added “fun” elements, but Kulzer says he believes they create a better, more efficient workplace. “A building is just a tool to bring people together,” Kulzer says. “When it’s properly designed and thought out, the office gets out of the way and melts into the background.”

Compared to its old building, AWeber went well beyond simple temperature-control technologies to make the building work for its employees with sustainable features.

This includes more than 2,000 plants in the 20-foottall biowall, which increases the building’s oxygen levels and air quality. Daylighting strategies and shading reduce energy consumption and maintain a well-lit workspace.

These features—combined with an advanced building management system, which monitors more than 50,000 points in the building every 15 seconds—ensures optimal working conditions at all times. The company is also devoted to creating a culture of sustainability through recycling. Mike Flanagan, AWeber’s senior facilities manager, has already expanded the building’s recycling bin from four to eight yards long. Even

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SPACES

ABOVE To increase workplace socialization, an in-house kitchen employs three chefs and serves complimentary meals made with local, organic ingredients.

LEFT The building uses a state-ofthe-art building management system that monitors more than 50,000 points every 15 seconds to optimize lighting and temperature control.

OPPOSITE AWeber’s new offices allow employees to work in a wide range of environments. Floor-toceiling windows throughout ensure that these varying work areas have natural light.

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• P R O D U C T S • S E R V I C E S • E N E R G Y C O N S U Lgbdmagazine.com TING

AWeber Communications Headquarters SPACES

FINEMAN

“I walk around and think, ‘It’s pretty cool that I get to work here every day.’ I think that excitement translates to the team.”

Krekstein & Harris

Tom Kulzer, AWeber Communications

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Fineman Krekstein & Harris is a full-service law firm. In each of our practice areas, attorneys and staff combine individual client attention with quality legal expertise and technical support.

the drinking water is handled thoughtfully—with reusable company-branded cups and straws and four bottle-filling stations around the building that dispensed enough water in the first year to fill approximately 16,000 bottles.

To give employees a chance to socialize in the natural workday flow, AWeber incorporated an on-site restaurant that employs three full-time chefs who provide dinner-quality meals made from organic and locally sourced ingredients. The only downside is that new employees have to fight the “AWeber 20,” as the potential weight gain has been dubbed by employees.

AWeber’s core values aren’t just about having fun—they’re about not taking life too seriously. A volleyball court, yoga rooms, and gym areas promote healthful lifestyles, and classic gb&d

ABOVE AWeber and Wulff Architects chose communal tables and gaming stations as a way of promoting team bonding, collaboration, and midworkday relaxation.

arcade games, two soundproof theaters, video game consoles, and ping pong tables give employees an outlet to unwind.

“Frankly, when I walk in here sometimes I get that ‘wow’ feeling,” Kulzer says. “I walk around and think, ‘It’s pretty cool that I get to work here every day.’ And I think that excitement translates to the team and their work—it all works together.” gb&d

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RED HAT IN RALEIGH CBRE helps the software company complete an employee-focused, state-ofthe-art new headquarters

By Julie Schaeffer

From ergonomic workstations to low-VOC paint, the features of the new Red Hat headquarters are designed to keep associates happy and productive. When the a multinational software company decided it needed to consolidate 950 of its associates into one building in Raleigh, North Carolina, in order to support future growth, it did what it has done for almost every other decision: take a survey.

Associates polled said they were seeking a vibrant downtown setting with a campus-like environment, and that’s what they got. The headquarters—located at the corner of Davie and Wilmington streets—is a vast improvement on the company’s former home in an office park far from the city center.

The main design requirement, says Matt Moon, manager of global real estate development and sustainability for Red Hat, was an open office that facilitated collaboration.

“We don’t manufacture physical

products, our product is Web-based, so we rely on interaction where the best idea wins,” he says. Private offices make up less than five percent of the office space, and most employees work in low-walled cubicles arranged in an open floor plan.

Also important was sustainability. “Our corporate policy is to make all of our buildings as sustainable as practical,” Moon says. “Whether we seek LEED certification depends on the size and complexity of the project. This project being 365,000 square feet and our global headquarters, we decided to pursue LEED Gold.”

Red Hat hired CBRE, a global leader in commercial real estate, and other leading architecture and engineering firms, including Arlington, Virginia-based TMR Engineering. The project includes an advanced energy management system that tracks energy trends and offers metering data by floor or end-use, which provides what

AT A GLANCE RED HAT GOES GREEN Water T he building’s completely renovated restrooms were equipped with low-flow fixtures, which reduce water use by 37%.

Site One of the project’s most popular features is its location, which is within walking distance to restaurants, after-work nightlife spots, and other amenities.

Health A ssociates received ergonomic assessments to ensure that their workstations were properly set up for comfort and health.

Materials E ach floor has a feature wall that uses recycled materials, such as a long block of North Carolina pine on the 12th floor. Old materials, including carpet and ceiling tile, were donated to local schools and municipal departments.

Energy An energy management system monitors power consumption, and new HVAC controls alone increased mechanical efficiency by 16%. Efficient lighting reduces energy use by 34%.

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SPACES

TMR’s Lee Harrelson describes as a “high-resolution picture of how energy is used in the building.”

The end result is a 21st-century office space tailored to those who will use it. “I love how Red Hat made a commitment to designing a space around its associates,” says Laci Wilkes, a sustainability program manager for CBRE. “The entire team worked together to make the new headquarters a fun, healthy, and sustainably focused place to work.” gb&d

SOUND BITE LEE HARRELSON, TMR ENGINEERING

ABOVE The Red Hat building’s many windows provide access to natural light.

RIGHT The headquarters houses nearly 1,000 people in an open office layout.

OPPOSITE Employees responded to surveys that they wanted an urban location with a campus feel.

“Red Hat Tower has reinforced several key concepts for us that help guide our designs. Perhaps the most important is how increasingly upper management is realizing that their greatest asset is their people. They care tremendously about attracting and retaining the best talent to maintain competitive advantage.

Architects and engineers can play a key role in this process by leveraging modern building design and technology to create a better, more efficient workplace.”

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THE WRITE STUFF Cass Calder Smith designs a series of simple, contemplative spaces that conserve energy and fuel creative work

By Julie Schaeffer

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For a writer, the perfect work space is simpler than that of many creative professionals. Authors primarily need two things: solitude and a view. For those wordsmiths fortunate enough to be accepted into the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, both aspects are readily supplied by a collection of stunning, solar-powered, live-work studios set amidst the beautiful Northern California wilderness.

Program founder Carl Djerassi commissioned the project as a memorial to his late wife, Diane Middlebrook, an American biographer and professor at Stanford University. When architect Cass Calder Smith, a childhood friend of Djerassi’s son, was brought on board, Smith was immediately awed by the property, 500 acres of rolling hills overlooking the Pacific Coast near the town of Woodside.

“I knew the studios had to look out over that landscape,” Smith says.

The nature of the Diane Middlebrook Studios—280-square-foot units that are available to artists of all stripes but cater especially to the needs of writers—drove the design. “I was inspired by the need for both privacy and interaction,” says Smith, principal and CEO of CCS Architecture, which has offices in San Francisco and New York City. “Each studio contains a

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Working Alone, Together The four one-room studios are grouped together but skewed a few degrees from one another, which gives the arrangement a casual appearance and allows privacy for the visiting writers. This informality contrasts with the rigidity of the freestanding steel canopy above, which supports a solar array that is tilted to optimize the panels’ southwestern exposure.

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Blending into the Wild The exterior walls and roof are constructed from FSC-certified red cedar boards that are positioned to follow the unique slopes of the roof and wall planes. The materials are unfinished in order to age over time, giving the group of buildings an appearance that is as weathered as the landscape.

The Sun and the Muse Daylighting, and a window to the sky, is provided by rectangular holes in the steel canopy, which then align with skylights in the cabins. The strategic placement of studio doors, which face southwest, allow for passive solar gain, which naturally warms the spaces and their inhabitants, who may not be accustomed to the cool climate and fog.

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certain degree of privacy to provide the selective isolation that a writer would want. But I also wanted them to be a collective.”

The four one-room studios are noticeably skewed a few degrees from each other, breaking the idea of uniformity.

However, they are conceptually and physically connected by a canopy roof that spans all four studios. Atop that roof is a solar array—paid for by a private donor—that provides most of the studios’ electrical needs. The strategic positioning of studio doors toward the southwest reduces energy consumption, and sleeping nooks are situated behind the working areas, farthest away from the light. Altogether, the project is a tangible memorial to its namesake, a woman who revered the work of artists and produced her own reverential work. gb&d

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Free from Association Interior walls are white to avoid competing with the scenery. The interior floors were constructed from materials from the architects’ sample library; combined, they create an enticing patchwork pattern. All building materials exceed the recommended guidelines of California’s Build It Green program.

That Fabled Coast Long an inspiration for America’s greatest authors, the Pacific coast is highly visible thanks to building siting that provides uninterrupted views toward the southwest. The northeast-facing sides contain clerestory windows angled toward the surrounding ridge lines and trees of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

“I was inspired by the need for both privacy and interaction. I wanted them to be a collective.”

Cass Calder Smith, CCS Architecture

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SPACES

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MEET ME AT THE DESIGN YARD With wireless technologies, the demand for creativity, and a newfound appreciation of face time, Herman Miller is driving the workplace toward collaborative environments—starting with a Michigan space of its own

By Russ Klettke

Virtual workplaces and electronic communication, both embraced in the name of efficiency, have reduced the number of employees working in a physical office. So why is the parking lot at Herman Miller’s Design Yard in Holland, Michigan, getting more and more crowded?

