Building August September 2011

PLUS: DOES LEED STILL LEAD? INTERNATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING

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Volume 61 Number 4

August/September 2011

Editor

Peter Sobchak Legal Editor

Jeffrey W. Lem Contributors

Stephen Carpenter, Sheri Craig, Guy Crittenden, Denise Eichmann, Michael Laurie, Rhys Phillips, David G. Reiner, Bruce Reynolds Circulation Manager

Beata Olechnowicz Tel: (416) 442-5600 ext 3543

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Tom Arkell Vice President, Publishing Business Information Group (BIG)

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President, Business Information Group (BIG)

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Features 10. The Last Chapter? / Caledonia class-action settled for $20 million, but its significance remains. By Jeffrey W. Lem and David G. Reiner 12. Cleantech Greens Brownfield / New remediation technology has primed a derelict brownfield site on Toronto’s lakeshore for new residential development. By Guy Crittenden

14. Every Dark Cloud / Natural disaster, revolt, and where that leaves the Canadian construction sector. By Bruce Reynolds 16. Does LEED Still Lead? / The crisis of global warming has focused on the building sector as a major contributor of greenhouse gases. Among the various programs, systems and challenges that encourage architects and builders to create greener buildings, LEED is the best know. But is it the most effective? By Sheri Craig 20. Goodbye Ivory Towers, Hello Urban Campus / How new urbanism and the new economy are changing the “town and gown” dynamic. By Rhys Phillips

25. A Mirrored Reality / How Building Information Modeling can close the costly gap between building plans and actual progress. By Michael Laurie 27. Digging the Future of Vertical Gardens / As installation technology improves, so too does interest in living walls and all the benefits that come with them.

By Denise Eichmann

Departments 4 Editor’s Notes

6 Upfront

29 Infosource

30 Viewpoint

Cover: The four-storey, 50,000-sq.-ft. LEED Silver certified Buhler Centre is home to UWinnipeg’s Faculty of Business and Economics, Division of Continuing Education and Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art. Image © 2011 Kelly Morton.

Above images courtesy of: Algonquin College; Lakeshore EMPC Two L.P.; Nedlaw Living Wall

editor’s notes

If less is more, imagine what nothing could be…

Earlier this year I moderated a panel discussion at a sustainable buildings conference, and threw out this question to an audience of architects and property developers: has LEED reached the end of its usefulness? Is it time to scrap it? With many jurisdictions inserting building and energy codes that mirror the requirements necessary to achieve a LEED Silver designation, doesn’t that pretty much make LEED obsolete? Who will pay to have a LEED registered building if by simply following the building code, they will be equally or even more environmentally responsible?

I didn’t exactly get an overwhelming endorsement of this idea.

While many did agree that LEED needs a reboot, not many felt it should be discontinued. After all, the USGBC had great intentions and fortunately for all of us led the revolution for a while by creating a system that helped us take notice of important issues.

But their mark has been made, and LEED will have to evolve if they wish it to remain relevant. Of course, LEED has evolved since its inception in 2000 — as detailed by Sheri Craig in this issue — but with so many points allocated to those things we do anyway, the evolution seems primarily driven to attract more users at the expense of the rigorous vigilance needed to enact a

paradigm shift in issues of climate change and energy use.

LEED is populist, and is that really what we want leading the industry? When you have other certification systems that utilize an “all or nothing” approach — like the Living Building Challenge, which demands that designers create buildings that meet all 16 prerequisites — it is possible to see what is achievable if we raise the bar higher. For example, one of the 16 stringent requirements is for Living Buildings to be net-zero energy. And it’s because we live in ‘all or nothing’ times when it comes to current environmental crises that the idea of ‘nothing’ seems even more important as a benchmark.

LEED does not require a building to have net zero energy use, only to reduce energy use a few percentage points below the minimum required by law. Check lists are measurement tools, not design tools, and inexperienced designers may cherry-pick points to meet a target certification level, even though those points may not be the best design choices for a specific building or climate.

It’s not a rating system we need but a way of applied thinking, and net zero is where it’s at, unless of course you really want a shiny plaque in the lobby of your building. B

Peter Sobchak

Building welcomes your opinions.

E-mail your comments to editor@building.ca

READ Building Outrage: How corruption has crippled the construction industry and what owners can do to take back the building process / More charges of corrupt construction companies bilking millions of dollars of construction cost overruns from unsuspecting project owners are coming to light. Barry LePatner explains how this reflects “business as usual” for the construction industry and provides advice on how owners can take back the building process.

Data Centres are in demand / IT needs are rising so rapidly that data centres are obsolete after five years. Power grids can barely cope with the need for new or upgraded facilities. For corporate real estate, this represents a booming niche.

