gb&d Issue 16: April/May/June 2012 by Green Building & Design

Green Building & Design

gb&d GREEN BUILDING & design APRIL/may/june 2012 vol. 3/ no. 16

WHAT IS LOS ANGELES?

Champion and critic Michael Maltzan investigates the monstrous metropolis, p. 21

in the garden of the gods

Cit yGarden is the latest sustainable wizardry from Randy Burkett Lighting Design, p. 153

Welcoming New Allies The essential guide for sustainable projects and ideas

Frito - Lay joins the green movement with a new near-zero -waste facilit y, p. 168

Rebuilding in All Its Forms + New public space from a defunct glove factory, p. 144 + Revitalization based on the blues, p. 81 + The rebirth of an Underground Railroad stop, p. 178

Tech n o lo gy an d the Future of D esi gnâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; A Sym posi um with

APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012 vol. 3/ no. 16

A. Zahner Co. 86 James law cybertecture 90 nadaaa 94 crawford architects 98 MONICA PONCE DE LEON 105

contents

gb&d

GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

“Technology is not just functional. It’s cultural. It’s integrated. It’s embedded. It’s not there to just solve problems. It’s there to advance the potential of architecture.”

98/

—Nader Tehrani, NADAAA, p. 94

21/

86/

90/

94/

105/

153/

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APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

contents

IN EVERY ISSUE

features 21/

THE FUTURE OF AN AMERICAN METROPOLIS

11/ 14/

What is Los Angeles exactly? Michael Maltzan asks the question in a new book, and then tries to answer it.

15/

84/

42/

17/

up front commodities bookshelf memo defined design

121/

Amway, the NBA’s first LEED arena 124/

Three executives from leading high-tech companies share their philosophies of technology—and some of their most impressive work.

Down in Dumbo, an anomaly of design

META HOUSING CORPORATION

learn/

127/

The secret is building more than bedrooms 47/

CASSIDY TURLEY

98/

WISPARK

130/

53/

132/

Northland College A chilly campus with a warm library

PSW REAL ESTATE When extras are standard, everyone wins

University of Houston Research, development, and pedestrians

Wants office parks that last centuries

INSIDE THE CUTTING EDGE

WASA/Studio A Pratt Institute’s new branded building

Showcases its palace of (LEED) Gold 51/

The Cloud Wall, a twist on Zahner’s own technology, adorns the company’s new assembly building. Crawford Architects takes us inside their hypnotic façade.

Galapagos Art Space

details real estate & DEVELOPMENT/

VIRTUAL REALITIES

Orlando Venues

live/

134/

Armstrong Builders Honolulu’s new eco-community

ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN/

56/

CG&S DESIGN BUILD

137/

Cool homes in a town of McMansions

William Ryan Homes Designing houses for a new type of family

105/

SO WHAT DO WE TEACH THE KIDS? With technology changing everyday, how can schools keep up? Do they need to? The dean of the country’s No. 1 M.Arch program has some thoughts.

59/

Warm, wood-filled mountain retreats

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

144/

Wants to get New Yorkers playing again

Verner Johnson, Inc.

146/

Simpson Furones International Working against deadlines in Panama

67/

In Balance Green Consulting

heal/

148/

Two women making a huge impact

112/

150/

119/

Vanguard Construction

play/

Building a healthy hospital

H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture

tough builds remote locations/

Soldier Field

Living Systems Sustainable Architecture

Chicago’s home turf gets down to business

Pouring earth in Arizona

172/ 116/

Pyatok Architects A unique population gets a premier space

A new home for an orchestra

Fisher Development A living roof for a retail store

APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

Tise-Kiester Architects

CONSULTING/

spaces

Structure Tone

Public space from a defunct glove factory

Museums are sprouting up everywhere

THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION Randy Burkett Lighting Design shows us its masterful portfolio and explains how technology has changed the profession.

work/

141/

A century-old New York office is remade 62/

65/

153/

JOAN HEATON

174/

Con-way Freight Bringing LEED to a border town gbdmagazine.com

contents

EXTRAS off the grid/

176/

Allegretti Architects

161/

Miles from anything, a residential oasis

Cooper Joseph Studio

39/

An architecturally relevant... strip mall?

notebook alan oakes What is our City Beautiful movement?

net zero/

178/

163/

Re:Vision Architecture

Qualite Sports Lighting Bringing energy savings to the field

83/

Remakes a stunning piece of history 165/

Finally making recycling attractive

DEPARTMENTS verbatim Bruce Kuwabara On how to change behaviors with design 180/ 31/

Frito-Lay

show & tell daniel michalik

Powering-up with a zero-waste plant

Documents the cork-making process

194/ 168/

26/

T2 Site Amenities

David Keith

game plan Susan Friedland

PLUS

LEED Platinum housing for homeless youth

CONTRIBUTORS EDITOR’S LETTER INDEX

10/

On a vital new medical center for soldiers 183/ 34/

discussion board What is the next tier of building technology?

Michael B. Kennedy

Al Wulff How to navigate “the new normal”

On creating teams without weaknesses 185/ 37/

launch pad Cause and Effect Evolutions Schools will never be the same

Al Skodowski Why preventive maintenance is crucial

188/

Jeff Bartos Greening homes the old-fashioned way

69/

inner workings HSU House / Epiphyte Lab A brilliant house that won’t break the bank

189/

architect to watch Joseph M. Bennett Is infusing Austin with his subtle brilliance

73/

LOFT / RCDF A vertical farm for a future London 192/

75/

Mediated Learning Center / WSP Flack + Kurtz

material world icestone See a true triple bottom line in action

Educational design of the highest order 78/

CityCenterDC / Lee and Associates, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol The newest urban strategies put to the test

81/

ENCORE! / Baker Barrios Architects, ZMG Construction Paying homage to jazz in Tampa

159/

solutions AltusWorks Stripping Louis Sullivan of his ornament

APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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gb&d

contributors

editorial

research

editor-in-chief Christopher Howe

director of Strategic Partnerships

MANAGING EDITOR

George Bozonelos george@guerrerohowe.com

Kathy Kantorski kathy@guerrerohowe.com

FEATURES EDITOR Timothy A. Schuler tschuler@guerrerohowe.com

Copy editor Geoff George geoff@guerrerohowe.com

correspondents Matt Alderton Chris Allsop Laura M. Browning Thalia A-M Bruehl Peter Fretty Jeff Hampton Scott Heskes Jennifer Hogeland Ashley Kjos Russ Klettke Keith Loria Kelli McElhinny Lindsey Howald Patton Anita R. Paul Mark Pechenik Erik Pisor Zipporah Porton Seth Putnam Suchi Rudra Julie Schaeffer Tina Vasquez Laura Williams-Tracy

art Creative Director Karin Bolliger

senior designer Bill Werch

photo editor

editorial research managers Anthony D’Amico Carolyn Marx

editorial research Coordinator Adam Castillo

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Laura Heidenreich

editorial Researchers Eric Crabb Shelley Hickey Kurt Hofer Ashley Kjos Carolyn Marx Michelle Ruiz Mike Schulte Ashley Wilson

Matt Alderton is a Chicago-based freelance writer who specializes in business, media, marketing, travel and design. Although he makes his living engineering sentences instead of buildings, he aspired to be an architect when he was a boy and therefore enjoyed tremendously working on this issue of gb&d, which introduced him to architect Joan Heaton’s Adirondack aesthetic, then whisked him away on a global tour of high-tech green design.

Zipporah Porton has been a freelance writer for more than a decade and covers Illinois basketball for Aerys Sports, an all-female network of sports bloggers. She is also an accomplished playwright who has had her plays produced in Los Angeles, Princeton, and Australia. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband Jeff and their dog, Luther. For gb&d, Zipporah interviewed Monica Ponce de Leon, who turned University of Michigan’s architecture school into the No. 1 program in the country.

Kelli McElhinny first ventured into journalism with the high school sports department of the Chicago Tribune, and she quickly became captivated by the profession. A resident of Pittsburgh, Kelli has been a freelance writer since 2007. For this issue of gb&d, Kelli explored an off-the-grid home designed by Allegretti Architects and discussed Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates’s work for the centerpiece of an up-andcoming urban neighborhood.

Scott Heskes is the co-owner of CCMWEST, INC., a construction consulting firm. His career in the design and construction industry spans 35 years. Prior to CCMWEST’s inception in 2008 he was a senior vice president with AECOM. Scott holds a BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State and is a frequent writer for gb&d. Among his contributions to this issue is the profile of Los Angeles architect Michael Maltzan.

Samantha Simmons

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APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

editor’s letter

the future is now

’s a cliché, this phrase. By definition it can’t be true. What was once futuristic may be being realized, but the future will always be out there, in front of us, even if by just a day, or a minute, or a second. And for me, it never has been a question of reaching the future faster but of laying a sustainable groundwork for it. Michael Maltzan is doing just that (p. 21). His book, No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond, and his latest project, Playa Vista Park, both address the future of Los Angeles, neither of which are anticipated to bring results tomorrow; instead the effects of Maltzan’s work will echo years into the future. Similarly, Monica Ponce de Leon looks to the future of the industry by providing cutting-edge design and fabrication technology to her students at University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, a program that, in 2011, knocked Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design out of its No. 1 spot (p. 105). Ponce de Leon’s story is just one part of our Technology Symposium (p. 84), which also includes innovators like James Law Cybertecture (p. 90) and heavy hitters like A. Zahner Co. (p. 86). (By the way, do you want to see where Zahner does its world-renowned metalwork? Crawford Architects takes us inside the company’s new factory expansion (p. 98).)

PHOTO: Samantha Simmons

We may be content to let the future come when it will—five minutes from now, but also not for another 50 years—but I enjoy imagining what it may hold. Here are a few things I hope to see more of: homes as unique as Epiphyte Lab’s Hsu House (p. 69), healthcare facilities as groundbreaking as Clark Nexsen’s Warrior Transition Unit (p. 31), and corporate collaborations as revolutionary as the Green Schoolhouse Series (p. 37). Flipping through this issue will probably add more to that list—we’ve got incredible people doing incredible things. I can’t wait to see what happens next. See you in the future,

Timothy A. Schuler Features Editor

APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

index of people & companies #–A

3form, 13 A. Zahner Co., 88-91, 100-105 Abela, Rodrigo, 80-82 Affordable Housing Associates, 180-181 AKF, 179 Allegretti Architects, 176-177 Allegretti, Greg, 177 Allied Waste, 116 AltusWorks, 159-160 Amway Center, 121-122 Archigrafika, 129 Armstrong Builders, 134-136 Austin Energy, 56 Austin Spray Foam, 56 AVAL, 142

B-K Lighting, 155 Baan, Iwan, 14 Baker Barrios Architects, 84 Bartos, Jeff, 188 Beaver, Debbie, 137-138 Bembé Dellinger Architects, 19 Bennett, Joseph M., 189-191 Berby, Lauren, 108 Birchler, Anthony, 88-89 Borrego Solar, 119 Boss Enterprises, 179 Brokhin, Paul, 130-131 Built Ecology, 77-78 Burkett, Randy, 85, 153-157 Burns & McDonnell, 168

Carvalheiro, Rogerio, 75-76 Cassidy Turley, 49-51 Cause and Effect Evolutions, 39-40 CDM, 168 CG&S Design Build, 58-60 Chicago Parks District, 116-117 Clark Nexsen, 33-35 Cluff, Jake, 173 Cluff, Jeremy, 173 Con-way Freight, 174 Concreteworks, 142 Consexto, 18 Cooper Joseph Studio, 162-163 Cooper, Chris, 162 Corney, Andrew, 78-79, 85 Cortiçeira Amorim, 194 Crawford Architects, 100-105 Cslzmar, Kevin, 151 Cupková, Dana, 71, 73

D–F Decoster-Taivalkoski, Marianne, 16 Deepstream Designs, 167 DesignDrift, 13 Devlin, Roberta, 183 Diepenbrock, Ryan, 55 Dreer, Karl, 19 Egg Electric, 141 Elmes, Robert, 124-125 Epiphyte Lab, 71-73 Esterson, Jack, 127-129 FastSigns, 51 Fisher Development, 119-120 Fisher, Alex, 119-120 Ford, John, 166 Foster+Partners, 80 Franke, Jerold, 53-54 Frerking, Michael, 172-173 10

APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

Friedland, Susan, 180-181 Frito-Lay, 168-169 Furones, Keith, 146-147

G–H

Galapgaos Art Space, 124-125 Gang, Jeanne, 14 Genetech Building Systems, 142 George Sexton Associates, 113 Gibson, Michelle, 193 Gloria Solar, 168 Guenther, Robin, 150 Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, 80-82 H Windows, 133 H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, 112-114 Haaslahti, Hanna, 16 Haft, Dave, 168-169 Hamilton, Scot, 83-84 Hardy, Hugh, 113-114 Heaton, Joan, 43, 61-63 Heeks, Robyn W., 144 Heschong Mahone Group, 181 Hines/Archstone, 80 HKIT Architects, 181 HOK, 51 Hsu, Anthony, 71, 73

I–K

IceStone, 192-193 In Balance Green Consulting, 69-70 In Posse, 179 Innovative Water Solutions, 56 Interstice Architects, 20 J.Co. Contractors, 173 James Law Cybertecture, 12, 92-95 Jin, Weihua, 192 John Cotton Architects, 46 Johnson, Allen, 121-122 Johnson, Verner, 67 Jones, Stacey, 102-105 Joseph, Wendy Evans, 162-163 KAI Design & Build, 36-38 Keha3, 12 Keith, David, 33-35, 85 Keller, James, 134 Kelly, Mike, 116-117 Kelly, Scott, 179 Kennedy, Michael B., 36-38 Kiester, Phil, 144-145 Kikoski, Andre, 126 KPMB Architects, 28-30 Kurtz, Ron, 154-157 Kuwabara, Bruce, 28-30

L–M

L&L Holding Company, 141 Landscapes of Place, 15 Ledford, Rob, 84 Lee and Associates, 80-82 Lee, Jeff, 81-82 Lind, Mark, 58, 60 Living Systems Sustainable Architecture, 172-173 Lutes, John, 172 Maffris, Chris, 44-46 Magagnini, Miranda, 192-193 Maltzan, Michael, 14, 23-27 Mark Group, 188 McCall Design Group, 119 Meta Housing Corporation, 44-46 Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, 64-65

Michalik, Daniel, 194 Miller, Michael A., 132-133 Minskoff Grant Realty & Management Corp., 162 Mitchell, Manche, 151 Montes de Oca, Alejandro, 16 MPdL, 110 MS&R, 132-133 Mt. Sinai Medical Center, 150-151

N–P

NADAAA, 96-99 NAK Design Group, 30 NCS Construction Services, 51 Nederhoff, Brad, 67-68 Nishkian Menninger Engineers, 149 Noor, Feisal, 92-93 Northland College, 132-133 OfficePOD, 15 Orens Brothers Real Estate, 183 Orlando Magic, 121 Orlando Venues, 121-122 Ortman, Michael, 117 Page, Nick, 164-165 Pease, Andrea, 69-70, 85 Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, 130 Pelli, Cesar, 130 PENTA Building Group, 174 PepsiCo, 169 Perkins+Will, 150-151 Philips Lighting, 155, 157 Platform, 13 Pojerová, Kristýna, 11 Ponce de Leon, Monica, 85, 107-110 Pratt, Kevin, 71, 73 PSL Architects, 46 PSW Real Estate, 55-56 Pyatok Architects, 148-149 Pyatok, Michael, 148-149

Q–S

Qualite Sports Lighting, 164-165 Rana Creek Living Architecture, 119-120 Randy Burkett Lighting Design, 85, 153-157 Ratcliff Architects, 77 RCDF, 75-76 Re:Vision Architecture, 178-179 Rennick, Jennifer, 69-70 Royal Rose, 142 Sandomire, Daniel, 134-136 Scherer, Jeffrey, 132-133 Schmauk, Dave, 183 Schoenhard, David, 183 Seeyond, 12 Sett Studio, 15 Shalom Baranes, 80 Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina, 166-167 Siela, Anthony, 55-56 Simpson Furones International, 146 Simpson, Jennifer, 146-147 Skodowski, Al, 185-186 SmallerLarge, 14 Solari Enterprises, Inc., 45 Soldier Field, 116-117 Spencer, Chris-Annmarie, 14 Steiner, Frederick, 41 Stoner, Ellen, 159-160 Structure Tone, 141-142 Strugatz, Peter, 192-193

Studio Gang, 14 Studio One Eleven, 45 Syrett, Peter, 150

T2 Site Amenities, 166-167 Tarasiewicz, Susan, 184 Tehrani, Nader, 96-97 The Palt Company, 70 Tilkin, Lori, 166-167 Tilkin, Steve, 166-167 Timmons Design Engineers, 120 Tise-Kiester Architects, 144-145 Tise, Don, 144 Topham, Marsha, 60 Transwestern, 185-186 Travers, John, 142 Triton Construction Company, 128 Turner Construction Company, 124 Tursi, Joe, 150-151 Tyroler, Evan, 51

U–Z

University of Houston, 130-131 University of Michigan, 85, 107110 Urban Ecology Center, 15 Urbanski, Matt, 64-65 Vanguard Construction, 150-151 Varner, Jessica, 14 VeeV, 16 Verner Johnson, Inc., 67-68 Walsh, Tim, 49, 51 WASA/Studio A, 127-129 Wheeler Kearns Architects, 14 William Ryan Homes, 137-138 Williams-Sonoma Inc., 120 Wispark, 53-54 WSP Flack + Kurtz, 77-79 Wulff Architects, 183-184 Wulff, Al, 183-184 Zahner, Bill, 102, 105 ZMG Construction, 83-84 Zotara, Jeff, 39-40 Zotara, Marshall, 39-40

ADVERTISERS

AKF, 179 Allegretti Architects, 177 American Hydrotech, 33 Amstutz Woodworking, 61 Archigrafika, 129 Artisan Floors, 55 B-K Lighting, 158 Big Ass Fans, 36 BMI, 40 BUILDLab, 72 Burns & McDonnell, 168 Clark Nexsen, 30 CoastEcoTimber, 147 Concreteworks, 143 Construction Cost Systems, 115, 160

Crawford Architects, 104 Dadanco, 29 Dagher Engineering, 63 Daniel Michalik Furniture Design, 104 David Arnold Building Maintenance, 50 DeepStream Designs, 166 Desai Nasr Consulting Engineers, 104 Epro Services, 140 FastSigns, 46 Fred M. Luth & Sons, 36 Fujitec, 118 Gloria Solar, 167 Guth DeConzo Consulting Engineers, 123 H Window Company, 133 Haynes Mechanical Systems, 187 Heschong Mahone Group, 182 Holocene, 29 ICOR Associates, 108 Innovative Water Solutions, 55 Integrated Energy Services, 145 J.Co. Contracting, 168 John Cotton Architects, 45 Joseph M. Bennett Architects, 191 JPMorgan Chase Bank, 40 K&R Plumbing, 136 Klotz Associates, 131 Kupper Engineering, 182 Lee and Associates, 77 Lighting Science Group, 196 Lighting Services Inc., 152 Living Systems Sustainable Architecture and Building Group, 168 LP Smart Siding, 139 McCall Design Group, 120 McHugh Engineering Associates, 182 Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, 64 Minskoff Grant Realty & Management Corp., 162 Monterrey Security, 115 Nak Design Group, 28 NCS Construction Services, 50 Nishkian Menninger, 149 Oldcastle APG, 5 Osborne Building Corporation, 72 Partners In Design Architects, 50 PENTA Building Group, 175 Philips Lighting, 158 PSL Architects, 45 Qualite Sports Lighting, 2 QUANTA Technologies Inc., 187 ReBinder, 193 Rockmor Electric Enterprises, 151 Royal Rose, 143 Smart Air Service Co., 55 Solar Enterprises, 45 SSR Ellers, 64 Structural Pest Control, 136 Studio One Eleven, 45 The Clarient Group, 115 The Lighting Quotient, 195 The Palt Company, 68 Triton Construction, 129 Turner Construction Company, 123 Verner Johnson, 64 Village of Pleasant Prairie, 52 WSP Flack + Kurtz, 77 Zaker Technology Group, 115

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up front 11/ COMMODITIES 14/ BOOKSHELF 15/ MEMO 17/ DEFINED DESIGN

Behold, the Future Meet the newest high-tech home and office design solutions by Thalia A-M Bruehl

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< in-house greenhouse Serving as both a light fixture and a greenhouse, Skleník’s Glasshouse, designed by Kristýna Pojerová, has won both Desingblok’11 Editors award for the best designer prototype as well as the Department of Applied Arts award at AAAD in Prague. Herbs are planted directly in the lamp’s casing around its central opening, allowing for easy access. The shape also facilitates the passage of light from the bulb as well as ensures adequate ventilation to enhance the microgarden’s climate. It’s a truly fresh approach to lighting. glasshouse.cz APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

up front/ commodities

define the space > Seeyond’s user-driven parametric architectural solution can be turned into an endless list of possibilities including non-load-bearing walls, wall-mounted structures, ceiling clouds, column wraps, and partial enclosures. Made from cost-effective cellular resin, the system is designed by the user, who then customizes the product through color options and visual effects. Seeyond’s fluid shapes are created using a fold-and-assemble technique much like that of origami. The final product is as beautiful and well crafted as those paper delights while its lifespan and durability are much greater. seeyond.com

mirror, mirror, on the wall

branching out Insect-like and inspired by nature, Keha3’s ultra-sleek and modern Branch Light is best used as an exterior lighting solution in yards and light traffic areas. Aiming to create a piece that would both light the road and surrounding buildings, designer Margus Triibmann used a combination of aluminum, and galvanized and powder-coated steel to make branch luminaires that give off an inviting glow and look more like a piece of art than the functional lighting solution they are. keha3.ee

The Cybertecture Mirror takes ideas from every sci-fi film of the last thirty years and turns them into a reality. Both mirror and touch screen, this reflective window from James Law Cybertecture connects to the Internet and serves as a digital display for heath, weather, entertainment, and exercise programs. The mirror’s sleek appearance makes it a perfect piece for any modern master bath, and with built-in tools to communicate with your computer and phone, this screen will revolutionize the business done in the bathroom. cybertecturemirror.com

PHOTO: (Cybertecture Mirror) Ken W.K Wong; (Branch Light) Pavel Sidorenko

APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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up front/ commodities

< paper shredder 3form’s Ecoresin translucent resin panel system is interlayered with strips of shredded paper, creating the ultimate morphing material. “Paper Cut,” one of 3form’s Ecoresin Play choices, can be turned into everything from a desk, to a door, to a piece of architectural lighting. Customize the colors of resin to be layered with the paper as well as the hardware depending on application needs. Ecoresin can also help gain LEED credits in several categories; 3form uses only low-emitting adhesives and sealants, the 3form packaging is entirely recyclable, and 3form Varia Ecoresin contains high levels of recycled content. 3-form.com

a dragonfly’s eye Designed by Platform’s Gernot Oberfell and Jan Wertel to look like the curved honeycomb shape of insect eyes, the Dragonfly.MGX pendant was created with both direct and indirect light taken into consideration. The pendant is closed on the upper cells and gradually opens towards the bottom, emitting a warm, tawny glow that both lightens and finishes a space as well as shields human eyes from glare. The 33 cm x 20 cm pendant light comes in amber or terra cotta and is made from epoxy—the perfect piece to hang above a midcentury dining room table. mgxbymaterialise.com

throne of ghouls Spooky furniture wouldn’t normally be high on one’s list of dream pieces, but DesignDrift’s Ghost Chair, designed by Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn is a high-style plexiglass throne that can add a touch of eerie wit to any room. The handmade chair’s angular shape is enhanced by interior, almost skeletal groupings of millions of air bubbles, which are encased within the plexiglass with advanced laser technology and show up when light is reflected upon them. The collection currently includes two armchairs and a stool, and DesignDrift has hopes to expand to the line in the near future. designdrift.nl gbdmagazine.com

APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

up front/ bookshelf

NEW READS Most architects create monographs to showcase their work, but Michael Maltzan went a different route. Instead of publishing a book of glossy photographs of, say, the heptagonal Pittman Dowell Residence or MoMA QNS, Maltzan published a book of conversations. It still has glossy photographs—Iwan Baan’s, in fact—but they’re of Los Angeles, not pretty buildings. That’s because the book, No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond, is much more about the canvas on which Maltzan designs than those designs themselves. Edited by architect and SmallerLarge founder Jessica Varner, the conversations (with everyone from artists to academics) are presented without adornment, each individual’s thoughts set in text just as they spoke them. Topics range from land use to cultural infrastructure to education, and in book form, the dialogue is a provocative collection of ideas for Los Angeles and cities around the globe. It’s a must-read for anyone even thinking about urban life. Published May 2011, Hatje Cantz, $47.70

What She reads

SEE OUR FEATURE ON P. 21

Jeanne Gang’s second book, Reverse Effect: Renewing Chicago’s Waterways, is a collection of essays that shows how environmentally considerate architecture can elegantly address complex problems facing an entire urban ecology. This slender volume was composed after a year-long collaboration between Studio Gang, The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and students from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. True to Daniel Burnham’s advice, Reverse Effect makes ‘no little plans’ but uses multiple voices to illustrate the necessity and means of undoing what’s been named one of the “civil engineering monuments of the millennium.” Gang proposes the creation of a barrier in the Chicago River to once again change the flow of freshwater into Lake Michigan. Gang uses architecture to define the barrier as a bridge and arms her proposal with biology as a technology. Despite the scale of the proposal, Gang lays out a course of manageable steps that drastically rebuilds Chicago’s topography for this millennium. Published November 2011, Studio Gang, $30 14

APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

Chris-Annmarie Spencer holds a bachelor of arts in architectural studies from the Caribbean School of Architecture at the University of Technology and a master of architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Since 2004, she has served as project architect for notable projects like East Garfield Park’s Inspiration Kitchens as part of Chicago-based Wheeler Kearns Architects. She is currently working on a 30,000-square-foot building renovation for the Wolcott School, Chicago’s first high school designed for students with learning disabilities and differences. Chris-Ann and her husband, Grant Gibson, an architect and founder of CAMES/gibson, live in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood with their daughter. Books 1/ Roberto Burle Marx: The Lyrical Landscape, Marta Iris Montero 2/ Villa Mairea: Alvar Aalto, Yutaka Saito 3/ Case Study Houses, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, Peter Gössel, Julius Shulman Blogs 1/ Dezeen, dezeen.com 2/ MoCo Loco mocoloco.com 3/ Contemporist, contemporist.com gbdmagazine.com

up front/ memo

MILWAUKEE IN ASLA SPOTLIGHT Landscapes of Place received a 2011 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Honor Award for its revitalization of Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley. Stemming from the Menomonee Valley Master Plan of 2001, which seeks to revitalize 140 acres of former industrial land along a still-resilient river, this project restores 25 acres just two miles from the heart of downtown Milwaukee. To facilitate education about the valley and its ecosystem, the Urban Ecology Center, a nationally recognized environmental education facility in Milwaukee, is establishing its third facility on the site.

PREFAB STUDIOS REDEFINE WORK/LIVE Need a place to work? Backyard studios from purveyors like London-based OfficePOD or Sett Studio out of Austin, Texas, are providing at-home workers with environments that are separate from the disruptions of home life. By combining modern design with the latest in energy-efficient building materials, both companies’ models provide usable space with no need for building permits and minimal installation headaches. Some options are sustainable, with solar and rainwater packages available as upgrades and can be used as home offices as well as art studios, yoga rooms, guest houses, and children’s playrooms. Bottom photo: Blake Gordon.

NEW NET-ZERO RATING UNVEILED Net zero is quickly becoming the goal of many green builders, but the actual energy performance of many developments is overstated, and true net-zero buildings are still rare. To facilitate standardization, the International Living Future Institute—an environmental non-governmental organization—has created Net Zero Energy Building Certification. Using the structure of the Living Building Challenge, the standard focuses on curbing buildings’ contributions to sprawled development, achieving net-zero energy use, ensuring that buildings do not preclude other buildings from achieving net-zero energy operation as a result of excessive shading, and making renewable energy systems attractive and inspiring.

industry agenda Q2

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4.29–5.1

5.9–5.11

National Green Building Conference & Expo

LIGHTFAIR INTERNATIONAL

Nashville At this event, industry experts share their knowledge about the principles and trends of green building. In addition to learning about best practices, attendees are given the opportunity to interact with industry experts and peers during a number of educational sessions. They can see these principles applied during the Green Building & Technology Tour. nahb.org

Las Vegas The world’s largest annual architectural and commercial lighting trade show and conference, this event showcases innovative products ranging from high-end design to cutting-edge technology, and also offers continuing-education courses. It is designed to educate attendees about a broad range of the industry’s most relevant topics, including sustainable lighting technologies. lightfair.com

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up front/ memo

AUDIO INSTALLATION INTEGRATES DESIGN AND NATURE Stand inside one of the two riverside pavilions near

VEEV’S EEL RESPONDS TO ENVIRONMENT The Eliciting Ethereal Light (EEL) exhibit by VeeV, a San Francisco design studio founded by Raveevarn Choksombatchai, explores the relationship between the physical environment and human sensorial responses. The bench is a sculptural installation that responds to environmental changes. Like a living creature, it detects not only the changing climate of the San Francisco Bay, but the proximity of users, activating an electric charge that warms the surface material and offers nearby humans comfort. Colored lights accompany the fluctuating response of the EEL to external conditions.

Turku, Finland, and you’ll hear what’s happening on the water’s surface, thanks to speakers that transmit the real-time recordings of underwater microphones positioned in the river. Speakers are embedded in the structure, and sound escapes from small holes that perforate the pavilions’ clay-covered walls, which are constructed from bales of lake reed. Entitled Sonic Seascape Terrace, this sculptural installation is an ethereal experience from media artist Hanna Haaslahti, who designed the pavilions, and sound artists Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski and Alejandro Montes de Oca.

IDEAS FOR A SATURATED FUTURE New Orleans has long needed comprehensive water-management strategies, and now a grassroots effort is seeking to make it happen. Led by design-school faculty members who have been working in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, the Gutter to Gulf project seeks to address water-management questions across multiple disciplines, including urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture. Participating students gain access to vivid dilemmas worthy of careful investigation, and the city of New Orleans gains access to an academic labor pool that is capable of proposing and testing unconventional ideas about water management.

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Earth Summit 2012 (Rio+20)

NeoCon

BOMA International Conference

Rio de Janeiro This summit on global sustainable development, also called the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) or Rio+20, seeks to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date, and address emerging challenges. This year’s summit will focus on poverty eradication and the institutional framework for sustainable development. earthsummit2012.org

Chicago The 43rd annual National Exposition of Contract Furnishings is North America’s largest exhibition of contract furnishings for the design and management of the built environment. It showcases the latest interior products from more than 700 showrooms and exhibitors and also offers a comprehensive conference schedule of more than 140 CEUaccredited seminars. neocon.com

Seattle This event is the premier education and networking event of the commercial-real-estate industry. Industry professionals from around the world come together to discuss current trends, best practices and learn firsthand what industry leaders are doing to stay ahead. If you are responsible for recommending building products and services, this show is an indispensible resource. bomaconvention.org

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up front/ defined design

THE WORLD’S SMARTEST HOMES

Moving walls, touch panels, automated everything—these houses are the future of design by Lynn Russo Whylly

BUILDING LAB. The Mission:House, in San Francisco, was designed by Interstice Architects as a lab for innovative design, p. 18. gbdmagazine.com

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up front/ defined design PHOTOS: Matthew Millman; Justin Fanti (bottom right)

MISSION:HOUSE San Francisco Mission:House could easily have been named Mission:Accomplished. The hybridized home, designed as a test lab for innovative building ideas, features several experimental design concepts in a comfortable living environment. The two-story homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s front skin is sourced entirely from recycled glazed windows that were then creatively assembled, while the rear is made of translucent polycarbonate panels, which offer superb daylighting and exceptional yard views. Its open floor plan includes sliding walls to accommodate simultaneous activities. Natural-wood floors, recycled steel shelving, and magnetized cabinets maintain a functional yet clean and neat look. Perhaps the homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most unique feature is the retractable bathroom ceiling, revealing the air and sky. A four-kilowatt rooftop solar array generates enough power to give back to the grid. A backyard bamboo garden captures rainwater runoff, while tomatoes and herbs grow in the rooftop garden.

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Architect Interstice Architects Client Andrew Dunbar, founder of Interstice Architects Size 3,700 square feet Completion 2010 Website intersticearchitects.com

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up front/ defined design

HOUSE D2 Bavaria, Germany Karl Dreer was so impressed with HI-MACS, an ecologically friendly material that is 75 percent natural minerals and 25 percent acrylates (the salts and esters of acrylic acid), that he built his entire house with it, inside and out. The white material creates sleek, natural lines through every wall, floor, countertop, shower—even the pool. The exterior’s pine boards are certified by the PEFC, a global forest-management organization similar to the FSC, and stacked and glued together crosswise, then filled with bonded insulation and finished with a clear white mineral plaster. Triple-insulated glass fills the spacious rooms with light while maximizing heat protection and minimizing sound. LED lighting throughout is flush to free-hanging suspended ceilings. Dimmers and ceiling speakers are hidden behind shadow joints, closets are invisible, and the exhaust hood is retractable. Smart systems include lighting, temperature, and shading, which are controlled via individual touch panels. A seamless integration between the terrace and dining room floor provides the feeling that the family, when at the dining room table, is sitting outside among the trees.

Architects Karl Dreer, Bembé Dellinger Architects Client Karl Dreer

Photography Dirk Wilhelmy Website bembe-dellinger.de

Size 12,900 square feet

PHOTOS: Blake Gordon

Completion 2010

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CLOSET HOUSE Matosinhos, Portugal Architects love a challenge, and there is nothing more challenging than small spaces like Closet House, which takes up just 474.6 square feet. It has five areas: a sleek living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a hall. Perhaps its coolest feature: The wall between the living room and bedroom moves forward and back, creating additional floor space to whichever room most needs it at any particular time. Lighting, blinds, televisions, and a rear-projection screen are flush to the walls to increase openness and efficiency and are automated via a centralized electronic system through wall and table remotes. The bedroom maximizes closet and cabinet space by using a pulldown pole and a step to reach upper storage. The bed is built against two walls leaving an ample walkway to the closet. The kitchen and bathroom include automated drop-down storage cabinets, including a mini bar and a hidden single-serve coffee maker. The kitchen table stores inside a wall when not in use.

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Architect Consexto Size 474.6 square feet Completion 2010 Photography Am창ndio Neto Website consexto.com

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hen you open Michael Maltzan’s recent book, No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond, you will find half of a dust jacket cover that opens into a poster. The “No” is deliberately missing from the fold, leaving “More Play” as an alternate title. It is such contradictions that define the place of Los Angeles, a conurbation that exploded after World War II with endless new development and, rather than forming like a traditional city, became something new. “One of the things we struggled with, coming out of the book, was ‘What do you call a place like this?’” says Maltzan, founding principal of Los Angeles-based Michael Maltzan Architecture, established in 1995. “It was not that Los Angeles didn’t rise to the stature of a city. It was that Los Angeles had gone beyond the traditional definitions of city and had become something else. Is it a super region? Is it a new kind of semi-state? Is it a geographic phenomena? We joked that maybe we could call it ‘Superbigatopolis.’” >

The Future of an American Metropolis. Michael Maltzan ENVISIONS a NEW Los Angeles WITH PLAYA VISTA PARK— A CITY IN MICROCOSM. STORY by Scott Heskes

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The Future of an American Metropolis

Michael Maltzan

Levittown. Michael Maltzan grew up in the infamous post-World War II suburban community of Levittown, NY. When Maltzan moved to Los Angeles, he says the repetitious sprawl felt familiar. The architect now hopes to make the city a more connected place.