According to Greg Parsons, the contract furniture company’s vice president of New Work Landscape, it has to do with a fundamental change happening in workplaces, which boils down to a realization that people like being with other

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people. Particularly for organizations that require creativity, those human connections are productivity boosters. “Creativity used to be a dark mystery,” Parsons says.

“But neuroscience is telling us a lot more about how the human brain works. We now understand certain physiological processes that drive work performance.”

Traditional office configurations, which Parsons says attempt a “mechanistic, mass-scale of efficiency,” fail to enhance users’ individual tasks or collaboration. Long a company that studied the

nature of office environments, Herman Miller undertook research in 2012 that identified different modes by which employees optimally work—both solo and together.

From this study, the company developed the Living Office, a framework composed of 10 prototypical settings that serve the purposes, character, and activities of contemporary work. These settings are gradually being integrated into the Design Yard, which consolidates the various stages of the furniture manufacturing process into one 200,000-squarefoot building. The exercise not only helps inform the design side of Herman Miller’s line, but also allows the firm to speak from experience when advising clients.

Parsons believes the Design Yard’s crowded parking lot is due in part to its Plaza setting, which is a combination kitchen and family room. Anchored by a coffee bar and a 40-foot-long table inviting employees from all locations in western Michigan, the Plaza is a welcoming environment for employees, vendors, clients,

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ABOVE The centerpiece of the Design Yard renovation is the Plaza, a 40-foot-long coffee bar that offers a place to socialize. A playful mix of new furniture and modern classics offer employees and visitors a diverse array of settings.

FAR LEFT Three semi-enclosed Haven layouts provide a quiet place to focus on one project or to take a private phone call when needed.

LEFT People move from individual to collaborative work throughout their day. Technology-enabled Coves, such as this bar-height table and monitor with screen-sharing technology, near workstations provide places to congregate for informal meetings.

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and visitors to informally huddle, chat, and get coffee. Parsons says visitors often stay longer than their official appointment, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and easy conversation.

Other settings include Forum and Workshop, the former designed largely for a sole presenter while the latter is more about free-form interaction between participants. “With a Workshop, people might dance around a white board,” Parsons says—try doing that in an email thread. The remaining seven Living Office settings (Haven, Hive, Jump Space, Clubhouse, Cove, Meeting Space, and Landing) accommodate different types of interaction and solo work.

Not forgetting the impact of having healthful as well as productive working environments, Herman Miller has a Design for Environment team that conducts research on life-cycle product assessments, material chemistry, disas-

sembly and recyclability, recycled content, and off-gassing for all its products. Thus, an architect or designer can easily find a product’s sustainability documentation through the Herman Miller catalog or a customer RFP. Green interiors and new products may well be part of the buzz happening at the Design Yard’s Plaza, but interestingly, it’s the advanced technology—wireless laptops and floating phone systems—that enables this varied work atmosphere. Work and workers are no longer secluded at home or tethered to a wall; they’re creating real connections at the office. gb&d

EXCLUSIVE EXTRAS See more of Herman Miller’s Living Office and its newest line of furniture in our iPad edition and at gbdmagazine.com.

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Designed by AnderssonWise Architects, Austin’s Block 21 is the largest LEED-certified mixed-occupancy project in the American Southwest. With more than one million square feet of residential, hotel, and restaurant space, it raises the bar for nature-inspired, sitespecific design.

By Tina Vasquez

RIGHT Block 21 houses the W Hotel Austin on its first 12 floors. Above are 25 floors of W Hotel-branded luxury condominiums on what previously was a parking lot and brownfield.

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If someone asked you to guess the location of W Hotels’ new location and told you it was part of a mixed-use project that encompasses a night club and luxury condos, all of which combine to form the largest mixed-occupancy venture in the region to achieve LEED certification, you would probably guess California or New York or maybe Washington. But you would be wrong. It’s in Texas. In Austin, specifically—arguably the state’s most culturally diverse city.

The project is known as Block 21, and its architect, Andersson-Wise Architects, also calls the city home.

Located in Austin’s Central Business District, the LEED Silver Block 21 is a one-million-square-foot building that houses 251 guest rooms for the W Austin Hotel, 159 luxury residential units as part of the Residences at W Austin, and 2,700 seats for Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater, plus restaurants and bars, a spa, and retail and office space.

Opened in 2011, the project has raked in awards for its beautiful design, completed in collaboration with BOKA Powell, but it also has made a substantial splash in regard to sustainability. Block 21 is both the largest Austin Energy Four-Star rated project and, at the time of certification, the largest mixed-use LEED for New Construction-certified building in the state of Texas. The design firm, which principal Arthur Andersson says takes a “pragmatic approach” to sustainability, has employed green technology before, but never on this scale. gbdmagazine.com

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PROJECT

GREEN

LOCATION Austin, TX Size 1.1 million ft2 Completed 2 010 Program Hotel, residences, music venue, restaurant, bar, spa, retail, offices Awards Envision Central Texas, Stewardship Award; Austin Business Journal, 2011 Best Real Estate Award, Overall Winner; The Austin Chronicle, Arts Awards, December 2011

CERTIFICATION LEED Silver Site Southeasterly orientation, integral shading, street-level operable windows, reduced light pollution, smoking prohibited in all public spaces Materials Low-VOC materials; 75% diversion rate for construction debris; green cleaning program Water 30% reduction in indoor water use, 80% reduction in irrigation water Energy 37% reduced energy used for interior lighting, 75% of regularly occupied spaces have access to daylight Landscape Heat-island mitigation through underground parking, reflective roof, and vegetated and shaded seating areas

TEAM

PHOTO: ANDREW POGUE

DESIGN ARCHITECT AnderssonWise Architects Architect of Record B OKA Powell Interior Designer S tratus Properties Client CJUFII Stratus Block 21 Lender’s Representative RFL Consulting Solutions Structural Engineer Thornton Tomasetti MEP Engineer J JA Sustainability Consultant C enter for Maximum Potential Building Systems Landscape Architect Talley Associates General Contractor Austin Building Company Swisspearl Façade R .M. Rodgers Curtainwall & Glazing W in-Con Custom Sheet Metal Z ahner Millwork AMI

Punctuating Block 21’s south façade are deeply recessed balconies, which were inspired by the Hopi Indian cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.

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MAXIMIZING PERFORMANCE

Block 21 doesn’t leave much to be desired, environmentally speaking. The urban site, a former parking lot that eventually was deemed a brownfield, was developed with low-impact strategies, and the building features recycled-content, regionally sourced and manufactured, and low-emitting construction materials.

Low-flow fixtures have resulted in 30 percent reduced indoor water use compared to code, representing an annual savings of 2.4 million gallons.

Such success is never attributable to a single person, but according to Andersson-Wise principal Chris Wise, one woman in particular played a crucial role when it came to performance.

Gail Vittori, codirector of the nearly 40-year-old Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (CMPBS), a nonprofit that specializes in life cycle planning and design, was brought in as a consultant on the project. “Early on, it

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was clear that Block 21 would raise the bar on green, urban, mixed-use buildings,” says Vittori, who runs CMPBS with husband and architect Pliny Fisk III. “CMPBS’s role was to help establish a vision for the project and to work with the teams in place and the owner to create clear goals around the building’s performance.

This is something we’re still working on because it goes beyond the design of the building; it’s about operating green as well.”

Unlike Vittori, for many working on the team, Block 21 was their first LEED project and at just more than a million square feet, it was an undertaking, requiring collaboration every step of the way. Vittori was critical to that process. “Getting Gail involved was the first collaborative step,” Wise says. “She was the go-to sustainable expert, and we were there to listen. When you do a project like this, it takes thousands of people to make it a reality. The design

ABOVE The southwest corner of the building is cut away to reveal a staircase that extends from the hotel’s open-air bar. The building’s dark gray palette helps temper any glare created by the Texas sun.

OPPOSITE TOP The building includes a 2,700-seat music venue for Austin City Limits Live at Moody Theater.

OPPOSITE BOTTOM The landscaped public plaza allows open airflow from Lady Bird Lake to the W Hotel’s outdoor bar and restaurant area.

team alone had hundreds of people. You have to be able to listen and know how to collaborate.”

Andersson says the project also was a collaboration with the environment and the “reality of the site.” One block south of Block 21 is Lady Bird Lake, and the site is often hit with breezes traveling all the way from the Gulf of Mexico, which can change the temperature substantially depending on the season and time of day. According to the architect, taking the location and this variability into account did more than benefit the performance of the building—it also inspired the team.

KEEP AUSTIN GENUINE

Andersson-Wise wanted its approach to the design to unfold organically, but as is the case with any major brand, there were design requirements in place by Starwood Hotels, the company that owns W Hotels.

Andersson recalls being handed a three-inch-thick packet of gbdmagazine.com

Block 21 SPACES

PHOTOS: ANDREW POGUE (BOTTOM); JONATHAN JACKSON

EXCLUSIVE EXTRAS See more photos of Austin’s Block 21 in our iPad edition and at gbdmagazine.com.

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RFL Consulting Solutions Congratulates the Block 21 Team for their stellar addition to the Austin Skyline! As the Lender's Representative, RFL is proud to be a part of this crowning accomplishment.

“Yes, the space is beautiful and glamorous and all of those things. But it’s also simple and smart and makes the most of its natural surroundings. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Arthur Andersson, Andersson-Wise Architects

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ABOVE The W Hotel is just one part of the one-million-square-foot Block 21 mixed-use project in Austin, TX.

of the hotel there’s a screen that dapples light, sort of like a filter. That was inspired by Lady Bird Lake’s running trail, the way the light dappled through the leaves of the cypress trees as you run under them. We thought it was a creative, new way to approach the entrance.”

Given the site’s incredibly humble beginnings as a contaminated brownfield, its transformation to Block 21 is all the more impressive. And it’s one of Andersson-Wise’s proudest achievements. “You always want to leave things better than they were when you came in, and we achieved that,” Andersson says. “Yes, the space is beautiful and glamorous and all of those things.