WATCH Take a virtual tour of a penthouse residence that occupies the top floor of the 55-storey West Residence building of the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences in Toronto.

A derelict area beneath a series of overpasses in Toronto’s West Don Lands is going to be transformed into a park that will cover a total of 1.05 hectares.

ATTEND Innovations in Public Consultation & Engagement / September 20-21 / Toronto IIDEX//NeoCon Canada 2011 / September 22-24 / Toronto Western Canadian Hotel & Resort Investment Conference / October 12-13 / Vancouver

Life after the back cover...

what’s on BUILDING.CA

Building from

Black to Green

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upfront

Great Gulf breaks ground at $450-million One Bloor condominium

name merchants. 12,000 linear feet of glass handrails and 180,000 square feet of new high quality flooring materials will be chosen to provide a clean, refined look for the common areas.

Restroom facilities in the dining court will include separate family washrooms and a mothers’ room, and will be fitted with low flow toilets and touchless water, soap and hand dryers.

Other green initiatives implemented in Markville’s existing operations – which have earned the Centre recognition by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) and the Recycling Council of Ontario — will be carried over into the redeveloped Centre. Construction will commence in September 2011. The new dining court is expected to open for Christmas 2012 and the majority of the new merchants will be open for Christmas 2013.

CCA welcomes long-term infrastructure plan commitment TORONTO — Great Gulf unveiled their plans for One Bloor, the company’s flagship condominium residence at the crossroads of Yonge and Bloor Streets in Toronto, during a groundbreaking event. “One Bloor is the culmination of a shared fantasy of what downtown living can be. Our world-renowned design team comprised of Hariri Pontarini Architects, Cecconi Simone, and Janet Rosenberg + Associates, have brought Great Gulf’s dream and that fantasy into reality,” said David Gerofsky, president and COO of the Great Gulf Group of Companies.

This 70-storey, $450-million project is being built on the site of the 1 Bloor East mixed-use skyscraper planned by Kazakhstanbased developer Bazis International. Although launched to much flourish in 2007, the proposal ultimately died in 2009 when Bazis sold the property to privately-held Great Gulf.

The tower will be targeting LEED certification and will include: direct Yonge and Bloor line subway access, with new public subway access on Yonge Street; 100,000 square feet of new prime retail on three levels along Yonge and Bloor; 27,000 square feet of Cecconi Simone-designed indoor and outdoor resort-inspired amenities; and an additional 19,000 square feet of outdoor amenity space by Janet Rosenberg +Associates.

One Bloor construction management is by Tucker Hi-Rise Construction.

$110 million renovation to transform Markville Shopping Centre

MARKHAM, ON — The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited has announced a $110 million renovation plan for Markville Shopping Centre, including new south-facing restaurants with al fresco seating, a new interior dining area with north and south-facing exterior entrances and a contemporary interior redesign. Interior common areas will be revamped with sleek, architectural details and a central atrium, with a sweeping, curved staircase and sculpted ceilings to create a dramatic and modern shopping environment.

Over 250,000 square feet of commercial space will be re-merchandised with best-in-class and new-to-market brand-

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OTTAWA — The Canadian Construction Association (CCA) welcomed the federal government’s announcement in Budget 2011 of its intention to strengthen public infrastructure by introducing legislation to formalize the current $2 billion annual Gas Tax Fund transfers to municipalities and to work with provinces, territories, municipalities and other stakeholders to develop a long-term plan for public infrastructure that extends beyond the expiry of the Building Canada Plan.

“Within the next 10 years much of our infrastructure will need to be replaced or expanded to avoid economic stagnation. Canada needs to remain focused on the renewal of these critical assets as they are the foundation of our economy and the pillars that support a competitive and export-focused Canadian economy,” said Michael Atkinson, president of the Canadian Construction Association.

CCA has been a strong advocate for permanent federal funding for the modernization of national, provincial and local infrastructure assets. As an export-driven nation, these assets are critical to Canada’s future competitiveness. With many of Canada’s international competitors investing billions of dollars to modernize their infrastructure, it is imperative that Canada continue to support the modernization of these assets to ensure it remains globally competitive.

CCA also welcomed the announcement of $148 million over the next five years to repair international bridges, a commitment of $1 billion for the Windsor-Essex Parkway P3 project, funding for Research Chairs at colleges and polytechnics, as well as the extension of the Tuition Tax Credit to cover occupational trade examinations.

New research to study native plants for green roof planning across Canada

VINELAND, ON — New research sponsored by the Canadian Ornamental Horticulture Alliance (COHA) at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (Vineland) and Nova Scotia Agricultural College will assess plant diversity and survival issues for green roofs.