At the same time that Maltzan was getting his book published, his 21-person firm was finishing Playa Vista Park in West Los Angeles. And both the book and the park punctuate the firm and its founder’s vision of Los Angles as an indefinable morass spread over a massive horizontal grid, a vision that has contributed to many of the firm’s other projects as well, including the San Francisco State University Mashouf Performing Arts Center, the UCLA Hammer Museum, Inner-City Arts, New Carver Apartments Los Angeles, the MoMA QNS, and the Pittman Dowell Residence in La Crescenta, California. Having grown up in the post-World War II development of Levittown on Long Island in New York, Maltzan was struck when he came to California in the late 1980s by how comfortable and familiar Los Angeles felt to him. At first he thought it might have been the hours of TV he had watched featuring the glamorous, sprawling West Coast city as a backdrop, but later he reflected that Los Angeles was, more broadly, a great experiment for something that happened across the country— something that could not be thought of in the traditional urban terms of cities such as New York, Boston, or Chicago. Unlike those older metropolises that grew gradually from streets to blocks to neighborhoods, post-World War II Los Angeles and Levittown grew from housing developments into whole towns and communities almost overnight. “Lots of people feel disoriented and dislocated and anxious about the scale and repetition of Los Angeles,” Maltzan says. “For me, it felt very similar to Levittown. I realized over time that there is a DNA, an almost molecular structure that makes places like Levittown and LA similar because they were both born at the same time with a similar impetus behind them. The scale, the textures, the institutions, the horizontality—all of those things were coming from a very similar mindset.” 22

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“Lots of people feel disoriented and dislocated and anxious about the scale and repetition of Los Angeles. For me, it felt very similar to Levittown.” —Michael Maltzan, Founding Principal

Today Maltzan connects to Los Angeles on a personal and professional basis. “I live in Los Angeles in two parallel but not always similar ways,” he says. “I live here very much as a citizen of the city, not in an objective way to the issues and problems and opportunities of this place. At the same time, one of the things that originally brought me here as an architect is [that] I think of LA as one of the great urban laboratories in the world. The city has reached its physical and psychological boundaries. Density and infill is creating a new version of what once was a sprawl city.” The shift, Maltzan explains, is an identity crisis of monumental proportions. With its optimism of unbridled growth, its very freewheeling definition of itself is at stake. “Professionally and intellectually, I can’t imagine a city that provides a broader set of real and pressing urban challenges,” he says. “It keeps me deeply motivated and fascinated.” As Maltzan began his career and family in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, a series of events changed his notion of what the place was. The perception of Los Angeles as a multicultural city fell to ruin with the burning of Koreatown following the racially fueled assault of Rodney King by LA police and the ensuing clashes between African- and Korean-American neighborhoods. “Los Angeles is an intensely gbdmagazine.com

Serious Business Michael Maltzan on the value of public space INTERVIEW BY Scott Heskes

Recently the 405 freeway was closed because of repairs, and it was touted as Carmageddon. What’s the significance of Los Angeles’s iconic car-and-freeway culture for its future? MM: The big part of transportation is infrastructure, and for too long the infrastructures in this city have been thought of as monocultures. They only do one thing. The highway only does one thing. The power lines that run through the city only do one thing. We need to think about the way you can combine mobility and transportation with housing, businesses, parks, and education so we get greater intertwining between all of these different necessities and gain greater efficiencies and economies. What do you do to create those connections between infrastructures and communities? gbdmagazine.com

There is a long-term challenge in taking on the dividing lines between infrastructures and communities and finding opportunities to blur them. For instance, there was a huge need to modernize, build, and expand the school districts. There was the idea that a school in the middle of a neighborhood was a problem where gangs would hang out, bringing down the property values—which is ironic because schools used to be the center of communities. There was a real possibility in this situation. You could imagine schools being combined, sharing facilities, and acting as a kind of social and cultural bridge between these communities. [Instead] communities were trying to push the schools outside of their neighborhoods. Los Angeles is often criticized as a backyard city with its citizens not taking advantage of public space. What ways do you get people out of their backyards using public space?

There are many cultures like the Latino community in LA that use the open space and the parks. Increasingly we need to find ways of creating public space as open space. Building those spaces in natural, real, and authentic ways … is critical. It is also important to provide easy access to these types of spaces. If you are forced to get in your car and drive a long way through traffic … very few people are going to do that. They are going to stay in their backyards. How do you create connections with these bridges of architecture between communities? Architecture has the opportunity to show how you can create connections in a more inventive, creative way. For instance, you can organize a school so the gymnasium can also serve as a space with enormous roll-up doors all around its perimeter, and [it] can serve as a community piazza or

gathering space. I believe that the architect has to be an advocate for that possibility with their client, and that client has to be a person in the community willing and able to propose alternatives—at times radical alternatives—to community constituents. How do you see all of these things adding up to change the Los Angeles? Hopefully it will happen in ways that will startle us. Underneath it all is a question of trying to find ways to create space and possibilities for us to see each other. That sounds like a very simple thing, but for the longest time I have criticized Los Angeles as a city in which we have no common social experience. We have a lot of parallel social experiences, but they are not the same. At the core of what is necessary for a city like Los Angeles to flourish is the need for a physical city to create more connected human relationships. APRIL/JUNE/MAY 2012

The Future of an American Metropolis

Michael Maltzan

“We designed Playa Vista Park as a series of ‘activity bridges,’” Maltzan says. A Wi-Fi-capable “meeting bridge” includes space for outdoor conferences. There’s a soccer field and an amphitheater. Visitors engage with the park as they would with Los Angeles.

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The Future of an American Metropolis

“One of the things that originally brought me here as an architect is [that] I think of LA as one of the great urban laboratories. ... The city has reached its physical and psychological boundaries.”

ALL PHOTOS: Jeff Gonot

—Michael Maltzan, Founding Principal

separate city of many cultures,” he says. “It’s huge, horizontal scale allowed for those silos to coexist. When the riots happened, smoke from the fires blanketed the entire LA Basin, and the riot lines crossed over implicit boundaries and thresholds, making them more psychological than real. At that moment there occurred a radical remapping of Los Angeles I could not have imagined. If you are going to work here, you could not separate yourself from the larger question of ‘What is this organism, this new animal with all its very real and unromantic challenges?’” Nearly 20 years later, the seeds planted during that tumultuous time have led Maltzan to emulate the city in his work. Playa Vista Park was a new endeavor for his firm, which had always focused on architecture and had not designed an urban landscape before. Set on the west side of Los Angeles, the park is the centerpiece of a planned community of housing and office buildings, which Maltzan’s firm was also hired to do. “We designed Playa Vista Park as a series of ‘activity bridges’ lined up as discreet and singular zones,” he says, “almost as if they were the separate silos equivalent to the communities and geographies and cultures of the city.” These “bridges”—distinct areas that don’t necessarily span anything—offer various amenities and programs. A Wi-Fi-capable “meeting bridge” includes tables and chairs for outdoor conferences so the life of the offices can spill out into the park. There are also “physicalactivity bridges,” such as the soccer field that is at the center of the park and a “courts bridge” that offers space for beach volleyball, basketball, and a children’s playground. A “forest bridge” provides opportunities for a series of smaller one-on-one activities in the park, and horticultural berms offer hands-on gardening classes. The “theater bridge,” with its amphitheater structure at the center of the entire park, is meant to be a place of larger collective meetings and events. “In a way, you were forced to engage and walk through visually these other communities,” Maltzan says, “and engage in the entire park as you might do within the actual city.” So how do such spaces and the city of Los Angeles as a whole allow the ideas of “No More Play” and “More Play” to exist at the same time? “People have a perception of this city being a light, frivolous, disconnected, individualistic culture,” Maltzan says. “That is a cliché that Los Angeles embraces at some level. It goes with an environment that is so completely benign and accessible and possible. The title of the book is a very pointed question to the city itself. Can we put aside the clichés and seriously get on with the real work of the city and its future? I’m searching for that answer. I am not sure what we would do if we didn’t have more play here. That would be giving up an enormous part of the creativity that is so much a part of this city.” gb&d gbdmagazine.com

PLAYA VISTA PARK. Michael Maltzan had never designed a park before, but his talent for envisioning ways to bring people together made him the perfect choice for Playa Vista Park, the centerpiece for a planned community of homes and office buildings on Los Angeles’s west side. Rather than designing a green space that offered only aesthetic value, Maltzan provided activity areas, including basketball courts and an area with tables, chairs, and Internet access. APRIL/JUNE/MAY 2012

verbatim Architecture has to anticipate a way of life and foster new ways of living within the environment. Bruce Kuwabara explains how provocative design decisions—15o parking spaces for 2,000 people, for instance—can completely shift cultural norms

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PHOTO: Tom Deacon

Twenty-five years ago, Bruce Kuwabara, Thomas Payne, Marianne McKenna, and Shirley Blumberg found themselves in transition as their boss, Barton Myers, announced that he was moving his business to Los Angeles. Rather than polish their resumes, the four decided to pick up where Myers left off. They went into business for themselves as KPMB Architects, and after renegotiating a few contracts, they completed all the projects in progress at the time of Myers’s move. Their work spoke for itself, and before long KPMB was one of Canada’s premier architectural design firms. Its portfolio includes work at such notable universities as Yale, MIT, and Queen’s, and such lauded endeavors as Manitoba Hydro Place in Winnipeg. We spoke with partner Bruce Kuwabara about the firm and his personal views on life, architecture, and the importance of sustainability. —as told to Lynn Russo Whylly gbdmagazine.com

verbatim

PHOTOS: Tom Arban

KPMB Architects

LEFT: The population of Vaughan, ON, has grown sevenfold in the past 20 years. Its new city hall, designed by KPMB, exemplifies responsible development by prioritizing daylight, natural ventilation, and underground parking. BOTTOM LEFT: The west elevation displays the building’s use of passive-solar shading. KPMB anticipates LEED Gold certification for the structure. BOTTOM RIGHT: A dramatic, whole-building approach to energy efficiency and design define the structure.

We believe that each project is important, regardless of size. A lot of our work is about creating public spaces and civic buildings. With every commission, an architect has an opportunity to express the urbanity of a city as he envisions it. We’ve done that consistently over a long period of time. We work to make buildings that matter. I love going to see other architects’ buildings. One of the pleasures of being an architect is appreciating the extraordinary work being done around the world. It’s important to get out of the paradigm that good things only happen in North America, especially in sustainability. Europe has been the front line for sustainability for years, and it’s where most of the advanced thinking has developed. I think architecture has to anticipate a way of life and foster new ways of living within the environment and new ways of thinking about cities and buildings. If it doesn’t, architecture will no longer be relevant. My motivation comes from my Japanese-Canadian background. In Canada, people of Japanese descent—my parents included—were discriminated against and treated unfairly during World War II. I’ve always been passionate about making [right] the injustice that was done to them and others. I’ve dedicated my life to making a meaningful contribution that I hope is relevant and significant. gbdmagazine.com

Up Close and Personal What was your first job? Landscaper. Worked from dawn until dusk. I was exhausted and filthy. If you weren’t an architect, what would you be? A filmmaker. I can see how it taps into similar ideas about creativity and storytelling. Film has the power to change the way we look at things. That’s what great architecture does. What inspires you? My children, seven and eight—the questions they ask and the way in which they engage the world with limitless curiosity and creativity. Describe yourself in three words. Flexible, reflective—because I do a lot of deep thinking alone— and quick—because I am able to respond to design challenges quickly. What is your hidden talent? I’m a very good pool player. Also, I love to play chess. The beauty of the game is it’s about strategy, not winning. Nothing else sharpens the mind the same way.

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verbatim

KPMB Architects PHOTOS: (Far left) Gerry Kopelow; (Left) Tom Arban ABOVE: The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario is designed to mesh with the residential landscape of the surrounding neighborhood. LEFT, FAR LEFT: Manitoba Hydro Place isn’t one of Canada’s most impressive buildings because it is 66% more efficient than energy code; it's because it is changing behaviors: since parking is limited, 70% of employees now commute by public transit.

At Manitoba Hydro Place in Winnipeg, we provided only 150 parking spaces for 2,000 people. Seventy percent of employees now take public transportation to work. That’s a big shift in the modal split. Also, the building is designed to deliver 100 percent natural ventilation through a system of atriums, a double-wall cavity, displacement ventilation, and a solar chimney. This has resulted in employees having fewer sick days. Manitoba Hydro is recording reduced energy consumption [of] 66 percent below our model national energy code. It’s projected to go to 70 percent once the geothermal heating-and-cooling system is fully operational and commissioned. As a result, we’re on track to achieve LEED Platinum certification. We won the Vaughan City Hall project in a design competition. It achieves natural ventilation and daylight autonomy through the incorporation of tall central atriums of transparent glass, passive solar shading, and chocolate-brown terracotta panels and louvers. NAK Design Group developed the landscape strategies associated with our project for the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. It’s in a residential neighborhood. The residents didn’t want an office building 28

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in their neighborhood, so the landscape design is sensitive to that and is in scale and rhythm with the residential gardens up and down the street. It blends in rather than stands out. We approach every project collaboratively with open minds. We work with integrated design teams, including clients, consultants, and contractors. Everyone has a voice at the table. We focus on what each building should be, and we set clear goals. gb&d

A MESSAGE FROM NAK DESIGN GROUP With a reputation for outstanding design innovation, NAK Design Group boasts an impressive portfolio of projects that marry beauty with enduring quality and sustainable technology. Collaboration between disciplines often yields wonderful results, and we are proud to have worked with KPMB over the past 25 years to create timeless and beautiful places for people.

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National Naval Medical Center — 2011

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create. innovate. collaborate. sustain. As a multi-discipline architecture, engineering, and planning firm, Clark Nexsen offers a holistic, collaborative, and solutions-oriented design approach.

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verbatim

Everyone wants to do the right thing for the warriors who come through this place. David Keith on Clark Nexsen’s Warrior Transition Unit at the National Naval Medical Center—and why the project was both a personal honor and professional victory

When Clark Nexsen was hired along with Whiting-Turner Contracting Company to design and build the Warrior Transition Unit at the Walter Reed National Naval Medical Center (NNMC), director of architecture David Keith knew the job would be the most significant of his career to date. The facility is designed to be the first place significantly injured men and women come upon returning home from the battlefield. The architect explains how the project unfolded. —as told to Julie Schaeffer > gbdmagazine.com

Up Close and Personal What was your first job? Delivering newspapers on the lawn at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA. If you weren’t an architect, what would you be? A baseball coach. What inspires you? Working with a lot of passionate professionals, … people who want to do great things. Describe yourself in three words. Passionate, creative, and collaborative. What is your hidden talent? I am not sure. I think most of my talents are exposed.

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verbatim

Clark Nexsen

The first building, called Building 62, is a new 300,000-square-foot, 9-story building that provides housing for wounded warriors while they are receiving long-term outpatient care. [The structure] includes 153 suites—each with two private bedrooms flanking a common living area with a kitchen and seating area—a dining hall that can serve roughly 300 people at a time, and space for a significant number of therapists. It also contains administrative support offices nestled into a tight [space] adjacent to the new therapy facility—as well as a small daycare facility for use by warriors’ families and NNMC staff. The entry plaza includes a healing garden and outdoor dining area.

Many sustainable features will be readily apparent to building occupants. Green roofs have been employed on each building, and rainwater will be collected in an underground cistern, treated, and utilized for water closets and urinals, almost entirely relieving the need for potable water for wastewater purposes. Solar collectors for hot water will reduce the amount of energy consumed. Occupants will also notice increased daylight from the building’s ample windows and intelligent massing. We made a decisive effort to enhance the building occupants’ health, comfort, and productivity—attributes that provide particular benefit in a building dedicated to healing.

The second building, called Building 17, is a 215,000-squarefoot physical-fitness center and administrative facility—as well as a parking garage. It includes two collegiate-size gyms, a 50-meter pool, as well as physical- and occupational-therapy and fitness spaces. The program simply required the design-build team to preserve the façade of an existing four-story building originally constructed in 1942—as it was part of the historic fabric of the campus—but our design approach allowed us to save the entire building and add a new complex behind it. An additional hotel is planned for friends and family members who come to stay with the wounded soldiers. That’s important because families help the soldiers with their transition as they learn how to live life after their injuries.

LEFT: Beneath this healing garden, an underground cistern captures enough rainwater that almost no potable water is used for waste-water purposes.

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ABOVE: The Warrior Transition Unit was given green features beyond the military’s specs, including skylights, solar panels, and green roofs.

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ALL PHOTOS: William Corbell

This was the most important project we’ve ever worked on. That’s not just because of its importance to our firm or the nationwide support for the program, but because of the number of people it touches and the manner in which it touches them. Everyone wants to do the right thing at the highest level for the warriors who come through this place, and every day our team thought of it in that way. It was an honor just to be a part of it.

verbatim

The project has been designed to be more sustainable than required. The military procurement process didn’t allow for significant interaction about sustainable elements before we were awarded the project. The requirement was for the building to be LEED Silver, but we added a number of things above and beyond that, such as green roofs and solar panels. As a result, we believe the buildings could achieve a higher level [of sustainable certification] than required by the contract. The beauty of our profession now is that it’s not purely aesthetic. In addition to designing beautiful buildings that work well for the functions within them, we’re being asked to help clients make design decisions that show them actual paybacks. Being knowledgeable enough to say ahead of time that doing this or that can result in significant cost savings is valued more than in the past. And architects, engineers, and contractors have more tools to educate clients about the potential paybacks of sustainable-design decisions. We are selling more than just drawings and specifications; we are adding value by helping clients make good design decisions. gb&d

ABOVE: The Warrior Transition Unit includes two collegiate-size gyms, a 50-meter pool, as well as physical- and occupational-therapy and fitness spaces.

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From concept to completion American Hydrotech’s Garden Roof® Assembly is setting the standard by which all other green roofs are measured. The Garden Roof uses the industry’s most reliable, longest lasting watersealant available to protect roofs from the elements and reduce maintenance costs. To learn more about the American Hydrotech Garden Roof Assembly, please call 800.877.6125 or visit us online at www.hydrotechusa.com. American Hydrotech, Inc. | 303 East Ohio | Chicago, IL 60611 | 800.877.6125 | www.hydrotechusa.com © 2011 Garden Roof is a registered trademark of American Hydrotech, Inc.

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verbatim

We developed teams around people’s strengths, basically creating super teams of people with very few weaknesses. KAI Design & Build’s Michael B. Kennedy on how building design can benefit from business acumen—and vice versa

Looking back on his childhood, Michael B. Kennedy can still recall watching his father design projects in the basement of their family home. In 1980, when Kennedy was just three years old, his father started what would become KAI Design & Build, a leading architecture and construction firm based in St. Louis that was making LEED-certifiable buildings before the USGBC emerged. Kennedy is now president of KAI Design & Build and uses his background in business to foster a company culture emphasizing communication and collaboration. —as told to Tina Vasquez

I brought a business approach to KAI Design & Build. I am not an architect like my father. I run the sales, operations, and development side of the company, but I believe architects and artists are driving the sustainability movement. When I started here 11 years ago, I quickly realized that creative human beings are intuitively sustainable; they just seem to be more environmentally conscious. We always assume that new projects are going to be green until the owner tells us otherwise. With this cost-conscious economy, we’re seeing a new trend of clients saying they want a “LEED-like building,” meaning they want all of the LEED elements without the costly certification. People are doing the best they can with the budgets they have. 34

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KAI Design & Build

verbatim

Up Close and Personal What was your first job? I was 15, and I bagged groceries. I actually won my first award when one of those spies came in to see if everyone was doing their job correctly. If you weren’t in the family business, what would you do? When I was growing up, I wanted to be the Tiger Woods of NASCAR, so in terms of pipe dreams or passions, that’d be it. More realistically, before KAI I was at GE Capital and was offered a job right out of college. I was told I could one day be president of a division, and I really think I could have. What inspires you? Everything I do is for the joy of being able to help others, so the possibility of being able to use my success to help another become successful is inspiring to me. Describe yourself in three words. Competitive, strategic, people-person. What is your hidden talent? I’m athletic and have been doing martial arts on and off for years. I just started doing taekwondo again, and it’s my goal to get my black belt.

There are also projects where no expense is spared. Our Arlington Grove Apartments project is part of HUD’s Green Homes and Communities project, and it has a laundry list of sustainable features and other requirements unusual even for very upscale homes. Forty percent of our portfolio is in education. Students are now aware of the environment in a way previous generations weren’t. They want to go to schools that are environmentally conscious. At the Harris Stowe Early Childhood Development Center, everything is green, everything is high-tech. Parents can even watch their children in their classrooms from the comfort of their home computers. We’re able to succeed at projects like these because of our culture of collaboration. Most design firms have one unique niche, but we do architecture, engineering, and construction in-house and work constantly to do all of these disciplines successfully. We’ve been told we give the most accurate estimates. That’s because everyone within our company collaborates, communicates effectively, and brings their strong suits to the table. In 2006 we gave each employee a copy of Marcus Buckingham’s Now, Discover Your Strengths. Everyone took the tests in the book to find out what their strengths were, and we developed teams around people’s strengths so that we were putting employees in roles they would succeed at, basically creating super teams of people with very few weaknesses. In order for people to be happy, they have to align their God-given talent with what they do for a living, and if we can help facilitate that, that’s what we’re going to do. These types of things don’t happen at other companies in our industry, but I was a business major and these are the types of ideas I try to bring to the table. gbdmagazine.com

ABOVE: The William L. Clay Sr. Early Childhood Development / Parenting Education Center is a mouthful, but its design speaks for itself. The exterior is bold and imaginative while the interior is kid- and eco-friendly, combining natural light with occupancy sensors to conserve energy.

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KAI Design & Build

ISIS

“In 2010 ... we were optimistic things would bounce back in 2011. Now people are hoping for things to turn around in 2012 while others are saying this is the new normal. Our plans for the future depend on what happens in the next 12 months.”

I hope we can continue implementing our business plan when the economy comes back. If just a year ago you would have asked me about where I saw KAI in five years, my answer would have been totally different than it is today. In 2010 things were slowing down and we were optimistic things would bounce back in 2011. Now people are hoping for things to turn around in 2012 while others are saying this is the new normal. Our plans for the future depend on what happens in the next 12 months. If this is the new normal, all I can hope is that we remain as successful as we are today. If the economy does come back, I want us to have a broader reach and open offices in new cities. I also want to double the size of our at-risk construction group, so here’s hoping things look up. gb&d

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An Education Revolution Cause and Effect Evolutions is doing something remarkable: changing the way America imagines its schools

launched 2008 location Nationwide distinction Creating entirely donated “21st-century learning environments” designed to LEED Platinum standards website greenschoolhouseseries.org

Who: Marshall and Jeff Zotara have devoted the past 12 years to uniting corporations with local communities. Based in Carlsbad, California, the father and son operate Cause and Effect Evolutions, a cause-development firm that helps organize corporate projects benefiting the underprivileged.

“[Those in] corporate America are our neighbors,” says Jeff Zotara, Marshall’s son. “They’re people, not just entities. When we started Cause and Effect, we wanted to engage the employees of corporate America, because there’s often this yearning for corporations to do more in their local communities. So our primary focus has been to be the puzzle-masters who help coordinate community-building activities like home or school makeovers.” Most recently, the Zotaras have zeroed in on a shocking and overwhelming need for updates to school campuses. They’re calling the project the Green Schoolhouse Series. gbdmagazine.com

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launch pad

The Green Schoolhouse Series

What: Instead of trucking in prefabricated classroom units, Cause and Effect is doing the exact opposite. Partnering with architects who are local to each school district, the firm is coming up with uniquely designed campuses that emphasize sustainability and new learning practices.

“This is going to be an iconic new example of what’s possible,” Jeff says proudly, pointing to the structures’ new technologies, open floor plans, and multiuse spaces—all of which are designed to bring communities at large onto the campuses. “This is much different than what schools were 25 years ago. And most importantly, we want to influence the children, parents, and teachers to make behavioral changes.” Jeff presents a case study: Washington Elementary School District saved a chunk of change simply by changing the way it used energy: shutting of the lights, turning off the computers, and closing the doors. “They saved $2.5 million of good old American cash,” Jeff says, “just by modifying one thing.” Cause and Effect has come up with three basic school models, ranging from 6,000 to 15,000 square feet: the Safari (for kindergarten through fifth grade, with a jungle theme), the Studio (sixth through eighth grade, with a performing-arts theme), and the Loft (ninth through twelfth grade, with an emphasis on green learning.) The models have certain common features, including community rooms, outdoor classrooms, computer labs, kitchens, lounges, and libraries. One stunning element that will be incorporated into the schools is the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) program, which partners with leaders in each of those fields to show kids the future through the hard sciences. It’s in this setting that Jeff has seen eighth graders building robots from scratch. “I’m always astonished because back when I was in eighth grade, I was going to school and going home,” he says with a laugh. 38

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THIS PAGE: These LEED Platinum school buildings built entirely by volunteers come in several models, the Safari (grades K–5), the Studio (6–8), and the Loft (9–12). PREVIOUS PAGE: The Studio, which is based on a performing-arts theme, is the new Green Schoolhouse at the Orangewood School in Phoenix, AZ.

“These children are the future. These facilities are like a Formula One racecar: You don’t drive it at 70 miles an hour.” When/Where: The first school in the series— the Roadrunner Elementary School—broke ground in the Washington Elementary School District in in Phoenix in November 2011. In 2012 another school will be built in California. In 2013 there are plans for six more campuses, and in 2015 Cause and Effect will be expanding to 18 other cities across the United States. Why: Back in post-World War II America, the country had a population explosion on its hands. The so-called baby boomers needed to be educated, and the school system became strained. To alleviate the problem, administrators put up portable classroom units that were never meant to be permanent. But instead of being replaced after a few years, many of them were used for decades. “Some

of these units are 35 years old,” Jeff says. “You can’t do much to repair them because they’re pretty much falling apart—unstable floors, poor air circulation, and in some cases toxic environments.” How: Perhaps the most remarkable part of the Green Schoolhouse Series is that the schools are completed entirely by volunteers. Cause and Effect coordinates with corporate entities (including DeVry University, Cisco Systems, and even NASA, among many others) to donate money, time, products, and strategies for the schools. Local architects contribute designs. Local contractors contribute labor. The school district isn’t required to pay a dime, and the schools go up within a fourmonth time frame and cost between $3 million and $6 million—all of which is donated. Each school is designed to be certified LEED Platinum. —Seth Putnam

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notebook/ alan oakes

The New City Beautiful Would the urban movement inspired by Daniel Burnham stand up to today’s sustainability standards? If not, what cities best exemplify our own century’s urban renaissance?

Looking at images of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition, set on the shore of Lake Michigan, south of downtown Chicago, I still feel a sense of wonder. The White City was a beaux arts fantasy that looked as if Zeus himself had thrust it down upon Earth from the heavens above. Architectural impresario Daniel Burnham, along with America’s first generation of “starchitects,” transformed a derelict 1,100 acres of swampland into a dreamy city of white neoclassical pavilions. The design ushered in a new image of what a city could, and should be. Called the City Beautiful movement, Burnham’s philosophy proposed that urban design creates social order and civic virtue if executed correctly. Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, bare the imprint of this movement. But I wonder what our generation’s City Beautiful looks like. Though the virtues of the original City Beautiful movement are worthy goals, the sustainable design movement and all its offshoots demand that we look in a radically new way at what makes a city beautiful. Genuinely sustainable design, by its nature, is beautiful. It is embedded in a rich understanding of the Earth and its processes. It appreciates the complex connections between people and the environment. It accepts that our Earth is the source and sink of all that we produce. In sustainable design, everything matters because everything is interconnected. Look at urban design this way and the White City turns to Technicolor. Sustainable city planners like to judge the worth of their projects against a set of criteria known as the three E’s: environment, equity, and economy. Burnham’s White City wouldn’t have fared well using these criteria: tons of gbdmagazine.com

concrete was poured into a fragile ecosystem, workers were denied the right to unionize, and nearly all the structures were abandoned after one summer season. Yet I wonder if glamorous “green” cities such as Tianjin Eco-City in China would fare much better? Can such cities really be considered sustainable? Some cities, it seems, got lucky. They have built-in attributes that make them more easily able to adapt to sustainability. Reykjavik, Iceland, a city of a mere 170,000 inhabitants, is situated on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which produces geothermal forces that can power and heat the city in a clean and efficient way. Since the 1930s Reykjavik has built upon this regional asset and blossomed, creating a city and society that are on the forefront of sustainable design in every way. But then again, it only has 170,000 inhabitants. Our planet’s population is expected to grow to 9.4 billion by the year 2050. I think cities such as Portland, Oregon, offer us a better glimpse of how the new City Beautiful will come about. Portland and its surrounding area are home to more than 2.5 million people. Through sometimes strongly conflicting interests, the city has created a culture in which citizenry embrace the green movement. There is a broad understanding of the interconnections at play in sustainable design. Where else might you find a brochure for an upcoming neighborhood meeting that promises to explore “topics like district energy and water utilities, net zero buildings, smart grid, networked transportation, urban ecosystem services, zero waste and human behavior”? Working through the three E’s ignores a central aspect of sustainability, though. Frederick Steiner, dean of the School of Architecture

at the University of Texas, says that one final consideration is essential: aesthetics. “Often green concerns have been advanced at the expense of aesthetics,” he says. “Many early green buildings produced by green architects appear like post-hippie structures, habitable granola bars, which may be good for us but leave us wanting. … A compelling environmental aesthetic remains just beyond our reach.” We turn to nature to understand the complex ecologies involved in urban design, and we should also turn to it for our aesthetic design inspiration. “Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature—it will never fail you,” Frank Lloyd Wright once said. Indeed, something as simple and perfect as an egg can lead us to beautiful design. I don’t think the ideal new City Beautiful has been realized. Maybe a reader of this column will help get us closer to it. I also don’t think it will look as if it came down from the clouds in the hands of Zeus, either. Maybe it will look like it sprung up from the Earth, like it’s always been there, a part of nature itself.

Alan Oakes is an architectural historian, writer, and documentarian. He can be reached at oakesaland@gmail.com. APRIL/JUNE/MAY 2012

Financing Sustainability through Innovative Solutions. Alice Carr West Regional Manager 213-621-8396

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Ben Glispie Southwest Regional Manager 214-965-2113

Dave Walsh Northeast Regional Manager 212-270-2943

The Chase Community Development Group offers a complete range of financial products designed to help strengthen communities to sustain a high quality of life and economic opportunity. To learn more, call or visit us online at chase.com/cdb.

BMI is a full service firm providing a variety of services to its clients. Barker Construction and Development Company specializes in major rehabilitation and individual residential unit improvements. Barker Realty focuses on investment sales and purchases. BMI’s management encompasses not only daily management concerns, but also provides financial reporting, budget analysis, maintenance scheduling, marketing and lease-up needs, property tax exemption filing, risk management, and in-house legal consultation. This full range of services allows BMI to manage a development based on its needs, not just on what BMI can supply. The success that BMI has enjoyed for almost thirty years is based on the solid philosophy of “Attention to Detail.” While the slogan is simple, it has allowed BMI to underscore the necessity of monitoring all tasks involved in managing a development in a way that achieves satisfaction for both owner and resident.

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SUSTAINABLE SANCTUARY. Joan Heaton, an architect working in Vermont and the Adirondack region of New York, grew up with an affinity for wood, and it shows in her work. It’s not all rustic though—this cabin is a prototype for an 800-square-foot, solar-powered, modern residence, p. 59.

42/ REAL ESTATE & DEVELOPMENT 56/ ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN 67/ CONSULTING

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The Secret to Housing? Building More Than Bedrooms. Meta Housing Corporation brings supermarkets to food deserts, public-transit alternatives to a car-loving culture, and ‘art colonies’ to an overlooked segment of the senior population

The word “meta” is derived from Greek origins and can mean “subsequent,” “secondary,” or “beyond.” Meta Housing Corporation, since its foundation in 1993, has always been in the business of going beyond the standard. That central philosophy is applied broadly and can be seen clearly in each of the organization’s core tenets, whether it be incorporating sustainability, integrating transportation, or encouraging its senior residents to live actively. “Housing can be a vehicle for other avenues of social betterment,” says Chris Maffris, vice president of the company, speaking on the role that California’s affordable-housing market has grown into since he joined Meta Housing nine years ago. “The affordablehousing industry has changed significantly. Collectively, as developers and financiers, we have seen many funding programs begin to have green and sustainable requirements.”

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PHOTO: Kelly Barrie

One big change was Title 24. The current standard, adopted in 2008, lays out a baseline for energy efficiency in residential and nonresidential buildings. Meta Housing consistently surpasses Title 24 by 20–25 percent. Maffris describes the impetus for the company’s green practices as two-pronged: Meta Housing acknowledges both the social imperative to conserve energy and the economic advantages of doing so. “We are long-term owners of all our properties,” Maffris says. “We’re building a portfolio. The operational benefits are valuable to us. Implementing energy efficiency and green building techniques in our work helps

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RENDERINGS: Studio One Eleven

Meta Housing Corporation

the operation of our buildings and improves their economic viability in the long run.”

The Long Beach Senior Arts Colony is something of an anomaly among seniorhousing projects. It includes many creative amenities including art studios, editing rooms, and its own theater.

Negotiating the economics of affordablehousing development in California isn’t always easy. The cost of land is high, as are building costs, especially around transit hubs. Luckily, many state funding programs recognize that fact. John Huskey, Meta Housing’s founder, has been working in the housing sector since 1969 and actually comes from a background in transportation. Nearly every Meta Housing development is therefore situated around either transit corridors or the public transportation of Southern California. One such development is Long Beach Senior Arts Colony, which is located across the street from the Long Beach and Anaheim Metro Stop and was designed by Studio One Eleven, a Long Beach-based architecture firm that also places a high level of importance on creating sustainable communities. The senior-housing project is notable because it incorporates one of the developer’s truly unique concepts— senior communities based on art and creativity. Huskey conducted research on the types of lives that older adults were living in existing senior-housing developments. “What he found was that many seniors were being forgotten,” Maffris says. “The housing wasn’t providing for the healthy continuation of their lives.” The idea was to engage the residents in gbdmagazine.com

OPPOSITE PAGE: The Adams and Central Mixed-Use Development, managed by Solari Enterprises, Inc., includes a supermarket to combat the lack of healthy food options in its neighborhood. THIS PAGE: The Long Beach Senior Arts Colony includes artist studios so that senior residents can actively engage in creative work. Designed by Studio One Eleven, the project is currently under construction. APRIL/JUNE/MAY 2012

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Meta Housing Corporation ALL PHOTOS: Kelly Barrie

In addition to beating California’s Title 24 standard by 20–25%, Meta Housing’s projects are often situated along major transit corridors. Here you can see the proximity of the Long Beach & Burnett Apartments to the Metro across the street. RIGHT: Designed by PSL Architects, this mixedincome housing development, located near the Metro and other amenities in Long Beach, CA, contains 46 two- and threebedroom units. BELOW: The Fresh & Easy Market was an important element of the Adams and Central development in South Los Angeles because the area’s one of many in the country designated as a food desert.

In the past year, the Adams and Central Mixed Use Development has won four regional awards, including one from the NAHB for Best Affordable Apartment Complex. It also is responsible for bringing the first new food market to South Los Angeles in 20 years.

failed to do: it brought a noteworthy commercial food market to South Los Angeles.

activities outside their rooms. At Long Beach and other art-focused developments, residents are regularly collaborating and producing creative works alongside other tenants. To encourage this, these communities include editing bays, classrooms, art studios, and theaters. Another transit-oriented development that has been getting attention is the Adams and 44

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Central Mixed-Use Development, which has won four awards in the past year, including the Los Angeles Business Council Architectural Award for Mixed-Use Housing and the National Association of Home Builders’s Pillars Builder Award for Best Affordable Apartment Complex. The development was designed by John Cotton Architects, an awardwinning firm in its own right, and it’s succeeded in accomplishing what many have

“South Los Angeles is what they call a food desert,” Maffris says. “People were paying more for their food than those in West Los Angeles because they had to buy from corner stores or drive long distances to find supermarkets. That has been remedied. Adams and Central includes a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.” The word “meta” can also refer to something self-referential. When asked to reflect on what the legacy of Meta will ultimately be, Maffris pauses for a moment. “We try to not just produce affordable housing,” he says, “but produce affordable housing that accomplishes another objective, a further-reaching social goal.” —Ashley T. Kjos gbdmagazine.com

Solari Enterprises, Inc. is a full service property management organization specializing in multifamily affordable housing. Our portfolio includes multifamily housing for families, seniors, special needs, single room occupancy, mixed use as well as business parks, and commercial properties. (714) 282-2520

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The Real Go-Getter A formidable real esate firm with a presence coast to coast, Cassidy Turley stresses sustainability in and out of the office

“As a company, [Cassidy Turley] is deeply rooted in the local markets and in many cases [goes] back 80-plus years, but Cassidy Turley as an entity has only existed for about 20 months, and that’s been the culmination of all of these other firms coming together,” says Tim Walsh, managing principal of the firm’s St. Louis office since 2009. “Since March 2010, the growth has really exploded, and that has been through acquisitions as well as organic [progress].”