But it’s also simple and smart and makes the most of its natural surroundings. It’s the best of both worlds, and we’re really proud to have been a part of it.” gb&d gbdmagazine.com

PHOTO: ART GRAY

www.oakdev.com

design-style guidelines that in some ways missed the mark for Austin. “Unless you’re from here, you won’t understand that the goal isn’t to be zany just for the sake of it,” he says. “There’s the whole ‘keep Austin weird’ thing, and that’s more about keeping things genuine. Anything that seems contrived or manufactured to look or be interesting won’t go over well.”

Much of what Andersson-Wise did was riff on the requirements the hotel company had in place. Andersson says that there was a lot of talk about the “experience” of going to a W Hotel—that moment when you go from the outside to the inside. Because of this, there was a great deal of importance placed on the hotel’s entrance. “What better way to illustrate the transition from outside to inside than a modern interpretation of nature?” Andersson says of the final concept. “What we did looks modern, but it was inspired by nature. For example, near the entrance

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When completed in 2018, the Moshe Safdie-designed Monde will allow a live-work-play lifestyle and bring people back to the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto.

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As one of the first developments along Toronto’s “new blue edge,” Monde Condominiums is setting the stage for a wave of sustainable building along the city’s waterfront

By Matt Alderton

The world’s great waterfront cities— Barcelona, Sydney, San Francisco—are dominated by parks, trails, beaches, and boardwalks. They teem with activity.

Attractions. Ambiance. But because waterways historically have been important shipping arteries, many of them were once overrun with industry, which in certain cases turned the waterfront from an asset into an afterthought.

This is certainly the case in Toronto.

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries the city was a thriving port, brimming with warehouses, factories, and wharfs.

In the 1970s, however, deindustrialization left the shores of Lake Ontario littered with brownfields, economically and environmentally spent.

Four decades later, government stakeholders are reclaiming and revitalizing this once-forgotten district. Led by Waterfront Toronto, established in 2001 by the federal, provincial, and city governments of Canada, Ontario, and Toronto, the effort is a 25-year, $34 billion megaproject that will transform 2,000 acres of blighted waterfront into sustainable mixed-use communities.

Monde Condominiums in Toronto’s East Bayfront neighborhood is among the first private-sector developments precipitated by the initiative, which Waterfront Toronto calls the “new blue edge.” Still in gb&d

the early stages of development with a groundbreaking date expected in late 2014 or early 2015, it will be a LEED Gold-certified condominium building with 40 stories and 516 suites when completed in 2018.

“It’s pioneering to be the first [privatesector] building in the area,” says Alan Vihant, senior vice president of high-rise development at Great Gulf, the building’s Toronto-based developer. “We’re helping to set the tone for the entire waterfront.”

A fixture of the East Bayfront neighborhood is Sherbourne Common, a 3.63-acre waterfront park that opened in 2010. It is the first park in Canada to feature a neighborhood-wide stormwater-treatment facility as part of its design. According to architect Moshe Safdie, who designed Monde in collaboration with local architecture firm Quadrangle Architects, Sherbourne Common and Lake Ontario were a major consideration in the building’s design, which will engage the park via a café promenade along its park-facing entrance.

“There are two elements within the design: a podium that defines the urban context and continues the urban spaces, giving an edge to the park and animating the street front, and a tower that springs out of it,” says Safdie, head of Boston-based Safdie Architects. “[Waterfront Toronto] wants to create street life at the pedestrian scale. This building, by embracing the idea of a podium that engages the street and the park in the form of arcades, cafés, restaurants, and shops, contributes to this objective.”

It’s the first of many ways that Monde advances Waterfront Toronto’s vision for sustainable mixed-use communities. “The building itself is connected to the park so may–june 2014

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“[Urban concepts] that force you to commute for two hours are less efficient—not just in terms of energy, but also in terms of human lives.” Moshe Safdie, Safdie Architects

that the main mid-block public passage actually runs from the street into the park by all the residents’ front door,” says Sheldon Levitt, a principal at Quadrangle Architects. “It’s not just what happens in your individual unit that’s important; it’s all the opportunities for being outdoors.”

In fact, outdoor spaces are a cornerstone of Monde’s design, which promotes indoor-outdoor living with a “Gardens in the Sky” design philosophy. In addition to the requisite green roof at the top of the tower, the building will sport a planted-edge green roof on the amenities level at the top of the podium component, where there also will be an infinity pool overlooking downtown Toronto. The highlight, however, is the private balconies and terraces with built-in planters outside each condo suite, most of which will average 60 square feet compared to approximately 27 square feet for a traditional condo balcony. These balconies will connect residents to the natural BELOW In addition to a green roof, Monde will have a living wall and a planted edge on the amenities level.

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world while giving the building a unique, textured appearance.

“What a building offers tangibly to those living in it and what it does to the people looking at it has to be somehow fused together,” Safdie says. “The emphasis on outdoor spaces achieves this and gives the building its unique appearance.

The balconies are quite unusual. They either follow the face of the apartment or they stick out in a perpendicular way. And because the building staggers in a kind of zigzag form, the glass reflects these balconies, so it looks like an extremely complex three-dimensional puzzle.”

The integration of indoor and outdoor spaces accomplishes a lot in the way of sustainability, using native plant species, for instance, and minimizing heat island effect. Great Gulf promises many other green elements, including lowflow plumbing fixtures that will reduce water consumption by up to 40 percent, a rainwater collection system that will reuse water for the building’s evaporative cooling, and innovative heat-recovery ventilators that will use heat from residents’

bathroom exhaust fans to heat their units. It also includes more requisite features such as low-VOC paints, adhesives, and flooring; daylight maximization; an on-demand fresh air system; and a “master kill switch” that residents can use to easily turn off all the lights in their suite when they’re leaving it.

According to Michael Pires, an associate at Enermodal Engineering and the sustainability consultant on the project, the team plans to avoid using Portland cement whenever possible in its concrete, to use rebar that’s locally sourced and contains more than 90 percent recycled content, and to use drywall metal studs with the highest possible recycled content. Ultimately, though, what makes Monde Condominiums most sustainable isn’t its individual footprint but rather its position within East Bayfront and the larger Toronto waterfront community.

Inhabitants and visitors will have access to local shopping and entertainment, public transportation, public green space, and even a state-of-the-art broadband network—Canada’s first open-access, ultra-high-speed broadband community network—that will allow them to work from home more often and therefore commute less.

“Most of what is covered under ‘sustainability’ has to do with the physical world; it’s about materials, energy, and consumption,” Safdie says. “But there is also a whole social dimension, which has to do with the urban form and the mix of land uses, which encourage or discourage transportation and travel in the city. Urban concepts that get people to live closer to their jobs are a good thing. Those that force you to commute for two hours are less efficient—not just in terms of energy, but also in terms of human lives. These types of large-scale urban questions go well beyond individual buildings and have to do with the whole notion that mixed-use development is better than single-use development, which is something we encourage in every one of our urban projects.” gb&d gbdmagazine.com

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POMEROY APARTMENTS PAPPAGEORGE HAYMES PARTNERS CHICAGO

The Bryn Mawr Historic District, located on Chicago’s often overlooked far north side, is an architectural photograph of early 20th-century Chicago, and the Pomeroy Apartments—located at the heart of the small district—are a perfect representation of the style.

Originally constructed in 1921 and now functioning as a senior living center, the nine-story, 104-unit building was renovated by Pappageorge Haymes Partners in 2011 to restore the building’s residential character while promoting accessibility, energy efficiency, and increased points of connection to the area’s lakefront position. The $31 million project began by restoring the brick, terra cotta, and limestone façade, and then moved on to the interior renovation, targeting LEED Platinum. A rooftop terrace, accessible via staircase and elevator, has space for rooftop gardening, and the project also makes use of geothermal wells, photovoltaic panels, heat-recovery systems, high-performance windows and insulation, and Energy Star appliances throughout the units. Additionally, more than 90 percent of the construction waste was diverted from landfills. gb&d —Edited by Zurich Esposito

The LEED Platinum renovation included adding a rooftop terrace with garden plots for residents.

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SLEIGHT OF H A N D Inside the architectural acrobatics of Penn Law’s Golkin Hall, which successfully daylights its subterranean spaces and softens stereotypically ‘hard’ materials

By Russ Klettke

PHOTOS: BURLEY HALKIN

Golkin Hall has four green roofs, two of which allow public access.

Together with pervious pavements, these surfaces reduce stormwater runoff by 52 percent.

The physical experience of Golkin Hall, the new law school building at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, involves plenty of natural light and green space. The building has four green roofs, two of which allow public access, and a central, four-story staircase that is bathed in direct and indirect sunshine by day.

What makes this so significant is the fact that a large portion of the building is underground. Its pleasantness is the remarkable accomplishment of its design,

by Kennedy & Violich Architecture (KVA) of Boston. The 41,315-square-foot structure replaces a building nearly one third its size, and if this feat wasn’t already challenging enough, the designers agreed that an open area adjacent to the building—a grassy quad on its north side—was too popular a hangout to inadvertently shade with a taller structure. “The heart of the law school campus is its courtyard,” explains Frano Violich, a principal at KVA. “We had to balance the size of the building against shading this open space.” ➤

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Large windows and stairs made from Jerusalem stone, which is light in color, help brighten the below-grade portions of Golkin Hall.

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Because so many students use this courtyard, the architects opted to both preserve the outdoor space and avoid shading it with a tall tower.

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ture built in 1900 (also part of the law school), but the KVA design upends these traditional notions with a campus- and street-friendly, LEED Gold structure that accomplishes multiple objectives.