“Multi-year survivability has been an on-going issue for green roof habitats in Canada. With this research we are particularly

upfront interested in moving away from the more common plantings dominated by Sedum species to a broader selection of native plants that demonstrate sun, wind, cold, and drought tolerance,” said Dr. Rumen Conev, Vineland’s Research Scientist, Ornamental Plant Breeding.

The environmental benefits of green roofs are already welldocumented; significant reductions in building heating and cooling costs, storm water runoff management, and natural habitat creation. However, lack of research into planting options and managing green roof health in Canadian climatic conditions has been a barrier to uptake. “Canadian cities are lagging behind in North American green roof rankings,” said Andy Kuyvenhoven, president, Kuyvenhoven Greenhouses Inc. and president of COHA. “Growers and nurseries have a suite of native plants that we believe can do the job. This research will confirm the best choices from dozens of species that are already highly adapted to and can help resolve the issues of the Canadian conditions.”

“As a grower I am interested in understanding how best to start plants in the nursery to ensure successful transition to a green roof habitat,” said Bill Stensson, president, Sheridan Nurseries Ltd. “Our industry wants to see a green roof explosion in this country with planting materials that can survive for 50 years, not one or two.”

Funding for this research was received in part from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s agri-science cluster initiative. With over 20 new native species being studied, Vineland’s green roof research initiative will be on display at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre in the heart of Niagara’s horticultural zone.

sustainable.TO Architecture + Building wins international Passive House design competition

TORONTO — sustainable.TO Architecture + Building has taken the top prize in an international competition to design a passive house for New Orleans. Acclaimed as “an incredibly thoughtful and viable response to this challenge,” sustainable.

TO’s “Low Cost, Low Energy House” was selected from 65 entries from around the world. The competition was launched by the ArchDaily website and DesignByMany, a challenge-based design technology community.

The challenge for both students and professionals was to design a passive house for hot and humid New Orleans focusing on key components of The Passive House Standard and the 2030 Challenge, which has influenced the Better Buildings Initiative issued by President Obama. Submissions came from Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. According to the Canadian Passive House Institute, the Passive House Standard is “the world’s most ambitious and scientifically verified route to truly sustainable buildings, achieving 80 – 90 per cent energy savings over conventional construction.” Originating in Germany and Sweden, today there are over 25,000 single and multi-family passive houses worldwide.

“Low Cost, Low Energy House” features an airtight, thermalbridge free and super-insulated envelope combined with passive shading in the summer and solar heat gains in winter; concrete

floor topping for thermal mass to radiate the heat into the space as required; highly reflective galvalume wall and roof cladding; a balanced energy recovery ventilation system and split-zoned high-efficiency heating and cooling units with an ultra high-efficiency on-demand water heater and supplemental radiant floor heating. The use of low-cost, durable and long-lasting materials, and proven construction techniques assures value to returning homeowners.

In accordance with post-Katrina building codes, guidelines and best practices, the house is raised seven feet above grade, securing its safety during flooding and providing shaded parking, storage, and outdoor living spaces.

320,000 construction workers needed in next decade

OTTAWA — Canada’s construction industry will need about 320,000 workers over the next nine years to meet demand for new construction and to replace retirements and mortalities. The finding, from the Construction Sector Council’s national forecast of labour supply and demand from 2011-2019, says Canada’s slowing population growth combined with its rising demand for large natural resource construction projects is challenging the industry to find the required number of skilled workers.

But it’s a challenge industry leaders are prepared for. “We are making an all-out effort to recruit from non-traditional labour sources such as youth, women, Aboriginal people, workers from other industries and foreign workers,” says George Gritziotis, executive director, Construction Sector Council. “We’re working on government and industry programs that focus on recruitment, apprenticeship and training, certification, pan-Canadian standards and foreign credential recognition.”

The forecast estimates that half of the industry’s total labour needs will be met with 163,000 first-time new entrants to the workforce, leaving a requirement of 157,000 workers — an average of about 15,000 workers per year over the 2011-2019 period.

Demographic patterns are slowing growth by limiting the available workforce and restricting housing starts. At the same building august/september 2011

7

upfront time, government and industry are planning large resource projects in response to domestic needs and international demands.

Industry leaders are also looking to manage labour supply and demand, where possible, through interprovincial mobility. “A ripple effect will be created across all the provinces as major projects from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia first draw in and then release large numbers of key trades,” explains Gritziotis. “For example, one of the most likely opportunities to balance markets comes late in the forecast, when the announced utility project in the Greater Toronto Area and major projects in Alberta will likely draw in workers as major projects end in other provinces.”