PHOTO: Aaron Dougherty

Cassidy Turley’s St. Louis offices, which occupy an entire floor of the Centene Plaza Office Tower, achieved LEED Gold for commercial interiors thanks to local and healthful materials and finishes.

It was back in August of 2008 when legacy firms Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers, Colliers Pinkard, and Colliers ABR merged, creating a commercial-real estate conglomerate drawing from the best of each firm. Five months later, BT Commercial in Northern California, BRE Commercial of Southern California and Arizona, and Colliers Houston & Co. of New Jersey came aboard, and the firm Cassidy Turley officially opened for business March 1, 2010.

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Cassidy Turley ALL PHOTOS: Aaron Dougherty

THIS PAGE: The St. Louis offices of commercial real estate powerhouse Cassidy Turley represent a triumph of both design and sustainability. The space’s sleek, contemporary elements are visible, but what can’t be seen is the fact that the office’s glass, wall base, tile, and more were all sourced from within 500 miles of the site. 48

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Quantifying a Philosophy In sum, the company manages more than 490 million square feet of space from 70 offices. It is in 21 national markets and completed more than $17 billion in transactions last year. A huge portion of Cassidy Turley’s business concerns sustainability, and the company has begun pursuing LEED certification on all its corporate office spaces. Completed so far are the ones in San Jose; San Francisco; Washington, DC; and, most recently, St. Louis, which earned LEED Gold certification. The Charlotte office is pending. “Philosophically, we were committed to pursue some level of LEED certification from the very beginning,” Walsh says. “We wanted to lead by example, and sustainability was an important component of that. Pursuing LEED was our demonstration to do what’s in the best interest of our clients, our associates, our community, and the environment as a whole.” A 21st-Century Palace of Gold Located in the HOK-designed Centene Plaza Office Tower, Cassidy Turley’s full-floor headquarters houses 100 associates in 27,000 square feet of office space. Cassidy Turley currently employs more than 70 LEED APs and wants to see that number grow. The interior of the office achieved LEED-CI Gold by incorporating a variety of sustainable strategies that, by design, positively impact the project itself and the broader community. More than 75 percent of the construction waste was salvaged or recycled, and more than 25 percent of the project’s glass, wall base, floor laminate, and tile incorporates recycled content and was manufactured within 500 miles of the building. The offices also were finished with low-VOC adhesives, sealants, flooring systems, composite woods, and agrifiber. Finally, potable water use was reduced by 20 percent compared with the LEED baseline, and the company continues to offset 100 percent of its electricity use by purchasing renewable energy credits. Evan Tyroler, a Cassidy Turley vice president and director of sustainable initiatives out of Washington, DC, adds that by taking these measures in a highly visible St. Louis office building, the renovation becomes a reminder to clients and tenants that Cassidy Turley supports the green movement. “It’s also gbdmagazine.com

“[It’s] important for our St. Louis team … to learn about the process we went through and how they can bring that as a value-add component to the table when they are working with clients in other markets.” —Evan Tyroler, Vice President and Director of Sustainable Initiatives, Washington, DC

an educational piece,” Tyroler says. “[It’s] important for our St. Louis team and all the different clients and … team members that visit that office to learn about the process we went through and how they can bring that as a value-add component to the table when they are working with clients in other markets.” Cassidy Turley also maximized natural lighting and outdoor views through strategic space planning and the incorporation of large expanses of glass in interior offices. Trusted vendors FastSigns National Advertising Counsel Inc. and NCS Construction Services are often tapped for Cassidy Turley’s big projects, and the St. Louis headquarters was no exception. “From the initial design phase, the sourcing of the materials was important,” Tyroler says, “so through our partnerships with these firms, we could explain what we were looking for, and they were able to use their knowledge and experience to identify the materials and space for the build out. Everyone had the ultimate goal of the sustainability message we wanted to get across.” Market Conditions The company’s growth stems from a philosophy centered on unwavering commitment to clients, allowing for more acquisitions. “We wanted to make sure we are in the markets that our clients need us to be in, and that has led to many of these acquisitions,” Walsh says. “There’s also been a philosophy of being a

market leader. Here in St. Louis, we are proud that we are ranked No. 1 in both brokerage and property management, and [we] strive for those leadership positions in each of our markets.” A lot is on the horizon for the remainder of 2012 as the commercial-real estate market continues to pick up. “We are optimistic,” Walsh says. “Over the next five years we remain committed to growing the business in all of the different service lines. As those grow, the firm will continue to grow. We would certainly be forecasting growth in each of the next five years.” —Keith Loria

A MESSAGE FROM NCS CONSTRUCTION SERVICES LLC Cassidy Turley and NCS Construction Services LLC (NCS) incorporate similar philosophies of team interaction for the benefit of the customer, which has allowed us to successfully complete projects throughout the United States. Together we have completed numerous retail build-outs and renovations for clients such as National Vision and H&R Block in Florida, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Cassidy Turley’s reference to its vendors as “partners” encourages the entire team to complete projects on time, on budget, and at the highest level of quality. As a partner, NCS Construction looks forward to further expansion with Cassidy Turley. We value our strong working relationship and look forward to future opportunities and growth.

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Wisconsin Gets It Right Wispark’s enlightened president, Jerold Franke, is as savvy on sustainability as the most avant-garde architect

Formed in 1988, Wispark was created to serve as the real estate-development arm of the Wisconsin Energy Corporation (WEC). A provider of gas and electricity to the southern and western parts of Wisconsin, WEC entered the real estate realm to further support communities where its utilities are located. Because of this, environmental impact— particularly energy efficiency—is at the forefront of Wispark president Jerold Franke’s mind. Just after its inception, Wispark began work on LakeView Corporate Park, a mixed-use development offering industrial, office, and retail space. More than 75 percent complete, the 2,400-acre development in Pleasant Prairie has everything from a hotel conference center to a 200-acre public recreation park. Here, Franke elaborates on the sustainable nature of the colossal project.

“There are too many people designing buildings to last decades rather than centuries. We need to be less reliant on the ‘throwaway’ mentality.” —Jerold Franke, President

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How did Wispark become involved with LakeView Corporate Park? JF: LakeView Corporate Park is located adjacent to one of WEC’s coal-fired power plants. When we sought municipal approval, we promised to develop an industrial park that would benefit the community. We are about 75 percent complete at this point, and we’ve attracted companies that have generated over 7,000 jobs in the process. Basically, we took a number of cornfields and cabbage patches and turned it into a 21st-century business park. How many businesses are there in the park? JF: Right now there are approximately 80. In the end we expect to have anywhere from 95 to 110, but it’s hard to say exactly because many buildings end up having multiple tenants. What are some ways that LakeView Corporate Park is sustainable? JF: The LakeView RecPlex is one of the largest municipal recreation facilities in the country, with two sheets of ice for an indoor hockey rink, an aquatics center with an Olympic-size pool, indoor soccer fields, cardiovascular facilities, basketball courts, and a lot more. This presents a key part of the wellness aspect many companies are pursuing today [as] another part of an overall sustainable real estate project. Additionally, we have a community storm-water-management system rather than each facility having its own pond. We’re also starting to see more uses of innovative energy. Fortunately, most companies coming into the park recognize that sustainability is favorable to their overall bottom line. APRIL/JUNE/MAY 2012

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Wispark

“We are about 75 percent complete at this point, and we’ve attracted companies that have generated over 7,000 jobs in the process. Basically, we took a number of cornfields and cabbage patches and turned it into a 21st-century business park.”

Does the corporate park have a LEED rating? JF: When we started the development in 1987, there were no LEED ratings. Even now LEED still does not have a category for business parks. Most of our buildings are LEED qualified. Additionally, we do try to incorporate as many LEED design features as we can while still remaining practical to the client, whether that [feature be] a building design or a building component. Some of our LEED-like features include energy-efficient rooftop HVAC units, increased wall and roof insulation, T-5 lighting fixtures, local materials, recycled steel, and sediment-control basins that ... improve the quality of the runoff from the site rather than simply help to control the amount of runoff. What other ways is Wispark focused on sustainability? JF: Though we started out as business-park developers, we are spending more time now on redevelopment and infill sites than we did in the past. We’re focusing on making use of existing infrastructure, which has emerged as a significant aspect of sustainability. It’s important to us to use those structures that still have a lifecycle remaining.

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A MESSAGE FROM THE VILLAGE OF PLEASANT PRAIRIE The result of a private-public partnership between WISPARK and the Village of Pleasant Prairie, LakeView Corporate Park has helped Pleasant Prairie grow into a vibrant community with a high quality of life. The park has provided stability in the local economy while maintaining balance between commercial, residential, and natural spaces.

...the Village of Pleasant Prairie thanks WISPARK for the vital role they have played in shaping our community and their focus on making LakeView Corporate Park a sustainable corporate development...

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Is focusing on the environment important to you as an individual? JF: Absolutely. We only have so many resources in this country, and too many people are wasting what we have. There are too many people designing buildings to last decades rather than centuries. We need to be less reliant on the “throw-away” mentality. Previously, I was a municipal planner and development official. Developing a project that’s environmentally sustainable is consistent with my educational training and personal philosophy. —Interview by Zipporah Porton

A MESSAGE FROM Partners in Design Architects We provide building solutions that effectively address our clients’ unique needs and cultures through vision, collaboration, and a passion for design. We also have a passion for working with corporate/industrial clients—each providing us with new insights into manufacturing and distribution processes and thus keeping us at the leading edge of design. Our staff is dedicated to providing value and delivering quality and exceptional service through a thorough understanding of client needs.

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details/ real estate & development LEFT: This five-unit townhome community is near the University of Texas at Austin campus. Completed in 2008, the residential units come with standard green features such as solar arrays, spray-foam insulation, recycled dual-pane windows, and tankless water heaters.

These townhomes represent PSW Real Estate’s strategy of standardizing green features in order to secure better pricing— and then passing on the savings.

Custom Homes Are Old News PSW Real Estate says eco-friendly features shouldn’t be extra. Here’s how the company is bringing green housing to the masses.

PSW Real Estate is proof positive that while the sustainable features of a home aren’t typically created equal, they still can be—at least as far as cost is concerned. That’s what cofounders Anthony Siela and Ryan Diepenbrock had in mind as their Phoenix-based development and investment company looked to change course around 2005. Sure, new homeowners can locate green custom builders, but such customization tends to be costly. “What we’re able to do is all green, sustainable, energy-efficient features as standard,” Siela says. “And by ensuring they’re on 100 percent of our homes, we believe we’re able to get better pricing power and include those at better prices for our homeowners.” What Makes Austin Different Changing course also came with a change in location; PSW researched a few different options before settling in Austin, Texas. Climate and general atmosphere played a part in the decision, but the housing market—which

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had recovered from the tech wreck of 2001— played a part as well. Siela and Diepenbrock also couldn’t help but notice that Austin’s home values remained steady even as they shot up wildly elsewhere. There was a reason for that. “We learned that the state of Texas won’t allow a homeowner to refinance more than 80 percent of the value of their home, whereas the rest of the country basically allowed people to use their house as an ATM,” Siela says. Fearlessly Adding Features In a relatively short period of time, the real estate firm has left a lasting impression on the Austin area: more than half a dozen urbaninfill communities have been built by PSW, most of which are owned and managed by the group and which typically receive 4- or 5-star ratings from Austin Energy’s Green Building program, a local system comparable to LEED certification. APRIL/JUNE/MAY 2012

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PSW Real Estate

RIGHT: Melridge Place is a six-unit townhome community in the Zilker Park neighborhood of Austin, TX. The homes represent PSW’s belief that a property’s features should be site-specific. BELOW: One of the most recent PSW communities, Villa Court offers 13 single-family homes in South Austin. Like its predecessors, Villa Court includes solar arrays, spray-foam insulation, and more.

Though the “standard” green features—solar arrays, spray-foam insulation, recycled dualpane windows, tankless water heaters, and progressive storm-water-management systems—vary based on the specific location and needs of each community, Siela points to the high number of pre-sold houses as indicators of the concept’s popularity. “I think [other builders] are worried the customer won’t pay for it,” he says. “But we believe our processes, by including it as a standard feature, help out efficiencies from a cost-structure standpoint. We don’t look to build the cheapest home but the best home for that location.” Progressive Partnerships As PSW has added to Austin’s green-building stock, it has forged partnerships with utilities such as Austin Energy and trades such as Innovative Water Solutions and Austin Spray Foam. For Zilker Terrace, a PSW 54

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“I think [other builders] are worried the customer won’t pay for it. But we believe our processes, by including it as a standard feature, help out efficiencies from a cost-structure standpoint.” —Anthony Siela, Cofounder

community with a very protected water supply, Innovative Water Systems was crucial in helping maximize water-conservation efforts. In the future, Siela looks forward to potentially making solar power and progressive landscaping additional standard features. “You have to push the boundaries out a little bit to really have an area and volume of homes to start allowing the homeowner to get these kinds of homes built for them,” he says. —Kelli Lawrence gbdmagazine.com

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Keep Austin Sustainable In a place that enforces spacelimiting McMansion ordinances, CG&S Design Build stays inside the lines while still creating some of the city’s coolest homes

CG&S added a 1,300square-foot stacked addition and a reflective metal roof to the Yium Residence, originally built in 1930, earning it a spot on Austin’s Cool House Tour.

In lieu of purchasing a new residence in a down real estate market, a growing number of homeowners nationwide have opted for whole-house renovations or large add-ons to their existing homes. For Austin, Texasbased CG&S Design Build—a specialist in residential remodeling—this increase in remodeling and renovation activity has presented the company with additional opportunities to showcase its sensible, practical, and cost-effective approach to sustainable home remodeling. And three projects recently completed by CG&S—all primarily second-story additions—have been recognized as local standouts and featured on various green- and architecture-related home tours, including Austin’s Cool House Tour. They’re sustainable, they’re practical, and they’re some of the hippest homes in the country.

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ALL PHOTOS: Andrew Pogue

Nearly every major residential expansion CG&S undertakes features several similar sustainable elements: tankless water heaters, expanding-foam insulation, proper siting of windows to capitalize on natural daylighting and breezes, etc. “[Tankless water heaters and foam insulation] have a quick payback time,” CG&S project designer Mark Lind says. He goes on to explain that a tankless heater can be installed on an exterior wall to free up valuable space in a small home, and he adds that expanding-foam insulation edges out regular insulation by sealing all gaps around a house where air can penetrate. The firm incorporates such sustainable elements into each of its additions while also working to keep the projects distinct—in their locations, design features, ages, sizes, and more. gbdmagazine.com

CG&S Design Build OPPOSITE PAGE: At the Yium Residence, the door from the family room to the deck can remain open to make the outdoor living space an extension of the family’s home.

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THIS PAGE: The Vale Residence’s new second story includes a master suite and a rooftop deck. In the master bedroom, a wall of windows provides generous natural light. The new lower-level bath is surrounded by floor-toceiling glass-block walls.

Featuring a rain-harvesting butterfly roof and a 5 kW solar array, the Vale Residence was featured on the National Association of the Remodeling Industry–Austin’s Tour of Homes.

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CG&S Design Build LEFT: In the costconscious Morgan Residence, glulam beams were substituted for steel on the stringers of the stair. Steel only was used for structural elements. BELOW: On the front façade of the house, the primary design elements are the sloping metal roof and a small ipe deck above the front door.

The Morgan Residence eschewed the bells and whistles of other additions but performs extremely efficiently because of its passive-solar design and effective cross-ventilation. Completed in May 2010, CG&S’s renovation of the Vale Residence—which eventually landed on the National Association of the Remodeling Industry–Austin’s Tour of Homes— occurred under two different owners. One was more interested in a redesign within the existing footprint, and the other wanted a secondfloor addition. “Since we had two additions with two owners, we tried to use similar materials, forms, and details to tie the two phases,” Lind says. During work with the second owner, the firm designed an inverted butterfly roof that would collect rainwater from the second-story addition, and the project also features a five-kilowatt active solar array.

“Stacking a residence is one way to save energy,” project architect Marsha Topham says. “When you stack a home, the building envelope is smaller, and there’s only a small roof area from which to lose heat.” The home eventually earned a spot on Austin’s Cool House Tour. 58

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CG&S completed a third project, the 900square-foot expansion of the Morgan Residence, designed as a passive-solar home, in March 2010, and it presented some particular challenges. “It was located in a floodplain,” Lind says. “There are limits as to how much you can expand in a flood plain, and the city made us stay in the existing home’s footprint, so we [again] went straight up.” Additionally, CG&S had to comply with the McMansion Ordinance, a local provision that that limits the size and extent of new construction and additions in order to “protect the character of Austin’s older neighborhoods.” In response, the firm pushed the second-floor addition—which included a master

suite and loft space—to the back of the home, which preserved some of the original single-story feel of the house from the street. While this renovation didn’t incorporate costlier elements such as integrated geothermal or solar systems, Lind still focused on making the residence a passive-solar house via window orientation, roof overhangs, and effective cross-ventilation. And since completion, the home has been featured on a tour of its own, the most recent AIA Austin Homes Tour. “It may lack the bells and whistles of more expensive systems,” Lind says, “but it performs extremely well as a sensitively designed passive solar home.” —by Erik Pisor gbdmagazine.com

PHOTO: (Left) Thomas McConnell

CG&S also oversaw a 1,300-square-foot expansion of the Yium Residence, which was originally constructed in the mid-1930s as a 2,000-square-foot home. Completed roughly two years ago, the addition features reflective metal roofing and a sealed attic to keep humidity out. Perhaps most dramatically, to comply with nonnegotiable coverage limits on-site, CG&S stacked the new space over the existing one-story house, adding all 1,300 square feet as part of a new second floor that includes a master bedroom.

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No Artificial Ingredients Architect Joan Heaton honors the Adirondacks region with woodbased designs that are rooted in nature and history

Joan Heaton grew up in the Green Mountains of Vermont, which are bordered on the west by Lake Champlain and Lake George, beyond which are the Adirondack Mountains of New York. In this region, the maple syrup is especially sweet, and so are the trees, which cover the landscape like coniferous carpeting. When one considers where she’s from, it’s easy to see how Heaton got to where she is. After graduating in 1990 from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, Heaton worked for a number of local architecture firms before starting her own firm, Joan Heaton Architects, in Bristol, Vermont, in 1996. Specializing in residential design, her one-woman practice is firmly grounded in the mountainous region she calls home. And that means working with wood. ”I have an affinity for

wood construction,” Heaton says. “Being from Vermont, I’m obviously familiar with wood; I work with it on a daily basis.” New Haven: The Jumping-Off Point Heaton’s first project as president of Joan Heaton Architects was the renovation of a historic schoolhouse in New Haven, Vermont. Built in 1865 and restored in 1997, the two-story schoolhouse was converted under Heaton’s direction into a modern two-family home. With the help of her husband, who served as the project’s builder and developer, Heaton retained many of the building’s original exterior features, such as its bell tower and trim, and rehabilitated many of its interior finishes, including its wood floors and plaster walls. In addition, she installed cellulose insulation, radiant heat, and storm windows to make the schoolhouse comfortable for modern living.

PHOTO: Susan Teare

Sustainability manifests itself in Heaton’s work, including in the Modern Cabin, in the forms of careful site selection, small footprints (less than 1,000 square feet at times), recycled and reused materials, and renewable energy.

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details/ architecture & design THIS PAGE: In all of Joan Heatonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work, whether for remote homes or residential additions, an appreciation of wood and other natural materials is evident. Though the design styles may change, Heaton often specifies FSC-certified wood and triple-glazed windows for efficiency. For the Modern Cabin (bottom three images), Heaton dismantled the existing cabin, salvaged the materials, and reused the foundation.

Joan Heaton

In the 1800s, New Yorkers built large summer homes in the Adirondacks called Great Camps. These often upheld a level of sustainability that Heaton tries to honor today.

PHOTOS: (Top half) Gary Hall; (bottom half) Susan Teare

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details/ architecture & design designed a home for that client in 2009. The residence, which Heaton calls the Lake Champlain Home, includes several sustainable features such as FSC-certified wood and triple-glazed windows for energy efficiency. Typical of Adirondacks architecture, it also features shingle, stone, and timber details, including a locally sourced stone fireplace and a handcrafted timber porch, pergola, and floor system. “There’s a respect for the environment inherent in the Great Camps, and that’s something I try to pay homage to,” Heaton says. Age-Old Materials, Modern Style Sustainability constantly manifests itself in Heaton’s work in the form of careful site selection, small footprints (some of

her projects are less than 1,000 square feet), recycled and reused materials, and renewable energy sources. A quintessential project, for instance, is her “Modern Cabin,” an 800square-foot guest cottage that she intends to use as a modular home prototype. Consisting of a large open space that sleeps six and gathers light from all sides, the home is energyefficient because it’s small and set up for solar photovoltaics. What’s more, it occupies a previously developed site: Heaton dismantled the cabin that previously was there, salvaged materials from it, and reused the foundation. “What I do is contribute in small ways to the surrounding environment,” Heaton says. “They’re small contributions because I’m a small firm, but isn’t that a more sustainable way to go anyway?” —Matt Alderton

“What I do is contribute in small ways to the surrounding environment. They’re small contributions because I’m a small firm, but isn’t that a more sustainable way to go anyway?” —Joan Heaton, Founder

“The schoolhouse project was my jumping-off point,” Heaton says. “It was a chance to contribute to the greater surroundings by preserving that building. That’s what I like about my job: not only do you get to make a nice place in an immediate spot, but you also get to contribute to a larger landscape.” The Great Camps It’s Heaton’s desire to contribute in small ways to large landscapes that eventually attracted her to the Adirondacks, where wealthy New Yorkers famously flocked in the latter half of the 19th century to build extravagant summer homes—family compounds of cabins called “Great Camps.” “The tradition of summering in the Adirondacks continues today and accounts for some of my clientele,” Heaton says. “The Great Camp tradition sometimes uses whole trees in the building, and it often uses local lumber and stone. I’m drawn to those natural materials.” Heaton secured her first Adirondacks project in 2008, when her website caught the eye of a client in Westport, New York. After obtaining her New York architecture license, Heaton gbdmagazine.com

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A Language for Landscapes? Such a thing is vital for public-space projects in New York. And Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates speaks it fluently.

For major developments that involve new public parks and green spaces, landscapearchitecture firms take on a significant leadership role; the landscape takes center stage, and the landscape team functions as a hub, coordinating the efforts of all of the other specialists. For Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. (MVVA), such multidisciplinary initiatives have presented valuable opportunities to leverage the firm’s biggest asset—a staff with a diverse knowledge base. “We are the synthesizers.” With backgrounds in areas ranging from civil engineering to environmental planning to art history, the MVVA team is capable of communicating with collaborators in nearly any other field. This expertise has served the firm well. MVVA works in tandem with partners ranging from community groups to transit authorities to private developers. “All public space projects have many constituents at many different levels,” firm principal Matt Urbanski says. “You have to listen to everyone.” What sets the firm apart from its competitors is that MVVA puts forth a team of generalists who provide balance and bring together different specialties. “Instead of being the bushpushers, we are the synthesizers,” Urbanski says, noting that because the functionality of public spaces can be difficult to describe, education and communication are key. “We get a commonality of language about landscape possibilities going with the client. The language of landscape is different from everyday language.” Landscape architects and designers also must constantly adapt to the evolving purposes of the spaces they create. “Landscape has great capacity to facilitate all kinds of 62

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activities, uses, experiences, and emotions,” Urbanski says, adding that expectations surrounding park design have changed dramatically. People expect the landscape to be more engaging and incorporate a sense of spectacle, he says. They want interactive features that facilitate experiences with the nature that surrounds them. “We are transforming the site’s function.” Because an increasing number of parks are being developed on sites that previously served industrial or commercial purposes, the task of coordinating these efforts has become more complex. “We are often transforming the site’s function,” Urbanski says. “The client is hiring us to invent the problem and then solve it.” One such project is Hudson Park and Boulevard, which is

With a playground and public plazas, MVVA is planning Hudson Park and Boulevard in such a way as to encourage interaction among community residents.

transforming three Manhattan blocks into a single park. The space will serve as the centerpiece of the newly designated Hudson Yards district and will feature grassy nooks, water features, a pedestrian walkway, and large spaces for public events. gbdmagazine.com

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Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Unlike many landscape-architecture firms, MVVA handles horticultural duties in-house. Principal Matt Urbanski studied horticulture at Delaware Valley College and co-owns a New Jersey nursery.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost like an old-fashioned farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approachâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;nurture the land while at the same time getting the most out of it.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Matt Urbanski, Principal

The surrounding neighborhood is in transition, so MVVA must create a space that meets the needs of the current residents while simultaneously looking to the future. At the same time, the green space itself is expected to be sustainable and not disruptive to the natural environment. Rather than source wood from Brazilian rainforests, a practice that would have presented a collection of issues in terms of eco-friendliness, MVVA chose a rot-resistant black locust that is native to the region. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[Density is] the ultimate sustainable gesture.â&#x20AC;? The firm has a history of including such sustainable features in its work. Another prestigious project, the Brooklyn Bridge Park, recycles storm water on-site with cisterns and uses portions of the siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former pier structures as light posts. Urbanski believes that parks foster sustainability in ways that reach far beyond the communities they serve. By attracting residents to denser cities and away from suburban sprawl, he explains, parks serve as an important ecofriendly resource. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You can accommodate a lot of people in a small amount of space,â&#x20AC;? Urbanski says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the ultimate sustainable gesture.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Kelli McElhinny gbdmagazine.com

OPPOSITE PAGE: The playground and new entrance canopy for the New York subway (below) both are integrated into the parkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landscape. THIS PAGE: The winding paths through the park will be a combination of concrete and granite. RIGHT: A seating edge made from black locust borders a fountain animated by arcing jets.

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details/ architecture & design RIGHT: Designed by the museum-planning specialists at Verner Johnson, Inc., the Flint Hills Discovery Center’s circular lobby reaches 65 feet. BELOW: The museum’s exterior is primarily limestone, a regional material, with irregularly shaped windows breaking the monolithic façade.

Illustrative of Verner Johnson’s greater institutional-design work, The Flint Hills Discovery Center, in Manhattan, KS, blends nature and culture in a way that naturally tells the story of the tallgrass prairie.

Verner Johnson, Inc. began specializing in museum design long before it was common for firms to focus on one particular type of client. In 1965, Verner Johnson, the man for whom the architecture firm is named, was working at the Museum of Science in Boston, which was planning a big expansion. Though the museum had hired an architect to design the addition, they preferred the suggestions Johnson offered. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johnson decided to create his own firm and was hired for the project.

Night (and Day) in the Museum At a time when many firms are diversifying, Verner Johnson, Inc.’s expertise in museum design is still in high demand gbdmagazine.com

A Narrow but Intricate Niche The Boston museum was the firm’s first design. After that, it designed a number of projects—schools, libraries, and public facilities. It wasn’t until Johnson separated from a business partner in the late 1970s that he committed solely to museum architecture and museum master-planning. “If clients wanted to build a new museum, Verner’s team got involved early on,” managing principal Brad Nederhoff says. “They would offer an approach that would lay the ground work for comprehensive planning.” APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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Verner Johnson, Inc. LEFT: Verner Johnson, Inc.’s museum-design niche earned them the opportunity to create the Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, KS.

Museums can be of similar size and type, so where they’re located and who designs them are major influences on how one-of-a-kind each one ends up being. “We design each structure to be what it should be, not to match a particular style,” Nederhoff says. “Large museums tend to get added on to over the years—we strive to make them simpler to navigate and easier to [expand] in the future.” Storytelling and Sustainability The Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, Kansas, is a current project for which the firm led the planning and design. The museum piques visitors’ interest by blending nature and culture in a way that tells the story of the tallgrass prairie. “Even though it isn’t big in square footage, it is grand because the spaces and exterior forms are dramatic,” Nederhoff says. A second museum Verner Johnson is currently working on is the Discovery Park of America, a project in Tennessee sponsored by retail guru Robert Kirkland. The museum is on a 50-acre parcel of land in the middle of agricultural fields, and it features 60,000 square feet of exhibit space for science, art, and history—and a 200-foot-tall tower as its signature element.

The Flint Hills Discovery Center’s dynamic atrium floods the circular entryway with natural light, while undulating walkways and railings enliven the space.

For anyone unfamiliar with museum design, Nederhoff says, there is more to consider than aesthetics. A series of technical requirements are exclusive to the process. “A big part of it is how display pieces are brought in and moved around,” he says. “The environmental conditions must also be maintained.” Extensive thought also goes into the visitor experience. Because of the intricacies involved—and the joy they get from planning museums—principals at Verner Johnson, Inc. keep their hands in the design work. 66

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The goals and requirements of designing museums have stayed relatively consistent, Nederhoff says, although sustainable design has started getting more attention in the industry. “Almost all museum clients are now interested in sustainability and LEED building to various extents,” he says. “Not all pursue LEED certification, but they still look for design that is done in a sustainable way.” He says the next step will be to make museums self-sufficient when it comes to energy. —Jennifer Hogeland

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Bridging the Green Gap The founders of In Balance Green Consulting are at once translators and ambassadors, striving to create a common language and spread the green gospel

In Balance Green Consulting stays limber by keeping its employee count to just the two partners, Jennifer Rennick and Andrea Pease. The firm uses contract employees for specific projects when necessary.

The women chose consulting in order to make a greater eco-impact: as architects they could complete three projects a year, but as consultants that number could be as high as 40.

LEFT: Jennifer Rennick, CEA, (top) was a licensed architect focused on energy modeling before joining forces with Andrea Pease, AIA, another licensed architect, to form In Balance Green Consulting. gbdmagazine.com

Licensed architects Jennifer Rennick, CEA, and Andrea (Andy) Pease, AIA, crossed paths when they each had their own firms. Rennick focused on energy modeling and calculations, and Pease offered green consulting. The two began collaborating in 2005 and found integrating their services to be a brilliant combination. Three years later they formed a partnership and established In Balance Green Consulting in San Luis Obispo, California. Environmental Ideals vs. Project Realities A great deal of deliberation went into selecting the name of the firm. Rennick and Pease settled on In Balance Green Consulting to signify both the harmonization of their personal and professional lives and the need to balance environmental ideals with project realities. “We have a passion for our work and know it is important for the community,” Pease says. “Our firm balances our interests and helps clients reap the benefits of sustainability.” In Balance Green Consulting offers daylighting-analysis, energy-efficiency, green-building, and LEED services for commercial, institutional, and residential projects throughout California. For each design they analyze, Rennick and Pease work closely with building teams to identify the most effective methods of energy efficiency. “We have the ability to bridge the gap between the trades and make sure everyone is speaking the same language so the building is green, energyefficient, and aesthetically beautiful,” Rennick says. Three vs. Forty The partners realized that they could complete three projects a year as architects but as many as 40 as consultants. “We had a goal of making a considerable positive impact on the environment and energy use in our area,” Pease says. “That is why we consciously chose to pursue this as a business.” The firm’s recent notable projects include Niner Wine Estates, Hilton Homewood Suites, and the Department of Motor Vehicles Field Office in Lompoc, California. Niner Wine Estates, in Paso Robles, California, consists of a production building, a hospitality building, and a boutique winery—all of them LEED Silver certified. “They were one of the first wineries where the production building was APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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In Balance Green Consulting

The partnership between Pease and Rennick has significantly influenced the way their California clients approach design and construction. As clients are educated, they incorporate the green practices into future projects. “When those clients don’t need us as much, we bring on new clients and expand our services,” Pease says. “We hope to help our clients achieve even higher levels of sustainable design.” —Jennifer Hogeland

A MESSAGE FROM the palt company Congratulations to both Andy and Jennifer on welldeserved recognition in gb&d. Thank you for years of successful teamwork; it’s always a pleasure being on the In Balance Green Consulting building team. We look forward to continued affiliation as we offer green-building support in the beautiful California Central Coast region.

included in the certification,” Pease says. In Balance Green Consulting was brought in at the time the foundation was being poured, so they had to rush to catch up. Adjustments were made to water use, light levels, landscape design, and the on-site storm-water system. “A lot was done already,” Pease says, “but we were able to incorporate sustainability into all the spaces.” Expectations vs. Experience Hilton Homewood Suites is a residential-suite hotel in Palo Alto, California, pursuing LEED certification. In Balance Green Consulting was challenged to meet Hilton standards while satisfying California’s higher performance requirements. The firm explored options including overhangs, insulation levels, high-efficiency mechanical systems, daylighting, and greywater recycling. When the firm began working on the Department of Motor Vehicles Field Office, the developer had identified 35 potential LEED points but wasn’t familiar with the nuances of the rating system’s online forms. With extensive LEED experience with LEED, Rennick and Pease were able to recognize what else would qualify and make some adjustments in the documentation. 68

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ABOVE: Niner Wine Estates, Paso Robles. The 60,000-square-foot Production Building is partially buried in the east-facing hillside, using natural thermal mass to cool the building much of the year.

The Palt Company LEED Commissioning 3130 Skyway Drive, Suite 408 • Santa Maria, CA 93455 p (805) 739-1669 • f (805) 739-1673 email npalt@paltco.com • www.paltco.com

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The foundation for Niner Wine Estates was already poured when Pease and Rennick were brought in. Changes to water, lighting, and landscape systems brought significant savings and LEED Silver certification.

LEED certification requires projects to be commissioned; an advocate must come in on behalf of the owner to review the project for potential problems. Though In Balance Green Consulting works with multiple commissioning firms, The Palt Company has served as the authority on six of Rennick and Pease’s projects, including the winery and the field office.

PHOTO: Simon Wheeler

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HSU House A tight budget for an ultra-sustainable home pushed Epiphyte Lab’s Dana Cupková and Kevin Pratt into new aesthetic frontiers

location Danby, NY

general contractor Hansen Design & Construction

size 3,900 square feet

structural engineer SPEC Consulting

completion 2010

stair fabrication BUILDLab

clients Anthony Hsu and Shooshan Dangoulian

mass wall formwork fabrication Clearwood Custom Carpentry and Millwork

architect Epiphyte Lab

website epiphyte-lab.com

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The Hsu House story began when Kevin Pratt, who cofounded Epiphyte Lab with fellow Cornell University professor Dana Cupková in 2009, noticed someone at his lectures who wasn’t a student. The man was Tony Hsu, who began talking with Pratt about a highly ambitious home in Danby, New York, that he had begun himself. Eventually Hsu hired Pratt and Cupková as consultants on the residential project, which features a mesmerizing façade and a sculptural thermal mass wall. > APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

PHOTOS: (2, 5); Susan Kaye, Jerry Kaye; (3) Simon Wheeler; (4) Epiphyte Lab.