Signature elements of this modern openness are the entrance windows and stairwell, but a marble-panel exterior wall

to the east of the main entrance acts more as a sunlight sieve than a barrier. All panels align at the top, but as it gets closer to the ground, half the panels progressively rotate to approximately 90 degrees. The effect is that morning sun dapples the entryway with a type of light sculpture. “We can rethink architecture,” Violich says of gbdmagazine.com

PHOTOS: BURLEY HALKIN

The only option was to go below the surface. This included a 350-seat auditorium, a moot court room, and the student center, all below grade. Because the building largely runs along an eastwest axis, it was able to draw natural daylight from its south-facing façade with a floor-to-roof glassed entryway and a corresponding opening in the rear. The main staircase—surfaced with light-colored Jerusalem limestone, which boasts a hardness equivalent to granite—brings light to the subterranean-level circulation area. “When below the surface, you can still see buildings on the street,” Violich says. “It’s a sleight of hand, creating the illusion of being on the ground level when you are not.”

This building also was expected to communicate something about Penn Law’s goal to create a legal education based on interdisciplinary scholarship and transparency. This contrasts with historical judicial architecture, made up of imposing buildings with rock-solid façades and neoclassical elements such as pillars and pediments. In fact, the new building connects to Silverman Hall, a very large, ornate neo-Georgian struc-

Golkin Hall, University of Pennsylvania Law School SPACES

“When below the surface, you can still see buildings on the street. It’s a sleight of hand, creating the illusion of being on the ground level when you are not.”

AHA Consulting Engineers helped achieve Golkin Hall’s LEED Gold certification by installing a highefficiency HVAC system and an energy-recovery wheel.

Frano Violich, Kennedy & Violich Architecture

PROJECT LOCATION Philadelphia Size 41,315 ft2 Completion 2012 Program Classrooms, offices, lecture halls

TEAM ARCHITECT Kennedy & Violich Architecture Owner University of Pennsylvania School of Law MEPFP Engineer / Sustainability Consultant AHA Consulting Engineers Structural Engineer Richmond So Engineers Civil Engineer Stantec Landscape Architect Richard Burck Associates Lighting Consultant Tillotson Design Associates

GREEN CERTIFICATION LEED Gold Site Close to bus and train lines, previously impervious surface, porous pavement Landscape 6 0% of the site is vegetated, tiered green roofs Water Reclamation measures retain and reuse 60% of on-site rainfall Energy E nergy-recovery wheel, 35% sustainable electricity, high-efficiency mechanical system Materials 75% of construction waste recycled, 20% of construction components made from recycled materials and sourced within 500 miles

DIAGRAM GOLKIN HALL Because of innovative window use, light can penetrate all the way to the subterranean levels of Golkin Hall. A glass façade lets light seep in through the atrium entryway and open stairwell, which leads to the lower level.

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“Sustainability is also about promoting social interaction. We increase the quality of life when we can create these human experiences.”

Frano Violich, Kennedy & Violich Architecture

ABOVE The undulating brick and marble around the building’s windows add texture and depth to the exterior. “We can rethink architecture; hard materials can be used in a softer way,” says project architect Frano Violich.

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this unique solution. “Hard materials can be used in a softer way.”

The entry doors and windows are deeply indented, as are all south-facing fenestrations, to minimize solar heat gain in the summer. This is part of an integrated approach to energy efficiency—which includes envelope design, glazing systems, mechanical and electrical systems, occupancy sensors, LED lighting, and enthalpy economizers—to achieve 32 percent less energy use than code standards.

The multi-terraced roofs of the building, which are stepped to allow sunshine in the courtyard, are also covered in vegetation (sedum and grass species), wood decking (as walkways, seating, and gathering spots), and white membrane near mechanical systems to reflect heat. Together with pervious pavements, these surfaces reduce stormwater runoff by 52 percent. With public spaces on the roofs, the courtyard is effectively extended and elevated. “Sustainability is also about promoting social interaction,” Violich says. “We increase the quality of life when we can create these human experiences.” gb&d gbdmagazine.com

PHOTOS: BURLEY HALKIN

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AHA is honored to support this important project for University of Pennsylvania with Kennedy & Violich Architects.

Golkin Hall – LEED Gold

Music Building – LEED Gold

How can we support your project...?

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, and Fire Protection Engineering Sustainability Consulting, LEED Administration, Commissioning and Energy Modeling Offices in Boston, Atlanta, and Washington, DC Please contact: Kevin Jensen or Robert Andrews at 781-372-3000

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Project Scheduling | Estimating Project Management | Construction Claims Dispute Resolution | Loss Consulting OFFIC ES IN W AS H INGTON D C & S EATTLE WA

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focused on a

Greener Future At Clark Construction Group, sustainability isn’t just good for business; it’s our fundamental business practice.

As one of the nation’s largest green general contractors, we are dedicated to being the most conscientious builder we can be, and leaving behind a better world.

Clark is proud to support the next generation of builders and designers as they pave the way for a more sustainable future. Congratulations to the student members of Team Capitol D.C. for their outstanding efforts on Harvest Home and the 2013 Solar Decathlon. Your vision and passion for sustainable building is truly inspiring. We were honored to be your partner on this project.

Clark Construction Group, LLC •

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INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY SOLOMON CORDWELL BUENZ CHICAGO

LOYOL

PHOTOS: DAVE BURK, HEDRICH BLESSING

The $58 million, 215,000-square-foot Institute for Environmental Sustainability (IES) at Loyola University Chicago is a combined living and learning facility that makes clever reuse of existing facilities while expanding on them in unique ways. The most distinct element is the central greenhouse space that connects the 11-story Wright Hall, built in 1959, to the six-story San Francisco Residence Hall at the opposite end. The greenhouse portion mirrors Solomon Cordwell Buenz’s earlier work on the Klarchek Information Commons building on the Loyola campus as it uses natural ventilation strategies and rainwater harvesting.

It also capitalizes on the captured energy to lead to plant production and ultimately produce edible agriculture. Additionally, the site has solar thermal collectors to recharge the on-site geothermal system—the largest of its kind in the City of Chicago. The IES is also multifunctional with residence, classroom, research, and collaborative spaces to develop the university’s own sustainability program while allowing it to more fully integrate with the surrounding public community. gb&d —Edited by Zurich Esposito

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The new structure has two aquaponic systems, biodiesel production labs, an EcoDome, and a greenhouse, all to aid students’ environmental education.

LA SCB

EXCLUSIVE EXTRAS See more photos of the IES in our iPad edition and at gbdmagazine.com.

IN THIS ISSUE Go inside the WMS Gaming offices by Solomon Cordwell Buenz on p.106.

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Students designed the Harvest Home to use plants native to California in order to help future occupants— disabled or wounded veterans—feel more at home.

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LOCATION Vista, CA Size 756 ft2 Completed 2 013 Program Single-family residence Awards Seventh place, 2013 Solar Decathlon

DESIGN/BUILDER Team Capitol DC Future Owner Wounded Warrior Homes Construction Services Clark Construction Construction Estimating Services Held Enloe & Associates

CERTIFICATION LEED for Homes Materials 80% recycled materials, 95% reclaimed flooring, recycled rubber-tire tiles Water Rainwater and greywater irrigation, rain catchment, low-flow fixtures, ‘harvest table’ with water recirculation Energy P V array, solar-thermal system Landscape E dible garden, 100% native plantings

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A HEALING HOMESTEAD Housing and healthcare are intertwined in this regenerative residence for disabled veterans

By Christopher James Palafox

ABOVE The standing-seam metal roofs of existing barns were used for siding and the underside of the overhang. The wood decking was reclaimed from old barns or churches.

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The story of the Harvest Home is one of missions converging. Through its biennial Solar Decathlon, the US Department of Energy seeks to challenge collegiate minds to design and build solar-powered homes that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. Seemingly far from this effort is Wounded Warrior Homes, whose mission is to provide affordable transitional housing to medically discharged, single men and women of the United States armed forces with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

These divergent goals meet in the Harvest Home, where a vegetable garden provides a soothing daily activity, motion sensors monitor sleep patterns, and the sound of rainwater catchment serves as a calming water feature.

There was another joining of missions that made Harvest Home possible: the creation of Team Capitol DC. For the first time in history, three area colleges joined together to represent Washington, DC, in the 2013 Decathlon. Student designers, architects, and builders came from Catholic University of America (CUA),

George Washington University (GWU), and American University (AU), and by culling the talent of its metro area, Team Capitol DC was able to leverage the unique talents of each school while also tapping into wider alumni networks.

CUA is a top architecture school; GWU boasts a strong, multidisciplinary engineering program; and AU is known for a formidable communications department.

From the beginning, Team Capitol DC sought to create a sustainable home that had a life beyond the competition.

When it was decided that donating the home was the best avenue for success, Wounded Warrior Homes, which is based in Vista, California, was selected. The hope is that the home will see a new veteran approximately every two and half years—helping twenty individuals throughout the Harvest Home’s lifespan of approximately half a century.

“The whole home was designed to service a need that we saw: veterans who are mentally, physically, or emotionally disabled that need a home specifically designed to meet their needs,” says Kyle Noell, the graduate leader may–june 2014

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RESTORATIVE DESIGN The healing features of Harvest Home Harvest Table The center of this outdoor table overflows with greens and herbs, allowing tenants to restore energy and life from the table itself.

Water flows through the table, down to a rill along the floor, and through a lawn of native plants, continuing the table’s restorative reach.

and construction manager for Team Capitol DC. The single-family house uses natural resources to power the home and creates a regenerative atmosphere by connecting veterans to the land and blurring the line between the natural and built environments. Many of the home’s elements are based on the concept of a harvest. That term has become ubiquitous with the act of reaping, but the individuals on Team Capitol DC were looking at the notion as a holistic and cyclical process that addresses both consumption and production.