Parking rates in Canada continue to climb

TORONTO — While Calgarians enjoy some of the lowest gas prices in Canada, they have to dig deeper into their pockets when pulling into the parking lot as the city ranked the priciest place to park in Canada, according to Colliers International’s 11th Annual Parking Survey. Calgary’s median monthly unreserved parking rate has risen by 4.2 per cent over the past year. Now at $472.50, it is more than double the national average of $235.76. This makes Calgary the second most expensive city to park in North America, trailing only behind New York (US$541 midtown and US$533 downtown) and topping cities such as Boston (US$438) and San Francisco (US$375).

According to the Colliers survey, soaring parking costs over the past year were not limited to Canada’s oil Mecca. In eight out of the 12 major Canadian cities surveyed, drivers are paying more to park their car in the city’s core. Kitchener-Waterloo ($128.24) and Vancouver ($287.98) experienced the highest parking rate increase of 9.7 per cent and 7.9 per cent respectively. In stark contrast, drivers in Ottawa ($195) and Toronto ($332.38) saw their unreserved monthly parking fee descending by 6.6 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively.

Canada’s Monthly Parking Rate by City* Rank

City

Average Monthly Rate

Year-OverYear % Change

1 2 3 4 5

Calgary, AB Toronto, ON Montreal, QC Vancouver, BC Edmonton, AB NATIONAL AVERAGE Ottawa, ON Victoria, BC Saskatoon, SK Regina, SK Halifax, NS Winnipeg, MB Kitchener-Waterloo, ON

$472.50 $332.38 $296.21 $287.98 $275.00 $235.76 $195.00 $184.80 $170.00 $168.00 $166.75 $152.25 $128.24

4.2 (1.2) 5.6 7.9 0.0 2.6 (6.6) 2.7 1.8 3.2 5.4 0.0 9.7

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

*Unless otherwise noted, all figures are in Canadian dollars

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“The limited supply of new parking spots added to the national pool coupled with a strong economy that weathered the global recession, continue to put upward pressure on parking rates nationally,” says Suzanne Bedford, senior vice president with Colliers International in Canada. “As business activity and consumer confidence continue to improve, expectations are that parking rates in Canada will increase at an even higher pace over the short- and mid-term.”

But what may seem to Canadians as shockingly high-cost parking fees may be considered a bargain when compared to other cities around the world, particularly in Europe and Asia.

London – City was the most expensive place in the world to park, with an astronomical US$1,084 median price for a monthly spot. London’s West End was close behind at US$1,014 per month, followed by Zurich at US$822. Hong Kong and Tokyo round out the global top five priciest cities list with US$744 for a monthly parking spot. This may explain why not even a single North American city made it this year to the top 10 global list.

OAA appoints Kristi Doyle as Executive Director

TORONTO — OAA Council has appointed Kristi Doyle as Executive Director of the Ontario Association of Architects. As Executive Director, Doyle will be responsible to Council for oversight of the ongoing operations of the Ontario Association of Architects in furtherance of the Vision and Mission established

by Council and the objects of the OAA. This appointment reflects Council’s direction to move forward with changes based on existing staff resources and talents, which is an outcome of its review of the current management structure. Doyle’s knowledge and considerable experience, currently approaching 19 years of service to the OAA and the profession of architecture, will be a great asset in moving this revised management structure forward.

Town of Ajax tasks Medallion Corporation with downtown development

AJAX, ON. — Medallion Corporation has purchased a vacant nine-acre parcel of land at the southwest corner of Bayly Street and Harwood Avenue from Ajax Town Council, and plans to build 1,838 residential units (both rental and condominium) and 72,000 square feet of office and ground floor retail space in six buildings ranging from nine to 25 storeys. The project is valued at about $280 million and will incorporate green development initiatives in keeping with the Town’s environmental focus.

“What we have approved is a plan that meets all of our objectives in redeveloping our downtown into a place where people will live, work and play for generations to come,” said Ajax Mayor Steve Parish. “We want our revitalized downtown

upfront to create jobs and be a place with lively public spaces, improved public transit, cycling, and pedestrian amenities and offer high quality residential, commercial and retail space.”

A key feature of the proposed development is a Town-owned civic square featuring a reflective pool/skating rink and amphitheatre that can be used for celebrations and events. The square will be named after Pat Bayly, Ajax’s first Mayor. Once a site plan is approved the project would be built in three phases and is expected to be complete within 10 to 15 years, subject to market conditions.