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inner workings 1/ INTERIOR. With the same sense of play exhibited by the client family, the dynamic white stair seen here was fabricated by BUILDLab. 2/ FAÇADE. The home’s multicolored cement-board siding creates a shimmering effect that helps the home dissolve into its surroundings. 3/ FORM & SPACE. Focusing on form rather than materials created a variety of distinct spaces within the home. 4/ MASS WALL. The home’s mass wall is perforated to allow daylighting to pass through it. The wall absorbs solar radiation and helps warm the house. 5/ MATERIALS. As the client requested that its limited budget be spent primarily on the home’s structure and systems, the architects used simple materials such as bamboo and cement board. 6/ PLANS. The floorplans and elevation show the Hsu House’s unique shape and layout. 7/ SIDING GRADIENT. To control solar gain, the color of the home’s siding goes from dark on the north façade to light on the south. 8/ PANEL DIAGRAM. Epiphyte Lab’s design for the home included a thermosiphonic panel, which in the winter can be used to heat interior air for storage in the mass wall.

site/ Hsu’s four-acre parcel of farmland was the fruit of a long search. It hadn’t been cultivated in 40 years and featured wetlands, nascent brush, and forested areas. To integrate the house with the land’s gentle southwesterly slope, which sits about 1,000 feet above Danby and a lake, Cupková and Pratt reorganized the house to tuck into the angled land, allowing for a 60-mile view from the loft of the house.

façade/ The home’s most striking exterior feature is its multicolored façade, though it relies on little more than cement-board siding. Pratt says the design logic behind it was to achieve a “glossy feeling [that] negates any effect of low-cost construction.” The pattern was dynamically modeled so that the colors flow from very dark on the north end of the house to very light on the south end. “The house gets the shimmering effect because of this pattern, so it doesn’t dominate the landscape,” Cupková says. “The idea was to create this effect so the large volume dissolves into the landscape via patterning.”

materials/ The house structure is primarily engineered timber and uses almost no steel—a feat Pratt says couldn’t have been achieved seven or eight years ago. The cast-in-place concrete heat-sink mass wall zigzags at varying thicknesses and, with its perforations, lends a sculptural element to the home, allowing for an openness that would have been impossible with the solid, monolithic quality that concrete traditionally possesses. The wall was fabricated by employeeing hybrid CNC-routing, hot-wire cutting, and hand fabrication of foam-based formwork. Other materials found in the house include gypsum board, strandwoven bamboo floors, a modified IKEA kitchen, and recycled PaperStone countertops.

heating and cooling/ With natural stack ventilation, the house doesn’t require air-conditioning, and Epiphyte was able to increase the home’s thermal-transfer rate by maximizing the heat-sink mass wall’s surface area. “[Because] a solid mass wall would have blocked light from the solarium to the kitchen, we thought about how to make the wall lacy and let light through, how to get away from the heaviness of concrete,” Cupková says. The triple-height living space benefits from having the concrete mass wall as one of its edges; this wall absorbs solar radiation, thereby reducing heating costs. The colors on the façade also take seasonal surface effects into account. During the winter the entry porch can be used without feeling cold, and in summer the family can enter through the cool south end, where the solarium unfolds onto the landscape.

systems and fixtures/ The Hsu House also incorporates rainwater harvesting, open-cell polyurethane insulation, a high-efficiency forced-air heating system, a TPO high-albedo roof, and Energy Star lighting and appliances. The architects note that the home also is able to incorporate a thermosymphonic solar-thermal system, which was originally included in the design on the residence’s south façade.

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A MESSAGE FROM BUILDLAB The low-hanging fruits of sustainable building design have been picked: building fabric; control over infiltration; and interactions between form, aperture, and thermal mass. These were the independent improvements of the engineer, builder, and architect. Further work toward a building practice that is truly sustainable will require new interdisciplinary practitioners that merge building, design, and analysis.

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inner workings

LOFT

When Rogerio Carvalheiro founded RC Design Federation (RCDF), the 20-year design vet did so with a philosophy based upon the idea of reinterpretive contextualism, meaning “the world will inform all design and, in turn, the design will affect and challenge its surroundings,” he says. Having grown up on a farm in rural Canada, Carvalheiro was intrigued by the idea of hydroponics and how its implementation could allow existing farmlands to be turned back into natural ecosystems. In entering the AWR-sponsored London Farm Tower 2011 competition—where its entry, LOFT, was named a finalist—the RCDF team set out to imagine a world where every city has its own source of local food and where no drop of water or particle of light is wasted.

Hailing from rural Canada, Rogerio Carvalheiro of RCDF passionately designs a concept vertical farm for London

location London size 550,000 square feet type mixed-use with vertical farm entry year 2011 architect RCDF website rcdfstudio.com

concept/ LOFT is a hypothetical 550,000square-foot building near London City Hall and Tower Bridge; its design was based on the theories of The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, a book by Columbia University professor Dickson Despommier. “We were keen on interspersing the hydroponics and the residential components so that each inhabitant’s everyday experience within the building would enhance their relationship with food production and nature,” Carvalheiro says. “The inhabitants of our tower would grow food within the protective shell of our building and sell their surplus produce in the on-site market.” gbdmagazine.com

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inner workings 1/ GROW SPACES. Between residential zones of the vertical farm, hydroponic pods allow residents to harvest vegetables on a daily basis. 2/ OVERVIEW. The LOFT proposal would reclaim underused land for a farmers market, park, and performance area as well as for animal grazing. The angled, slab-like tower is the mixed-use building RCDF designed. 3/ PROGRAM. This diagram shows the multitude of activities within the building, including raising livestock. 4/ LOBBY. This shows RCDF’s vine concept, where nutrient-rich water is transported to the building’s growing pods.

RCDF hydroponics/ LOFT integrates closed-loop systems that are essentially man-made ecosystems. These ecosystems intersperse residential spaces, hydroponics, aquaponics, bee sanctuaries, and livestock housing with a vertical park, theaters, classrooms, markets, and restaurants. “Farming is integral to our culture,” Carvalheiro says. “Proposing such a concept could be perceived as radical, but in a world where 100 percent of our agricultural land is already in use, hydroponics could become the only viable means to grow the amounts of food needed to sustain our future global population.”

water/ RCDF made plans to fully integrate a comprehensive rainwater-collection system, a greywater-filtration system, and an on-site waste-treatment center. “We incorporate water turbines powered by the Thames River and wind turbines powered by prevailing winds,” Carvalheiro says. “The entire building program is then interconnected via vines that effectively transport nutrientrich water for growing, soiled water for filtration, clean water for consumption, and electrical power through their multitubular cores.”

bee sanctuary/ Carvelheiro’s design even attempts to address reports that honey bees are dying at an alarming rate in North America and Europe. “Without bees, humanity would live only four years,” Carvalheiro says. “Nothing can replace what a bee can do. It has been found that bees are thriving in urban areas now more than [in] rural areas given the massive amounts of pesticides used for typical agriculture. Because of this, we dedicated a large portion of our building as a bee sanctuary.”

These renderings could be photos. Rogerio Carvalheiro isn’t merely interested in a concept vertical farm—he’s in talks with the City of Los Angeles about importing his LOFT concept to the West Coast.

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scale/ Although many countries have begun implementing hydroponic farming, RCDF’s design pushes the scale envelope. Though it may be some time before its ideas can be fully incorporated in an actual building, Carvalheiro is quick to note that LOFT is no pipe dream. “Our building might not have been as conceptual as some of the other entries, given its buildability,” Carvalheiro says. “We chose to explore a design that incorporates cutting-edge technology within a structure that could make an impact today, not just in the future.”

future/ The company is currently talking to the city of West Hollywood about potentially integrating a building like this into the area’s urban fabric. It is also developing a concept called Hydro101, which will propose a doubledeck over the 101 Freeway from the Hollywood Bowl to downtown Los Angeles. Hydro101 will integrate a large hydroponics component, a people mover, and an urban park. —Keith Loria

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mediated learning center WSP Flack + Kurtz’s Built Ecology team is helping optimize a community college building—hopefully for LEED Platinum status

location Cupertino, CA

architects Ratcliff Architects

size 52,000 square feet

general contractor Sundt Construction

completion 2012 (estimated)

engineer / lighting designer WSP Flack + Kurtz

client De Anza College

high-performance design consulting Built Ecology

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De Anza College came to its initial meeting with engineering firm WSP Flack + Kurtz with a specific request for its planned Mediated Learning Center: “We want LEED Platinum.” To make it happen, WSP Flack + Kurtz’s high-performance design service, Built Ecology, took on the challenge of optimizing the passiveventilation system planned by Ratcliff Architects. > APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

inner workings 1/ AERIAL. The Mediated Learning Center’s central atrium and solar panels are shown here. 2/ REAR ENTRY. With the help of Built Ecology, the Mediated Learning Center is targeting LEED Platinum, following in the footsteps of the Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies. 3/ AIR INTAKE. A view of the roof plan shows the building’s eight intake towers, which use wind pressure and cooling coils to force outside air down into the classrooms. 4/ AIR FLOW DIAGRAM. Cool air enters through the towers and eventually exits through the atrium skylight, creating a natural chimney effect. In addition, the atrium flooring uses radiant heat to supplement buoyancy return.

WSP Flack + Kurtz client/ De Anza is one of two Foothill-De Anza Community College District campuses in Cupertino and a model of sustainable design. Its Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies was the first building on a community-college campus in the country to achieve LEED Platinum certification, and with the Mediated Learning Center, it wanted to go even further. “They’re very passionate about sustainability,” says Andrew Corney, WSP Flack + Kurtz’s vice president. “At the beginning of the project, the client said, ‘We want to do something innovative; we want to provide leadership in the design community.’” Full of sensitive equipment, however, the center also needed to maintain set-points comparable to an air-conditioned space.

design inspiration/ Corney’s first thought? Hawaii. Built Ecology, a team Corney also leads, had previously worked with the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority to create a system powered by an energy source the authority already had access to: a well of deep sea water. The lab’s Gateway building is entirely conditioned by pumping chilled water from the sea and then using thermal buoyancy to drive the ventilation, Corney explains. “That was one of the projects that inspired us to believe we could apply similar concepts to the Mediated Learning Center,” he says.

layout/ A central two-story atrium is key to the Mediated Learning Center’s design. Flanked on the first floor by classrooms with capacities of around 50 (each of which can be combined with its neighboring classroom to create lecture halls for 100), the sunlight-filled, glassceilinged atrium allows used air to exit the building through apertures in the ceiling. It also features an efficient radiant-floor heating system that can warm the building up again after a cool night. The building is oriented so that its façades predominantly face north and south, making it simple to control light using shades on the south side while giving classrooms generous natural illumination. The lighting energy alone, Corney says, is expected to be 40 percent less than the ASHRAE 90.1 standard.

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inner workings

“At the beginning of the project, the client said, ‘We want to do something innovative; we want to provide leadership in the design community.’” —Andrew Corney, Vice President

mechanical system/ The energy typically used in mechanical air-conditioning systems for running fans was rerouted to condition the outside air and push it through the building. In the Mediated Learning Center, outside air enters the building through an exterior cooling tower, which uses coils to cool the air to about 65 degrees before letting it drop into the building. The cool air sinks, hits the raised floors in the main-floor classrooms, and then escapes through passive openings in the warm, two-story central atrium’s glass ceiling as it heats and rises.

solar energy/ To counteract some of the energy used in heating and lighting, rooftop solar panels were installed to generate 30 percent of the structure’s energy demand. That figure is more noteworthy than it may seem, Corney says, “given that there is a pretty significant server load attached to the Mediated Learning facilities.” At 6,000 square feet, it’s a pretty big array, he says. A smaller array of solarthermal collectors provides nearly half of the hot water demands for the building. If any water goes unused, the building can send it into the campus hot-water loop. —Lindsey Howald Patton gbdmagazine.com

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CityCenterDC Part of an urban dream team, Lee and Associates and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol use the landscape to sustainably manage water in Washington, DC

location Washington, DC size 10 acres completion 2013 (estimated) developer Hines/Archstone lead architect Foster + Partners

masterplan and lead landscape architect Gustafson Guthrie Nichol

The creation of CityCenterDC began seven years ago. At its completion, it will consist of six very different above-grade structures united by one theme—sustainability. The pedestrian-oriented mixed-use neighborhood is a collaboration among Shalom Baranes, Foster+Partners, Hines/Archstone, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, and Lee and Associates, the latter two companies serving respectively as the master-planner and lead landscape architect and the provider of comprehensive landscape architectural services. “It was important to be environmentally responsible, but at the most basic level green design is about being smart and efficient in how you use resources,” says Rodrigo Abela, a principal at Gustafson Guthrie Nichol. “The mixeduse aspect of the CityCenterDC means it’s one of the city’s most efficient communities, and for many, it’s a dream place to live and work.” >

associate masterplan architect Shalom Baranes landscape architect Lee & Associates website citycenterdc.com

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Gustafson Guthrie Nichol / Lee and Associates 1/ SITE. Occupying two blocks in the heart of downtown Washington, DC, the mixed-use development will include six new office and residential buildings—all LEEDcertified—and will bring life to land once occupied by the city’s convention center. 2/ OVERVIEW. Designed by Lee and Associates, the streetscape incorporates lowimpact development with a pedestrian-friendly design. Dense tree cover, benches, and bike racks create an inviting space still connected to the fabric of the city. 3/ GARDEN. Plantings in the residential courtyards include paved terraces perfect for group gatherings. 4/ COURTYARD. Moss mounds and green screens in residential courtyards offer a sense of privacy while creating optimal microclimate conditions.

site/ Once home to the old Washington, DC, Convention Center, the site for CityCenterDC is publicly owned, and though the city worked closely with the developer as well as Lee and Associates and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol to ensure that the project would be environmentally sustainable, the city was also certain that the project’s direct purpose needed to be furthering community interests. “The full site is a 10-acre parking lot, five blocks from the White House,” says Abela, who worked on the landscape master-plan for the project. “A void of this scale right in the middle of downtown has been extremely detrimental to the surrounding neighborhoods; it’s been acting as a barrier and interrupts the natural extension of street life. The challenge has been creating the right scale of buildings and [the right] proportion of built space to open space that will result in the sort of vibrant environment we are searching for.”

green roofs/ When designing the landscape for the project’s four residential buildings, which include two rental buildings and two condominium buildings, Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, in collaboration with the project architects, made the decision to face the rental units’ terraces to the interior of the block to help bring light to the pedestrian alleys. The interior positioning also provides additional quiet and privacy. “And for those residents who want a little social activity, there is full access to both of the rental buildings’ common areas, which include the green roofs,” says Jeff Lee, president of Lee and Associates. In the rental buildings more than 55 percent of the roof area will be vegetated, and it will have the ability to retain more than 8,000 cubic feet of storm water, meeting the city's and LEED’s requirements for storm-water treatment and retention. Overall, the two rental buildings cover 1.6 acres and include amenities such as a pool, a bocce court, paved terraces, outdoor grills, and planted gardens.

inner workings landscape/ “The careful placement of streetscape plantings and furnishings were essential in making [CityCenterDC] a well-functioning public space,” Lee says. All together, the benches, bike racks, and dense tree coverage help to create an environment that is both inviting and lively and provides a shaded, pedestrian space. Due to the area’s heavy traffic, thorough coordination was required to create the lush landscapes, and utility and infrastructure demands required communication among the entire project team. “In the residential courtyards, where there is deep shade, we created a moss garden on a series of faceted mounds,” Lee says. “One dark- and one light-colored species are used to accentuate the mounds and the horizontal area.”

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inner workings 5/ STREETSCAPE. One lowimpact-development strategy is to collect storm water in planting areas, filter it through bioretention plants and soil, and slowly release it into the city’s storm-water system. 6/ WATER PLAN. Curb cuts direct street runoff into the planting areas, where a continuous soil trench below ground acts as an extended biorentention and root-growing zone.

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol / Lee and Associates plant materials/ “The plants that were chosen for the landscape are native or adaptive and are uniquely suited to the microclimate conditions,” Lee says. “Swamp white oak and Chinese elm trees are used together with inkberry holly and saltmeadow cordgrass as ground cover.” Lee also decided to mix multistem trees such as star magnolia, amur maple, and serviceberry with witch hazel, oakleaf hydrangea, and fothergilla to provide yearlong interest in the landscaped areas. Climbing hydrangea, clematis, and trumpet vine will also be planted on metal screens to provide more privacy and a greener setting.

construction materials/ When first planning CityCenterDC, Abela knew he wanted the project to respond to the natural characteristics of the area and chose his materials accordingly. Each material was considered in great detail, from its ease of assembly to its location to its balance of colors. “Our material selections are all guided by a continued exploration into understanding how people experience space and how we can shape that experience,” Abela says. “The outdoor spaces have a much more limited palette than indoor spaces because they have to withstand the elements. For the exterior, we worked with stone, wood, concrete, and metal. Many of those same material choices are also echoed throughout the interior.”

water management/ One of the most successful results from the collaboration between Lee and Associates and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol is the CityCenterDC streetscape design, which includes a low-impact-development (LID) system for managing storm water, which helps reduce the spread of polluted runoff. “In the streetscape, bioretention areas collect roadway and public sidewalk runoff and provide qualitative and quantitative treatment,” Lee says. “Curb cuts direct runoff from the streets into the treeplanting areas while a continuous soil trench below a supported sidewalk provides an extended bioretention and root-growing zone.” The stormwater-management system will help the project gain its LEED certification as well as assist in making the site a LEED-ND Gold-certified community. —Thalia A-M Bruehl

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inner workings

encore! Baker Barrios Architects and ZMG Construction employ the latest building innovations for an important Tampa redevelopment project

location Tampa, FL

When Orlando-based ZMG Construction first became involved with Encore!, the downtown Tampa redevelopment project, they held two job fairs. The first fair, says ZMG development manager Scot Hamilton, was to get to know the local contracting community. The second was to invite the neighbors in to talk about employment. Hamilton says he anticipated 1,500 people, but thousands came. “We were going to buy hot dogs and drinks for everyone,” he says, “but we spent every minute we had interviewing and obtaining everyone’s information, which we … use to this day in hiring workers for the project.” The development, a joint venture of the Tampa Housing Authority and the Banc of America Community Development Corporation (BACDC), features numerous economic and ecological elements and is as ambitious as it is conscious.

size 28 acres completion 2012 (infrastructure) developers Tampa Housing Authority, Banc of America Community Development Corporation architect Baker Barrios Architects general contractor ZMG Construction

history/ Encore! is a project to revitalize Tampa’s Central Park, a once-vibrant African-American community rich with music history—it’s encore performance for the site, so to speak. “The Central Park Village site has an amazing history,” BACDC senior vice president Roxanne Amoroso says. “Our marketing team was made aware of the historical significance of some of the musical events that happened right at the site, and it became natural for our team to embrace that history. Encore! is a rebirth of all of the good things that occurred.” The project also is targeting LEED-ND certification. gbdmagazine.com

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inner workings

Baker Barrios Architects / ZMG Construction

plan/ The 28-acre site comprises 12 parcels slated for development, the infrastructure for which will be complete by mid-2012. Key elements include a storm-watercapture vault, a photovoltaic array connected to the Tampa Electric Company (TECO) power grid, and a central chiller plant. On the heels of the chiller plant will come a seven-story, 160-unit senior-housing project called the Ella, named for Ella Fitzgerald, a frequent performer at Central Park nightclubs. The Ella is located on the old Central Avenue, which will be renamed Ray Charles Boulevard to honor the great R&B recording artist, who cut his first record in Central Park. An affordable-housing project called Trio also is in the queue, and other parcels will house retail, office, and additional residential space.

1/ AERIAL. Encore! will revitalize a traditionally African-American neighborhood in Tampa and is estimated to bring in $425 million in new development. 2/ ELLA. The first building at Encore!, named for jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, comprises 160 senior residences, ground-level retail spaces, and resident amenities such as a fitness center, a theater, a health clinic, a community garden, and a HART bus stop on the ground level. 3/ OFFICE. This mixed-use office building will include a bank and a restaurant on the ground level, structured parking, and 50,000 square feet of office space.

water vault/ From June to September, Tampa rainfall averages about 6.5 inches per month; for the rest of the year, it’s only 2.33 inches. So the idea of capturing rainfall for reuse made sense. At Encore!, rainwater is stored underground in a vault, filtered, and reused for irrigation. “A pond would have required two acres of land,” Hamilton says, “so the decision was made to go with … the vault under the planned Technology Park.” Rainfall is retained in the 18,000-square-foot vault two feet below the surface. If the vault reaches capacity, sand filtration introduces clean stormwater runoff into Tampa Bay, and for the dry months of the year, if the water runs out, pumps are activated to draw irrigation water from an underground well.

solar energy/ At the end of the Technology Park is a 4,000-square-foot, 99-panel photovoltaic array. “The panels will be generating between 22 and 23 kilowatts of electricity, which will be sent back to the TECO power grid for energy credits,” Hamilton says. The plan is to include a digital display board showing the panel’s energy production and make it an educational feature for adults and children alike. “The solar array will generate enough to power all the street lighting in the entire neighborhood,” he says. “It will also compare energy usage of the exterior street lighting and other consumer products.”

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cooling/ “With 80 percent humidity and 92-degree temperatures six months of the year, there would be few people living here without the advent of cooling systems,” says architect Rob Ledford, principal of Encore!’s lead design firm, Baker Barrios Architects. But he also knows there are ways to cool efficiently. Encore!’s central chilled-water plant has a capacity of 4,500 tons of water, and its installation was left up to ZMG. “We laid over 6,000 lineal feet of insulated steel pipe underground,” Hamilton says. “It was a difficult job to work around sewage and storm systems that had to stay in place, but you only get one shot … to do it right, and we did.”

certification/ “LEED-ND is not like getting LEED certification for a building,” Ledford says, “where you will have a defined period before the start of the project and after it is complete for commissioning.” In the case of this rating, the time frame for LEED certification could extend out for years until the project is finally complete. At this juncture, Encore! is on track for Gold certification. “One hundred percent of all the existing concrete that was on this development site has been crushed and reused as roadway base rock,” Hamilton says. “We reused and recycled everything we could in this process.” —Scott Heskes

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discussion board

What is the next tier of building technology? “The next tier of building technology needs to emerge with ease of disassembly as its primary goal. New material standards as well as construction techniques need to be developed that will enable us to easily alter building as our needs change, and effortlessly reuse materials when a building is taken down.”

David Keith, Clark Nexsen, p. 33

“I see us … combining advances [in] building systems with advances in communication systems to create reduction in total use. What if, in dormitories, we integrated energy-control systems with communication systems to encourage the use of natural ventilation? While fully automated systems are not cost-effective to open the windows, an automatic text message to every occupant is cheap. Even with only partial participation, the resulting reduction in energy could be significant.”

“As we move toward [net-zero] buildings and even to regenerative buildings, I believe there will be an essential reclaiming of low-tech solutions: passive solar, natural ventilation and shading, and daylight. Our challenge is to create buildings that ‘sail’ most of the time, needing no power at all. We are seeing these buildings emerge, and they are beautiful, human-scaled, and connect us with nature.”

Randy Burkett, Randy Burkett Lighting Design, p. 153

Andrea Pease, In Balance Green Consulting, p. 67

“The emergence of solid-state lighting [SSL] is transforming the profession of architectural lighting design, and through this transformation, [it’s changing] the very fabric of the built environment. Flat, ultra-thin, flexible source configurations are already technically feasible, if not yet commercially affordable, and [they] will soon be available as luminous wall coverings and ceiling panels.”

“The rise of cloud-based computing—along with improved efficiency of portable computing devices [and] extremely efficient artificial lighting—will radically reduce the amount of internal loads from equipment and lighting in buildings. The reduction in internal loads will change architectural drivers, enabling more passive design. Materials … capable of gradually accumulating large amounts of heat will be used in structures to keep buildings cool across the day.”

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Monica Ponce de Leon, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, p. 107

Andrew Corney, WSP Flack + Kurtz, p. 77

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V i rtua l R ea l i t i es

I f y o u d r e a m i t, t h e y c a n b u i l d i t — e x p e r t s f r o m l e a d i n g h i g h -t e c h f i r m s d i s c u s s t h e i nt e r s e ct i o n o f t e c h n o l o g y, s u s t a i n a b i l i t y, a n d d e s i g n BY M AT T A LD E RTO N 84

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The world is full of buildings that defy imagination. The Atomium in Brussels, though built in 1958, looks like a giant 21st-century atom. BMW’s new architectural showroom in Munich features a glass double-cone structure and a floating roof that would make Sir Isaac Newton go cross-eyed. And, in Singapore, the Marina Bay Sands “SkyPark” is longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall; perched atop three hotel towers, it looks as if it could slip off its pedestal at any moment—but magically it doesn’t. In the Roman age, architects used technology to build aqueducts. In the industrial age, they used it to fabricate steel and erect skyscrapers. And today? We at gb&d asked three tech-savvy executives how they’re using technology in the digital age to collaborate, create, and conserve.

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86 Anthony Birchler A. Zahner Co. 90 Feisal Noor James Law Cybertecture 94 Na d e r T e h r a n i NADAAA

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Virtual Realities

or A. Zahner Co., the engineering and fabrication company known for its glass- and metalwork—including, for instance, on the famed façade of Seattle’s Experience Music Project—technology is a vehicle for innovation. “Our clients are architects, designers, and artists,” says Anthony Birchler, vice president of engineering/sales. “They’re the ones who are always going to be pushing the boundaries, and we’re right next to them pushing.” According to Birchler, the No. 1 technology that’s pushing boundaries in architecture and engineering is collaborative 3-D modeling. “We had a WebEx meeting the other day,” he says. “We were here in Kansas City, and we had people in Austria, Italy, Germany, and New York. We were speaking three different languages: German, Italian, and English. However, we had a shared model that we were all looking at in real time. It’s a common language for the team. Maybe you didn’t know what someone was saying, but you saw them working on the model, and you understood what they were doing. That’s huge.” The third dimension is equally useful during installation. “A lot of our sites are extremely complex, so you have to know where the steel or concrete is,” Birchler says. “What we often do is take a digital scan of the building to find out where things actually reside compared to where they should be. In the long run, that actually makes a much better building because everyone’s now accountable.” When it designed the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver, BC, Zahner used 3-D modeling to virtually design a cutting-edge stainless-steel façade on which it etched, using a series of perforated holes in the metal, the image of an old-growth cedar forest. The 3-D model allowed the client to preview the image on the front end, and it allowed Zahner to save time, money, and materials on the back end. “Because everything is digitally defined, we can nail down exactly how much material we need,” Birchler says. “It allows us to order less material, which saves energy because you don’t have to produce the raw material to begin with.”

Na m e/ Anthony Birchler T i t l e/ Vice President, Engineering/Sales c om pa n y/ A. Zahner Co. Lo c at i o n/ Kansas City, MO Ph i los o ph y/ “Technology allows us to develop a lot of different ideas very quickly, dispersed over the entire globe.” 86

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We were speaking three different languages, [but] we had a shared model that we were all looking at in real time. It’s a common language for the team. — A nth o n y B i rc h le r , V i c e Pr es i d e nt o f E n g i n e e r i n g/Sa les, A . Z a h n e r Co.

Project/ Art Gallery of Alberta year/2010 Location/ Edmonton, AB type/gallery

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Virtual Realities

A MODERN MIRROR. In 2005, the Art Gallery of Alberta hired Los Angeles architect Randall Stout to direct an $88 million renovation of its Edmonton building. Stout’s design called for dynamic metal features, which he commissioned Zahner to fabricate. Patinated zinc, high-performance glazing, and stainless-steel were chosen to account for climatic changes throughout both the day and year.

THE BOREALIS. The gallery’s signature element is a 625-foot ribbon of stainless steel called the Borealis that wraps itself around and through the building. The piece relies on an intelligent support system that can handle the feature’s complex curvature as well as the structural loads.

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WINTER’S ADVERSARY. Designed for the northern climate, the ribbon’s exterior swoops contain glycol loops that melt the copious amounts of snow that fall during Edmonton winters, reducing the building’s structural load. The steel element also is paneled with Zahner’s proprietary stainless-steel Angel Hair surface, which nearly eliminates harsh glare from the sun and keeps the interior cool. And, 3-D modeling software allowed the Borealis to be produced with minimal scrap-metal waste, all of which was recycled. What once was a 1960s Brutalist structure is now an architectural landmark of the city’s core.

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Virtual Realities

Project/ the capital year/ 2012 Location/ mumbai, India type/ office

t the office of James Law Cybertecture, a single tagline— “Innovating the fabric of mankind”—fuels virtually every project in the firm’s portfolio, each one possessing a fusion of technology and design that the firm calls “cybertecture.” “Technology has helped the designer envision the built environment far more than before and push new forms to greater heights,” CEO Feisal Noor says. “What it currently lacks, though, is the ability to empower the enduser’s life more actively, in spatial experience and practical comfort. That’s where cybertecture comes in, to activate the spaces and forms with technology so as to empower the end-user. We believe that the future will allude to a new built environment where the actual fabric itself is active and reactive to the user rather than just [being] a floor or wall or ceiling.” James Law Cybertecture’s approach to technology is evident in projects such as the Pad in Dubai, UAE, a residential tower in which 230 “intelligent” apartments offer features such as virtual views, which are real-time video feeds projected onto the walls from any of 62 global destinations; rotating rooms that facilitate views on either side of the waterfront building; reactive music and lighting that respond to tenants’ moods; and bathrooms that monitor tenants’ weight, fat content, temperature, and blood pressure. Using technology to transform buildings into such holistic environments also has enormous potential in the realm of sustainability. “If buildings can ... evolve with technology, making them more than just spatial boxes but actual spatial environments where the fabric reacts actively and passively to the conditions, then there is progression in design,” Noor says. “This calls for taking what’s in stock and enhancing their use further, such as the systems we have used using solar and water harvesting systems—tied in with cogeneration systems—to actively make the building function as a machine to both serve and sustain habitation.”

Na m e / Feisal Noor T i t l e / CEO c o m p a n y/ James Law Cybertecture Lo c ati o n/ Hong Kong P h i l o s o p h y/ “Technology, in my opinion, should be taken as a means to an end and never as an end to the means.” 90

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We believe that the future will allude to a new built environment where the actual fabric itself is active and reactive to the user rather than just [being] a floor or wall or ceiling. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Fe isa l N o o r , CEO, Ja m es Law C y be rtec tu r e gbdmagazine.com

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Virtual Realities

WHAT TECHNOLOGY HAS MADE. The Capital is a premier example of technology’s enormous effects on project development. The 216,500-square-foot, 17-story office building was designed using 3-D modeling software that facilitated integrated space planning and structural design, allowing the architects to maximize square footage and reduce column numbers. The building will be completed this year and will integrate solar farms and rainwater-harvesting systems to reduce its energy demands.

THE SKY LOBBY. A brightly lit three-level lobby with lush vegetation and large waterfalls contributes to the cooling of the building. The Capital’s design is raising the profile of Mumbai’s new office buildings.

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ONLINE VALET. The stepped-in, glazed façade on the building’s western exposure is one of the project’s most distinct features. Another is its smart parking system, which has been designed to increase efficiency. BUILDING BROADCAST. A giant LED video screen set within the egg-shaped inset of the structure’s façade simultaneously broadcasts information to the public while acting as a shading device for the tenants.

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Virtual Realities

t N A DA A A , t h e n e w f i r m o f w e l l- k n ow n architect and educator Nader Tehrani, technology informs not only design but also design processes. “Digital fabrication has enabled mass customization,” Tehrani says. “If modernity produced mass production—the ability to produce high volumes through repetition—what is interesting now is how digital construction enables a greater level of customization with the same level of efficiency. ... Within this context, digital fabrication enables architects to integrate their design practices with engineering practices. So you no longer design alone. You are harnessing your collaborative efforts to integrate a complex web of relationships between things that are conventionally understood to be disaggregated in separate realms of the building.” NADAAA’s Helios House, a stunning, eco-friendly BP gas station in Los Angeles, was built using a design-build fabricator to create several prefabricated components off-site, which were later assembled on-site. It is a project that used digital fabrication to simultaneously achieve customization and integration, and the result was not only high-tech but also sustainable. “Traditionally, the way one is taught in school, one goes from a diagram and then develops the building details at the tail end of the process,” Tehrani says. “We turn this process upside-down. We’re dealing with problems of value engineering from day one because we understand that if you make smart choices from the beginning, they leverage different possibilities of savings, of efficiency, and ultimately of pleasure.”

Digital fabrication enables architects to integrate their design practices with engineering practices. So you no longer design alone. — Na d e r Te h r a n i, Fo u n d i n g Pr i n c i pa l , N A DA A A

Na m e / Nader Tehrani T i t l e / Founding Principal c o m p a n y/ NADAAA Lo c ati o n/ Boston P h i l o s o p h y/ “Technology is not just functional. It’s cultural. It’s integrated. It’s embedded. It’s not there to just solve problems. It’s there to advance the potential of architecture.” 94

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Project/ Hinman Research Building year/ 2011 Location/ Atlanta, GA Type/ educational

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Virtual Realities

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. Originally designed in 1939, the Georgia Institute of Technologyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hinman Research Building recently received a $9.5 million restoration, led by NADAAA and Lord, Aeck & Sargent. Committed to the needs of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architecture students, the team transformed the Bauhaus-inspired concrete-and-steel structure into a technologically equipped laboratory that maintains its openness to foster collaboration.

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DESIGNING FOR FUNCTION. The open floor plan of the space, which was designed to achive LEED Gold certification, offers an array of uses while a suspended mezzanine offers another layer of functional space to the high bay. One unique element of the space is its mesh-covered, bent-steel-plate staircases, which lead to offices on the upper level.

AIR AND LIGHT. The Hinman Research Building takes advantage of technological advances with programmable and retractable sun shades and a field of suspended fluorescent lights. It also prioritizes bringing fresh air into the building and providing students with ample daylight. gbdmagazine.com

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I nsid e t he Cu t t in g Ed ge A. Zahner Co.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newly expanded factory is no run-of-themill warehouse. With an undulating skin of aluminum fins, Crawford Architects may have created one of the coolest faĂ§ades in the country.

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Inside The Cutting Edge

When Stacey Jones got a call from Bill Zahner, president of powerhouse steel-fabrication firm A. Zahner Co., Jones knew he was in for a challenge and a treat. Zahner was looking to renovate his Kansas City, Missouri, assembly building, and Jones, a principal at Crawford Architects, more than delivered. What he ended up creating was a billowing, avant-garde curtain wall of glass and aluminum nicknamed the Cloud Wall. By encircling the building with undulating vertical-steel columns, Jones created a horizontal rippling effect to emulate sand in the wind. Here, Jones discusses working with Bill Zahner and how using the engineering firm’s own advanced systems helped create this exciting new showcase for both companies. — Interview by Keith Loria

What led Zahner to approach your firm about this project? Their work [had] expanded dramatically to the point where their current factory wasn’t considered large enough to handle the workload. Bill came to me with an idea and asked if I would be the architect for the expansion. I was flattered.

What were the initial discussions about the design? What he wanted to do was consolidate his campus with some kind of closure but also create an environment where he could bring prospective customers and showcase his work.

How did you accomplish that? [Bill] challenged me to come up with something that was extraordinary. He wanted to do that using a new product, this Zahner-engineered proprietary paneled system, which is basically a skeletal frame that one can wrap [a] skin over ... to produce whatever form you want. It was never used in this way before. 100

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Inside The Cutting Edge How so? Can you describe the process? The façade utilizes a variation of the ZEPP [Zahner Engineered Proprietary Panel] system but strays from the traditional project, in which a metal skin is applied to the steel backup system. The skin is absent, thereby exposing and expressing the structural skeleton beneath. Clients … can see first-hand Zahner’s ability to engineer complicated forms.

What inspired the look of the façade? For inspiration, we looked at a whole bunch of things from nature—clouds and trees and ripples of sand in water—and we came up with a sketch that we could then scan. We used that drawing as inspiration for the façade and sliced that drawing into two vertical panels, and—along each of those—we produced the shape.

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OPPOSITE PAGE: Stacey Jones, principal of Crawford Architects, was charged with taking Zahner’s panel system and using it in an innovative way for Zahner’s factory expansion. The completed model shows his final concept: patterning the facade with a skinless version of the system to create a hypnotic pattern. RIGHT: The masterpiece became known as the Cloud Wall, seen here in detail. BELOW: The Cloud Wall wraps the exterior of the assembly building, undulating in a pattern that Jones says was inspired by ripples of sand.

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Inside The Cutting Edge

Let’s talk about the natural light the building offers. Why was that important? Internally it makes for a really nice work environment. In between the fins are alternating clean-glass panels. The building faces primarily north, so solar exposure wasn’t a great concern. On the east and the west [sides], which are the short façades, the fins act as a solid block of that low-angle incidental light you get in the early mornings. That means there are very few fluorescent lights on during the day. I think that the light level makes for a safe and quality working environment—as well as being energy-efficient.

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Inside The Cutting Edge OPPOSITE PAGE: From the inside, the assembly building’s structural bay benefits from the extensive natural light that enters from between the facade’s fins. RIGHT: Though its exterior is a work of art, the building had to provide the functionality Zahner needed, including bay doors that could be opened. BELOW: The mesmerizing addition was built around the existing structure. Crawford Architects minimized material use and demolition by reusing much of the original building.

In what other ways was sustainability a part of this project? The ventilation was another component. There are some exhaust fans on the southern side that exhaust hot air that has been accumulated on the top of the factory. There are low-level vents on the northern side that draw in cooler air on the lower level. [We also considered] basic principals of sound—and reusing existing structures, as we were able to use a lot of columns already there so we didn’t need to tear down a lot of stuff.