In the end, the design of the solar-powered, net-zero home is guided by five “harvest elements”: sun, water, wind, vegetation, and materials. Sun is represented in the home’s photovoltaic array and solar-thermal system, water is collected to maintain the landscape through irrigation, and wind is incorporated through an air-to-air heat-distribution system and passive ventilation.

Vegetation is amply supplied via two gardens, one of which contains sustainable edibles, and all but five percent of the wood—used on the exterior and for the home’s floors—served a previous life elsewhere.

The home encourages the occupant to engage all five senses, helping him or her intuit the inner workings of the home. Strengthening the ties between environmental health and human well-being are elements that simultaneously nurture the home and the individual. “The user has a harvesting garden they’re

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Reclaimed Hardwood Flooring Nearly 200 years old, the flooring was taken from old barns and churches.

It grounds the home in history and gives the user an awareness of the larger world. The idea of reusing something once considered useless is meant to lift the spirits.

Edible Garden The garden is meant to be therapeutic by allowing the inhabitant to connect with the Earth.

Gardening exemplifies natural cycles and, through its native plantings and rainwater irrigation, highlights the home’s sustainable future.

“Smart” Home Features Neutral and soothing materials and finishes are combined with motion sensors that help regulate temperature and lighting. Special attention is paid to PTSD-related sleep patterns through the home’s smart controls in order to keep its inhabitants calm and relaxed.

BELOW In addition to the solarthermal and photovoltaic arrays topping the Harvest Home, a centralized control system and accompanying display aid the occupant in conserving energy and therefore lowering utility costs.

able to tend,” Noell says.

“Doing that helps the gardens grow and thrive, but it also helps [the occupant] grow, thrive, and feel more calm and relaxed.” The home remains health-conscious by following the American Disability Act requirements for physical accessibility. Other aspects serve to calm the user, such as the sound of water from the rainwater-collection system or rubber decking tiles that are soothing for feet.

Inside, the reclaimed hardwood floors are paired with soft colors such as pastel purples and greens, and through its clear sight lines to the vegetation space, the home continually blurs the divide between inside and out.

The smart home also learns certain tenant habits, such as

waking times, in order to optimize temperature, and motion sensors monitor PTSD-related sleep movements. On the east side of the bedroom is a morning terrace that allows natural daylight to wake the inhabitant; at night, the light silhouettes the west-side living space, animating the Earth’s natural cycles.

As with any home, a beautiful, functional final product is the result of years of work and innumerable partners. Harvest Home’s roots, for instance, stretch back to January 2011 when it was first conceptualized. The team’s proposal was accepted in 2012, construction began in February 2013, and the home was shipped to California seven months later.

The success of the Harvest Home—at the competition it

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placed seventh out of 20 finalists—is in large part due to the formation of the DC triumvirate, which helped the home garner the necessary support. Numerous sponsors and faculty members offered construction services gratis to support their alma mater or simply the area’s younger generation. Companies such as Clark Construction Group volunteered more than 250 hours on the project, assisting Noell and his team by connecting them with local subcontractors and providing the students feedback after undertaking a comprehensive review of its construction documents.

Drawing on its experience with waterproofing, Clark helped modify the openings of exterior windows and sliding doors to be more efficient.

Individuals such as Lisa Enloe of Held Enloe & Associates also volunteered support; as an alum of CUA, Enloe provided the project with estimating services and pricing concepts as they were being designed.

The curtain closed on the 2013 Decathlon last October, and Team DC Capitol’s Harvest Home will soon begin its life as a regenerative aid in the healing process, meeting the needs of our wounded soldiers—and our wounded planet. gb&d

THIS PAGE Using a number of decks to extend the living space (top) and large windows to blur the line between inside and outside (bottom), the home also harvests excess heat from solar panels and kitchen appliances.

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COMMUNITY HOSPITAL AT YISHUN GENSLER, HDR ARCHITECTS SINGAPORE

With a design that successfully weds first-class healthcare and sustainable strategies to promote patient healing, this seven-story hospital, which won the 2013 Healthcare Environment Award for Best Conceptual Design, mimics the sustainable ecology of a rain forest by employing natural solutions, notably through its use of vertical landscaping and natural light. The design includes a four-story podium intended for outpatient and rehabilitative use, as well as a garden layer suited for the same purpose.

Correspondent to the rain forest theme, a large canopy roof covers the entire building, including the open-air, two-story public plaza at the front of the hospital that has a native water feature and aviary to bridge the divide between the structure’s interior and exterior spaces. The building is wrapped in a naturally ventilated skin, which incorporates outside winds to condition occupant spaces, resulting in a design that is ecologically and socially communal. gb&d —Edited by Zurich Esposito

IN THIS ISSUE Go inside the Manifest Digital offices by Gensler on p.102.

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The hospital is modeled after a rain forest with a canopy of greenery covering the ceiling in the main areas.

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

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A new fire station in Colorado Springs scores a win for water

176 Wooded Urban Infill

Kevin Newman creates an affordable building system for small projects

178 Brighton Beach Brownfield

How to overcome a contaminated site and earn top green marks

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CHANGING CODES GREYWATER GETS A GREEN LIGHT

FIRE STATION 21 COLORADO SPRINGS, CO FENNELL GROUP

By Christopher James Palafox

OPPOSITE The distinct fabric shade flowing from the top of the fire station’s stair tower blocks 100% of UV sunlight during the summer.

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If you can’t play by the rules, find a way around them. When Jim Fennell was commissioned by the City of Colorado Springs to design the most sustainable fire station he could, he was faced with an antiquated law that made greywater reuse illegal. Instead of accepting a loss in the category of water recapture, a crucial part of sustainability in the high alpine desert climate, Fennell worked with the local building department, state and county health departments, and the local utility to implement water conservation and reuse at Fire Station 21.

The old standard stemmed from the area’s agricultural past. To prevent farmers from hoarding water for their crops, utilities made it illegal to store water. Instead, it was released to drainage basins so that it could be evenly distributed to the community. For Fennell, a local resident and principal at Fennell Group, maneuvering

around this outdated water-use measure meant facing two major hurdles: getting permission from both the building and health departments, and also getting purveyor Colorado Springs Utilities to sign off on greywater use.

Fennell was in conversation with these parties on how to create a system that would satisfy local codes for approximately two years. Eventually, the health department decided it could label the whole endeavor “experimental,” which allowed it to issue a permit for greywater use on an trial basis. Another requirement of the code was that if the facility did reuse water, it couldn’t come into human contact, so Fennell illustrated how the water would be used as a subsurface drip-irrigation system. Colorado Springs Utilities was equally creative, installing a metering system that allowed the utility to resell water from showers and laundries at a gbdmagazine.com

Fennell Group installed an extensive sunshading apparatus to block the sun’s rays in the summer but let them in during the winter.

TOUGH BUILDS Fire Station 21

PROJECT LOCATION Colorado Springs, CO Size 12,000 ft2 Completed 2013 Cost $ 4 million Program Fire station with work and living areas

TEAM ARCHITECT Fennell Group Client City of Colorado Springs

GREEN CERTIFICATION LEED Platinum (expected) Site Solar shading, thermal mass for passive solar gain, daylighting Materials L ocal and renewable products, high solar-heat-gaincoefficient glazing, low-E insulating glazing Water G reywater irrigation for landscaping and community garden Energy Ground-source heat pump, passive ventilation system Landscape Native landscape, community garden

reduced rate, which will account for considerable savings.

The final design involves a two-story building based on the look and feel of an “old firehouse” but with modern technology. The project was originally contracted for 2008, but the national recession that hit in 2009 put plans on hold. Fennell says this hiatus was fortuitous. When it was taken off the shelf in 2010, the fire station’s size had been slashed to 12,000 square feet because of economic challenges, yet it needed to be built for the same unit price and still meet LEED Platinum certification. This meant that Fennell had to be more aggressive in lowering up-front costs and increasing efficiencies.

The project was registered under LEED version 2.2 in 2008, so it needed 52 points to reach Platinum. However, the project was new construction on a greenfield site, so it needed nearly every possible point.

“This was an opportunity to go beyond LEED and create something that was truly sustainable by incorporating loads of passive systems.”

Jim Fennell, Fennell Group

The project achieved the certification and much more. “This was an opportunity to go beyond LEED,” Fennell says, “and create something that was truly sustainable by incorporating passive systems to save costs and reusing greywater for irrigating a community garden, which strengthens the neighborhood.” gb&d

ABOVE Fire Station 21 uses a drip irrigation system fed by recycled onsite greywater—a first for the City of Colorado Springs.

RIGHT The station’s interior features clerestory windows and thermalmass masonry walls.

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TOUGH BUILDS

URBAN INFILL NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

PARK LANDING BUENA PARK, CA NEWMAN GARRISON + PARTNERS

By Russ Klettke

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PHOTOS: JUAN TALLO

With a limited site, the design team installed a multiuse green roof—which features covered dining areas, barbecues, and a bocce ball court—on top of the development’s parking garage.

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TOUGH BUILDS

DETAILS LOCATION Buena Park, CA Size 67,662 ft2 (residential), 21,423 ft2 (green roof) Completed 2 013 Certification LEED for Homes Gold Architect N ewman Garrison + Partners Developer J amboree Housing Landscape Architect The Collaborative West

The economics of building multiunit residential structures on small urban infill locations is tricky, but with a new affordable housing development in Buena Park, California, the numbers add up.

Newman Garrison + Partners (NG+P) of nearby Newport Beach designed the 70unit Park Landing to fit on just 2.2 acres.