The nearly 3,200 new residents of the development are expected to inject nearly $72 million into the local economy each year while the Town will receive $1.4 million a year in property tax revenue after project completion. “This is a long-term project that is an important piece of our vision for Ajax. It’s great to partner with a company that is willing to make the kind of longterm investment necessary to see the vision become a reality,” said Mayor Parish.

The Medallion development will complement other significant work already completed, underway or planned for the New Downtown such as the transformation of the Verona Mall lands into a new residential neighbourhood; investments at Harwood Mall; the extension of Commercial Avenue and re-alignment of Fairall and Station Streets; construction of the new St. Bernadette’s Catholic School and Hubbard Station co-op; Town Hall and the main branch library; expansion of the Ajax/ Pickering Hospital and approval of the redevelopment of the Steam Plant; and various connectivity, streetscape and landscape improvements.

Four Seasons Private Residences penthouse sells for $28 million, a Canadian record

TORONTO — An international buyer has purchased the West Penthouse of the new Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences in Toronto’s tony Yorkville neighbourhood, for $28 million, making it the most expensive condominium residence sold in Canadian history. This mixed-use development features a Four Seasons hotel and 210 private residences in two towers.

The penthouse residence occupies the top floor of the 55-storey West Residence building, and encompasses 9,038 square feet of living space. The suite, with panoramic views of Toronto’s skyline, features 12-ft. ceilings, floor-to-ceiling glass galleria and four corner terraces. Included in the price is a staff residence, located in the adjacent, 26-storey East Residence building.

“As one of the largest developments of its kind in North America, our exciting new hotel and private residence in Toronto represents a wonderful affirmation of the strength of the Four Seasons brand in Canada and around the world,” said Isadore Sharp, founder and chairman of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts Designed by architectsAlliance, the West Residence tower is comprised of a 253-room Four Seasons Hotel on the first 20 floors, and 100 private residences above. The 26-storey East Residence tower has 110 private residences and is connected to its sister building by an elevated pedestrian bridge. Both towers share a courtyard designed by Claude Cormier Landscape Architects.

Construction is well underway, with first occupancies and the hotel opening scheduled for summer 2012. The developer is Bay-Yorkville Developments Ltd., a joint venture between Menkes Developments Ltd., Lifetime Developments and Alcion Ventures. Menkes Construction Ltd. is building both the hotel and residences. The private residences’ suite designs and finishes have been created by Brian Gluckstein Design Planning, and Yabu Pushelberg has designed the Hotel and Private Residence lobbies, the spa, ballroom/conference facilities and hotel rooms. building august/september 2011

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legal

BY JEFFREY W. LEM AND DAVID G. REINER

The Last Chapter?

Caledonia class-action settled for $20 million, but its significance remains.

The Province of Ontario has recently announced that it has settled, for a lump-sum payment of 20 million dollars, the classaction lawsuit that had been brought against the Province for its alleged failure to provide policing to the Town of Caledonia in the face of a First Nations occupation in 2006.

Caledonia, Ontario is a small community inside the “Haldmimand Tract,” a strip of land that runs approximately six miles wide along either side of the Grand River granted by Frederick Haldimand, as the Governor General of what was then still known as the “Province of Quebec” to the Mohawk Nation at the end of the Eighteenth Century. At least before 2006, most Canadians knew Caledonia as a growing bedroom community a few kilometres outside of Hamilton and within commuting distance of Toronto.

Caledonia grabbed headlines in 2006, however, when the local Haudenosaunnee and Six Nations Confederacy seized the Douglas Creek Estates, a 28 hectare residential development in Caledonia which, if developed, would have brought up to a thousand new homes to the area. Haudenosaunnee and Six Nations Confederacy disputed the title to the site, and enforced their claim by establishing armed roadblocks in and out of the subdivision. Developers and builders in the Haldimand Tract soon received bills for extra-governmental “development fees,” while citizens wanting to enter the area were forced to apply for Six Nations “passports.” The occupation of the Douglas Creek Estates, now re-named “Kanonhstaton” by the occupying First Nations, continues to this day, although the developer of the Douglas Creek Estates cum Kanonhstaton has since been boughtout by the Province.

The lawlessness that ensued in and about the Douglas Creek Estates after the occupation began is well documented in a

variety of newspaper articles from 2006. Argyle Street, the main road into the subdivision, was closed to traffic by barricades; Caledonia was plunged into blackout after the transformer station servicing the area was destroyed; hundreds of tires were lit ablaze and many cars were thrown off the seized public highway over-pass; two local television crewmen were hospitalized after being attacked by protesters; two OPP officers were physically wrested from their squad car and then nearly run-over by their own squad car; and a local builder and his nephew were both badly beaten, with the builder suffering a severe brain injury as a result. Much of the very real drama that was and, to a certain extent still is, life in Caledonia has been chronicled by best-selling author, Christie Blatchford, in her book titled, Helpless: Caledonia’s Nightmare of Fear and Anarchy and How the Law Failed All of Us (2010, Doubleday).