You worked closely with Bill Zahner on this project. How much involvement did he actually have in the design phase? Because it was something that represented his work and his art form, [Bill] probably had more to say than a normal client would have. It was certainly something that was instrumental to the production. He was keenly interested in showcasing the new product he had in the ZEPP panels. Bill also gave us more or less free reign to come up with something he would be excited about and comfortable about. gb&d gbdmagazine.com

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“We don’t think that design is about technology, but our students have to be skilled in technology as a way to address and solve larger problems.” —Monica Ponce de Leon

So what do we teach the kids? The dean of the Taubman College explains how technology helped University of Michigan’s M.Arch program go from unranked to No. 1 gbdmagazine.com

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So What Do We Teach the Kids?

by Zipporah Porton

The integration of technology and sustainability is the future of the industry. For Monica Ponce de Leon, dean of the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, this means embedding sustainability into the programs while using technology to examine best practices. Budding architects and critics alike are welcoming her approach. In the DesignIntelligence rankings, Taubman’s master of architecture program went from unranked when Ponce de Leon arrived in 2008 to No. 1 just three years later. A New Focus Formerly a Harvard professor, Ponce de Leon has implemented numerous changes at Taubman. In addition to the increased emphasis on sustainability and technology, she promotes a global focus and working across disciplines. “The ecological problems of today simply cannot be solved by a single discipline,” Ponce de Leon says. Therefore, she has introduced “team teaching” for specific courses, where students also learn from colleges outside of Taubman, such as the School of Natural Resources. To further the global approach, students have the opportunity to travel abroad for a semester and study forms of architecture on one of five continents. Ponce de Leon also has made it a point to invite international architects of note to Ann Arbor for speaking engagements and lectures. Not just critics have noticed Ponce de Leon’s efforts; students understand the program’s timely emphases. Lauren Berby, a third-year master of architecture student, says Ponce de Leon was integral to her decision to attend the college. “I followed Monica’s career prior to applying,” she says, “and the idea of being in a program that she was the leader of was very exciting.” Advanced Technology Ponce de Leon renovated the school’s facilities and created a digital fabrication lab, or “FABLab.” “We don’t think that design is about technology,” Ponce de Leon says, “but our students have to be skilled in technology as a way to address and solve larger problems.” The FABLab features two different kinds of equipment: tools to make building models and machines for creating building fragments. The model tools, such as laser cutters and rapid prototyping machines, can be found at most architecture schools, though Taubman is able to boast a variety of products and sizes. The fragment machines, such as the robotic arm, are far less common because many programs haven’t realized the technology’s necessity. “I think it’s important for our students to be intimately familiar with the equipment and the design implications of fabrication,” Ponce de Leon says. “It connects design to the real world and makes students think about the way construction affects the built environment.” Access to the FABLab is another appealing feature to potential students. “Learning in the FABLab has taught me a level of architecture that I wouldn’t get on paper,” Berby says. “It adds a creative level, and the skills and hands-on interaction will prepare me for when I move on to a career in architecture.” 106

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The Specs Location/ Ann Arbor, Michigan Students/ 640 Faculty/ 87 (architecture) Programs/ Graduate degrees in architecture, urban design, and urban planning length/ Two years for students with relevant undergraduate degrees, three years for others gbdmagazine.com

Inside the FABLab CNC Routers: Two large three-axis computer-numerical-controlled (CNC) routers allow students to design and create models out of plywood, plastics, 3-D-surfacing wood, and foam. Water-Jet Cutter: The cutter can slice into metal or other materials by using a jet of water—or a mixture of water and an abrasive substance—shot at a high velocity and pressure. The lab’s three-axis water jet cutter can make cuts in one-inch steel and two-inch stone to a 0.005-inch tolerance. Robotic Arm: The seven-axis Kuka Robot (below) is one of the largest in the world at an architectural institution. It can be fitted with a milling head, a water-jet-cutting nozzle, or a gripper for assembly. Rapid-Prototyping Machines: These provide on-demand 3-D printing of student models and four laser cutters for rapid production of sketch models from chipboard or acrylic. Two are located in the lab, and two are in the studios. WOOD AND METAL SHOP: State-of-the-art 3-D printers and a full wood and metal workshop are also available.

TOP: Lauren Berby, an MArch student, works in the FABLab. Berby says such technology is crucial to a real-world understanding of architecture. ABOVE: This wishbone structure is the result of digital explorations in steambending techniques. LEFT: The largest machine in the FABLab is the 7-axis Kuka Robot. gbdmagazine.com

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So What Do We Teach the Kids? RIGHT: The Northeastern University Spiritual Life Center represents the design work that Monica Ponce de Leon manages to find time for amid the demands of serving as dean of the Taubman College. A common space for people of different spiritual, religious, and cultural orientations Ponce de Leon’s design provides for distinct religious faiths while maintaining the necessary neutrality so as not to bias any particular iconography.

“Design should be about representing and constructing culture. But we have to do it in a sustainable way … otherwise, you run the risk of making it simply a fad.” —Monica Ponce de Leon Practice Makes Perfect With the digital world taking over, staying abreast of new technologies isn’t easy. For this reason, and because of her love for the craft, Ponce de Leon has owned an architectural practice since earning her degree in 1991. While some may feel overwhelmed by both endeavors, it’s the only life she’s ever known. “The way we design buildings and construct them is completely different than when I went to school,” Ponce de Leon says. “As a dean, having a practice is fundamental. If you’re not embedded in everyday practice, you can’t understand industry trends.” Ponce de Leon’s firm, MPdL Studio, has offices in Ann Arbor, New York, and Boston. Previously known as Office dA, Inc., the firm placed fifth on Fast Company’s 2010 list of the "10 Most Innovative Companies in Architecture." The firm’s projects have garnered attention as well. For example, the Macallen Building, a 150-unit condominium in South Boston, received an Honor Award for Design Excellence in 2009 from the Boston Society of Architects. And the Fleet Library at the Rhode Island School of Design won a 2010 Award for Design Excellence from the AIA New England Design Awards. 108

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Looking to the Future With a FABLab unmatched by any architecture school in the nation and a deep focus on sustainability, it is clear why Taubman College rose to the top. These efforts are preparing the school’s students for life after graduate school and training them to be aware of the impact their work will have on the built environment. In the past architects focused solely on ease of assembly, but Ponce de Leon also encourages students to notice the sustainable importance of disassembly. In every course at Taubman College, the notion of environmental impact is just as important as creating a utilitarian and aesthetically appealing design. “Design should be about representing and constructing culture,” Ponce de Leon says. “But we have to do it in a sustainable way and use the best tools available. Otherwise, you run the risk of making it simply a fad, which can be eliminated later.” gb&d

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play/ DiMenna Center/ H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture

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Soldier Field/ chicago parks district

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West Elm Emeryville/ Fisher Development

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Amway Center/ Orlando Venues

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Galapagos Art Space

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Wyckoff Exchange/ Andre Kikoski

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learn/ Myrtle Hall/ WASA/Studio A

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Science & Engineering Research Complex/ University of Houston

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Dexter Library/ Northland College

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live/ Kumuhau Subdivision/ Armstrong Builders Jackson Model/ William Ryan Homes

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work/ 200 Fifth Avenue/ Structure Tone

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Conover Multimodal Center/ Tise-Kiester Architects

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Panama Pacifico Visitor’s Center/ Simpson Furones International

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heal/ Seven Directions/ Pyatok Architects Mt. Sinai Pediatric & Neonatal ICUs/ Vanguard Construction

COR-TEN PORTAL. Andre Kikoski’s façade for Brooklyn’s Wyckoff Exchange is made of raw, unfinished COR-TEN steel, imbedded with LED lights. His goal was for the façade, which can be raised up and down along the length of the building, to reflect the characteristics of the neighborhood, p. 126. gbdmagazine.com

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/play DiMenna Center for Classical Music

a modern home for classical music Created by H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, the stunning new practice space for the Orchestra of St. Luke’s is essentially floating by Laura M. Browning

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ALL PHOTOS: Francis Dzikowski

The existing concrete building needed to be completely redesigned. It had to be insulated from outside vibrations as well as other practice rooms that might contain pianists, orchestras, or dancers. The acoustics needed to be finely tuned to mimic a concert hall, and the elements used for these intricate engineering challenges needed to be sustainably sourced. This was the challenge H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture encountered as it undertook the Orchestra of St. Luke’s DiMenna Center for Classical Music. H3’s final design is as beautiful as it is functional and earned LEED Gold certification. Below, gb&d presents an anatomy of the building and its most striking and sustainable elements. gbdmagazine.com

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H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture name DiMenna Center for Classical Music location Manhattan, NY size more than 20,000 square feet client Orchestra of St. Luke’s architect H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture structural engineer Gilsanz Murray Steficek mechanical/electrical engineer ICOR Associates general contractor Barr & Barr Inc.

OPPOSITE PAGE: The DiMenna Center is housed in the lower half of an existing concrete building originally designed as an Off Broadway theater. H3 Hardy used channel glass to create a more inviting lobby.

THIS PAGE: (Clockwise from top): The new lobby is a modern space accented by splashes of high-gloss red paint. Benzaquen Hall features alternating between red-oak slats and fabricwrapped panels. In Cary Hall, acoustical paneling is hidden behind the FSC-certified wooden slats that adorn much of the room.

green features Reuse of an existing concrete structure, an energy-efficient combination of metal-halide lighting and natural skylights, FSC-certified wood, and a highly efficient mechanical system

A. An inviting entrance. The existing envelope of this structure was mostly concrete with very few windows, making the lobby dim and dysfunctional. The wind off the nearby Hudson River was so strong that guests often couldn’t open the door. So, H3 created an original design of channel glass so that passersby could see inside the lobby, and the firm replaced the original doors with revolving ones to make them easier to use. At one end of the lobby, H3 used a high-gloss red paint on the wall to create an inviting glow. Hugh Hardy, the firm’s principal and founder, says this abstract minimalism works well to liven up the space.

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B. Acoustical environments. The DiMenna Center is a rehearsal space, so H3 had to provide acoustics that would mimic a concert hall—not an empty room. The acoustical shapings of Cary Hall—sculptured bumps and slopes—are actually hidden behind the FSC-certified wooden slats, which are set in a repeating pattern that is purely aesthetic. H3 worked with George Sexton Associates to create a combination of natural skylights—which are covered with a milky film so that direct light never interferes with rehearsals—and metal-halide lights that are both energyefficient and acoustically beneficial. To account for vibrations, the practice hall is “essentially floating,” Hardy says. “Everything sits on pads and springs so that vibrations from surrounding rooms can’t be heard.” APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture C

“On a project like this, there’s so much behind the walls and in the ceiling that you really only see a small part of what goes into the building.”

—Hugh Hardy, Principal & Founder

C. A mixture of lighting. In both Cary Hall and Benzaquen Hall, H3 again mixed natural and artificial lighting. Normally, concert halls use halogen lights, which are beautiful and warm but can be very hot and extraordinarily energy intensive. Hardy created two layers of windows and skylights that admit but diffuse the natural light. “We saved a huge amount of energy with beautiful lighting,” Hardy says. “We will have saved the owner tens of thousands of dollars a year.”

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TOP: The DiMenna Center’s music library houses all the orchestra’s sheet music, much of it historic, in efficient, compact storage units. ABOVE: A rendered section looking east shows the stacking of the two large rehearsal rooms and the placement of the smaller practice spaces. The layout was dictated largely by the existing building. RIGHT: The DiMenna Center’s green features are hardly obvious. Highly efficient mechanical and lighting systems save the building owner tens of thousands of dollars per year, and H3 adaptively reused as much of the concrete structure as possible, including this existing staircase.

ALL PHOTOS: Francis Dzikowski

D. Behind-the-walls engineering. Structural limitations of the building presented some of the biggest challenges that Hardy and his team faced. The space was formerly an Off Broadway theater with a balcony, and H3 needed to transform it into usable, isolated rehearsal studios. To properly engineer the springs and pads that float Cary Hall, H3 had to place structurally heavy loads in the basement below the room, “the only place we could go,” Hardy says. The back of the building is “a giant cantilever,” he adds. “We had to cut a lot of holes.” Hardy managed to do much of this sustainably as well, focusing much of the green efforts behind the walls. “On a project like this,” he says, “there’s so much behind the walls and in the ceiling that you really only see a small part of what goes into the building.” gb&d

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Soldier Field

lakefront landmark The home of the Chicago Bears is a hive of environmental activity and a major success story for the Chicago Parks District

By Peter Fretty

While green building has grown in popularity in recent years, there is a big difference between having energy-efficient systems and actually operating under sustainable best practices. With its 8,000 acres of parkland, 26 miles of lakefront property, 250 field houses, and the popular Soldier Field—home of the Chicago Bears—the Chicago Parks District is a prime example of an organization that has enjoyed documentable success deploying and maintaining green systems.

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BELOW: Operated by the Chicago Parks District, Soldier Field is becoming more than a favorite landmark for football fans; with new sustainability initiatives, it is a major part of the district’s goal of becoming the greenest park district in the country.

“One of our initiatives is to be the greenest park district in the nation and a forerunner as we continue to embrace sustainable practices,” says Mike Kelly, the Chicago Parks District’s interim superintendent and CEO. “As a result, we are at the point that all new building projects include a LEED component. When people enter one of our buildings with the bamboo floors and energy-efficient systems, they know something is different, and it creates an opportunity for our structures to serve as public education systems.” Probably the most visible of the Chicago Parks District’s projects has been the LEED-EB renovation and rejuvenation that has taken place over the past seven years at Soldier Field. Some of the sustainable operations initiatives included replacing traditional external bulbs with LED lighting, installing a building-automation system with occupancy sensors, staggering start-ups of mechanical equipment and field lighting, and purchasing water-saving faucets and toilets. An unlikely recipient of the green makeover was the north garage, which now boasts a green roof and electric-vehicle charging stations, provided in conjunction with Carbon Day and available for free use. Soldier Field also has pioneered an aggressive recycling program in partnership with Allied Waste.

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Soldier Field

“When people enter one of our buildings, they know something is different, and it creates an opportunity for our structures to serve as public education systems.” —Mike Kelly, Interim Superintendent & CEO, Chicago Parks District

“We also recycle our field sod to divert millions of pounds from the landfill each year,” Soldier Field director of operations Michael Ortman says. “We are also in the process of replacing the traditional 100-watt fixtures that light up the stadium columns with 40-watt LEDs. In addition to saving us money, [it will also enable us] to use different colors during the holidays. We have done this in the past with gels and extra labor, but now we have the ability to do so without extra expense.” According to Ortman, education is a challenge—especially when so many people are involved—but the results are well worth the effort. “It has been a four-year process [that] has resulted in a lot of learning,” he says. “This is tough to accomplish with such a large facility, but as we have progressed, people have continued to embrace the principles. For instance, after each Chicago Bears game we [have] increased plastics recycling from 30 cubic yards to 60 cubic yards, ... added an additional 20 cubic yards of aluminum, and cardboard recycling is up 50 percent.” In keeping with its green-building commitment, the Chicago Parks District also recently built two LEED Gold beach houses and two LEED Gold field houses. In addition, the district recently opened its own biodiesel plant. Overall, in the past 18 months, the Chicago Parks District has spent close to $30 million on green retrofits—mainly on gbdmagazine.com

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boiler replacements and the development of an enterprise system that allows HVAC engineers to control systems remotely. With a $35 million capital budget, the biggest challenge is finding funds to pursue green projects, Kelly says. “Fortunately, through bonds, grants, and donations, we have found ways to fund our green projects,” he says. “When [we] do these initiatives, we are saving money; improving the physical plant; and living up to our mantra of being open, active, green, and connected.” gb&d

A MESSAGE FROM FUJITEC AMERICA, INC. Fujitec America, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of elevator, escalator, and moving-walkway systems. Fujitec operates in most major US metropolitan areas to provide new installations, modernization, and service and maintenance of its own brand and those of other manufacturers. The company now has more than 20 sales and service offices throughout the United States and Canada. Fujitec has always been committed to complete customer satisfaction and has been elevating performance in America’s finest buildings since 1978. Parent company Fujitec Co., Ltd. was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1948. This global organization includes 11 manufacturing facilities and four research and development centers. Chicago-based Fujitec America installed and maintains 19 elevators and eight escalators at Soldier Field. Fujitec is proud of its long-standing business partnership with the stadium and looks forward to many more years of business. For further information, contact 1.877.FUJITEC or sales@fujitecamerica.com. You can also visit us on the web at www.fujitecamerica.com.

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Fujitec America, Inc is pleased to play such a vital role of many prestigious, state-of-the-art facilities such as Soldier Field. With a solid global reputation and strong presence in the U.S. market, Fujitec is one brand of elevators, escalators and moving walks 100% focused on vertical transportation. To learn more about Fujitecâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new product lines and services, contact us today at 630.629.8808 or sales@fujitecamerica.com.

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West Elm Emeryville

running a tight flagship Fisher Development overcomes a tight lot to build a LEED-equivalent prototype for West Elm at its Emeryville location by Julie Schaeffer

The 16,200-square-foot, bilevel West Elm store on Bay Street in Emeryville, California, is a single-story, steelframe building—with a mezzanine—built on 33-foot-deep mud and seven-foot-deep fill, which forced the contractor to drive a total of 51 16-inch-diameter, augered cast-inplace piles 64 feet deep. That’s a lot of numbers to keep track of, not to mention understanding what they mean. Designed by McCall Design Group, the West Elm store’s many eco-friendly elements—including a green roof designed by Rana Creek Living Architecture, best known for the LEED Platinum-certified California Academy of Sciences—presented challenges for the design and construction team. Alex Fisher, vice president of business development at Fisher Development, details some of the requirements involved in creating the retail store that he says was “built from the ground up using state-of-the-art, green building practices.” gbdmagazine.com

ABOVE: Designed by McCall Design Group and built by Fisher Development, the interior of the West Elm store in Emeryville, CA, includes hardwood floors constructed from reclaimed barn wood. Turf, grass, and flowers on the roof insulate the building while a storm-water-capture system helps reduce the store’s water usage by as much as 25%.

Build Without a Staging Area According to Fisher, the site—a narrow wedge of land sandwiched between a parking structure and a frontage road—had no staging area. This presented a number of challenges. “There was no lay-down area and no place to park trucks, making it logistically a very tough project,” Fisher says. “Real estate was at such a premium [that] we actually staged the job on the site and built the building around our materials. We also stored materials on the roof when [it] was complete. We also had to reduce waste to virtually nothing. It worked out well, but it definitely added a level of complexity to an already very complex project.” Create a Cutting-Edge Roof Two major factors contributing to the store’s LEED equivalence were on the roof. Taking a cue from the California Academy of Sciences, the West Elm store features a living roof designed by Rana Creek Living Architecture. Covered in turf, grass, and flowers, the roof helps insulate the building and has an integrated storm-water-capture and irrigation system designed to reduce the store’s water usage by up to 25 percent. It also provides an urban habitat for birds, bees, and butterflies and improves indoor air quality. A Borrego Solar photovoltaic system is also installed on the roof, and it is projected to offset 10–15 percent of the store’s power consumption, which West Elm has estimated is equal to planting 17 acres of trees. APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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Fisher Development landscape Rana Creek Living Architecture

location Emeryville, CA

engineering Timmons Design Engineers

size 16,200 square feet

general contractor Fisher Development, Inc.

client Williams-Sonoma Inc.

green features A drought-resistant living roof, a Borrego 27 kW DC STC photovoltaic array, an ultra-efficient mechanical system with VFD, occupancy sensors, and reclaimed-wood flooring

architect McCall Design Group

PHOTO: Barbara Bourne

name West Elm Emeryville

Maintain Ultra-Efficiency Timmons Design Engineers, which was commissioned to provide sustainable consulting and design for the store, developed a number of energy-saving mechanical systems. For example, packaged rooftop HVAC units provide all cooling, heating, and ventilation needs, and to conserve energy the units are equipped with supply and exhaust fans set with variable-frequency drives that provide only enough air to meet demand. Electrical systems also reduce energy usage via multilevel switching, energy-efficient lighting fixtures, and occupancy sensors. Prioritize Sustainable Materials Inside the store, the actual building materials contribute to West Elm’s sustainability goals, too. Hardwood floors are constructed from wood reclaimed from old barns. Low-VOC paint was used throughout the store. And, lowflow plumbing fixtures help reduce water usage. Meet Strict Local Regulations As a national retail general contractor in business for 40 years, Fisher Development has seen it all, and Emeryville’s municipal regulations, Fisher says, are among the most stringent the company has ever seen. When working with the city of Emeryville, every time there was the slightest design change, the city required an SK stamped by the architect or engineer. While most municipalities require this, there is typically some flexibility, but not in this case. It had a significant impact on the schedule and cost of the project.

architecture. everyday life. McCall Design Group has over 23 years of experience in exemplary architectural design, encompassing flagship projects with national and international retail and hospitality giants such as Limited Brands, Inc., Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc., Gap, Inc., and Williams-Sonoma, Inc., as well as smaller, specialized prototype stores and boutiques for clients such as Kate

Obtain LEED Equivalence Williams-Sonoma Inc., which owns West Elm, sought to make its Emeryville flagship store a model of sustainability consistent with the company’s goals. But certification was cost-prohibitive. “Given the costs of LEED certification, our client opted to adhere to all the USGBC’s guidelines [by] building to a ‘LEED Silver equivalent,’” says Fisher, whose company worked closely with McCall Design Group, the architect. “Our client is rightly very proud of its accomplishment. It’s a superb example of sustainable design and construction, both inside and out.” gb&d 120

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Spade, Gazoontite, Gymboree, and cultural institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The San Francisco Symphony.

design

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environment

550 Kearny Street, Suite 950 San Fancisco, CA 94108

p 415 288 8150 f 415 288 8181 e 4information@mccalldesign.com w www.mccalldesign.com gbdmagazine.com

PHOTO: (Bottom right) Ben Tanner

spaces/ play LEFT: Massive entertainment facilities such as Orlando’s Amway Center are major challenges environmentally. But Orlando Venues, the city’s property-management arm, has succeeded in using simple systems such as high-efficiency lighting and high-performance glazing to reduce utility costs by as much as 20%.

BELOW: The Amway Center is the NBA’s first Gold-certified arena under LEED’s New Construction rating. The building achieved this distinction in part by prioritizing recycled and local construction materials.

Amway Center

no magic tricks here With hard work and smart design, Orlando Venues takes an arena above and beyond industry standards into LEED Gold territory

by Erik Pisor

As the newest professional basketball arena in the nation, Orlando’s Amway Center has set a new sustainable standard for existing and soon-to-be constructed NBA facilities. Opened in October 2010, the seven-story, 875,000square-foot Amway Center—home to the Orlando Magic— is the first NBA arena to achieve LEED Gold certification for new construction. “Achieving LEED certification was an actively engaged decision,” Orlando Venues executive director Allen Johnson says. “We knew we were going to build the most efficient venue possible.” A department of the city of Orlando, Orlando Venues acts as the municipality’s property manager and oversees the operations of all its sports and performance venues, most notably the Amway Center and the Citrus Bowl football stadium. By incorporating gbdmagazine.com

numerous energy- and water-saving features into the Amway Center’s design, Orlando Venues and program manager Turner Construction were able to attain 39 LEED points for the arena. High-efficiency lighting systems and high-performance windows and glazing systems contributed to a 20 percent reduction in utility costs. The windows and glazing—along with a solarreflective roof—also minimize heat gain, thus reducing the arena’s cooling costs, Johnson says. During the design phase, the project team added and planned water-saving features and initiatives in the facility, including the collection of the chiller’s condensate, which is routed through an underground system for reuse. Rainwater from the roof is also reused on-site for irrigation. All told, these efforts saved 1.3 million gallons of APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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Orlando Venues PHOTO: Ben Tanner

RIGHT: Orlando’s new Amway Center opened in October 2010, and its daylit Disney Atrium is just one of its green features. Less visible is a water-saving system that routes condensate from the facility’s chiller through an underground system for reuse. Rainwater from the roof is also reused on-site for irrigation.

"Not only do you have to stay on the cutting edge, but you have to compete for [the] consumer’s entertainment dollar. The consumer is demanding and savvy, and they choose to come to our venue.” —Allen Johnson, Executive Director

water. “We tried to capture every source of reuse that we could,” Johnson says. Other features that garnered LEED points were related to transportation and construction materials. According to Johnson, 20 percent of the project’s construction materials were recycled, and 30 percent of the facility was constructed from regional and local sources. Also, the arena is situated 150 yards from Orlando’s commuter-rail system and borders high-density residential developments. Additionally, five percent of the parking lot is reserved for fuelefficient cars, and 250 bike stalls also are available. 122

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With its first NBA season behind it, the Amway Center is currently undergoing a notable air-conditioning upgrade, a sign of Orlando Venues’s commitment to maintaining a sustainable, cost-saving arena. The repiping of the air-conditioning system will allow the facility to maintain a constant airflow, which will minimize its usage and thus its costs. The long-term savings gained from the facility’s numerous sustainable aspects will likely be reinvested into the arena because luxury suites and other fan amenities are in constant need of yearly upgrades. “Not only do you have to stay on the cutting edge, but you have to compete for [the] consumer’s entertainment dollar,” Johnson says. “The consumer is demanding and savvy, and they choose to come to our venue.” As the newest NBA arena, the Amway Center has garnered the attention of various venue operators, as the facility recently hosted nearly 130 members of the International Association of Venue Managers for a tour. “There’s a move in the industry to make [green building] more of a priority,” Johnson says, adding that a significant amount of existing basketball arenas have undergone retrofit projects. Up next for Orlando Venues? The renovation of the Citrus Bowl to LEED standards. gb&d gbdmagazine.com

www.turnerconstruction.com

Turner is committed to the success and increased adoption of sustainable construction practices throughout the industry. As part of this effort, we train all new hires in the theory and practice of green building, emphasizing the LEED rating system. We believe Green buildings are not only good for the environment, they also provide immediate and long-term economic benefits for developers, building owners and occupants. Turner is the largest builder of green buildings in the nation and has extensive experience across a wide variety of sustainable construction projects, enabling us to create a detailed databank of cost-effective Green materials, processes and suppliers to assist our clients. From our experience, the costs associated with these projects can be contained to a level comparable to traditionally constructed buildings. Turner has completed 180 LEED Certified projects and has completed or is currently working on more than 200 additional projects that are registered with the U. S. Green Building Council.

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spaces/ play Galapagos Art Space

built on a concrete canvas Known for its dedication to the art community, Galapagos Art Space guts a 100-year-old building and creates an inspired masterpiece

by Peter Fretty

From fashion to performing arts, New York City has long been known for its thriving art communities. And, since 1995, Robert Elmes and his Galapagos Art Space have contributed significantly toward molding the thriving New York cultural ecosystem. As a participation-based art center focused on emerging to mid-career artists, Galapagos quickly made a name for itself as a catalyst for the Williamsburg community. “As a premium outlet for actors, theater artists, cabaret performers, musicians, as well as 2-D and 3-D artists in our gallery, we really reflected what was happening in Williamsburg during the 1990s as it established itself as a creative community,” Elmes says.

BELOW: Galapagos Art Space is an arts and cultural center in the Dumbo neighborhood of New York City. When he moved the space from Williamsburg, owner Robert Elmes decided to adaptively reuse a concrete structure originally built in 1904.

However, as Williamsburg became increasingly popular, it eventually priced the artists out of the market. The evolution ultimately prompted Elmes to move Galapagos from Williamsburg to Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). After searching for an ideal location, Elmes decided to renovate a space initially built in 1904 by Turner Construction Company. “We gutted everything that was added to the building over the years and brought it back to its concrete shell,” he says. “This gave us a wonderful canvas to build what we knew would be an incredible design capable of drawing people into the Dumbo area.” Elmes saw the move to build a LEED-certified venue as a wonderful opportunity for two reasons—it would make Galapagos a leader in the cultural sphere, and the venue would recognize crucial cost efficiencies going forward. “As a result of our decision to renovate using LEED principles, we now run an efficient building,” he says. “This gives us an advantage in presenting artists who we would not ... be able to present in a higher cost environment.” One of the most unique components of the Galapagos Art Space is the 1,600-square-foot lake inside the building, which was constructed by dropping the floor below street grade. “It essentially serves as a heat sink, wicking heat away in the summer and connecting us to the ground under the building to provide a little heat throughout the winter,” Elmes says. “We further cued off of Turner’s original design and concrete concept by building the interior

PHOTO: Emily Gilbert

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Galapagos Art Space name Galapagos Art Space

owner/developer Two Trees Management Co.

location Brooklyn, NY

builder One Main Construction

size 10,000 square feet

green features Wood from managed forests, recycled steel, healthful indoor materials, and a 1,600-square-foot indoor lake that functions as a geothermal sink

designer Galapagos Art Space

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architect Cycle Architecture

PHOTOS: Emily Gilbert; (bottom right) Scott Beale

“We gutted everything that was added to the building over the years and brought it back to its concrete shell. This gave us a wonderful canvas.” —Robert Elmes, Founder & Designer

out of concrete as well. To keep within LEED parameters, we used managed-forest wood for the concrete forms and recycled steel throughout. To fully incorporate the lake into the space, we built an operatic style mezzanine to surround the lake.” According to Elmes, the renovation’s primary challenge centered on educating the trades on what the process would mean to them and their ability to embrace sustainable practices into their operations. “As a cultural client, we were taking the time to do the project properly,” he says. “Some of the trades were interested in LEED principles but approached the project with skepticism. This was a level of conversation that many of the trades were not used to engaging in, but fortunately we were able to build a collaborative relationship.” In addition to adding beauty and distinctiveness, the venue’s green approach is paying rewards. For instance, energy consumption is around 2.5 watts per square foot. “Awareness has been a huge plus,” Elmes says. “We do not have materials that are off-gassing in our facility. Green takes into account the staff’s use of the building, and we take into account the audience’s use as well.” The lower cost of operating the building also allows Galapagos to refine its focus on the artist, Elmes says. “We currently have sixteen artists in residence and another 25 individual artists who are performing in our shows,” he says. “The lower cost means we can invest our time into the artists’ career and work. We have more influence in developing artists.” gb&d gbdmagazine.com

THIS PAGE: Galapagos gutted its new building and brought the concrete exterior inside, adding sustainably sourced wood and recycled steel. The space’s most unique feature is the 1,600-square-foot lake that lies below the main mezzanine, which serves as a geothermal sink, reducing heating and cooling costs. APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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PROJECT SPOTLIGHT

pitch perfect In the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, the Wyckoff Exchange, a live-music and performance venue designed by architect Andre Kikoski, opened two years ago and features a moving façade striking enough to make any passerby stop and take a closer look. Kikoski designed the façade to look both industrial and artistic; he wanted it to reflect the urban sights, structures, and characters of the neighborhood. At 100 feet long and 18 feet high, the mechanical façade surprisingly is only two inches deep and is constructed out of raw, unfinished COR-TEN steel and semiconcealed LED lights, which help give the building an eerie glow. —Thalia A-M Bruehl

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/learn A

Myrtle Hall

a neutral vessel

WASA/Studio A set out to craft the perfect new space for the Pratt Institute and ended up creating the only LEED-certified academic building in Brooklyn

by Seth Putnam

In 1975 Jack Esterson was just finishing up an architecture degree at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He didn’t imagine that one day, 35 years later, he’d be asked to design its most ambitious structure yet. Christened Myrtle Hall, the sixstory, 120,000-square-foot facility is the only LEED-certified (Gold, to be specific) academic building in Brooklyn. But the story of Myrtle Hall is about more than going green. It’s about how a sustainable building can be, in itself, a work of art. “Architecture is a form of communication,” says Esterson, one of two design partners at WASA/ Studio A. “It can either communicate compassion and excitement and all these positive elements, or it can be uninspired. And for me to be brought back for this project is an exhilarating and unforgettable experience.” Here, gb&d explores the design elements vital to Myrtle Hall. > gbdmagazine.com

ABOVE: The white “ribbon” that wraps Myrtle Hall’s giant atrium is made of white porcelainenameled aluminum panels, and shades the space for the majority of the day.

BELOW: WASA/Studio A chose materials that would help Myrtle Hall blend well with with the existing structures in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood.

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A. The “ribbon.” One of the most striking features is the elegant white “ribbon” that traces the vertical outline of the building’s giant atrium. “It’s meant to announce the entry to the building,” Esterson explains. It also has a very practical purpose: on the south side of the building, heat gain can be problematic. But instead of having louvers run across the atrium glazing, WASA/Studio A crafted the ribbon out of white porcelain-enameled aluminum panels and gave it a deep profile to shade the space for most of the day. “It casts a shadow in the morning and afternoon and protects the atrium from direct east-west sunlight for all but about a couple hours,” Esterson says. B. The streetscape. On one side of the street, planted pedestrian walkways create a striking green space, so to minimize the jarring sensation of a brick-and-steel building appearing suddenly, Esterson planted ivy on the walls to tie the structure visually to the natural landscape in the coming years. On another side, Myrtle Avenue cuts through the Clinton Hill neighborhood, whose 19th-century commercial buildings presented Esterson with a different challenge: to make his building feel as if it belongs. To accomplish that task, WASA/Studio A made specific choices regarding what kind of brick to use, matching its appearance to the surrounding structures. 128

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TOP LEFT: Because of its giant picture windows, the building’s interior exhibition galleries can be seen from the street.

TOP RIGHT: The distinct etched-glass signage on the picture window was handled by Archigrafika, a company owned by a Pratt faculty member.

BOTTOM: WASA/Studio A’s original color palette was more vivid but was simplified in order to showcase the students’ work. gbdmagazine.com

C. Natural light. “I always come back to light,” Esterson says. “Natural light comes at no expense. The way one allows natural light into a building is essential to us, and that’s where we always start.” In Myrtle Hall, you’re really never more than about 30 feet from outside light. During most of the day, the lights could be off without inhibiting any of the numerous activities occurring within the building. D. Windows and signage. The building maintains a distinctly modern look, even with its nod to the surrounding Victorian-era neighborhood. A large part of this comes from the design and placement of its windows, which evoke a sense of almost computer-generated pixilation. “That sort of syncopation looks like it was done randomly on a computer,” Esterson says. “It wasn’t. We actually decided every single location by hand. It houses a school of digital art, and we wanted to express that.” In the middle, the building is punctuated by a large picture window, emblazoned on which in etched, translucent glass is the giant “Pratt” moniker. The reason both the typography and the window are located there is simple. “When you walk by the building, especially at night, the thing glows and you can see all the student artwork,” Esterson says. “It’s a way to create connectivity with the community. If that window weren’t there, it would look more like an office building. It’s a way to brand the building.” Indeed, branding was essential to the space, so the signage was handled by a company called Archigrafika, which is run by one of the graphics faculty at Pratt and which therefore understands the institute’s design standards. E. Materials and energy. Esterson, a self-described colorist, initially envisioned vibrant interior accents, but when he showed his scheme to the decision-makers, they went pale. “They said, ‘We do white and gray,’” Esterson remembers with a laugh. “The color comes from the work of the students.” And so a color-neutral interior environment was born, with the students’ recently completed projects providing pops of color here and there as they are displayed. “It really turned out quite beautifully,” Esterson says. “It looks like a neutral vessel waiting to be filled with creativity, which I think is the right response for a building [designed as] an art school.” The building’s greenest feature is its roof, 40 percent of which is planted with native foliage that reduces the need for irrigation. “With a building like this, there’s a lot of HVAC equipment on the roof,” Esterson says. “Whatever was left, we made green. That, of course, was not just for another LEED point but to help with water runoff and to increase the insulation value [on] the sixth floor.” gb&d gbdmagazine.com

Triton Construction is proud to have worked with WASA/Studio A on projects such as the new LEED Gold Pratt Institute Myrtle Hall

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Congratulations to WASA /Studio A on their LEED Gold Certification for Pratt Institute’s Myrtle Hall

architectural graphics and signage

MYRTLE HALL, BROOKLYN NY

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Science and Engineering Research Center

the anti-secret lab University of Houston’s research and teaching complex is sustainable and beautiful, but more than anything it facilitates collaboration through its open design

by Julie Schaeffer

When the University of Houston wanted to attract the best scientists and engineers, thereby helping the university reach its goal of becoming a top-ranked research institution, a state-of-the art research and teaching complex seemed the best way to achieve that goal. “We’re located in the city of Houston, and Houston is big in the energy field, so the university wanted to take the lead running scientific and engineering programs,” says Paul Brokhin, the university’s utility and sustainability coordinator. The result was the Science and Engineering Research Center (SERC), which houses the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and the College of Engineering.