This included a separate 138-car surface parking structure and 21,000 square feet of recreational green space. What’s more, they were able to shave 35 percent off construction material costs by using wood instead of concrete.

This problem-solving design was so inventive and effective that NG+P has a patent pending on what it’s calling New Block. The massive green space is in fact a vegetated roof built over the wooden park-

the solution as attractive to lenders as it is to developers. The New Block approach is particularly effective along mass transit corridors, where few large tracts of land are available. “This is not just about affordable housing,” he says, “it’s also appropriate for market-rate, senior, and student rental housing.”

Wood offers significant environmental advantages. University of Washington forest resources professor Bruce Lippke champions the use of wood from sustainable forests to displace fossil fuel-intensive concrete and steel. “A wood building [is] a storehouse of carbon from the forest,” Lippke says. “[With] steel or concrete, you’re seeing the emissions of carbon dioxide that had to go into the atmosphere for those structures to go up.”

“To put 35 to 45 units into an acre of land while achieving the desired open space formerly required concrete podium or wrap designs, which are cost prohibitive. New Block makes it more affordable.”

Kevin Newman, Newman Garrison + Partners

ing structure. Kevin Newman, CEO of the firm and a passionate promoter of sustainable construction methods, worked closely with structural engineers to ensure the plan would work. “To put 35 to 45 units into an acre of land while achieving the desired open space formerly required concrete podium or wrap designs, which are cost prohibitive,” Newman says. “New Block makes it more affordable.”

Choosing wood for the Buena Park project meant the owner paid just $135 per square foot, compared to traditional concrete, which would have cost between $165 and $250 per square foot, making gb&d

Under California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act, that smaller carbon footprint matters. Developers can be relieved of certain other environmental review requirements when methods such as New Block help them achieve greenhouse gas targets. “Sustainable design has historically been challenging for developers to incorporate into their projects cost effectively, but New Block is able to bridge that gap,” Newman says. Since Park Landing opened in 2013, he says inquiries have been pouring in—from clients within California and beyond. gb&d may–june 2014

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SITE WORK BRIGHTON BEACH BROWNFIELD

By Julie Schaeffer

CLEANED UP

PROJECT

GREEN

LOCATION Brooklyn, NY Size 6,500 ft2 Completed 2014 (expected) Program S ix condo units, ground-floor commercial space

CERTIFICATION PHIUS, LEED Platinum, Living Building Challenge (all expected) Site Soil extraction and an under-slab ventilation system eliminate toxic gases and contaminants Water 5,000-gallon stormwater storage tank supplies water for toilets, showers, and irrigation Energy Solar panels, wind turbines, tight envelope

TEAM ARCHITECT Scarano Architect General Contractor M Square Builders Structural Engineer Marin Consulting Engineer Mechanical Engineer T SF Engineering Services Civil Engineer C arubba Engineering Environmental Consultant Laurel Environmental Associates LEED Consultant A KF Group

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In the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn, the lot at 67 Brighton First Lane sat vacant. But not as vacant as it first appeared. What is now the location of Bright ‘N Green, a six-unit condo project that aims to achieve Passive House, Living Building Challenge, and LEED Platinum standards, was empty when architect Robert Scarano Jr. first saw the property in 2005. But previously, a structure on-site had been severely damaged in a fire and, in an attempt to mitigate the subsequent eyesore, compacted into the cellar.

The property was not listed as a brownfield, but once the team at Scarano Architect had the soil tested, it determined that the land was, in fact, contaminated, and environmental remediation was necessary. Scott Yanuck of Laurel Environmental Associates was tasked with remediating the site. “What at first glance seemed like a site with a demolished home was a site with hazardous levels of lead from historical fill material, whether derived from ash from coal burning or imported fill,” Yanuck says.

LEFT Bright ‘N Green will have 133 solar panels that both shade the windows and generate electricity, along with the rooftop wind turbines, for the building.

RAISED UP

With the help of the NYC Brownfield Incentive Grant (BIGs) program, the team removed the top seven feet of soil from the site—by hand. “There was no vehicular access leading to the home, and we literally had to do everything by hand, with shovels and buckets,” says Yuriy Menzak, the architectural project manager. The remediation took a total of two months to complete.

It was during that period that Scarano discovered Cupellex, an under-slab ventilation system used heavily in New Jersey where toxic underground gases can seep into homes. “Coal ash used during the industrial era was dumped underground because it was thought to be good for farming, but it contains plenty of things that are harmful, so you have to create a gap between the ground and the lowest floor to ventilate it,” says Menzak, who along with Yanuck created a two-foot air gap and under-slab ventilation system, the first of its kind used in New York City. “We continually move air underneath the building.”

That extra two feet proved far more fortuitous than anyone could have imagined.

During construction, Superstorm Sandy hit the city, and the development withstood 90-mile-per-hour winds and cresting ocean waters without suffering any major breakage or flood damage.

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TOUGH BUILDS

“What at first glance seemed like a site with a demolished home was a site with hazardous levels of lead from historical fill material.”

Scott Yanuck, Laurel Environmental Associates

SEALED UP

Achieving Passive House certification required more than durability. Scarano and Menzak focused heavily on energy efficiency and sought to achieve the Passive Building requirement that the building is constructed to eliminate 90 percent of heating and cooling expenditures. “It requires a high level of design and supervision to take into account the particulars of the

www.laurelenv.com

environment, with the biggest challenge ensuring that you don’t lose energy already spent for heating or cooling through air leaks and thermal bridging,” Menzak says.

A highly insulated envelope helped the building achieve a thermal resistance level of R70, far exceeding the current R30 industry baseline. Geothermal wells were added despite the tight space, and 150 feet of 10-inch

Geotube precools the air in the summer and preheats it in the winter. The building doesn’t use natural gas resources; it’s all electric with power supplied from solar panels and wind turbines on the roof. “We started out using 10 percent of the energy that a typical house would and took it down to zero,” Menzak says.

He insists that there is no such thing as a net-zero building, only net-zero tenants who are

trying to save electricity, limit water use, and recycle.

Already, Bright ‘N Green has received the prestigious Green Site Award from the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Remediation. Once completed, it should qualify for all its certifications, along with numerous other awards. And it’s not the first of its kind— Bright ‘N Greens two through six are already on the drawing board. gb&d

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Up Front Approach Trendsetters Green Typologies Inner Workings Features Spaces Tough Builds Punch List

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182 Toolbox

A roundup of the season’s latest lighting products

183 Reclaimed

Designer Jay Watson finds a use for grandma’s antique candy dishes

184 Person of Interest

Lighting designer Jesse Blonstein advocates for consumer education

186 Software Solution

Autodesk introduces cost-effective energy analytics for building owners

189 Discussion Board

Can we envision the workplace of 2050?

190 On the Boards

A revitalized Emancipation Park is a civic showpiece for Houston

192 On the Spot

Guest editor Zurich Esposito takes our questionnaire

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Toolbox On the Bright Side

Luceat lux vestra—or, let your light shine!

More of us want innovative lighting, and manufacturers are delivering. Here are five of the latest technologies on the market.

Text by Lindsey Howald Patton Edited by Glenn Heinmiller, Nelson Jenkins, and gb&d staff ▲ ▼ FLUXWERX

WAVESTREAM BY COOPER LIGHTING The folks at Eaton’s Cooper Lighting launched a series of glare-free LED fixtures fitted with proprietary WaveStream technology. We like the INDEX—a stylish suspended luminaire with dimming capabilities and daylight and occupancy sensors. cooperindustries.com

The newest kid on the lighting block is revolutionizing the look of the LED with modern design. In its initial product line of contemporary fixtures, Fluxwerx’s proprietary optical system keeps the lens transparent, even with the lights on. fluxwerx.com

BIG BANG BY FOSCARINI This bright burst of ribbon-formed methacrylate and lacquered metal diffuses and reflects light from its 12-watt halogen bulb. Measuring 31 by 26 by 9 inches, the fixture strikes a dramatic pose on walls or ceilings. foscarini.com

BUZZISHADE BY BUZZISPACE Light may be a symbol of truth, but the BuzziShade is all about disguise. This artsy eco-friendly fixture comes with an acoustically insulated hooded shade that masks conversation and cancels ambient noise. buzzispace.com

▲ ARCHITECTURAL DIMMING SYSTEM

BY SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC The mood of the whole building is now at your fingertips.

Whether using neon cathodes, incandescents, fluorescents, or anything in between, this system helps save energy, redefine the lighting of a whole floor, or set dramatic focal points. schneider-electric.com

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IN CONVERSATION with Zurich Esposito Continued from p. 22

Esposito: That’s it. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just hard to pinpoint what’s so great about [Chicago]. It’s just the phenomenon of being here. It’s very easy to be here. gb&d: What about the AIA National Convention in June (26–28)? People are coming to Chicago—what’s something you hope they take away?

Esposito: Most people think of tall buildings when they think of Chicago. And that’s great.

It’s an important architecture and engineering accomplishment and legacy that’s been created here. And the influence of firms from Chicago creating tall buildings in cities around the world is important and really outstanding. But in addition to showing that off, we want to make sure people come away knowing how vibrant and diverse our neighborhoods are, both in terms of who lives in them and how they look. As well as the other proficiencies and talents that exist in designing other building types. Hospitals and schools, for example. We have excellent design talent in those areas.

PART 4: A PROGRESSIVE AGENDA gb&d: Something you’ve mentioned is that sustainability is still being led largely by individuals or groups of individuals within firms. Why do you think that is?