At the root of the classaction litigation was the apparent unwillingness of the police to do anything whatsoever, over a prolonged period of time, to prevent or stop such lawlessness. Aside from one failed police raid in 2006, almost all of the media sources reporting on Caledonia concluded that the OPP stood idly by observing the occupation, but refused to intervene to assert the rule of law.

The class-action settlement benefits some 800 local business and property owners affected by the occupation, and follows the similar settlement in late 2009 of a high-profile $7 million lawsuit that had been independently brought by long-time Caledonia residents, Dave Brown and Dana Chatwell, owners of a house and business on Argyle Street.

Ironically, the land claim itself has not yet been settled, but that too may soon be coming to an end. On July 31, 2011,

Jeffrey W. Lem, B.Comm. (U of T), LL.B. (Osgoode), LL.M. (Osgoode), practises in the areas of commercial real estate and finance with the law firm of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, and has been called to the bar in Ontario, England and Wales. He is an executive member of the Real Property Section of the Ontario Bar Association and is editor-in-chief of the Real Property Reports, published

by Carswell Thomson Professional Publishing.

David G. Reiner, B.Comm. (Concordia), LL.B. (Osgoode) is an associate practising in the area of commercial real estate at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP and is called to the Bar in Ontario.

This article provides general information only and is not intended to provide specific legal advice.

Readers should not act or rely on information in this article without seeking specific legal advice on their particular fact situations.

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august/september 2011

legal

BY BRIAN G. CLARK AND JEFFREY W. LEM

the Toronto Star reported that “Ottawa intends to cut off negotiations in certain claims that have been on the books for three years or more and offer ‘take it or leave it deals’.”

The Douglas Creek Estates cum Kanonhstaton dispute was not specifically mentioned in the Toronto Star article, but falls within the type of aboriginal land claims identified in the article as being now targeted for expedited settlement by the government.

Readers may be tempted to dismiss the threat of a Caledonia-like civil unrest because the developer of the Douglas Creek Estates was actually bought-out by the government. Even presuming that the compensation paid was adequate to reimburse for the loss of an entire subdivision, developers and builders should not be complacent going forward. The government is not legally obliged to buy-out disputed aboriginal titles, even if the land becomes occupied and utterly unmarketable as a result.

Generally speaking, builders and developers are woefully unaware of the scope of aboriginal title claims in Canada.

Did you know, for instance, that most of what is now the City of Toronto had been subject to an aboriginal title

claim in favour of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, alleging that the original surrenders giving birth to the city are invalid? Luckily for Torontonian property owners, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation have always publicly maintained that they would seek only compensation from the government rather than attempt any occupation of private property (Rosedale, Forest Hill and The Kinsway can now sigh a collective sigh of relief!), and the Mississauga’s claim to Toronto was finally settled in 2010 for $145 million. Furthermore, as the class-action lawsuit in Caledonia demonstrated, indirect damage from such occupations can be every bit as costly as the direct losses suffered by the occupied developer. Imagine the impact on your bottom line if your own development site, even if it was otherwise free and clear of any aboriginal title claims, happened to be situate next door or down the road from an ongoing native occupation (or even just a threatened one!).

While the Caledonia occupation might now be fading from the front pages of Ontario newspapers, the real question is where and when the next Caledonia powder-keg might explode!

B

building august/september 2011

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Cleantech Greens Brownfield New remediation technology has primed a derelict brownfield site on Toronto’s lakeshore for new residential development.

By Guy Crittenden University of Waterloo, ZVI-clay has been used previously in the United States for contaminated sites attempting to comply with government-issued cleanup orders, as well as government projects such as the decontamination of air force bases. The Lake Shore project is the first commercial property redevelopment using ZVI-clay in the context of brownfield redevelopment.

Cleantech fund

Rows of new townhouses. Mid-rise condominiums. Green space and retail properties. Site plans are rosy for the redevelopment of 3600 Lake Shore Boulevard West near the waterfront in Toronto, where the soil remediation phase is nearly complete. For years the four-hectare property was home to an auto parts manufacturer; it will soon be home to parks and mixed use areas along with residential neighbourhoods.

Time and cash are familiar obstacles in the development world. Strict timelines and market pressures often cause redevelopment projects to fall victim to lengthy remediation processes that frustrate growth. But with new perspectives from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment — such as a streamlined risk assessment processes — brownfield cleanup may increasingly represent an attractive prospect for companies seeking to redevelop previously unusable land.