To design the building, the university turned to worldrenowned architect Cesar Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, who in turn assembled a team of architects who had scientific backgrounds in addition to architectural expertise. Pelli’s vision, sited among the university’s existing science buildings, was a complex that would encourage collaboration, and he achieved this idea with an open design unique among scientific facilities containing multiple laboratories. The 191,000-square-foot complex consists of a five-story laboratory building, a two-story classroom building, and a 550-seat teaching auditorium, all unified by a central courtyard. At the heart of the complex, the 152,460-squarefoot laboratory building is a perfect example of Pelli’s vision of design that facilitates interaction. Developed in conjunction with University of Houston scientists and engineers, it features multiple labs that open up to other labs—no walls between them. Collaborative research is facilitated by the building’s ground-floor “clean room.” Among the first of its kind in Houston, this room, which is of the caliber found at major pharmacological institutions, features a non-vibrating floor, static-free conditions, and special air filters to remove virtually all dust particles. Ultimately, it controls vibrations and reduces contamination that can jeopardize delicate experiments.

LEFT: Just one example of University of Houston’s environmental commitment, the SERC includes a highly efficient mechanical system and a south-facing limestone curtainwall with glass panels and curved sunscreens. It is also sited to be pedestrian friendly and showcases regional materials such as buff brick, clay tile, and steel. 130

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University of Houston

name Science and Engineering Research Center location Houston size 191,000 square feet client University of Houston design architect Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects associate architect Kendall/Heaton Architects

planned as a LEED effort. But it still came naturally, says Brokhin, thanks to the University of Houston’s commitment to meeting the highest ASHRAE standards. “All new buildings are required to meet ASHRAE 90.1, and in pursuing that, the building easily achieved LEED Silver,” he explains. Today, the University of Houston is doggedly pursuing a green agenda through renovation and new construction. It recently designed a master plan for the campus, which it will complete over the next 20 years—and that’s on top of the more than $220 million in campus improvements the school has already made. “Our goal is to create a more pedestrian-friendly environment,” Brokhin says, “and we have vowed to complete all new projects to at least LEED Silver.” gb&d

landscape Clark Condon Associates Inc. general contractor Vaughn Construction green features Smart solar orientation, a south-facing limestone curtainwall with glass panels and curved sunscreens, a highly efficient mechanical system, pedestrian-friendly siting, and regional materials such as buff brick, clay tile, and steel

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Visually, the complex both adds a modern element to the campus and complements the existing structures by using materials and colors drawn largely from adjacent buildings and the campus as a whole. The classroom building, for example, is clad in a buff-colored brick wall with glass and metal windows, and the auditorium is enclosed in a diamond-patterned, red-brick wall. The research building is surrounded on its sunnier south side by a curtain wall of limestone and on its shadier north side by a mostly glass wall with metal spandrels. Brokhin says the $81 million SERC—which Buildings magazine awarded a citation of excellence in its new construction category in October 2008—positions the University of Houston as a leader in research and opens the door for collaboration not just between the science and engineering departments but between the university and other institutions. “The engineering and science faculty—as well as local industry partners—all come together to participate in the university’s research efforts,” he says. The building was completed in 2005, when sustainability wasn’t part of the university’s focus, so it wasn’t gbdmagazine.com

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spaces/ learn ALL PHOTOS: Pete Sieger

What was the impetus for improving Dexter Library? JS: It started as a way of rethinking how learning spaces needed to support a small college. We reprogrammed the building to move most of the books to compact shelving on the lower floor and to turn the upper floor into an intellectual and collaborative hub where students can engage and learn. These students have a consciousness about their environment and how buildings relate to the world.

Dexter Library

writing the book on healthy spaces President Michael Miller and MS&R’s Jeffrey Scherer take questions about Northland College’s almost impossibly efficient library

by Laura Williams-Tracy

In northern Wisconsin there’s a library on the campus of Northland College that hasn’t turned on its furnace in three snowy winters. Dexter Library was formerly an uninsulated concrete-block building, typical of structures built in the early 1970s when energy and construction costs were cheap. After an extensive renovation in 2008, Dexter Library is now a LEED Gold building that serves as a gathering spot for a student body focused on sustainability. Dr. Michael A. Miller, president of the 600-student liberal arts college, and Jeffrey Scherer, FAIA, principal of Minneapolis architecture firm MS&R, discussed with gb&d how the renovation represents the college’s greater mission. 132

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THIS PAGE: Energy efficiency and renewableenergy generation were priorities for the Dexter Library renovation by architecture and interiordesign firm MS&R. With 30 geothermal wells, the library furnace hasn’t been used for three years despite the severe cold typical in northern Wisconsin. In addition, the library roof boasts a 14 kW solar array.

Where does Northland College’s commitment to the environment come from? MM: In 1892, the northern part of Wisconsin was clearcut for the logging industry, and what was left behind was an impoverished, challenged area. Northland College was created to provide a future for the people left behind and [for] the Native American tribes of the area. Those are the reasons and rationale behind our commitment to the environment. Our formal environmental commitment was made in 1971, and the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute opened in 1972, which works to educate the community about Great Lakes environmental issues. It became a bold statement that looking after the environment through academic programs is important. All students as part of their general-education program receive a minor in environmental sciences. How are you able to keep the heaters off in the winter? MM: We haven’t had the furnace on in three years, and it’s cold up here. Dexter Library is heated by 30 geothermal wells extending 230 feet into the Earth, producing plenty of heat and no carbon dioxide. We also used water reduction strategies with low-flow toilets, and there’s little rainwater runoff. Most of the materials were reused. gbdmagazine.com

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Northland College THIS PAGE: Inside and out, Northland College’s Dexter Library represents the school’s greater environmental commitment, which originally was born in the early 1900s in response to the clear-cutting going on in northern Wisconsin. The library renovation, led by MS&R, created a top-floor study-andcollaboration area and moved the stacks to the lower floor.

This library hasn’t used its furnace in three years, and it’s in northern Wisconsin. The secret? A geothermal system, supersealing H Windows, and efficiency upgrades from the architects at MS&R.

Northland College earned a Gold STARS rating. Why was this credential important? MM: Most colleges and universities believe that part of our role is to think about how we [can] move forward efficiently and how business could be greener. The STARS rating provides a professional benchmark, validation of what we are doing, and [a] rubric for moving forward. A Gold rating is remarkable. We received a Platinum rating for education and research, one of only two institutions in the country to receive Platinum. It helps us to hold ourselves on course with our own planning and innovations. We’re a small institution and have close relationships with our students. We live our values at every level. gb&d

“We haven’t had the furnace on in three years, and it’s cold up here. Dexter Library is heated by 30 geothermal wells extending 230 feet into the Earth, producing plenty of heat and no carbon dioxide.”

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/live Kumuhau Subdivision

honolulu’s new eco-community A new environmentally conscious neighborhood by Armstrong Builders embraces the Hawaiian lifestyle and pushes green building forward on Oahu by Zipporah Porton

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Even though Hawaiian residents are known for their love of the outdoors, building green isn’t as prevalent on the islands as one might think. In fact, when Armstrong Builders LLC proposed the LEED Gold-certified Kumuhau Subdivision in Honolulu in 2009, there weren’t many projects in Hawaii using the LEED standard at all. But James Keller, president of Armstrong Builders, and Daniel Sandomire, AIA, the project architect, had decided sustainable residential development was the way to go. “Our project is helping to push other industry leaders to adopt green, sustainable building practices,” Sandomire says. A few years ago, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands put out a request for proposals for the subdivision, offering a small bonus for a green approach. “We recognized that a sustainable focus would give us a clear edge over other industry leaders competing for the project,” Sandomire says. It did. Armstrong Builders won the bid to complete the Kumuhau Subdivision and earned the community a LEED Gold rating. The team gave us a rundown of how they did it.

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Armstrong Builders ALL PHOTOS: David Frazen

OPPOSITE PAGE: From the moment Armstrong Builders first envisioned the Kumuhau Subdivision in Honolulu, the idea was to make it a sustainable residential community. Though LEED was not yet being used extensively on the islands, the company thought it was time that changed. The subdivision is now LEED Goldcertified.

LEFT: A traditional Hawaiian patio, the covered lanai on each Kumuhau home serves as an outdoor living space. BELOW: The homes in the Kumuhau Subdivision make use of simple green features such as metal awnings that help shade the windows and keep the houses cool. BOTTOM: A close-up of the photovoltaic system shows how the rack clips to the standing-seam metal roof. The solar array is estimated to produce enough energy for a family of four.

Harness Solar Energy For each home, Sandomire chose a 2.5-kilowatt, grid-tied photovoltaic system that provides enough energy to support a family of four. A set of 12 panels is located on each carport roof and paired with microinverters that link to the Internet so that homeowners can track energy production in real time. Account for Outdoor Living Incorporating a large, covered lanai on each of the 45 homes in the subdivision provided cooling and shading. Also, the canopied porches give each resident a comfortable place to enjoy the scenery from the privacy of their own homes. Find Effective Cooling Methods Kohilo-model whole-house fans, super-efficient and extremely quiet, discreetly enhance each of the naturally ventilated homes. “The whole-house fan supports the way one would want to live in Hawaii—indoor-outdoors,” Sandomire says. With a year-round tropical climate, Hawaii is the perfect place to promote natural ventilation, and the whole-house fan allows for this even on days when the winds die down. Consider Orientation The position of each window was carefully considered to minimize direct sunlight and keep the homes cool and comfortable all day long, and the ground-floor ceilings are all either 9 or 11 feet high, allowing for greater air circulation. gbdmagazine.com

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Avoid Direct Sunlight In addition to dual-glazed, low-E windows, Armstrong Builders incorporated fixed awnings over the windows exposed to direct sunlight. Sandomire says not only do these keep the homes cooler but they’re also attractive architectural features.

RIGHT: The interiors of the Kumuhau Subdivision homes feature high ceilings, natural light, and no-VOC finishes.

PHOTO: David Frazen

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Emphasize Indoor Air Quality While residents of Kumuhau might prefer to be outside all the time, that isn’t always feasible. Therefore, a healthy indoor-air environment was as important as easy access to the outdoors, so Armstrong Builders made sure to use healthful paints and finishes. Collect Rainwater The Kumuhau Subdivision puts Hawaii’s tropical climate to good use by collecting rainwater for outdoor, nonpotable use. Residents are able to save on utility costs by using the rainwater for rinsing off, for plants, and as a reservoir for drip irrigation. The small footprint tucks it out of the way, and the high water level allows for better water pressure in each of the homes. gb&d

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jackson MODEL

family circus Focus groups told William Ryan Homes it should offer organization and calm to ever-busier families, and despite a tough market, its new homes deliver

by Scott Heskes

Suburban homebuilder William Ryan Homes of Schaumburg, Illinois, is coming up with creative ways to stay on top with a unique “customer-driven design” concept for first- and second-time homebuyers. Founded in 1992, the single-family-home builder has completed more than 9,000 homes in the metro areas of Chicago, Milwaukee, Tampa, and Phoenix. Vice president of sales and marketing Debbie Beaver talks with gb&d about her research into what aspects of green building William Ryan’s customers want today and how the company is finding ways to build quality homes while working around the market downturn. gbdmagazine.com

ABOVE: The Jackson model is one of the more recent additions to line offered by William Ryan Homes. The homebuilder includes green features such as highly efficient furnaces and low-E windows in its homes, but it has seen an increase in families who want smaller square footages and higher-quality materials.

What are families looking for today that they were not looking for five years ago? DB: A lot has changed. Five years ago bigger was better. Today what people are looking for is price per square foot and more functionality per square foot. They want defined, smaller homes with better technology and more appointments. Rather than a 3,000-square-foot home with vinyl and carpet, they would rather have a 2,500-square-foot home with granite and hardwood. These days, more often than not, the families have duel incomes, so they are looking for homes that make their lifestyle easier. We did a buyer focus group, and what we heard often was [the desire for] conveniences that [would make] life easier for a working mom. They wanted things like mudrooms … and core living areas with a combined family room and kitchen that includes a pocket office where kids could do their homework and keep things organized. We ended up completely redesigning our homes to incorporate these ideas. Walk me through the process William Ryan goes through in deciding where to build a subdivision. DB: Using Metro Chicago as an example, we created a matrix and dropped in the top 25 school districts within the Chicagoland area. On top of that, we identified the towns serviced by rail and major interstates into Chicago. If the town answered all three questions as “yes,” then that’s where we focused our next subdivision. APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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RIGHT: William Ryan Homes has found that homeowners want interiors that are open and designed to accommodate the hectic lives many families now lead.

What are you doing today to adjust to market conditions? DB: Six or seven years ago everyone was out there looking for the next piece of farmland to convert into a 200- to 500unit subdivision. Our major competition these days really is not other builders; it’s short sales and foreclosures. If people can get a really nice house closer into the city, why should they drive all the way out to the farmland? In response to this, we have started a new process called the Custom Collection. We took our 13 most popular floor plans that we build in that outer ring of Chicagoland and decided we could take those homes and drop them in, in teardown locations or vacant lots in the inner ring of Chicagoland. We can get homebuyers a home closer, at a price they wouldn’t get from a custom builder—hence the mantra “custom homes without the custom price.” What green building features are you incorporating in your homes? DB: Bottom line of the surveys I did on green building— people were willing to make a buying decision or willing to pay a better dollar for a home that saves them money now, a home that saves them money in the future, or a home that improved their air quality. We took that information using our mantra of “customer-driven design” and went to things like a 93 percentefficient furnace, programmable thermostats, a MERV air filter for air quality, direct vent water heaters, bath timers in our bathrooms for fans and lights, vented range hoods and microwaves, sealed can lights, passive radon vents in all our basements, R20 exterior wall insulation, R50 in the attic, and low-E windows. We decided [that] rather than make a cheaper home to stay competitive, we would improve the way people live by adding features that customers are looking for at the same price. gb&d 138

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PHOTO: Bernstein Associates Photographers

LEFT: Though the entire core of 200 Fifth Avenue was renovated into a LEED Gold, modern, Class A office building, the public only saw the restoration of the limestone façade. Inside, a new 14-story curtainwall provides natural daylight to 75% of the working spaces and outside views for 90% of the tenants.

/work

by Lynn Russo Whylly

200 fifth avenue

breaking tradition In 2010, Structure Tone gave a 100-year-old Flatiron District building a modern makeover. Today it’s the oldest LEEDCS Gold-certified building in the city and one of the hottest properties in Manhattan. gbdmagazine.com

On the corner of Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, there sits a 100-year-old, 15-story building that overlooks Madison Square Park. Rich in history but lacking modern amenities, the International Toy Center—named for its origination as the showroom of popular toy manufacturers—was in dire need of an upgrade. Owner L&L Holding Company hired Structure Tone, a $2.5 billion New York-based construction company, to develop the building into a Class A office property. Fourteen months in the making, the entire project succeeded in earning LEED-CS Gold certification, making it the oldest building in New York to achieve the designation. Today, it’s one of the hottest properties in Manhattan. The restoration included replacement of all mechanical systems, including HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and elevators; façade restoration, including cleaning and repairing of cracks and fissures in the parapets and limestone; installation of a new glass curtain-wall system; and the conversion of the neglected central courtyard into a landscaped, light-filled amenity for the building. The west end of the courtyard was filled in at three levels, creating a large column-free gathering space on each floor. A 14-story curtain wall captured additional floor area at each elevator core, resulting in improved circulation and 31,000 square feet of rentable real estate. More than 1,200 windows were replaced with thermally efficient windows that matched the historic sash. The lobby was updated, a deck was built on the roof, and 17 elevators were either installed or refurbished. Overall, the renovation provided more natural daylight, better air circulation, and increased energy efficiency, making the building more competitive in the commercial real estate market. Structure Tone reused 95 percent of the existing structure and diverted 85 percent of the construction material—including drywall, wire, steel, aluminum, glass, concrete, and tile—from landfills. They also used eco-friendly detergents to clean the façade. Because it’s a historic-district building, much of the work on it had to be preapproved by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. In addition, since the first floor was occupied by a restaurant and retailers, the life-safety system had to be maintained and a sidewalk bridge and means of egress had to be built outside APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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Structure Tone structural engineer Thornton Tomasetti

location Manhattan, NY

MEP engineer FMC Associates

size 850,000 square feet

general contractor Structure Tone

originally built 1909

landscape architect Landworks Studio

renovated 2010

LEED consultant CodeGreen

owner L&L Holding Company, LLC

green features Six-cell Marley cooling tower, rooftop rainwater-capture system, white concrete roof, and energy-efficient appliances from Royal Rose

architect STUDIOS Architecture

to provide safety for both tenants and pedestrians. The project began with the addition of five new Con Edison electrical-service vaults. Switchboards, buss-duct risers, and the new electrical system were installed by Egg Electric. Together, the new electrical service and the new equipment upgraded the building from residential to highvoltage capacity. A 3,200-ton, six-cell Marley cooling tower was installed on the roof. The Landmarks Preservation Commission had stringent requirements for the sightlines of the building from different vantage points, and the equipment could not extend above the existing parapets; the Marley system met the requirements. “The mechanical systems are designed to operate 15 percent more efficiently than the stringent ASHRAE requirements,” says John Travers, senior vice president of Structure Tone, who notes that 85 percent of the base-building-core electricity is offset with renewable energy and resultingly received approval from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. A rooftop rainwater-capture system supplies all the water for courtyard plantings and reduces potable water needs for maintenance and irrigation by 70 percent. In addition, a highly reflective white-concrete roof reduces the heat-island effect. Concreteworks also provided custom-designed sinks for the bathrooms, which exceed water efficiency requirements by more than 20 percent. Energy-efficient appliances were installed for select tenants by Royal Rose. On the lower floors, the floor space was expanded with a tiered atrium for private-event space on behalf of the anchor tenant. Genetech Building Systems installed a fullheight glass curtain-wall system on a portion of the façade and the new atrium. The landscaping of the central courtyard extends to the setbacks at the upper floors, bringing light and views of plantings to occupants at all levels of the building. In the 6,000-square-foot, three-story lobby, a low-iron, structural glazed curtain wall was installed by AVAL. “We used a specialty glass to create a glazed 142

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PHOTOS: Bernstein Associates Photographers

name 200 Fifth Avenue

TOP: Located in a historic district, the renovation to the existing building could not change the façade or interrupt the site lines of the adjacent properties. The mechanical upgrades required a new six-cell cooling tower and steel dunage be installed on the roof, which had to be hidden by the existing parapets from the Madison Square Park views. BOTTOM: The 100 year old building was transformed into a premier office building with the latest technology and Building Management System to optimize operations and energy efficiency.

façade,” Travers says. “The panes were very large—over 5,000 pounds—but they were chosen because they were energy-efficient and have an anti-reflective coating that maximizes transparency.” A new fire command center and life-safety system from Fire Systems Inc. was installed at the main desk, which ties into control systems on each floor to oversee all the elevators, smoke detectors, and building speakers. Custom millwork, terrazzo floors, 250 custom LED fixtures, and two new reception desks complete the area. In the historic, double-height exterior vestibule, the original vaulted limestone ceiling, terra-cotta walls, and period fixtures were restored, and Concreteworks transformed the abandoned courtyard off the lobby into a landscaped outdoor gathering area. With a total of 35 LEED points—including the maximum for innovation—the renovation of 200 Fifth Avenue earned LEED Gold certification under Core & Shell v2.0 and received numerous awards in 2011 alone, including the Pinnacle Award for Best Renovated Building by BOMA/NY, the Interiors Award for Adaptive Reuse from Contract Magazine, and an International Property Award for Office Architecture. gb&d gbdmagazine.com

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spaces/ work ALL PHOTOS: Mark Lamkin

Conover Multimodal Center

from factory to transit hub An expert in adaptive reuse, Tise-Kiester Architects takes a rundown furniture factory and makes it into a sustainable multiuse center for Conover, North Carolina

by Zipporah Porton

THIS PAGE: Now the Conover Multimodal Center, this building in Conover, NC, was once a factory for the Warlong Glove Company and later for Conover Furniture. Tise-Kiester Architects led the design team for the adaptive reuse, which includes a reading room, offices for the regional bus company, and community space. 144

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It was a natural for the city of Conover, North Carolina, to look to Tise-Kiester Architects (TKA) when creating the Conover Multimodal Center. The architecture firm has focused on adaptive reuse since its inception in 1987. “The adaptive-reuse projects are, and have been attractive to the firm on a number of levels,” says Phil Kiester, co-owner of TKA. “They secure a significant piece of local history for future generations, generate revenue for the immediate community, and they are inherently sustainable due to the reuse of existing facilities.” Formerly known as D.O. Tise Architects with Don Tise at the helm, the company shifted gears when Kiester came on board as an architect in 1991. Over the next three years Tise and Kiester developed the business, and Kiester became an equal partner in 1995. Though always interested in sustainability, the focus has increased for TKA in the past 10 years. Additionally, Robyn W. Heeks, LEED AP BD+C, has taken the lead in developing new sustainable strategies for the firm. On every project, from churches to commercial buildings to homes, TKA takes advantage of any opportunity to include sustainable features. “Our goal of sustainability begins with site selection and building siting and extends to product selections and finishes,” Kiester says.As an extension of that goal, TKA’s Chapel Hill office is located on the top floor of a former mattress factory built in 1923. “Being downtown in a historic building allows us to put resources back into the local community while also reinforcing the local, historic built environment,” Kiester says. gbdmagazine.com

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Tise-Kiester Architects

support the addition of a green roof in the future, further connecting the Multimodal Center to the landscape,” Kiester says. Other features include new windows and high-efficiency HVAC equipment that will help the building achieve nearly 30 percent greater efficiency than required by code. Because of the emphasis on water efficiency, the building will use 35 percent less water than a comparable facility, and both original and local building materials were used. Though sustainability is a factor in every project TiseKiester Architects completes, the firm does not lose sight of the client. This has led to years of success. “Many architects provide a high level of service, and many include sustainability in their discussions with their owners,” Kiester says. “We try to provide a high level of design service at a reasonable price and [to] treat everyone with an appropriate level of respect.” gb&d

ABOVE: The interior of the Conover Multimodal Center is rife with materials left over from the existing structure. In addition, the building will use 35% less water and 30% less energy than comparable facilities.

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Integrated Energy Services LLC

For the Multimodal Center, TKA was officially brought on through its brownfield consultant, and the firm worked with the city to develop a master plan for the site and repurposing of the building. Previously a factory belonging to the Warlong Glove Company and later to Conover Furniture, the center now serves as the main stop between Charlotte and Asheville on the Western NC Rail, currently in development. Completed in November 2011, the project includes a reading room / lending library on the upper level, offices for the regional bus company on the main level, and dedicated community space on the lower level. Aside from bringing its adaptive-reuse skills to the table and encouraging the use of public transportation, TKA concentrated on incorporating specific features to help the center earn LEED Gold certification. Siting and orientation were central focuses, including for a circulation core that was designed to engage the landscape by facing a future public park. “An observation deck overlooks the park, and an adjacent roof’s structure has been augmented to gbdmagazine.com

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spaces/ work LEFT: For the Panama Pacifico Visitor’s Center, Simpson Furones International specified recycled-content carpet, FSC-certified wood, solar window shades, and cork ceilings. BELOW: The Visitor’s Center is just one small part of Panama Pacifico, a large-scale mixeduse community that will occupy 3,500 acres southwest of Panama City, on the site of the former Howard US Air Force Base.

Panama Pacifico Visitor’s Center

paving the way in panama As one of the few environmentally minded design firms working out of Panama, Simpson Furones International uses a new project to bring sustainability to local developments by Tina Vasquez

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ALL PHOTOS: Bobby Pereira

In 2005, Jennifer Simpson and Keith Furones, founders of sustainable-design firm Simpson Furones International, were considering taking on projects outside of the United States. When the pair made their way to Panama for a potential project, they thought it was the best place for Americans to work outside of America. So, they transplanted their Boulder, Colorado, headquarters and, as Simpson puts it, put all their “eggs in the Panama basket.” Coincidentally, the marketing director of a development called Panama Pacifico was also from Colorado and familiar with Simpson Furones’s track record for handling large commercial projects quickly and on budget. More importantly, the firm’s expertise in green building made it a rarity in Panama. Simpson Furones was thus entrusted with the task of designing the Panama Pacifico Visitor’s Center, which had to be both inviting and green. The project held its grand opening April 2010, and Simpson recently told gb&d what the project required.

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Simpson Furones International

When the clock is ticking, pick up the tool belt. For the Panama Pacifico project Keith Furones, a master carpenter since age 18, built the reception desk, the ceiling detail, and model bases himself.

“We basically did everything we could to provide a beautiful, functional, energy and resourceefficient project as quickly as possible and within budget.” —Jennifer Simpson, Cofounder

Race the Clock The visitor’s center was a small job compared to projects Simpson and Furones had handled in the past, but the true challenge was completing it in a short time frame—five months to be exact. Simpson and Furones had to redesign the space and lighting plans and make changes to the HVAC system. Shipping times for certain products also had to be factored in. Panama is an international shipping hub rather than a manufacturing center, so many of the project’s materials had to be shipped in from the United States. Much had to be done in a short amount of time, including custom casework. Furones grew up in the construction industry and, according to Simpson, developed master carpentry skills at age 18. “To help the project stay on schedule, Keith stowed the business attire and strapped on a tool belt, building the reception desk, the arched ceiling detail, the base for the master model, and five residential model bases,” Simpson says. Maintain Flexibility and Functionality The visitor’s center had to be a lot of things to a lot of people. Panama Pacifico will ultimately have 20,000 residences and millions of square feet of commercial and industrial space, so Simpson and Furones had to be flexible in how the structure would function. “We wanted to create a world-class center that would appeal to multiple cultures and nationalities,” Simpson says. “Since the visitor’s center is where all aspects of the project are showcased to generate commercial and residential sales, our work needed to serve to complement rather than compete with the marketing displays.”

sustainability and life-cycle costing are new concepts to many there, but it didn’t stop her and Furones from trying to incorporate as many green features as possible, including solar window shades, recycled-content carpet, no-VOC carpet adhesives and paint, on-demand lighting controls, FSC woods, cork ceilings, and furniture from companies with environmentally friendly manufacturing practices. “Reducing the thermal load was crucial in a tropical environment,” Simpson says. “Acoustics were vital so [that]multiple guided tours could take place concurrently. Good indoor air quality was important. And we wanted to have as many products as possible that would enhance the green story of Panama Pacifico. We basically did everything we could to provide a beautiful, functional, energyand resource-efficient project as quickly as possible and within budget.” gb&d

A MESSAGE FROM COAST ECO TIMBER CoastEcoTimber specializes in sustainable forestry practices through the supply of rescued and reclaimed timbers from the coasts of BC and the underwater jungles in the Panama Canal. It is FSC- and Rainforest Alliance-certified. It provides clients with a full range of hand-selected products, including exotic hardwoods, slabs, boards, timbers, cants, cutstock, components, pallet stock, thick live-edged slab products, decking, flooring, veneer products, and more.

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Educate the Area About Green An unforeseen challenge of the Panama Pacifico job was educating those in the area about why green products and technologies are so important. Simpson says gbdmagazine.com

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BELOW: Seven Directions offers housing and healthcare to Native Americans in and around Oakland, CA. Designed by Pyatok Architects, the building draws from Puebloan culture through its incorporation of a traditional kiva—a circular ceremonial area—as well as a stylized eagle feather and a mosaicclad column.

Seven Directions

taking cues from native culture In the East Bay, healthcare and affordable housing for Native Americans are under one roof in a green, community-centric building designed by Pyatok Architects

by Russ Klettke

They refer to themselves as “urban Indians,” 12,000 Native Americans from approximately 70 tribes who now call the East Bay—Oakland, California, and the surrounding area—home. Geographically dispersed, many now converge at the Seven Directions Native American Health Center for medical and dental care. The center is a joint venture between the Native American Health Center and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation. It sits on just two-thirds of an acre, which offered no small challenge to Pyatok Architects, an Oakland firm with an extensive body of work in multiunit housing. The 70,000-square-foot, five-story facility includes the clinic, a 45-car garage, 36 affordable apartment units, a community room, and laundry facilities. Remarkably, the limited footprint of the building still includes two courtyards, one of which holds a dirt-floor circle known as a kiva. A ceremonial place within Puebloan culture, a kiva is traditionally used for ritual dance and encircled by seating that (at the health center) otherwise allows contemplation and communal exchange. The kiva is a common element in Native American culture and one of seven circular symbols referenced by the name Seven Directions. The seven directions—north, south, east, west, up, down, and the inner path—are further represented by three circular waiting and reception rooms, a medicine wheel etched and stained in the concrete floor, a round window, and a medicine wheel attached to a stylized steel eagle’s feather on the exterior. Additional symbolism is found in the building’s wooden totems and glyphs and on a mosaic-clad column. The kiva is itself dirt on the ground level, and it’s surrounded by a rock-plant wall. “The kiva should be connected to nature and the Earth,” principal Michael Pyatok says. “It’s a gathering place where people from the community come together to discuss their problems and how they can solve them collectively. A strong community is the foundation for a healthy individual.” 148

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ALL PHOTOS: Bruce Frank Domin

Pyatok Architects LEFT: Located in the clinic courtyard, the “talking circle” at Seven Directions draws from Native American culture and offers residents a communal outdoor space.

name Seven Directions

architect Pyatok Architects

location Oakland, CA

general contractor Oliver & Company

completed 2008

green features Energy Star appliances, low-E windows, locally sourced building materials with recycled content, and stepped massing, which maintains solar access for neighboring buildings

size 70,000 square feet units 36

The Orchards on Foothill, a 50,000-square-foot, 65-unit senior-housing project set on a half acre, also in Oakland, is another such project from Pyatok. The densely built facility employs heavy timber brackets to evoke a contemporary Arts and Crafts façade motif common to the neighborhood and familiar to its senior residents. About half the units enjoy east and west exposures while trellises and pilasters at the street-front arcade lead the eye to a distinct roofline cornice. “The crowning cornice ennobles the building and crowns the seniors in recognition of their life’s accomplishments,” Pyatok says. In a similar vein of contextualism, Pyatok’s design for the Fox Court Apartments, in Oakland’s Art Deco Uptown neighborhood, provides a modern, green, and affordable interpretation of the new and historic structures that surround it. Eighty units of residences, within 134,000 square feet, accommodate families and individuals. Art Decostyle bands of tiles on the Fox Court exterior refer to ethnic themes that include flying salmon, fox, and elephants; Japanese gardens; woven baskets; and roses. It’s a lively, diverse aesthetic, consistent with how Pyatok Architects unfailingly honors urban cultures and the people it helps house. gb&d

NISHKIAN MENNINGER

CONSULTING & STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS SINCE 1919

developers Native American Health Center, East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation

The building reduces stress on the environment as well. It exceeded California’s Title 24 standards for sustainable construction by 20 percent with Energy Star appliances, low-E windows, and locally sourced building materials with recycled content. Stepped massing allowed the client to establish friendly relations with the neighbors by not blocking solar access. Nishkian Menninger Engineers served as the structural engineer, which it has done for several Pyatok projects, particularly those with a mix of wood and concrete. The architects themselves are experienced in contextually compatible architecture and have an extensive portfolio of award-winning urban-infill projects. They routinely engage communities in early-planning charettes to earn the support of the neighborhood. gbdmagazine.com

FOX COURTS- Oakland, California

SEVEN DIRECTIONS- Oakland, California

CONGRATULATIONS TO PYATOK ARCHITECTS!!

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Mt. Sinai Pediatric and Neonatal ICUs

breaking ground on a healing hospital New York City contractor Vanguard Construction is targeting LEED Gold in its renovation within a fully operational Mount Sinai Medical Center

ABOVE: A rendering of Mt. Sinai’s new pediatric and neonatal ICUs illustrates how the medical facilities will function after the difficult construction work is complete. Vanguard Construction is currently completing the renovation while the hospital remains open. 150

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by Scott Heskes

Joe Tursi knew that Mount Sinai Medical Center’s latest building project meant embarking on a new journey. The hospital project operations manager knew that there would be the normal challenges inherent in creating new pediatric and neonatal intensive care units (PICU/NICU) in the heart of New York City while keeping the rest of the hospital fully operational. But there would be new challenges as well, including LEED certification, a challenge for a facility as energy-intensive as a hospital. “It was one of our oldest buildings on the campus, and it had a poor infrastructure,” Tursi says of the 1950s building. “One of the other difficulties was working in a confined space.” The two-floor, 9,000-square-foot renovation is sandwiched midspan in an eight-story mid-rise—at the center of all of the hospital’s activities. Now well on its way to LEED Gold certification, the project is also part of a larger concept for the future planning of the hospital, envisioned by architect Perkins+Will and general contractor Vanguard Construction. Michael Strauss, president and founder of Vanguard, gives credit to the highly synergetic collaboration between the two companies. “Robin Guenther and Peter Syrett of Perkins+Will —both well regarded in their work on sustainable hospital design—were instrumental in helping Mount Sinai reach the decision to go LEED-certified,” he says. gbdmagazine.com

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Vanguard Construction The concept of a healing hospital was foundational for the project team, which was faced with improving systems without disrupting the activities of the facility. “It is a fully operational children’s hospital, and we are interacting during construction with the floors above and below all the time,” Vanguard project manager Kevin Cslzmar says. “The PICU/NICU floors were completely stripped of their existing interiors, and we are rerouting all of the mechanical systems.” Working with Rockmor Electric for electrical systems, the new wing Vanguard is building will consist of 15 patient PICU/NICU rooms and will include new administrative offices. “This is the second renovation ever to happen on these floors,” Cslzmar says. “Because it’s a hospital, the infection-control standards are extremely high. And when you are dealing with children, the tolerances have to be very well managed.” HEPA filters and tacking mats are used throughout to control airborne particulates, and plastic encasements are used as barriers from the construction work or whenever ceilings are accessed on other floors. To keep the active patient areas free of construction dust, negative air pressure is circulated through the mechanical systems. “A lot of work has to been done at off hours and on overtime to minimize the disturbance and keep the important work of the … staff, patients, and family members as free of disruption as possible,” Cslzmar says.

As a whole, the project is entirely PVC-free, from the flooring to the LightLouver window treatments, and wood products are all formaldehyde-free. “We are achieving additional credits for being within 100 miles for a lot of our products—like the doors and carpet are local,” Cslzmar says. “On the third floor, inside the patient wing, we are designing a light shelf reflecting the natural sunlight back into the ceiling to provide more daylight and using less electricity.” Vanguard president Strauss adds that new low-E windows are being installed on all exterior walls. “Because the perimeter wings are long and rectangular with windows on both sides, and [because] all the corridor walls are glazed, there is a lot of daylight that comes into the space,” he says. Manche Mitchell, Perkins+Will’s project manager for the new hospital spaces, says that hospital design remains a challenge but that significant progress is being made. “Since hospitals are the second largest consumers of energy by building type, this remains a big challenge,” Mitchell says. “We as a firm look to projects in Europe for inspiration, where the energy-use intensity [kBtu/square feet] is significantly lower. Reducing water use is another challenge within the medical environment. However, this too is beginning to be chipped away at as we are seeing less once-through cooling and other water-intensive equipment use in hospitals.” gb&d

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1042 39th Street • Brooklyn, New York 11219 office 718-633-3700 • fax 718-438-5882 • email mrostowsky@rockmor.com

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PHOTO: Robert Pettus, Robert Pettus Photography

Somewhere between the art of architecture and the complexity of science rests the breathtaking work of ...

Ra n d y B u r k e t t Lighting Design

by Thalia A-M Bruehl

In 2001, Randy Burkett was asked to light his city’s most spectacular and architecturally dynamic feature: the St. Louis Arch. Now the Midwestern icon is bathed in white light every night through a system of floodlights and 44 lighting fixtures situated in four pits just below ground level. To this day, it is easily one of the most recognizable American landmarks and the most visible project in Burkett’s portfolio. “Looking back on that project, the thing I feel is most successful about it is the way light and architecture can become one,” Burkett says. “You really just say, ‘look at this piece of art.’” > gbdmagazine.com

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Randy Burkett Lighting Design Blending Art and Science

Since its founding in 1988, Randy Burkett Lighting Design has focused on projects such as the Arch—architecturally rich work that allows the team to focus on their interminable goal: blending art and science. “I could never decide whether I wanted to be an architect or an engineer, so ultimately I found lighting design, and with that I could straddle the fence,” says Burkett, who received a degree in architectural engineering from Penn State. “In lighting, I could be an artist one moment and a nerd the next.” With four other employees and senior designer Ron Kurtz, Burkett works on an average of 20–30 projects a year ranging from retail to hospitality and including some as extravagant as the Pulitzer Foundation of the Arts, designed by Tadao Ando. “Working with a world-class client and a Pritzker Prize-winning architect on the Pulitzer project allowed us to do what we do best—place an incredible focus on celebrating art and architecture as one,” Kurtz says. “We strive to make them inseparable for every project.”