Reclaimed Just Desserts Just when you thought your grandmother’s fancy glass candy dishes would never make a comeback in the world of modern design, Jay Watson scrounged them up at the local flea market. Watson’s new lighting line, Just Desserts, deftly inverts these pressed glass bowls and makes contemporary ceiling pendants of them. Each bouquet of fixtures—in clear or vintage shades like bottle green, amber, lemon yellow, and robin’s egg blue—is retrofitted with single 75,000-hour white LEDs (2700K, 95CRI). The sandy wooden breaks and sleek aluminum columns create a decidedly un-old-fashioned silhouette. Since all of the dishes are sourced from secondhand shops and flea markets, Just Desserts fixtures are made to order and completely unique.

We think that’s pretty sweet. gb&d —Lindsey Howald Patton gb&d

“We want to make sure people come away knowing how vibrant and diverse [Chicago’s] neighborhoods are, both in terms of who lives in them and how they look.”

Esposito: The way architecture firms in the US are set up, there are sustainability leaders within them who sort of drive the best practices of sustainability and make sure, almost like auditors, that the best practices are being used to the best of its ability. Now, “the best of its ability” in many cases involves budget. So is energy modeling used for every project at Firm X? That’s really rare.

But we do now have firms that model all of their projects and can show that statistically those buildings tend to be better performing buildings after they’re built, but that is going to happen more widely when The conversation continues on p. 189

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Person of Interest Jesse Blonstein

The award-winning senior designer at Lightbrigade Architectural Lighting Design champions thoughtfulness on the subject of lighting by serving as a teacher, speaker, and writer. Here, he illuminates the importance of seeking out such diverse roles.

Interview by Christopher James Palafox

PUNCH LIST

gb&d: What drew you to lighting?

Jesse Blonstein: I have a behindthe-scenes appreciation of things, so the technical side of design has always interested me. Getting into engineering school and discovering illumination engineering—lighting is a great blend of the technical and the artistic. gb&d: Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Blonstein: Just seeing how other designers play with space, light, and darkness. Human experience is largely visual, and the ways we interact with light and continue to develop our interaction with light is fascinating to me. I’m also a film fan. I’ve certainly been inspired by the look and feel of film scenes. gb&d: How did you come to join Lightbrigade?

Blonstein: I started here in 2007 after meeting Rhomney Forbes-Gray, the principal, through the Toronto lighting community. Lightbrigade is a very design-centric environment that has given me the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects and expand my repertoire. gb&d: What aspect of lighting excites you?

Blonstein: Its constant change—not just in lighting but in design as a whole—and learning about new lighting technology advancements since they now reach the consumer very quickly.

up with. For example, with energy efficiency, codes are changing and getting more restrictive. At the same time, having those challenges pushes us to be more creative when solving design problems. gb&d: How do you stay current?

Blonstein: We have lighting manufacturers and agents that bring us new products on an almost daily basis, and, of course, through industry conferences, newsletters, publications, and Internet media. gb&d: You’ve spoken at IIDEX and written for publications such as Architectural Lighting. Is communicating what your industry is capable of important to you?

Blonstein: It’s important to me and to our industry to educate about lighting. You walk into a Home Depot, and the shelves are filled with LED bulbs. I know what I’m looking for when I go to buy light bulbs, but I sympathize with consumers that don’t know how to sort through all the information. For example, now that lumens are a unit of measurement that are printed on the side of a box of lamps, it’s important to educate so that everyone can make informed purchasing decisions.

By participating in conferences and by teaching at a local college, my firm tries to show the importance of lighting. We’re not trying to give everyone an advanced lighting background, but we want to at least introduce important vocabulary to design students.

gb&d: On the flip side, what are the industry’s biggest challenges?

gb&d: You and your firm have won plenty of awards—do any of them stand out?

Blonstein: Again, constant change.

There is a lot of information to keep

Blonstein: My first award, before joining Lightbrigade, is special to

gb&d

me. It was an Award of Merit for the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

It’s great to get the recognition, but just working on that project was amazing. I designed some custom fixtures and worked with a great team, and overall, it was a monumental project.

“Seeing LEDs transform from a novelty to color mixing and now to general illumination... it’s an exciting time to be in lighting.”

Jesse Blonstein, Lightbrigade Architectural Lighting Design

gb&d: Are there any new ideas you’re looking forward to trying in the near future?

Blonstein: It’s hard to say… I probably haven’t thought of it yet! (laughs). Seeing LEDs transform from a novelty to color mixing and now to general illumination, I’m looking forward to seeing how that develops. LEDs, as a less traditional way of producing light and one that can be integrated into materials in new ways, open up new design possibilities. It’s an exciting time to be in lighting. gb&d: What lasting effect do you want your work to have?

Blonstein: To have the lighting be as useful to the occupants as possible. Sometimes we get caught up in the photos of our projects that have no people in them. It’s great to make the space look great, but the importance is in making sure that the people occupying that space are the true focus of the design. gb&d may–june 2014

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Software Solution Rapid Energy Modeling

Autodesk’s efforts to make energy analyses cost effective for building owners has the potential to revolutionize the industry. Autodesk’s Aniruddha Deodhar, program lead for sustainable buildings, and Emma Stewart, head of sustainability solutions, discuss the software platform.

Interview by Christopher James Palafox

gb&d: Can you trace the genesis of the rapid energy modeling method and its benefits to building owners?

Aniruddha Deodhar: The energymodeling burden was something that’s been the domain of a handful of experts—the work was costly, time consuming, and so unscalable. ICF International estimated that even if 1,000 dedicated energy auditors worked 365 days a year it would take them over 13 years to audit the entire United States commercial building stock.

Emma Stewart: In 2009, there was a significant downturn in new construction.

Energy modeling not only was limited to that handful of qualified individuals, but it was exclusive to new construction—the industry was missing 98.5 percent of the building stock every year.

Deodhar: To avoid costs people did backof-the-napkin calculations, which is like stepping on a scale to determine your overall health. There had to be a middle ground to give useful insights, like an audit, without going through the rigmarole.

DRAWING WITH LIGHT Using Sketch, lighting can now flow with the same grace as lines emanate from a pencil. Circles, softly rounded rectangles, simple arcs, and sinuous forms – all are possible.

The Sketch system includes curved sections based on circles with diameters from 3’ to 23’ nominal, as well as various straight segments.

The Sketch patent pending frame, plus trim system installs as easy as a down light.

Recognized by the 2013 Next Generation Luminaires Design Competition, Sketch is the first recessed, linear LED luminaire to offer this degree RECOGNIZED BY of design freedom.

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gb&d: How does the process work?

Deodhar: There are three simple steps: capture, model, and analyze. The first and biggest challenge is to understand how to quickly capture the geometry of the building, and we do that using what we call “reality capture.” That can be done in a number of ways like laser scanning, which is getting cheaper, and other reality capture tools like photographs, satellite images, aerial images—people are now putting cameras on their drones and flying them around to get a model done.

Even the other week, we tested a camera on a Roomba to get building geometry.

Once you’re able to capture the outside world, we have software that can mold analog information into a three-dimensional digital form, and we can create a model, leveraging the strength Autodesk has built over the past 10 years in 3-D modeling.

approach—we have numerous technologies available for free, but even the overall price of paid software is a fraction of what the labor could have been. Once you have the software you can do as many buildings as you want, and you just need to pay an engineer to do the capture. gb&d: Who specifically is this software created for? Are there certain types of owners best-suited for this?

gb&d: How does it save building owners money?

Stewart: From a business standpoint, we’re most interested in owners who have large portfolios and, by extension, large ecosystems and are stuck behind a lot of work. From a technology standpoint, the reality capture and the energy analysis components described are best suited for an administrative type of building because that’s the type of building these software programs were built using.

But anything where you can get a good sense of the geometry of the building works well, especially in stand-alone buildings.

Deodhar: The biggest [saving] is really time. Most of the fixed costs are going to be so miniscule with a software-based

gb&d: Is there concern that the streamlined process potentially misses any crucial information?

Deodhar: It depends on the goal. Rapid energy modeling is like those body scanners at the airport—they [detect] the gun, but hopefully they don’t capture anything more than they need. If that’s all the user wants, then that scanner is perfect, and rapid energy modeling will show enough of the building to make intelligent decisions and create a strategy for upcoming energy conversion measures without getting into the weeds. gb&d: So what’s the main takeaway from the software?

Stewart: Because we serve the manufacturing industry, many of the manufacturers who are producing the materials that go into buildings are doing so with gaps in knowledge of what the architects and engineers want to know with respect to their environmental performance. We can connect those two groups and address the information asymmetry to create a marketplace of environmental data, [which ultimately translates] into operations by ensuring that facility managers are equipped with the greatest intelligence they can possibly have from the architect, the engineer, and the manufacturer. gb&d

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CADMUS Helping clients create social and economic value, today and for the future generations.

From low-cost walkthrough energy audits to comprehensive commissioning and LEED certification support, From the individual building to the portfolio level,

Cadmus has the experience and technical expertise to help building owners and managers achieve energy efficiency and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.

Visit www.cadmusgroup.com/hpb to learn more

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Discussion Board How do you envision the office of 2050?

IN CONVERSATION with Zurich Esposito Continued from p. 183

the market demands it or the government insists on it. gb&d: Do you have a sense of which will come first?

Esposito: That’s a great question. gb&d: Both are pushing certain areas.

“Assuming we haven’t reached singularity with robots, human work will emphasize creativity and innovation. So offices in 2050 will promote interaction, keep people engaged, and unlock their potential—not unlike Burning Man, without quite so many chemicals.”

Denis Hayes, Bullitt Foundation, p. 122

“The office of the future mostly will be about the quality of the general office space and the type of culture that is being fostered above all else. In an increasingly collaborative and global workplace, the focus is on creating and encouraging connections between people. Innovation drives growth, and the workplace of the future will be one that finds new and creative ways to connect people, both physically and virtually.”