One of these companies, Lakeshore EMPC Two L.P. (a subsidiary and joint venture of the Kilmer Brownfield Equity and developing partners Diamondcorp), has partnered with Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to redevelop the brownfield site on Lake Shore Blvd.

Kilmer estimates that there are likely more than 50,000 brownfield sites throughout Canada. Approximately 20 per cent of these sites are estimated to contain contamination from chlorinated solvents (used for industrial processes or dry cleaning).

The traditional remedial approach to many sites, including those impacted by chlorinated solvents, has incorporated “dig and haul” to landfill; any remaining groundwater contamination was treated with oxidizing agents. This remedial approach is expensive and impractical for many sites with these types of impacts.

In contrast, the Lake Shore project uses chemical processes to treat both contaminated soil and water onsite. The project is among the first to demonstrate a commercial-scale brownfield application of “zero valent iron” (ZVI) technology mixed with clay (ZVI-clay) to treat soil contaminated with chlorinated volatile organic compounds (cVOCs). Developed in Canada at the

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The remediation process has been made possible by a sizable funding investment of $1.07 million, representing approximately 42 per cent of the project costs, from SDTC (a not-for-profit foundation established in 2001 by the federal government). SDTC supports clean technologies at the development stage of the innovation chain and is a Cleantech fund that supports innovative projects addressing climate change, air quality, water and soil.

Its mission is to act as the primary catalyst in building sustainable development technology infrastructure in Canada, attract private-sector investments, promote new technologies, and fund redevelopment projects like the Lake Shore Blvd. example.

Specifically, the funding was provided by SDTC’s $550 million SD Tech Fund.

Kilmer has called this kind of project the “brownfield opportunity” on its website. Kilmer managing partner David Harper emphasizes the sustainability of the Lake Shore project. “Many remediation programs in Ontario use the dig and haul approach, removing the contaminated soil from the site and sending it to landfills,” he explains. “Other jurisdictions in Canada and also internationally develop environmental policies and remedial strategies to treat and reuse contaminated soils. Lake Shore’s approach is more environmentally friendly and sustainable but not at the expense of effectiveness, cost or time.”

With Lake Shore’s chemical approach to neutralizing and altering the cVOCs, contaminated soil becomes reusable on site.

As well, more than 90 per cent of the materials from the demolished manufacturing building have been recycled, with much of the materials reused on site.

“Investing in clean technologies like Lake Shore’s ZVI-clay benefits not only the brownfield industry, but all of us, because we are using our infrastructure in more efficient ways,” says Keith Watson, SDTC Screening and Evaluation Manager (water and soil).

The official plan for the 4.33 hectare site includes 550 residential units, along with parks, at-grade retail areas, and an avenue along Lake Shore Boulevard West. The project is expected to last until October 2012. B Guy Crittenden is Editor of HazMat Magazine. He can be reached at gcrittenden@hazmatmag.com

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Every

Natural disaster, revolt, and where that leaves the Canadian construction sector.

By Bruce Reynolds Anyone who is involved in the construction sector — whether as a builder, sub-contractor, provider of finance or adviser — must feel humbled by the events of the last couple of years.

The built environment seems very fragile in the wake of the natural disasters that we have witnessed, from Haiti to Christchurch to Honshu; and this environment merely provides the backdrop for the wave of political and social change which began with the suicide of a market-trader in Tunisia late last year and which is still being played out. The tremors set in motion by the Arab Spring are being watched by populations and regimes not only in North Africa and the Middle East but also in what has been the fastest-growing construction market in the world, China.

So where do we in the Canadian construction sector find ourselves? In a weird spot. Obviously, as human beings we feel enormous sadness at the suffering wreaked by earthquakes, tsunamis and repressive regimes. At the same time there is reason for hope at the prospect of democracy and progress in Tunisia and Egypt and, perhaps, in Libya and Syria. We feel frustration, too, if we’re talking about countries like Haiti, where decades – centuries, actually – of corruption and mismanagement make the effort to help sometimes seem futile, even if you take devastating natural disaster out of the picture.

At the same time, we have to admit that there is opportunity as well, for where there is destruction there is the prospect of being involved in the reconstruction of what has been destroyed.

We in Canada are well placed to help with that, given our technical expertise, the strong links between new Canadians and their countries of origin, and the goodwill which we generally enjoy abroad. But, at the same time, to say that the challenges are significant would be an understatement.

Here follows a brief round-up of the impact of some recent international events, both natural and human-induced, in which

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Canadian construction expertise could become involved. Bear in mind, though, that the landscape is ever-changing. For better or, sometimes unfortunately, for worse.