“ Wo rkin g with a world c l a ss c lie nt an d a Pritzke r Prize-win n in g arc h itect on th e Pu litze r proj ect allowe d us to do what we do best— pl ac e an inc re dible fo cus o n c e le br atin g art an d arc h itectu re a s on e .” —Ron Kurtz, Associate & Senior Lighting Designer

PHOTOS: Robert Pettus, Robert Pettus Photography

PULITZER FOUNDATION. Lighting the stark concrete forms that make up Tadao Ando’s design for the Pulitzer Foundation of the Arts required a deft touch. Fortunately, that’s one thing Randy Burkett and his team have. His final lighting design is masterfully subtle in order to showcase the art and architecture.

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CITYGARDEN. The sculpture of Eros was just one of the installations that inspired Randy Burkett and Ron Kurtz as they lit St. Louis’s CityGarden. The art was mostly lit with Philips Lighting’s ceramic metal-halide sources while B-K Lighting’s optical-control luminaires were employed for the café.

PHOTOS: Debbie Franke, Debbie Franke Photography

I n a Ga r d e n o f t h e G o d s

The firm’s recent work on St. Louis’s CityGarden is a reflection of this distinctive design philosophy as well. It also showcases the firm’s evergrowing interest in sustainable techniques. Completed in 2010, CityGarden is a bold public space that spans two city blocks and offers the city a large park, a café, and a world-class collection of artwork including a giant bronze sculpture of Eros by Polish artist Igor Mitoraj. The art inspired both Burkett and Kurtz from the beginning. “The goal of the project was not just to create a place to display art but to create a park that would be engaging to those in the city, to those who work there, and [to] the larger population as well,” says Kurtz, who served as project manager. “It also had to have a life both by day and by night.” To create the desired effects, Philips Lighting’s ceramic metal-halide sources were used for most of the artwork in an effort to make the colors as true and as vivid as possible. B-K Lighting’s small, precise, optical-control luminaires and other products also aided the design firm in lighting the environmentally conscious café. “We needed good light control in order to keep things sustainable,” Burkett says. “On a project like this, it’s not just about energy savings; [it’s about] controlling glare and spillover. There are layers of controls that turn on and off certain aspects of the park at different times.” gbdmagazine.com

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Randy Burkett Lighting Design T h e Eff e c t s o f t h e D i g i t a l R e v o l u t i o n

Since Burkett opened the firm more than 20 years ago, there has been a dramatic shift in the way lighting is integrated into a project, the greatest acceleration in that change taking place in just the past five to six years. The emergence of electronic and digital technologies has made it possible for Burkett and other firms to work faster, more effectively, more efficiently, and—in some cases—less expensively. “In recent years, the lighting and lighting-control industries have assumed a completely new technological-growth curve, fueled almost completely by the digital revolution,” Burkett says. “Ultimately, it’s about the applications of technology, and that’s where we can start working green. You can employ the latest devices, lighting controls, and other technology-driven equipment and still not truly embrace sustainable practices. Understanding and employing the most appropriate technology to solve the lighting challenge often leads to the most environmentally conscious solution.” This was certainly true for the firm’s 1999 K Street project, a 12-story LEED Silver structure designed by Chicago architect Helmut Jahn. The firm’s work on the project, including on the backlit lobby ceiling and walls, used LED technologies to their fullest, turning the science of lighting into a true work of art.

B e n e a t h t h e F l o o r s o f M e r c h a n d i s e Ma r t

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ALL PHOTOS: Craig Dugan, Hedrick Blessing

Burkett and Kurtz’s fascination with sustainable lighting has been present in their firm’s practice for more than a decade. In 2006 the designers were responsible for lighting one of the first LEED-CI showrooms in the United States: the Haworth Showroom at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. The groundbreaking interior was not only an opportunity to show off the company’s green lighting techniques but also a chance to once again work with Perkins+Will, a firm that Burkett had collaborated with for the Crate and Barrel headquarters a few years before. “When the firm called and asked if we’d be interested in working with them again while adding a LEED Gold certification to our portfolio, we jumped at the chance,” Burkett says. Outside of the standards the firm had to meet to achieve the high level of LEED certification, the showroom’s design required some additional technically challenging work. “There are actually displays in the floor of the showroom, so we installed special LED lighting to better call attention to these subfloor vitrines,” Burkett says. “The light throughout the showroom changes frequently, drawing your attention to different vignettes both on the floor and in glass displays. We hoped this would add a sense of dynamic design.” These impressive and narrative lighting effects were highlighted by 20-watt low-voltage flush-to-floor accent lights and strategically positioned adjustable MR16 accent lights. gbdmagazine.com

Randy Burkett Lighting Design

MERCHANDISE MART. One of the first LEED-CI showrooms in the United States, the Haworth Showroom in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart includes subfloor displays, so Randy Burkett used special LEDs to draw visitors’ eyes down toward the floor.

“Yann Kersalé, a well-known French artist, was hired to turn the lobby into a piece of light art,” Burkett says. “The idea was to elicit the feeling of coming into an organic, forest-like lobby. What a rare thing in the middle of 20th and K Streets in Washington, DC.” The ceiling and walls, which are all light systems, are meant to feel like one continuous luminous component that is never stagnant and always vibrant. “Each 5’ x 5’ glass panel has a printed-film-back applied—all done in France,” he says. “Each panel is different in a subtle way. Overall, it’s a large, evolving mural, so the lighting couldn’t be the same either.” Philips Lighting provided a color-changing LED system, which, along with a base fluorescent system, is dimmed continuously and dynamically during the day, when there is ample sunlight, and at night—as well as when the building is not in use. “The client always wanted to reach for LEED,” Burkett says, “so the energy component was important from the beginning.”

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D i ff e r e n t S t r a t e g i e s f o r D i ff e r e n t S p a c e s

For each project, no matter how simple or how technological, the lighting design comes from a place of understanding. “We focus on understanding lighting’s role in the built environment,” Kurtz says, “including how it influences those who must interact with it.” Whether at CityGarden, the Utah State Capitol, or its recent high-profile office project for a leading global software developer, Burkett, Kurtz, and the rest of the team bring this understanding, their extensive knowledge, and the best lighting systems to every job. For Burkett, each of these new projects is a chance to explore lighting with a fresh eye—and to explore his opposing fixations with art and science. “At the firm, we thrive on being able to see how different lighting changes a space, including one’s perceptions of it,” Burkett says. “But at the end of the day, lighting design should always serve as an artistic expression of how the space should feel. Art and science are always included in our projects; it’s just a matter of which one gets weighted the most.” gb&d APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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www.bklighting.com

Philips Color Kinetics congratulates Randy Burkett Lighting Design on another successful implementation of innovative and sustainable lighting solutions.

Philips Color Kinetics is pleased to be the provider of iColor Cove MX Powercore, the high intensity LED lighting solution featured in the 1999 K St. NW project. Visit www.philipscolorkinetics.com for more information on this and other LED lighting solutions including interior and exterior cove, wash, graze, and floodlights for both white-light and dynamic, full-color applications.

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www.bkssl.com

A MESSAGE FROM LIGHTING SERVICES INC Lighting Services Inc is honored to have worked with Randy Burkett Lighting Design, Inc. on many projects throughout the years. Lighting Services Inc (LSI) is the premier manufacturer of Track, Accent, Display and LED Lighting Systems. Since 1958, LSI has been dedicated to designing, engineering, and manufacturing the highest quality lighting systems. Our reputation for creativity, innovative design, and leading technology, coupled with specification grade products and intelligent personalized service, has made us the manufacturer of choice among the most discriminating specifiers of lighting. It is the appreciation, respect, and continued support of our clients that we use to measure our success. www.LightingServicesInc.com

A MESSAGE FROM PHILIPS LIGHTING Philips Color Kinetics congratulates Randy Burkett Lighting Design on their 1999 K St. NW project, another successful implementation of innovative and sustainable LED lighting solutions. Visit www.philipscolorkinetics.com for information on LED lighting solutions including interior and exterior cove, wash, graze, and floodlights for both white-light and dynamic, full-color applications.

A MESSAGE FROM B-K LIGHTING B-K Lighting is dedicated to providing the lighting industry with the highest quality, most innovative and fairly priced outdoor and indoor lighting fixtures. With a long history of supporting green manufacturing, members of the USGBC (United States Green Building Council) and IDA (International Dark Sky Association) we lead our industry in providing Earth-friendly designs and manufacturing concepts.

solutions Cost is a four-letter word for compromise —especially in the language of historic preservation, which architect Ellen Stoner speaks fluently. As principal of AltusWorks, a Chicago-based firm that specializes in the restoration, adaptive reuse, rehabilitation, and expansion of existing and historic structures, she’s used to balancing design with dollar signs. When the owner of a downtown Chicago office building decided to renovate a historic Louis Sullivan storefront, he turned to AltusWorks to find an elegant solution that paid tribute to the original design—without the cost of fully restoring it.

Backgrounder/ Located in Chicago’s central business district at 18, 24, and 30 S. Michigan Ave., the Gage Group Buildings are a trio of buildings designed for three hat-making companies in the late 19th century by Holabird & Roche. Situated across the street from Millennium Park, the tallest of the buildings is 18 S. Michigan, known previously as the Gage Brothers and Company Building. Twelve stories high, it was built in 1899 and featured an ornamental façade designed by famed Chicago architect Louis Sullivan, who also designed a cast-iron storefront on the building’s ground floor. Because it had fallen into disrepair, the storefront was removed in the 1950s and subsequently replaced by a modern granite surround with a recessed glass storefront. “In 2005, the owner embarked on a comprehensive condo-conversion of the building,” says Stoner, who founded AltusWorks in 2003 and now oversees a team of eight architects. “As the owner was looking at the building, he really wanted to make it look more appropriate to how it originally was designed. Unfortunately, he had done previous studies about recreating the original storefront and found it was cost-prohibitive.”

Challenge/ AltusWorks was asked to renovate the Louis Sullivan storefront in a way that honored Sullivan’s original design without the expense of restoring it. ABOVE: The Gage Brothers Building façade stripped down. BELOW: A diagram of the structural system designed to support the new cast aluminum surround and curtainwall glazing system.

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Solution/ AltusWorks began by conducting a feasibility study on behalf of the building owner. “Because recreation was cost-prohibitive, we needed to understand what the other options were that fit within the budget but would still meet the design intent of the late 1800s,” Stoner says. Ultimately, the client chose a stripped-down approach: Although Louis Sullivan was famous for his ornamental designs—elaborate embellishments in the form of tangled scrolls and floral motifs— AltusWorks proposed stripping the storefront APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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AltusWorks biggest challenge wasn’t assembly, however. It was design, which required a great deal of research at local museums, studying historical remnants and photos for the purpose of learning, understanding, and respecting Sullivan’s approach and aesthetic.

RIGHT: The final result of AltusWorks’s extensive study of Louis Sullivan’s original Gage Brothers Building storefront.

of its Sullivan-esque details and instead honoring them with the base geometry underlying the original design. “We looked at three different design solutions in varying price ranges and with different levels of detail,” Stoner says. “Ultimately, the design we chose deconstructed the Louis Sullivan design back to the basic geometric forms he used as a basis. We stripped off all the ornament, which he is really known for, and found the squares, rectangles, circles, and different radii that he’d used to construct the storefront. The client opted to strip that back even further, and we ultimately went for a base panel structure that recreated the storefront’s original proportion of scales.” One reason for replacing the original storefront in the 1950s, Stoner hypothesizes, was corrosion. “Sullivan storefronts are difficult to maintain due to the three-dimensional nature of the detailing,” she says. “Water had many places to sit and corrode the system, creating pathways behind the panels, which further contributed to the deterioration and compromised the anchorage system.” To avoid recreating the storefront’s original problems, AltusWorks looked carefully at different material choices. Instead of cast iron, like the original, it ultimately chose locally sourced cast aluminum, which is more sustainable—aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust and can be infinitely recycled without degradation of properties—and also more resilient thanks to its natural corrosion resistance. “We ended up with cast aluminum for many reasons: its cost, its thermal properties, its movement, its durability, its ability to take paint, and its ability to sustain the Chicago weather, including the extremes of heat and cold and 160

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also the large amount of salt they get being on Michigan Avenue,” Stoner says. AltusWorks collaborated with a storefront fabricator to design and assemble the storefront. “He basically designed the armament, which supported the aluminum panels,” Stoner says. “He knew all the thermal characteristics of aluminum and how to attach them to the armament while still maintaining a watertight skin at the structural level.” The

“To have the opportunity to work on such a prominent element designed by Louis Sullivan is a great honor,” says Stoner, who had to receive design approval from two preservation organizations: Landmarks Illinois, which holds a façade easement on the property, and the City of Chicago’s Commission on Landmarks, which must approve all designs within Chicago’s Historic Michigan Avenue Boulevard District, where the Gage Group Buildings are located. “We wanted to be very sensitive. We were very careful not to impose our design, or our signature on his building. We wanted to respect his design intent so that if someone were looking at the building they’d say, ‘Oh yeah, I see that’s a Louis Sullivan component,’ although it’s not the original piece.” —Matt Alderton

SPECIALTIES • COST MANAGEMENT • COST ESTIMATING • SCHEDULING • VALUE ENGINEERING • CHANGE ORDER ANALYSIS • DISPUTE RESOLUTION AND SUPPORT

Contact Clive Bransby, Principal cbransby@ccsos.com (800) 443-8607 www.ccsos.com

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PHOTOS: Wyatt Gallery

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LEFT: The undulating aluminum sunscreen on Wykagyl Shopping Center’s new upper level. ABOVE: A view showing the building’s extensive use of aluminum.

Backgrounder/

In commercial real estate, budgets are modest and timing is everything, but New York-based architecture firm Cooper Joseph Studio has always been up to the challenge of such projects, as demonstrated by its work on Wykagyl Shopping Center in New Rochelle, New York. “The client wanted something of our time—well lit and graphically clean—that would give a sense of quality to the location and draw in national tenants,” says Wendy Evans Joseph, who, along with partner Chris Cooper, owns Cooper Joseph Studio. “That’s what we achieved.”

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When Minskoff Grant Realty & Management Corp. (MGR) sought to bring its 25,000-square-foot strip mall, originally constructed in the 1950s, into modern times, the owners asked Cooper Joseph Studio to give the façade a new look. Completed in 2002, that design brought a number of national tenants to the mall and made Cooper Joseph Studio the natural choice when MGR was ready to move forward with a more significant renovation and addition in 2009.

Challenge/ MGR’s goal was to provide substantially more rental space while maintaining the aesthetically pleasing unity of the building. Cooper Joseph Studio was in charge of a comprehensive renovation that included site redesign, a renovation of one end of the building itself, and a two-story addition that added 13,500 square feet to the 25,000-square-foot property. But the look of the shopping center was so precise—and complete in its own right—that the large volume and height of the addition was a significant architectural challenge. APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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Solution/ Cooper Joseph Studio met the challenge by using a limited palette of materials to unify new and existing façade elements. “It’s all about aluminum,” Joseph says. Specifically, the 2002 renovation used one-eighth-inch-thick bands of anodized aluminum bent over brackets and mounted to the original brick façade to create an undulating modern cornice above the front of the shopping center. When Cooper Joseph Studio designed the steel-frame addition, it placed corrugated aluminum panels over the entire building, with a few well-considered areas of undulating panels, similar to the first phase of work. At the same time, the façade was made richer in concept and form by the use of perforated, corrugated aluminum over the front windows, which acts as a sunscreen and shields nighttime office workers from onlookers in the parking lot. “Essentially, we created a system that integrates the aluminum strips, adding an exciting series of new elements to the vocabulary, all while keeping the massing simple,” Joseph says. “The panels also create a more visually appealing interior. Inside, the lobby, fire stairs, and accent walls are saturated in orange, providing warmth against the cool metal.” The signage panels are dynamic elements as well, reflecting the sun’s changes throughout the day. Cooper Joseph Studio’s design choices also made the building more sustainable. The curved shape of the undulating modern cornice gives the façade structural stability, allowing the architects to use very little material. The aluminum building skin is highly reflective, and the building is well insulated, which keeps it cool in summer months and increases its energy efficiency. The undulating aluminum panels have the same effect, keeping the blazing summer sun away from the interior without the use of window shades. Other renovations included a landscaping plan that added more trees—reducing the heat-island effect—and a storm-water-management system. Lighting upgrades are shielded in order to reduce light pollution.In the end, the building was completed on time and on budget. “Stringent value engineering and schedule management were part of an integrated architectural- and engineering-design process,” says Joseph, who notes that ultimately the building achieved its goal. “Rental levels met the owner’s needs while maintaining high occupancy, and the community has an elegant building.” —Julie Schaeffer 162

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THIS PAGE: Wykagyl Shopping Center, before (bottom) and after (top) renovation.

A Leader in commercial Real Estate & Property Management in New York. Minskof f Grant Realty & Management Corp. provides asset Management and direct management for a diversified portfolio of urban and suburban office buildings and retail properties in Manhattan; Queens; Westchester; Connecticut and Detroit. The Minskoff philosophy has been integrated throughout the entire portfolio and the Minskoff name is synonymous with excellence in the field of Commercial Real Estate in New York. Minskoff Grant Realty is led by President and Chief Operating Officer Jean Minskoff Grant and Chief Executive Officer Francis C Grant III. CONTACT US

Minskoff Grant Realty & Management Corp. 55 Church Street, Suite 207 | White Plains, NY 10601 Telephone Fax E-mail Website

914-686-7300 914-686-2583 info@minskoffgrant.com www.minskoffgrant.com

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LEFT, BELOW: Night shots of Qualite’s revolutionary Green Star Series lamps, which employ electronic-ballast technology to conserve substantial amounts of energy.

backgrounder/ Founded in 1983, Qualite has made its name developing high-wattage lighting for indoor and outdoor sports venues and for applications in outdoor security and large-area lighting. The Hillsdale, Michigan-based company produces a range of lights and fixtures that provide optimal lighting, control glare and spill, and help conserve energy and reduce utility costs.

Bright lights can cost big bucks,

and that puts pressure on sports stadiums and arenas that need to keep the games going while sticking to tight budgets. But Qualite Sports Lighting—a specialist in high-wattage lighting—has developed a new way to use electronic-ballast technology to lower energy consumption on even the largest light fixtures. From football fields to soccer stadiums, the company’s new Green Star Series is lighting the way for more 21st-century lighting solutions. gbdmagazine.com

“We’ve been striving for energy efficiency since we started business and well before the more recent energy buzz,” president Nick Page says. “We’ve always tried to couple fixture efficiency with maintenance controls to help keep energy consumption down.” That commitment has led Qualite to be the first company to bring energy-saving electronic-ballast technology to the high-wattage lamp market. Until now, the technology was only available in lower wattages. “We’ve been working on it for more than 15 years,” Page says.

challenge/ It’s no secret that giant light standards at stadiums and arenas consume a lot of energy. “With bulbs from 1,000 to 2,000 watts and many fixtures per field, you can really make the meter spin,” Page says. Occasionally the user will also get hit with peak-time usage charges. So how do you lower the costs but keep the lights burning bright? APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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solution/ Qualite’s new Green Star Series light fixtures utilize a high-wattage electronic-ballast system to generate more lumens per watt. “What you get with electronic ballast is increased lumen output—increased lamp light—but without consuming additional energy,” Page says.

“There are lots of good fixtures out there, but we can replace the ‘engine’ for them.” —Nick Page, President

THIS PAGE: Qualite’s energysaving lumenaires rely on its Green Star Series set-up, which uses electronic-ballast technology . 164

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Put into real numbers, traditional magnetic ballast requires 1,625 watts to drive a 1,500 watt bulb, but electronic ballast can do the same thing with just 1,540 watts. Electronic ballast is nothing new, but the problem has been marrying the technology to high-wattage lamps. “The key is ballast robustness and dissipating the heat. We came up with a unique means of mounting the ballast that allows air flow all the way around it,” Page says. Qualite’s light fixtures have been installed in high school and college sports venues, city parks, minor league baseball stadiums, and professional-soccer facilities. “Most of our Green Star Series sites have been beta sites,” Page says. “We’ve done all the lab tests, and we’re doing the field tests now. We’re trying to keep it manageable so we can address glitches if there are any.” The new Green Star Series light fixtures are dimmable and addressable, which means there is not the energy waste that occurs when traditional lights are used to augment late afternoon and evening sunlight. While lamps depreciate in output as soon as you start them, the Green Star lamps depreciate at a much slower rate. That translates to more uniform, reliable light throughout the lifetime of the lamp. Page says the new lights cost more than traditional lights, and special cabling is required because the ballast is located at the base of the poles for easier maintenance. “But with the energy savings and lower maintenance, the return on investment comes back pretty quickly,” he says. Though new venues are obvious candidates for the Green Star Series light fixtures, existing venues can be upgraded with the new technology. “We’re really going to target the retrofit market,” Page says. “There are lots of good fixtures out there, but we can replace the ‘engine’ for them.” —Jeff Hampton gbdmagazine.com

solutions

backgrounder/ With corporate events being a prime source of revenue for upscale hotels, gaining the business of meeting planners—who increasingly place a high value on a hotel’s green initiatives—is a top priority. “The most visible way for hotels to show [that] they are green is to recycle in public spaces and guest rooms,” T2 Site Amenities president Lori Tilkin says. She and her husband Steve make up a power team at T2, providing a unique line of upscale recycling receptacles to the hospitality industry.

Hotels have a hard time being green. Operating 24 hours a day and catering to guests who have different ideas about sustainability make it difficult to make swift, sweeping changes industry-wide. But innovative companies are emerging, and T2 Site Amenities is among them. T2 offers recycling receptacles more appealing than the ubiquitous blue bins most people might recognize, and many upscale properties, such as the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina, are using the company’s products to up recycling rates and offer meeting planners a greener venue for their events. gbdmagazine.com

Although most hotels have a sustainability statement, oftentimes their initiatives, such as energy and water conservation, green cleaning products, and waste disposal, are invisible to guests. Yet meeting planners and hotel guests alike want and need to see evidence of a hotel’s green efforts.

challenge/

LEFT: An example of T2 Site Amenities’s offerings, which provide hotels a way to recycle without marring their lobbies, guest rooms, and pools.

T2 found that manufacturers were not creating the upscale recycling receptacles that hotels wanted and that recycling was not a core focus for most hospitality distributors. The industry needed a network of manufacturers who understood the needs of the upscale hospitality marketplace. APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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T2 Site Amenities high-end planters and recycling containers. After meeting the owners of Deepstream at a casual furniture show almost three years ago, the Tilkins offered suggestions for making the products appealing to the hospitality industry. The two companies have maintained a lucrative partnership ever since. And the future looks bright for what T2 has to offer, especially as the hospitality industry continues to engage with the green movement more directly. “Our specialty is recycling; it’s what we do,” Steve says. “By focusing on recycling receptacles, we can offer our customers good, sound advice.” —Anita R. Paul

RIGHT: A T2 dual-stream recycling bin in ipe wood at the Ellis Hotel in Atlanta.

solution/ Steve and Lori created that very network and partnered with the manufacturers to create their own line of products made from every sustainable material available. T2 now serves as a distributor or representative for more than 25 North American manufacturers, offering products such as trash/recycling receptacles, benches, planters, pool-towel valets, and bicycle racks.

the hotel wanted to showcase its environmental initiatives to internal audiences so that staff and executives could see and use the products themselves. Some of the products used were manufactured by DeepStream Designs, a Florida-based company that produces handmade,

A MESSAGE FROM DEEP STREAM DESIGNS INC. The Art of Recycling. DeepStream Designs is proud to partner with T2 Site Amenities as a leader in providing hotels and commercial, residential, and government projects with beautiful, sustainable trash and recycling receptacles and modular planters that integrate with your décor. Every order supports Trees for the Future (www.plant-trees.org). Visit www.DeepStreamDesigns.com

For Sheraton San Diego, green initiatives have become increasingly important to the hotel’s operations and its competitive advantage. “Meeting planners care now more than ever about green initiatives and choose hotels that have synergies with their own green philosophies,” says John Ford, general manager of the Sheraton. “Being truly sustainably oriented gives us a competitive advantage.” Ford chose T2 to help bolster the visibility of the hotel’s green commitment. Among its challenges was to make recycling convenient, aesthetically pleasing, and practical. “T2 has a wide range of products available, and we chose a receptacle that fits with our decor and our environment,” Ford says. Steve and Lori understood that the products for the Sheraton San Diego needed to have a small footprint, be unobtrusive, and have a subtle presence. Steve says the receptacles could not be so big that they would intrude into traffic patterns but needed to have an operational benefit and flexibility for use in various locations around the property. Sheraton chose T2’s contemporary, tapered recycling receptacles throughout its properties, in public areas and in guest and meeting rooms. Also, 166

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GROUP Gloria Solar (USA) is a vertically integrated Photovoltaic (PV) provider that manufactures, designs, installs, and maintains large PV systems for businesses, governments, and utility customers. Gloria Solar is a part of the multi-billion dollar Inventec family of electronics and solar companies, covering the entire supply chain. Our combined mission is to make Photovoltaic energy more accessible, reliable, and affordable for everyone.

ADEMA TECHNOLOGIES INC, DBA GLORIA SOLAR (USA) Tel: 650-961-6100 | Fax: 650-961-6108 info@us.gloriasolar.com | www.gloriasolarusa.com 5201 Great America Pkwy, Suite 232 Santa Clara, CA 95054 AZgbdmagazine.com contractor license # ROC262292 | CA contractor license # 950099

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A corporate push could be the best thing for the green building community,

and Frito-Lay has committed itself to being one of the country’s preeminent green companies. Under the direction of Dave Haft, Frito-Lay’s senior vice president of productivity, sustainability, and quality, the company is making major strides toward its goal. Its Casa Grande facility in Arizona, thanks to partners such as CDM and Burns & McDonnell, will soon meet the company’s benchmark of reducing water use by 75 percent and natural gas by 80 percent. In addition, Casa Grande ensures that almost 100 percent of its waste never ends up in a landfill.

Backgrounder/ Frito-Lay specifically chose the Casa Grande facility for its largest environmental project to date because of the state’s endless supply of free renewable solar energy. “Casa Grande has one of the best solar concentrations in the [United States], and we’d be crazy not to take advantage of it,” Haft says. The Casa Grande facility was also the ideal location for the company’s other imperatives: water conservation, recycling, and a return on the investment.

Challenge/ Frito-Lay wanted to create one of the first nearzero-waste facilities of its kind and achieve LEED-EB Gold certification. Yet it needed to maintain profitability.

Solution/ First, Frito-Lay took advantage of the desert sunlight through a wide array of solar technology, including a 36-acre solar field installed with the help of Gloria Solar, Arizona 168

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Frito-Lay

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Large-scale processing doesn’t have to be wasteful. Frito-Lay’s Casa Grande Facility uses membrane bioreactor processes and other technologies to get its wastewater clean enough to drink. Water use is down 65%.

LEFT: A portion of Frito-Lay’s Casa Grande plant’s solar array. Not shown is the 36-acre solar field nearby.

RIGHT: A water-recovery and -reuse system that combines membrane bioreactor and low-pressure reverse-osmosis technologies.

“Casa Grande has one of the best solar concentrations in the [United States], and we’d be crazy not to take advantage of it.” —Dave Haft, Senior Vice President of Productivity, Sustainability, and Quality

Public Service, and SPP. This installation alone produces 10 million kilowatt-hours annually and helps produce the electricity needed to run the manufacturing plant. Second on the list was water. Conserving water is incredibly important to the state of Arizona, and using membrane bioreactor processes (MBR) with secondary filtration gbdmagazine.com

enabled Frito-Lay to reuse the water used in the chip-making process. “The facility was using 400,000 gallons of water a day, and that has been reduced by 65 percent,” Haft said. New technology enhancements will increase water recycling to 75 percent. “This process takes the processed water that has been used to wash corn and potatoes and turns it into water that meets established drinking standards. The recycled water is equal to or [of] better quality than most tap water.” Frito-Lay wanted to make the most of the green technologies available, but in order to meet what Haft and his team refer to as their BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals), it was going to require more than cutting-edge technology. Employees at the facility would need to work smart and work hard, which is why one of the most comprehensive recycling programs imaginable was put in place—and with great success. More than 99 percent of Casa Grande’s waste is diverted from landfills. Besides the all-important employee-led recycling program,

the facility also reuses shipping boxes several times, and waste product from the manufacturing process is used in animal feed. Though it’s good to be green, when running a publicly traded company, sustainable efforts need to translate into profits for shareholders. Thankfully, they have. Frito-Lay’s company-wide endeavors have saved the business millions of dollars. “Environmental sustainability is important, but there’s more behind it than that,” Haft said. “We look at every angle. We look at all of the elements of our manufacturing, distribution, and transportation systems and try to make them come together in a way that creates as small an environmental footprint as possible, while also driving business success. That’s what Frito-Lay’s parent company PepsiCo means when it says, ‘Performance with Purpose.’” The performance was enough for the USGBC as well. In 2009, the facility became the nation’s first food-manufacturing site to be awarded LEED-EB Gold certification. —Tina Vasquez APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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A Total Project Solution

™

We see it clearly.

Burns & McDonnell congratulates Frito-Lay for moving one step closer to its sustainability goals with the completion of the near net-zero Casa Grande facility. We appreciate being a part of the team that helped make the Casa Grande facility successful.

For more information, contact: Caroline Cooper 816-822-3831 cscooper@burnsmcd.com

www.burnsmcd.com/fcp

Engineering, Architecture, Construction, Environmental and Consulting Solutions

poured earth design and construction

Design by Living Systems Sustainable Architecture

Residential | Commercial | Industrial | New Construction | Remodels

LIVING SYSTEMS SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE + BUILDING GROUP Phone: 928.717.2566 web page: michaelfrerking.com

We specialize in poured soil cement walls, green building, energy efficient housing and industrial concrete. J.CO. CONTRACTING L.L.C. P.O. Box 3787 | Prescott, AZ 86302 | Ph (928) 777- 9109 | Cell (928) 899-1336 Email jcocontracting@yahoo.com | License KB-01 ROC239181

www.jcocontracting.com

tough builds 172/ REMOTE LOCATIONS 176/ OFF THE GRID 178/ NET ZERO

RESTING LIGHTLY. This Quaker meetinghouse in Delaware left its mark on American history as part of the Underground Railroad. Today, when it comes to the environment, its newly reconstructed net-zero annex building is leaving no mark at all, p. 178. gbdmagazine.com

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The Scene

Building a Net-Plus Home with Arizona Soil

Eighty miles north of Phoenix, Peeples Valley is a Southwestern high-desert ecology that has snow in the winter and hot summer days exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Not far from Prescott National Forest, it is a dynamic region of rolling pastureland and pinyon and ponderosa pines. And it is this general locale that Living Systems Sustainable Architecture and Building Group has called home since the early 1970s, making a name for itself through the use of earthen high-mass construction methods. These tactics were employed most recently for an off-the-grid home on 67 acres in Peeples Valley.

By the Numbers

The number of inches of exterior foam used on this off-the-grid home, in order to store heat and maintain a comfortable indoor temperature

The Setup

The number of acres surrounding the residence, which is near Peeples Valley in Arizona

The percentage of Portland cement that can be displaced with flyash when poured earth is used (substantially greening the product) 172

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ABOVE: This home is built with poured earth, a mixture similar to concrete but that is more sustainable. Properly designed, such homes can completely eliminate the need for heating and cooling.

Led by Michael Frerking and John Lutes, Living Systems got its start with adobe, transitioned to rammed earth, and has since established itself as an industry leader and advocate for pouredearth technologies. Poured earth is similar to rammed earth in that it reuses the soil from the building site but is more similar to concrete in use. However, it displaces up to 80 percent of concreteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Portland cement with flyash, substantially reducing the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s carbon gbdmagazine.com

Living Systems Sustainable Architecture

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footprint. Frerking and Lutes saw the Peeples Valley project as a continuing challenge and opportunity to evolve their net-positive, or “net plus,” philosophy.

The Strategy Properly designed high-mass, poured-earth homes minimize—and can potentially eliminate—the energy required for heating and cooling, Frerking says. “Considering its advantages, the biggest challenge today facing poured earth is education,” he adds. “People need to understand that the primary difference between poured earth and concrete is the use of clay and low- to no-carbon-emitting binders such as Portland cement.” Poured earth is able to use site soils to build walls just as builders use site resources such as the sun, wind, and rain to heat, cool, and provide power and water. At the same time, the strategy builds upon the concrete industry’s huge infrastructure to mix, deliver, form, and place the product. “We see poured earth as a ‘green bridge to sustainability’ for the concrete industry,” Frerking says, “and as such find the concrete industry very supportive in working with us.” In addition to poured-earth walls, the Peeples Valley residence uses four inches of exterior foam to encapsulate heat and naturally maintain a comfortable temperature. Nighttime radiative cooling uses pool solar mats to chill water at night for radiant-floor cooling, and radiant heat comes from solar hot-water panels. Rainwater-management systems capture, store, and purify water while solar-reflector decks create diffused daylighting for comfort and energy distribution to the building mass.

“We are designing and building homes that create more energy and water than they use while substantially reducing our carbon footprint. In doing so, we are rediscovering our importance to nature by fitting into and improving the building-site ecology.”

According to Frerking, the critical distinction with this project and many others deploying a handful of sustainable components is the focus on being a net-positive home. “From the use of site soils for walls to the extensive watermanagement techniques deployed, we have gone beyond the concept that green homes are less harmful to the environment than others,” he says. “Our goal is to build structures capable of creating more energy and water than we use in the production and operation of the home. We are rediscovering our importance to the nature around us and [how] to be a positive asset within the environment.”

building, maintaining, and constantly developing solid relationships with building trades. “Presently LEED does not have specific certification programs for the people that physically construct ‘green buildings,’ such as plumbers, electricians, framers, etc.,” he says. “They are the unsung heroes of green.”

Frerking says the key to creating net-positive homes is his company’s dedication to training,

As an architect and general contractor, Living Systems has a unique ability to bring trades

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—Michael Frerking, Principal

together and achieve a high level of synergy, Frerking says, explaining that the result is that people take ownership of the project and that bids are often 10–20 percent lower. “It makes a difference when you work directly with people who love what they do and have the ability to provide input from design through construction,” he says. “Jeremy and Jake Cluff of J.Co. Contractors are a prime example of this. As our poured-earth wall builders, we provide them with mix designs and quality control so that they know they will be efficient in forming and pouring the walls, resulting in a competitive bid that allows us to compete with other wall-construction alternatives.” Looking ahead, Lutes and Frerking are excited about getting involved in larger developments locally, nationally, and internationally. “We need to demonstrate the economies of scale associated with our poured earth coupled with the ‘net plus’ approach,” Lutes says. “The advantage we provide is our ability to work closely with the full circle of skilled people including financiers, engineers, code officials, green-product suppliers, and project owners who all contribute in creating cutting-edge projects that serve them, their communities, and global sustainability.” —Peter Fretty APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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Bringing LEED to a Border-Town Trucking Terminal Con-way Freight is a company of green surprises. One is that it was able to build-out a LEED-certified commercial interior in a trucking terminal. Another is that the company has achieved remarkable sustainability goals enterprise-wide. But perhaps what defies most expectations is the cooperative and effective carbon footprint-reducing relationship that Con-way and its industry—surface transportation carriers that operate thousands of diesel fuel-guzzling long-haul trucks—have with the EPA.

By the Numbers

The Setup

The idle time in minutes before a Con-way truck’s engine automatically shuts off. Changing the idle auto-shutoff from five to three minutes on a 9,600-vehicle fleet saves thousands of gallons of diesel fuel per month.