Sheyla Conforte, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, p. 106

“Offices? Daylight savings time will be abandoned for ‘Zulu’ time. Feral packs of freelancers with high (social) influence ratings will create ad-hoc alliances for specific projects. The space in which they work will be the surfaces they imagine. LinkedIn will be pounding semi-weekly ‘one month free’ offers directly to our brains.”

Robert Benson, 4240 Architecture, p. 92

“Delimited to architecture, what if the premise of the question is misplaced, and the practice of working in a studio represented a collaborative ideal?

The workplace will evolve with technology and culture. What if the ‘good’ practice of sitting around a table sketching was the model for any future collaboration?”

Chris Wise, Andersson-Wise Architects, p. 148

This question was posed by guest editor Zurich Esposito. Check out all the editorial hoops we made him jump through on p. 12.

EXCLUSIVE EXTRAS Read more responses to Zurich’s question at gbdmagazine.com.

gb&d

Esposito: I think the government has been a lot more responsible—I guess I’m pleasantly surprised that in Chicago there are ordinances being put in place that don’t let people off the hook. Like I’ve said though, we’re not necessarily ahead of the game here in Chicago. Cities in the US are competing to be leaders in this field, and that’s a good thing. It’s sort of a mix of government imposition and market competition at the same time, almost civic competition.

But it’s the United States. The market’s probably going to dictate it. gb&d: I want to ask about women and minorities in architecture. Architecture is still seen as a pretty homogeneous profession.

Where does the AIA get involved in promoting diversity?

Esposito: In a time when just as many women study architecture as men, we’re still seeing 5, 10, 15 years down the line in the profession the number of women shrinking, [which is] self-perpetuating because, let’s face it, we all feel intimidated when we’re the only one of our kind or in a minority, especially when that minority is not often at the top in a leadership position.

I think many women leave the profession simply because the demands of the profession have not historically accommodated anything other than a very demanding time schedule that makes any outside interest, whether it’s family or otherwise, challenging.

But emerging generations definitely place a higher value on quality of life, and the profession is going to have to change—not the emerging professionals.

In terms of ethnic diversity, what the AIA is interested in doing is supporting architects of all kinds, including all ethnicities, genders, and sexual preferences. Even in the years I’ve been here, I’ve seen more openness in the profession. It feels less conservative than it felt to me eight years ago. gb&d: We recently featured the work of Juan Moreno, and I know he’s involved in an association of just Latino architects— The conversation continues on p. 191

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On the Boards Emancipation Park

In her seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs famously wrote, “You can neither lie to a neighborhood park, nor reason with it.” Parks are so integral to the vitality of the city that, in order to be successful, they must originate and operate organically, and the story of Houston’s 10-acre Emancipation Park is a classic example.

The property was purchased in 1872 by former slaves for $800.

It was the first public park in Texas and saw nearly 100 years of organic success until the automobile altered life in Houston and drove the neighborhood into poverty. In 2007, Friends of Emancipation Park raised $33 million to renovate the park, the design of which is led by architect Phil Freelon of the Freelon Group and M2L Associates, who will be responsible for the landscape architecture.

The project will refurbish the park’s existing landscapes and playgrounds, renovate the two historic buildings on-site, and add a new building and plaza. The buildings and the interior park program also will be reimagined to introduce a more organic flow to the park, reincorporating the park into the fabric of the neighborhood. gb&d —Benjamin van Loon

EXCLUSIVE EXTRAS See more photos of Emancipation Park in the iPad app and at gbdmagazine.com.

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Modern elements, such as the new recreation center’s rust-colored phenolic resin façade and the contemporary bandshell, are integrated with the park’s historic architecture and original master plan.

IN CONVERSATION with Zurich Esposito Continued from p. 189

Esposito: Arquitectos. gb&d: Are there similar groups?

Esposito: Oh, sure. In fact, we partner with Arquitectos, Chicago Women in Architecture, INOMA, which is the association of African-American architects. This year we developed a scholarship with Arquitectos whereby an Arquitectos member will be selected to take our architect’s registration training class and receive a scholarship to pay for his or her licensing exams, which can be a real burden to anybody. We plan to approach each of those associations with the same opportunity.

PART 5: PRESERVATION AND POLITICS gb&d: Your background is in preservation, right? Is that a major mission of AIA Chicago or just one of your personal interests?

Esposito: I do have a master’s degree in historic preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s one of many focus areas that AIA addresses, so we have a committee of preservation professionals but in the same way that we also have a committee for healthcare design professionals. So it’s certainly one of the areas, and it is a very active one and one that gets involved in advocacy.

For example, when Prentice Hospital was sort of in play, our historic resources committee recommended to our board of directors that AIA Chicago be supportive of preserving and advocating for the preservation of Prentice because Bertrand Goldberg was one of our distinguished members. gb&d: Do you think architecture is, at its heart, political?

A ground-source heat pump will conserve energy and help the park’s buildings reach LEED Silver certification. Solar-thermal panels on top of the steel-frame canopy will provide hot water.

Esposito: Yes. Especially in Chicago. It’s hard to even separate politics, on a certain level, from architecture. In aldermanic wards, the alderman often has approval for any new major projects, and not all aldermen have an understanding of planning and design. We’d love for AIA Chicago to be more involved in working with aldermen to make sure they have the support and the information that would be useful. But often architecture does come down to political decision-making. For example, there’s a recent benchmarking ordinance requiring energy-use disclosure, I don’t know if you heard about it—

The conversation continues on p. 193

gb&d

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On the Spot Zurich Esposito

The executive vice president of AIA Chicago and this issue’s guest editor recommends Don DeLillo, Gasland, designing for density, and the Kalalau Trail on Kauai

ENVIRONMENTAL COME-TO-JESUS MOMENT

WASTEFUL HABIT YOU’RE TRYING TO KICK

Paying my first water bill.

Long, hot showers.

SADDEST CUTTING-ROOM FLOOR CASUALTY

INDUSTRY JARGON YOU WOULD BANISH

Al Gore’s presidency.

OMG, enough with the acronyms.

FAVORITE MODE OF TRANSPORTATION

GLOBAL TOPIC THAT NEEDS MORE ATTENTION

Walking.

Water scarcity.

THE PERFECT CITY WOULD HAVE

WAY TO MAKE THE ENVIRONMENT NONPARTISAN

Jobs, a clean and safe public transportation system,

Focus on the economic benefits.

an accessible body of water, and as many outstanding new buildings as old ones.

MOST COMMON GREEN MYTH

LEED equals green.

ONE TECHNOLOGY ON THE HORIZON THAT CAN CHANGE THE WORLD Innovations in transportation and mobility. The

self-driving car will change the world and how we get around it.

YOUR TOPIC IF YOU WERE ASKED TO GIVE A TED TALK

WHAT YOU’D PITCH TO THE PRESIDENT IF YOU HAD 30 SECONDS

S helter for everyone.

IN CONVERSATION with Zurich Esposito Continued from p. 191

gb&d: I think you were mentioning it actually.

Esposito: AIA was actively involved in advocating for the passage of this ordinance, which will essentially require larger commercial and condominium buildings to report their energy use on an annual basis.

This is not revolutionary. This is not leading the way. This is catching up to cities like New York, Boston, Austin, San Francisco.

What’s been holding it up here has been aldermen in fairly powerful wards who are reluctant to support an ordinance that’s going to be a burden of any kind or a responsibility to their constituents. It’s understandable from a political standpoint, but it is keeping bigger picture goals from being met. Luckily, it did pass, but not by a huge margin. How it shakes out has yet to be seen. gb&d: The third edition of the AIA Guide to Chicago was just released. The last one was in 2004?

Esposito: Yes, also coincidentally the last time the AIA convention was in Chicago.

“Often architecture does come down to political decision-making. Especially in Chicago. It’s hard to even separate politics from architecture.”

WHAT YOU’D TELL THE GREEN MOVEMENT IF IT WAS YOUR CHILD Stop procrastinating.

gb&d: Is that a coincidence? (Laughs)

CURRENT PROJECT YOU’RE MOST EXCITED ABOUT

Esposito: It’s a great time to introduce a new book because there’s a whole set of folks coming to Chicago who will buy it. In fact, they’ll be able to order it when they register. It’ll be available as an iBook as well.

The Upside of Density and Transit-Oriented

Development.

AIA National Convention in Chicago.

THE NEXT BIG IDEA WILL COME FROM Children.

MOST IMPACTFUL EXPERIENCE IN NATURE

PHOTO: SAMANTHA SIMMONS

Hiking the Kalalau Trail in Kauai reminded me how BUILDING YOU WOULD SAVE IF THE WORLD WAS GOING TO END

beautiful the world still is.

If our civilization ended, perhaps Sagrada Familia

MOST MEANINGFUL PROJECT YOU’VE COMPLETED

in Barcelona could be completed by the next one.

Rebuilding my home after a devastating fire.

A CENTURY FROM NOW HUMANITY WILL

EXPLAIN “GREEN” TO A KINDERGARTNER

Be less human.

Green means not hurting the Earth.

ONE BOOK EVERYONE SHOULD READ

SOCIAL MEDIA—HELPING OR HURTING

Underworld by Don DeLillo.

We know more, but we’re no smarter.

MOST RESONANT ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENTARY Gasland, a darkly entertaining and startling look at

MOST COMPELLING ARGUMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

the effects of fracking.

We all need clean air and water. It shouldn’t be so

hard to sell.

gb&d

gb&d: Did the process give you a sense of new building design in Chicago?

Esposito: That’s probably a question for [the editor], who was spectacular. She did her own drive-by of every building in the book.

But what conclusions could I draw from the experience? That it’s an embarrassingly rich architectural environment. gb&d

EXCLUSIVE EXTRAS Read the full conversation with Zurich and go behind the scenes at gbdmagazine.com.

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