Con-way wanted to achieve LEED-CI certification for its Calexico operation, a 25-door cross-dock truck terminal that covers about four acres of land. Though it is a land-use-intensive building that needed to meet the codes, covenants, and restrictions of the site owner, Con-way was able to incorporate storm-waterretention capabilities in the exterior design.

500

The sourcing radius in miles demanded by LEED certification. This was a major challenge for Con-way’s Calexico, CA, service center.

2 million

The dollars saved annually across all 300 facilities in the United States and Canada once Con-way’s lighting retrofit program is complete. Savings will exceed costs in a single year.

The Scene The 500-mile sourcing requirements for LEED ratings are a challenge when building in the American Southwest. But that’s what Con-way Freight was up against. The multinational trucking company’s new service center in Calexico, California, is situated at a transportation crossroads on the US-Mexican border, 122 miles east of San Diego and 62 miles west of Yuma, Arizona. The area is so sparsely populated that 10 square miles of solar panels are currently under construction nearby. 174

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The Strategy Picture Con-way’s Calexico facility, made up of long, narrow buildings with opposing roll-up garage doors. It is not an aesthetic showplace, but it does exemplify sustainability. The building was designed under the guidance of a LEED consultant and built by the PENTA Building Group, a premier general contractor in the region. Energy Star HVAC systems, low-flow bathroom fixtures, and high-efficiency lighting systems were key elements. Here and throughout the Con-way portfolio, linear fluorescent lamps are replacing less efficient high-intensity discharge lamps typically used in high-bay applications where broad ambient light is required. Occupancy sensors now eliminate unnecessary lighting, a key benefit for a 24/7 operation. The architect and LEED consultant also faced the challenge of optimizing window orientation in a region where triple-digit temperatures and intense sunlight are common.

About 80 percent of long-haul trucks—approximately half a million vehicles—participate in an EPA program called the SmartWay Partnership. In it, the government agency compiles data, expertise, best practices, and information on new technologies and shares this with commercial carriers to help them save fuel and money. Con-way itself invested in sophisticated optimization and business-intelligence software and cellular-based communications systems, which have changed the way freight is routed among its 300 North American service centers. The result: a reduction of 124,000 truck-miles per day, with a net improvement in customer service to boot. “Fuel is the second biggest expense to our company,” says Randy Mullett, Con-way’s vice president of government relations and public affairs. “Economics, customer interest, and regulatory encouragement drove this program. It saves us about $25 million per year.” —Russ Klettke

A MESSAGE FROM PENTA BUILDING GROUP Over the past 11 years, working in 15 states, The PENTA Building Group has proudly constructed over 20 Service Center Facilities for Con-way, Inc., under a multi-year program. PENTA recently finished a facility in Calexico, CA on a designbuild basis. This particular facility is the first of its kind for Con-way, with a pending LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Congratulations to the entire team!

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tough builds/ off the grid The Desert Shadow residence, designed by Allegretti Architects, uses 20 photovoltaic panels, a rainwater-capture system, a highly efficient building envelope, and its own well to operate completely off the grid. The owners, who currently live on the site in a yurt, wanted a self-sustaining home for environmental reasons, but the choice was one of practicality as well—the nearest power line is two miles away.

By the Numbers

The number of photovoltaic panels at Desert Shadow, which together can collect up to 5,000 watts of electricity

12 and 24

The thickness of the insulation, in inches, used in Desert Shadow’s walls and roof, respectively

14.22

The average annual precipitation, in inches, for Santa Fe, NM, according to the Western Regional Climatic Center, making Desert Shadow’s rainwater-collection system an important feature

Designing a Self-Sustaining Desert Oasis The Scene In a region where Native Americans have lived at the mercy of the environment for centuries, modern-day homeowners can take advantage of readily available and ample natural resources to create self-sustaining homes. Desert Shadow, a home currently under construction near Santa Fe, New Mexico, will achieve this goal. Nestled in rolling hills dotted with pinyon juniper and little else, the Allegretti Architectsdesigned residence is located about 40 minutes south of Santa Fe and occupies an isolated 40-acre plot roughly 7,000 feet above sea level. The site currently houses a yurt, in which Desert Shadow’s owners have lived for the past five years. The owners have decided to upgrade to a more permanent structure, but they’re not sacrificing their commitment to minimal environmental disruption in the process. 176

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tough builds/ off the grid

Allegretti Architects

The Setup Although Desert Shadow’s owners made a conscious choice to incorporate a multitude of sustainable features into their home, the building’s location dictated that it be completely self-reliant. The nearest power line is two miles away, and the home does not have access to any public utilities. “The location is quite remote,” firm principal Greg Allegretti says. The terrain heavily influenced Desert Shadow’s orientation. North-facing views that highlight the scenic mountains of Taos are typically desirable in Santa Fe-area homes. With its northern face built into the hillside, Desert Shadow bucks this trend, allowing the home to capitalize on the plentiful sunshine available to the south.

The Strategy In order for Desert Shadow to fulfill all of its own energy needs, Allegretti’s design includes a number of features that maximize available natural resources. Unsurprisingly, solar energy takes center stage. With hundreds of days of sunny weather each year, New Mexico is a prime location for solar-powered homes, but Allegretti says that the region is underachieving in that realm. “We don’t realize our solar potential here,” he says. But Desert Shadow will serve as a shining example in that respect, using 20 photovoltaic panels, each of which is capable of collecting 250 watts of power. A high-capacity storage battery and an AC inverter enhance the setup, and an LED system replaces traditional lighting, cutting down on the use of electricity. In addition to generating power, the sun serves as an important source of Desert Shadow’s heat. By facing south, the home’s passive solar orientation helps to maintain the structure’s consistently comfortable temperature. Desert Shadow also features radiant heat in the floor and a wood stove that is a secondary source of heat. Daily temperature swings of 30 degrees or more are not unheard of in the area, so Desert Shadow needed to be able to capture the heat generated during the day and use it at night. The home features thick cellulose insulation, and its design eliminates thermal bypass in corners where an interior wall intersects with an exterior wall. Triple-glazed windows with an extra storm panel also help to maintain a consistent internal temperature. gbdmagazine.com

Nestled in rolling hills dotted with pinyon juniper and little else, the Allegretti Architects-designed residence is located about 40 minutes south of Santa Fe and occupies an isolated 40-acre plot roughly 7,000 feet above sea level.

As is expected in an arid climate, water is also a significant concern for Desert Shadow. The home’s rainwater-harvesting system collects water for landscape maintenance, and that landscape includes materials and plants that require minimal irrigation. The site is also graded to reduce runoff. A deep well that taps into the natural spring hundreds of feet below the ground provides a source of potable water. Desert Shadow’s focus on sustainability goes beyond its reliance on natural resources. The project relied predominantly on locally sourced materials available from within a 100-mile radius. Its advanced framing techniques required less wood, and all of the wood used was unfinished. In addition to his work for clients such as Desert Shadow’s owners, Allegretti designed his own sustainable home, where he has lived for 20 years. “I put my money where my mouth is,” he says. —Kelli McElhinny

A L L E G R ET T I

ARTISTRY IN ARCHITECTURE

A RCHITECTS

CRAFTSMANSHIP IN DESIGN

For twenty years, Allegretti Architects has created distinctive sustainable designs, specializing in architecture appropriate to the environment and traditions of the American Southwest. Allegretti Architects | 1925 Aspen Drive, Suite 802-B | Santa Fe, NM 87505 phone 505 986 9033 | email Trout7000@aol.com | www.GregAllegretti.com APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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Rebuilding a Stop on the Underground Railroad

To honor the history of the Camden Friends Meeting House and its owner’s environmental vision, Re:Vision Architects reused or recycled nearly every piece of the dismantled annex. The project was designed to LEED Platinum standards but also included criteria set forth in the Living Building Challenge.

By the Numbers

The kilowatts of power generated by the Camden Friends Meeting House’s photovoltaic system

158

The percentage of energy the newly constructed annex produces annually, easily earning it net-zero status

207

The Camden Friends Meeting House is off the beaten path, about a half mile from the center of the small town of Camden, Delaware, which has a population of just 2,100. On one side is a historic town, developed enough to boast a Wal-Mart; on the other is rural farm country where corn and soybeans are grown. South of New Jersey and north of Washington, DC, the city of Camden faces harsh East Coast winters, hot summer sun, and late-summer hurricanes.

The Setup

The age, in years, of the meeting house, which now boasts a LEED Platinum annex built from the materials of the existing structure 178

The Scene

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Prior to the Civil War, the Camden Friends Meeting House, a place of worship owned by the Religious Society of Friends (or, Quakers), was instrumental in the Underground Railroad

and the fight to abolish slavery. Re:Vision Architecture was asked to renovate the meeting house and the annex building next to it—which is used for administrative offices, education, and other events—and to get as “sustainable as the budget would allow” without damaging or destroying the property’s 207-year-old historic value. After an extensive review of the existing annex building, Re:Vision had it dismantled shingle by shingle, nail by nail, and window by window, reusing everything possible and grinding and recycling the remaining material into new components. While it wasn’t the client’s original goal, in the end Re:Vision achieved green building’s holy grail—net-zero energy and net-zero water—and the building was certified LEED Platinum in 2011. gbdmagazine.com

tough builds/ net zero

Re:Vision Architecture

Part of the project’s success can be attributed to the contractor, Boss Enterprises. “We never would have been able to recycle so much if they hadn’t been as passionate as they were,” Kelly says. “They found a way to get the ground-up drywall used by local farmers as a soil amenity.” And mechanical engineer In Posse, a subsidiary of AKF, worked with Re:Vision to design the most efficient energy and water systems, resulting in water harvested from rain that is “purified to a level cleaner than standard drinking water,” Kelly says.

The Strategy

Today, the meeting house and annex share a closed-loop geothermal heating-and-cooling system, and the annex boasts a 12-kilowatt photovoltaic array that works in conjunction with its passive-solar design. Soy-based foam insulation and a SIP roof are additional ultra-green elements of the new building. To conserve water, the annex uses a tankless water heater, a 2,000-gallon rainwater cistern, and vegetated swales to handle storm water. Perhaps its most unique eco-friendly feature is its parking area, which is paved with discarded clamshells from local restaurants. “We designed the building so that the architecture itself does most of the heavy lifting rather than the mechanical systems, making it easier to get to zero energy,” Kelly explains, noting that in the new annex’s first year of operation, it produced 158 percent of its energy, the excess used to power the meeting house and parking-lot lighting. gbdmagazine.com

AKF Is Proud to Support Green Building + Design

AKF is an award-winning, international engineering firm serving the higher education, critical systems, healthcare, corporate, cultural, hospitality, science and technology, residential and retail markets. AKF serves clients in the private and public sectors and specializes in sustainable design, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, fire/life safety, controls, central utilities, energy services, information technology, security, critical systems, commissioning, testing, lighting and services. The firm is headquartered in New York, NY with additional offices in Arlington, VA; Boston, MA; Columbus, OH; Princeton, NJ; Philadelphia, PA; Stamford, CT; Minneapolis, MN; Rochester, MN; and Mexico City, MX.

1501 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10036 Tel: 212.354.5656 Fax: 212.354.5668 www.akfgroup.com

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ENGINEERING • COMMISSIONING • TESTING • TECHNOLOGY • LIGHTING DESIGN • SUSTAINABILITY DESIGN

At first, the architects were looking to salvage as much as they could out of the existing structure, says Scott Kelly, principal of Re:Vision Architecture and recipient of AIA Philadelphia’s 2011 Young Architect Award. “We discovered there was no way to keep the 1950 concrete masonry unit, with no insulation and a host of issues that came with that time period,” he says, “so we razed the entire building and redid it as responsibly as possible.” A full 97.5 percent of the old building was recycled or reused, including trusses, light fixtures, and exterior windows, which were moved to interior hallways.

This meetinghouse left its mark on American history as part of the Underground Railroad. Today, when it comes to the environment, the net-zero house of worship is leaving no mark at all.

The Camden project was given the Net Zero Energy Award by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association in 2011, and Re:Vision, which is headquartered in Philadelphia and has an office in Berkeley, California, is currently working on three other net-zero-energy and net-zero-water buildings that are all pursuing certification through the Living Building Challenge. —Lynn Russo Whylly

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Susan Friedland on making green housing affordable for all Susan Friedland cares about beauty. She also cares about Berkeley, Californiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s low-income population, which includes many families, seniors, and individuals with special needs. As the executive director of Affordable Housing Associates (AHA), Friedland combines her passions by developing sustainable, affordable housing. Since its inception in 1993, AHA has developed and preserved more than 900 high-quality, cost-friendly apartments, and this year alone it has added four new projects and will start three more before the end of the year. By mid2012, AHA will have built more than 1,100 homes housing more than 2,500 people. Here, Friedland explains her sustainability strategies in her own words. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;as told to Thalia A-M Bruehl 180

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OPPOSITE PAGE: Harmon Gardens, which provides 15 new apartments for youths coming in off the streets, was 10 years in the making. The LEED Platinum building features a native landscape, solar panels, and covered bike parking. gbdmagazine.com

PHOTOS: Misha Bruk

Affordable Housing Associates

game plan Participate in local programs. AHA has, since [its] inception, participated in pilot programs in furtherance of various green initiatives. In addition to LEED, AHA participates in environmentally conscious building programs like GreenPoint Rated Multifamily, Bay-Friendly Landscaping [& Gardening Coalition], EPA Indoor airPLUS, and [California] Multifamily New Homes. We consider these programs to be essential green-building guides for the continually expanding knowledge base of architects, contractors, and developers. Using these programs, we’ve strived to develop a holistic approach to green building that balances the needs of our resident communities and buildings while maintaining the economic and health benefits that green building can bring to both.

Commit to the community. At AHA we look everywhere for new site opportunities—foreclosed buildings, vacant hotels, old parking lots, city-owned sites. Then we work with our neighbors, local community stakeholders, and elected officials to create a building design that meets local housing standards and helps to improve the neighborhood. We carefully oversee the design and construction to ensure that green-building techniques and technology are fully incorporated at all phases. Finally, we transition the building from a construction project to an operational apartment building, and we provide our new residents the supportive services they need to thrive in their new homes.

Never abandon your dreams. The Harmon Gardens project is the culmination of a 10-year dream. A decade ago, AHA purchased a small seven-unit building from a negligent landlord. The space was in bad shape, but one of AHA’s founding board members had a vision that someday we could transform the building into housing for one of the Bay Area’s most underserved populations—homeless youth. After very careful planning and work with [HKIT Architects], the Bay-Friendly Landscape & Gardening Coalition, StopWaste. org, Build It Green, Heschong Mahone Group, and AHA’s own in-house design and construction team, we designed and built 15 new apartments that make up a beautiful and safe home to youth who had been living on the streets. The Harmon Gardens project will feature covered bike parking [and] solar panels for electric and domestic heating and hot water, and [it] will achieve a LEED Platinum rating in the LEED for Homes mid-rise pilot program. gb&d

Invest in the process. We care a lot about investing up front in the highest-quality materials that will prove to be durable, attractive, and easy to use and repair. We focus on green building both because it is synergistic with our mission [and] because it enables us to save on our monthly operating costs. We are then able to pass this savings along to our low-income residents in the form of lower rents. Ultimately, it’s an investment that gives back. Strive for beauty. In our buildings, there is a feeling of safety, of peacefulness, of beauty. I think great buildings make use of natural light, colors, and volumes of space to enhance these senses. It sounds a little odd, but I really care about indoor air quality; we make sure [that] we have the best ventilation and use nontoxic paints, glues, and carpet. And I care a lot about landscaping around the buildings and in the outdoor spaces. Fortunately, in California, we can make great use of native vegetation, drought-tolerant plants, and also create productive community-gardening opportunities at our buildings. gbdmagazine.com

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ENERGY EFFICIENCY COMES FIRST

California Multi-Family New Homes (CMFNH) facilitates deep energy savings in new multi-family housing through design assistance, energy design workshops, training and coordination with green and solar programs. For more information visit our website at multifamily.h-m-g.com. The Heschong Mahone Group (HMG) implements CMFNH on behalf of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E).

866.352.7457 | www.h-m-g.com This program is funded by California utility customers and administered by Pacific Gas and Electric Company, under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission. “PG&E” refers to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation. ©2011 Pacific Gas and Electric Company. All rights reserved.

“Celebrating 30 years of practice” CONSULTING ENGINEERS FOR BUILDING ENERGY SYSTEMS MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL FIRE PROTECTION

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game plan

Al Wulff on navigating ‘the new normal’ Wulff Architects’s original philosophy has created a dynamic culture that hasn’t bowed to challenging times. Al Wulff founded the firm 20 years ago with the goal of forming a harmonious group, one that would practice consensus decision-making and personal responsibility. Now, with 11 employees, Wulff Architects has six principals, all of whom are personally invested in the business and the ownership of their Philadelphia office. The firm relies on each owner’s unique specialty, from housing to LEED consulting, to help it succeed during what is being called “the new normal.” Here, Wulff shares key business strategies that continue to bring the firm success. —as told to Tina Vasquez

Identify strong markets. As the economy shifted, we realized we had to diversify and move into new markets. One of the areas which greatly helped us was housing. In the past six years, we’ve completed the design of over 1,000 urban lofts and apartment units. This led us to our work with assisted-living facilities and to our success with the Diamond Green project, the largest modular student-housing project in Philadelphia. We also expanded our lab and medical work with the help of our principals David Schoenhard, who took on the Colorcon project, and Roberta Devlin, who was responsible for doctor’s suites. Medical and housing are very hot right now, so it is a matter of identifying these strong markets and finding our way into them. Follow clients. Just as we identified strong markets, we also identified strong clients and grew with them, geographically and otherwise. One of our principals, Dave Schmauk, really spearheaded our growth into housing, and one of the ways he did that was by following the lead of key clients who were breaking into new markets. The Diamond Green project was our seventh project with Orens Brothers Real Estate. They were originally building condos, but when the market shifted, they got into apartments. We went with them, and it really worked out for all of us. gbdmagazine.com

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Wulff Architects PHOTO: Steve Wolfe

RIGHT: The Colorcon Corporate Headquarters and Technology Center in Harleysville, PA, was designed as a two-story building that appears to have just one. It also represents Wulff Architects’s expansion within the medical laboratory sector, one of several new markets the firm has pursued. BELOW: Diamond Green is the largest modular student housing project in Philadelphia. It is Wulff Architects’s seventh project with Orens Brothers Real Estate.

Choose wisely. During the rough times, we also learned how to pick clients, opportunities, and proposals carefully. Our controller, Susan Tarasiewicz, has been central to this effort. Previously, we worked with clients through tough times on problem projects. In 2008, we became more selective, investing our resources with excellent existing clients and new ones who appreciate the quality of our designs. We have also focused on strengthening our alliances with our sub-consultants and engineers, who can be an excellent source of work. Make use of talent. I think the way things are is “the new normal” for the next three or four years. We have this very sharply defined core group in our firm whose talents we rely on, but we’re also making use of the talent of select individuals. We work with excellent architects that round out much of the work [that] we do, and the economy has made it clear that there are so many gifted people available to consult. There’s new fluidity in the job market, and those who are talented will do well no matter what’s going on in the economy. Those are the capable, resilient people we want to work with. gb&d 184

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game plan

Al Skodowski on Transwestern’s winning real-estate formula Mention sustainability to Al Skodowski, and he’s likely to respond with a wry smile. “The reality is that we’ve been doing sustainability for a long time,” he says. “We just haven’t called it as such.” For nearly a decade, the now senior vice president of sustainability has managed the huge portfolio held by Houston-based Transwestern, one of the largest privately held commercial-real estate firms in the United States. The company’s strong commitment to sustainability is evident from its 206 Energy Star- and LEED-certified properties, and in the past 12 months its energy-management practices were responsible for avoiding 3,769 metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions—equal to removing 721 vehicles from our roads. Here, Skodowski details the corporate strategies that figure so prominently in Transwestern’s drive for sustainability. —as told to Mark Pechenik gbdmagazine.com

Focus on preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance is what we called sustainability prior to the rise of the real estate industry’s green movement nearly a decade ago. Whether it is a new project or an existing building, we begin by examining all of the structural systems—from heating and air-conditioning to electrical and plumbing— to determine if all of the equipment is running the way it is supposed to. Simply by bringing an air-flow system up to top efficiency for instance, property owners realize considerable cost savings. Higher-performing equipment also greatly reduces pollutants expelled into the environment. By enabling building systems to run at optimum levels, everyone benefits ecologically and financially. Upgrade for efficiency. Sometimes there is no other choice but to replace equipment. A boiler may simply be too old to improve its operations. Consequently, we look to install or equip systems that have the highest Energy Star rating and sustainability factors. Sometimes this approach has additional benefits. At Pennzoil Place [in Houston], we retrofitted spaces with more efficient lighting. Consequently air-conditioning costs were reduced because the newer lighting systems generated less heat. The result can be anywhere from 10 to 15 percent in cost savings. APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2012

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Transwestern

Utilize certification. We strive for LEED certification because it works in our favor. LEED criteria frequently mandate reduced water usage. By installing low-flow water systems at Penzoil Place, we lowered water usage from 3.5 gallons to 1.28 gallons [per] flush. Efficient urinals brought down water content from 1.4 gallons to 1 pint. At the same time, fitting a water-catchment system in a parking garage—so that runoff from the roof can be used to irrigate landscaping or cool generators—figures highly in LEED scoring. Do the math. At Wellington Webb, a project we managed for the city of Denver, our team reused furniture and green-based janitorial and paper supplies, [which] meant increased LEED points. Consequently, the project received LEED Gold status. We were also able to identify inexpensive operational and maintenance changes that could be adopted at other city of Denver operational facilities. Why is this important? Because more building owners and tenants realize that higher LEED certifications translate into greater savings in energy and utility costs—something which reflects directly onto their bottom line. Spread the good word. We’ve not only proven the commercial effectiveness of sustainability; [we’ve] also demonstrated that everyone benefits from this growing movement. We’re making the case that it leads to a better global environment. gb&d

ABOVE, RIGHT: Wellington Webb is a municipal office building in Denver, CO. Through Transwestern’s green initiatives, such as furniture reuse and healthful cleaning products, the building was able to earn LEED Gold certification and see significant savings. 186

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Results Driven Solutions Delivered by Integrity Driven People for Over 40 Years

Energy Solutions • Energy Modeling & Analysis • Feasibility Study • Building Benchmarking & Certifications • Commissioning & Recommissioning Services • Technical Equipment Assessment • Utility Rebates & Tax Incentives

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Serving:

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We improve your comfort and reduce your utility bill by keeping energy from flying out your windows. Are you letting energy efficiency escape you? More importantly, is energy escaping your home and unnecessarily inflating your utility bill? The QUANTAPANEL® Insulating Glass System (IGS) delivers “high performance window energy savings” for less than 20% of full window replacement cost, reducing annual heating and cooling energy consumption by 15-30%. QUANTAPANEL® IGS substantially improves occupant comfort by maintaining the window’s interior glass surface temperature closer to room temperature, eliminating natural convection “drafts”. QUANTAPANEL® IGS preserves the building’s existing architectural characteristics. To learn more about the energy & aesthetic value of the QUANTAPANEL Insulating Glass System, as well as to locate weatherization specialists available in your area, please visit us online at www.quantapanel.com

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Technical Solutions • Design/Build • Chiller/Boiler replacement • Direct Digital Control Systems • System Startup and Commissioning • Building Analysis & Technical Assessment • Capital Budget Planning

game plan

Satisfy supply and demand. National government policies drive a lot of the demand for our services. In the United Kingdom, there are ongoing three-year rolling targets to reduce carbon emissions for utilities, and those targets drive a lot of people to need to insulate their homes and office buildings. That’s created demand, and we’re unique in that we’ve grown to the point that we have the logistical capability to meet the demand. We can deploy 900 trucks six days a week across the United Kingdom, serving approximately 6,000 customers weekly. Not many businesses in our industry can do that. Create a dedicated workforce. We directly employ our workforce, which means the crew that comes out to your home to install insulation and seal gaps and cracks in your home’s exterior has been hired and trained by Mark Group. We aim to create career positions for our associates. We provide good wages, good benefits, and a place where you can grow. That makes all the difference in terms of delivering quality work and service to our customers.

Jeff Bartos on greening homes with oldfashioned values

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Market green by highlighting quality. One of my colleagues in the United Kingdom is fond of saying we’ve been in the green economy for almost 40 years; we just didn’t know it was called the green economy. That pretty much explains how we view and market our business here in the United States. It’s most important to me to communicate to customers that we hire, train, and employ our own teams, and [that] air sealing and insulation offer by far the biggest return on investment in terms of money spent to make a home energy-efficient. Build a culture that sustains itself. All good businesses are based on a quality product or service; talented, motivated employees; and a commitment to core values. And once you’ve built a culture that emphasizes the importance of those values—in our case, delivering excellent work to customers every day—it becomes self-sustaining. Crew leaders make sure the newest crew members understand we’re only going to do the best work, and if they see work that’s not to the level we expect, they instantly correct it. gb&d gbdmagazine.com

PHOTO: Peter Alvey

When Jeff Bartos was hired to launch the US operation of Mark Group, a 1,500-employee British firm that provides high-quality, professionally installed insulation and air-sealing measures to homeowners and businesses, he worked from his kitchen table. Today, Mark Group’s US arm has 52 employees serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, and it continues to expand. But Bartos, CEO, says the company’s success is more basic than one might imagine. “You don’t hear much about businesses that have started with old-fashioned values—a quality product or service, a desire to provide jobs and give people transferable skills, a commitment to customer service—but we’re evidence that these businesses can grow and thrive in the current market,” he says. Below, Bartos speaks directly on the keys to Mark Group’s success. —as told to Julie Schaeffer

Provide training for everything. We’ve built a training academy at our headquarters and have a full-time director of training. We start with the basics, training on the soft skills: the importance of wearing a clean uniform, making sure your truck is clean, knocking on the door and greeting the customer appropriately, putting down drop cloths, wearing protective shoe coverings. We then move on to the hard skills: how you insulate a wall, an attic, or a basement; how you properly install air-sealing measures; how you measure the effectiveness of your work. We then go the extra step by ensuring all our technicians are certified by the Building Performance Institute [BPI]. And before a technician is authorized to go out on his or her own, we provide field training.

PHOTO: Nikki Qiao

architect to watch

JOSEPH M. BENNETT

The down-to-earth architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design subtlety and love for the environment are making waves in Austin, Texas Interview by Chris Allsop

Joseph M. Bennett has been practicing architecture in Austin, Texas, since 1985. After a career in commercial architecture, Bennett made the switch to residential when he opened his own office in 1998. This switch also allowed him to refocus on energy efficiencyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a personal priority that took a backseat while designing airports for his previous employer. His office quickly grew to six full-time employees, with many projects featured on the Austin Cool House Tour, the AIA Austin Homes Tour, and the National Association of the Remodeling Industry Tour. Here, he talks about the secrets of his success. >

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Joseph M. Bennett

HOMES OF NOTE 1/ The Lake LBJ Residence features rift-sawn oak cabinetry and eco-friendly countertops. 2/ The home was envisioned as a modern, energy-efficient retreat, with douglas fir columns, large roof overhangs, and spray-foam insulation. 3/ A view of the living room from above shows the hickory pecan wood flooring. 4/ Bennett’s own home, the Deep Eddy Avenue House, also features warm wood and was featured on Austin’s Cool House Tour. 5/ Bennett’s goal for the Deep Eddy house was to restore the appeal of the Arts and Crafts bungalow, while also making it extremely energy efficient.

PHOTO: (5) Patrick Yu-wen Wong

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architect to watch Does your personality come out in your work? My dedication to energy efficiency is the part of my personality that shines through the most. Otherwise, I want to reflect the client’s personality; where they live represents them, and my goal is to accommodate my client’s lifestyle and to enhance that lifestyle. Who’s your design hero? I admire a lot of great architects—those who create designs that respond well to the site or who resolve some programmatic design problem. I research more styles than I do architects. If I’m working on an Arts and Crafts house, then I’ll look at Frank Lloyd Wright and Greene & Greene. One quote that recently resounded with me was from Edmund Bacon, who was an architect in Philadelphia and Kevin Bacon’s father: “It’s in the doing that the idea comes.” What did you enjoy most about working on the Lake LBJ Residence? That was one of those projects where you have wonderful clients who trust you to provide all the design ideas and thoughts. I got to do all the interior design and tile work and helped them with the selection of the light fixtures, the hardware on the cabinetry, and the finishes. I really enjoy the ... challenge in pulling together an entire house from top to bottom.

What’s the Cool House Tour? The Green Building program is one of the most preeminent programs in the country—it’s been running since the ’70s. Green building has historically been associated with a hippie mentality and [has not been] expected to be of high design. The Cool House Tour wants to show you that that’s not the case. Why do you think that they featured the Deep Eddy Avenue House? What I think appealed to them about that house was that it doesn’t look like the idea of a green house. And that’s something that I love—taking a style or design and using the materials, wall systems, finishes, and all that sort of stuff. When someone comes in, they don’t pigeonhole it as a type. They just think “Wow, this is a great space.” What are your long-term goals as an architect? The goal is to continue using the latest technologies and incorporating them into the house designs while maintaining a high level of style. And to build a house that is totally off the grid—and ideally put that together with no one walking in and going, “Oh, this is a house off the grid.” I like subtlety, and it takes a little bit of work to achieve that.

Did you use your own home [the Deep Eddy Avenue House] to showcase your attitude toward energy efficiency? Yes, I think I did. By implementing all the various products that you usually recommend, it allows you to be able to say to clients, “Yes, it works. I’ve used it in my house.”

J O S E P H M. B E N N E T T A R C H I T E C T S

What did you put into the house? Every architect needs to build their own house as a learning experience for the contractor side. I applied rigid insulation to the outside, spray-foam polyurethane in the ceilings, finger-jointed studs for 50 percent of the framing, and low-E windows. I incorporated local woods, finishes and paints with no VOCs, recycled materials like glass flooring, and cork flooring in a third-floor loft. I used Lyptus [a cross between two species of eucalyptus tree] for a lot of cabinetry in the house. You can stain it to look like mahogany, weand it has a lot character. Tell me about the Treadwell House project. This was one of the first projects that we ran through the [Austin Energy] Green Building program, and it achieved a five-star rating, their highest award. A little background on the house: the owner had a fire in the house on Thanksgiving. He just wanted to rebuild it as it was, and I recommended improving upon it, especially as it was a very old, inefficient house. The first thing we thought of was using ICF—insulated concrete form. It creates an amazingly high R-value, and energy efficiency combined with [fire-resistant] concrete gave the owner that comfort concerning future Thanksgivings. According to the Green Building program statistics, it turned out to be one of the most energy-efficient houses in Austin. gbdmagazine.com

JOSEPH M. BENNETT, aia architect and interior designer

2720 Bee Caves Road Austin, TX 78746 512.478.0057 tel 512.478.5257 fax joe@jmbarchitects.com www.jmbarchitects.com

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IceStone’s countertops were used for the bar in Heineken’s New York offices.

Counter Points IceStone began as an underdog but now makes ultrasustainable countertops that earn multiple LEED points and have been specified for the USGBC’s own headquarters

When Peter Strugatz and Miranda Magagnini purchased Great Harbor Design in 2003, it was $5 million in debt after failing to engineer a new sustainable countertop from glass and concrete. But the entrepreneurs had a vision, and with the help of Dr. Weihua Jin, a cementitious expert from Polytechnic Institute of New York University, they created not just a sustainable surface but an entirely sustainable operation. Today the business, renamed IceStone, LLC, has 50 employees, has grown its annual revenue by double digits every year since 2003, and has earned a cult following among architects and interior designers.

The company’s Snow Flurry counter is seen here, at an office in New York City.

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vision/ For Strugatz and Magagnini, sustainability was about more than the product. IceStone’s line of slabs, which can be fabricated into gbdmagazine.com

PHOTO: (Top right) Adrian Wilson

material world

material world countertops, flooring, backsplashes, and interior wall finishes, are certainly sustainable: they’re manufactured in the United States from three raw materials (recycled glass, concrete, and natural pigment) without any toxins such as resins or dyes, and they can help a project obtain up to eight LEED points. But the founders were also determined to be socially sustainable. “We call it our triple-bottom-line vision,” president and CEO Michelle Gibson says. “Peter and Miranda wanted to operate a profitable business producing an environmentally sound product while treating employees with respect by offering them a living wage in New York City.” sustainability/ IceStone is environmentally conscious on a number of levels, Gibson says. Because it is manufactured, it avoids mining and quarrying—which often involves relocating indigenous people, operating emission-producing machinery, and releasing toxic chemicals into nearby rivers, streams, and aquifers—and eliminates the use of child labor, which is prevalent in mines throughout developing countries. Because IceStone is manufactured in the United States and generally shipped to North American consumers, it has a limited carbon footprint. And because it uses recycled glass, it reduces waste. “Thus far, the company [has] used 10 million pounds of glass that would otherwise have gone straight to the landfill,” Gibson says.

PROS & CONS Pros (+)

+ The product and its manufacturing process are environmentally sustainable on numerous levels, including the fact the slabs are 70% recycled content. + The company keeps jobs in the United States and treats employees with respect by offering a living wage. Cons (–)

– Like marble and granite, the product is more porous than engineered stones that use resins to fill pores; it therefore requires sealing and maintenance.

– Because IceStone has not yielded to pressure to cut labor costs, it is forced to either raise prices or accept lower profits. Although it has currently taken the hit in terms of profitability, there are ongoing price pressures.

the factory—to evaluate environmental and social impact,” says Gibson, who notes that the company offsets 100 percent of its energy use with renewable energy credits and recycles 85 percent of the water used in production, saving nearly five million gallons annually. customers/ According to Gibson, IceStone’s “go-to market” is architects and interior designers, who specify the product on a range of projects, from small residential spaces to large commercial installations. IceStone is also sold through stone distributors and, in some cases, large fabricators and installers. “The product is becoming iconic in a small segment of North America,” Gibson says. “People just love it because of the style, durability, and sustainability, and we’ve been placed in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Empire State Building, and Bank of America Tower in New York City.” —Julie Schaeffer

social responsibility/ Forty percent of IceStone’s employees are Tibetan refugees, and all are paid well above New York’s minimum wage, which is $7.25 per hour. “It’s difficult to live in a high-cost area such as New York on minimum wage, so entry-level pay for our production workers is a minimum of $10 an hour,” Gibson says. “Because we haven’t yielded to pressure to cut labor costs, it’s been harder to achieve profitability, but we’ve taken the hit in that and are determined to focus on that going forward because we know that what we’re doing is bigger than the product—it’s about redefining corporate responsibility and bringing manufacturing back to America.” third-party certification/ IceStone is the only durable surface to be certified Gold under the Cradle to Cradle Certified program. The program rigorously assesses the design of a product as well as the practices employed in manufacturing it. “It looks at the entire supply chain—not just the four walls of gbdmagazine.com

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show & tell

Furniture designer Daniel Michalik documents the cork process in Portugal

I have been designing and making home products from Portuguese cork since 2004. As my practice evolves, I discover layer after layer of physical potential and environmental value. The cork granules, sheets, and blocks that I use in my furniture are made from the waste of wine-stopper production. It performs in ways no other natural material can, defying user expectations of object interaction. This is exciting of course, but equally so is the story of how this material comes to be. This summer, I was invited for my second trip to Portugal by Cortiçeira Amorim—the world’s leading producer of cork products—to document the entire process of cork production, from harvest to reuse. I was familiar with the origin of the material as the bark of the cork oak (Quercus suber), harvested in nine-year cycles, but I had never seen the harvest first hand. In Portuguese cork I found an industry with such a healthy structure that it serves as a model for how we could source natural materials in general. The cork industry reaps profit from a natural resource and improves the environment in doing so. Every year, 14 million tons of carbon is captured by the Earth’s cork oaks. Dozens of endangered species, such as the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle, are given habitats to thrive. And the material itself is used in endless cycles of reuse, adding value at every turn.

Last summer, the owner of Daniel Michalik Furniture Design was invited to Portugal to photograph the cork-harvesting process. He found an inspiring industrial ecology. The cork oaks not only capture carbon as they grow, but they also provide habitat to numerous endangered species.

“In Portuguese cork I found an industry with such a healthy structure that it serves as a model for how we could source natural materials in general.”

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DUNN COMMUNICATIONS

Utah State Capitol Dome Randy Burkett Lighting Design

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