Haiti Sadly, things still appear to be at the level of building latrines and basic shelter over a year after the earthquake that rocked Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and the surrounding areas in January 2010. An estimated 600,000 people remain homeless.

On a more optimistic note, the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests that despite the many challenges faced by Haiti, the country is ‘poised for sustained growth’ of six to eight per cent per year over the next decade, ‘given the right public policies, positive engagement of the national and international private sector, and sustained support of the international community.’

Those are some pretty big if’s, but the WEF has nevertheless seen improvements in conditions that are likely to bolster the climate for investing and sees opportunities for public-private partnerships (PPPs) in housing, urban development and infrastructure construction. For example, the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, has approved US$7.5 million in finance to restart construction on a partially built hotel that survived the 2010 quake.

S.M. Group International Inc., the Montreal-based engineering firm which lost its vice president of business development, former MP Serge Marcil, during the quake, has resumed work on two projects begun before the disaster, but has reported that progress is slow.

New Zealand The outlook here is much, much brighter. The New Zealand government has announced a US$12.5 billion reconstruction

project to be administered by a new government agency, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, and significant funds are expected to flow from reinsurers. This is coupled with the New Zealand central bank’s moves to keep access to credit easy and a strong stock market (especially in the construction sector, albeit counterbalanced by losses by insurers). As devastating as the February 2011 earthquake and its June 2011 aftershocks may have been, it is possible that they will ‘actually spur economic growth after the initial shock because of rebuilding efforts.’

Japan The March 2011 quake permanently shifted (well, for now) parts of the main island of the Japanese archipelago by eight metres. Yikes!

Reconstruction costs from the earthquake and the tsunami that followed it are equally frightening, having been estimated with some conservatism at US$180 billion. This is compounded by the size of Japan’s pre-quake public debt (which is double the size of the nation’s US$5 trillion output), fears that borrowing costs will inevitably increase and high commodity prices. Not surprisingly, the Japanese government is actively promoting PPPs with its international partners, having already announced an initiative with the United States in May 2011. Canadian timber producers, including Canfor and Interex, expect to be able to take advantage of their well-established relationships with Japan to respond to a spike in demand for timber under governmentsponsored reconstruction projects.

Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria There are some positive signs in Tunisia: the Canadian and Tunisian governments announced in July 2011 that they will be negotiating a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, aimed at protecting investors through the establishment of a framework of legally-binding rights and obligations.

Canadian companies have already invested $350 million in Tunisia and are well-placed to expand operations in the oil and gas sector and in infrastructure construction, among other sectors. The Department of Foreign Affairs notes (as of late July 2011) that the political situation in the country remains ‘fragile,’ however, with continued political protests, strikes and disputes related to displaced persons. The border with Libya remains tense, with massive entry of refugees into Tunisia and military activity.

Libya remains, for the present, a no-go area. Canadians have been advised not to travel to Libya and those present in the country were advised to leave as soon as possible when the revolt began. Canadian construction and resource companies had previously made significant investments in Libya, notably Suncor.

These are now on hold and most employees have been evacuated.

All bets are off until there is a resolution of the situation, which may be some time in coming and is unlikely to be pretty.

Uncertainty continues in Egypt. Here again, Canadian companies have had considerable involvement in construction and in the resource sector, but the political situation is unsettled — with

elections not scheduled until later this year, Islamist groups flexing their political muscle and, at the time of writing, the trial of former president Hosni Mubarak and other ousted officials just beginning. Even before the current round of demonstrations, Egypt’s economic outlook looked fairly bleak, with downgrades in its already bad sovereign debt ratings by two agencies, a weakening fiscal position, high unemployment and the potential for further social unrest. The Department of Foreign Affairs continues to recommend avoiding all non-essential travel to Egypt.

The situation in Syria, as in Libya, is unpredictable: no matter which side in the two countries prevails it’s difficult to say what kind of society and political structure will emerge, much less to gauge the climate for foreign investment in construction projects.

Canadians have been advised to leave the country by commercial means, while this remains possible. As recently as 2009, there were reports that Syria was opening its doors to foreign investment, but for now, investors are unlikely to want to enter.

Canadian companies should also be aware that Canada has economic sanctions in place against Egypt, Libya, Syria and Tunisia, which prohibit transactions with designated persons and entities, place controls on certain goods and technologies and impose other restrictions.

Iraq and Afghanistan War has also provided opportunities for Canadian involvement in reconstruction. Although Canadian companies were largely shut out of projects in Iraq initially, Canadian contractors recently won a major consulting contract for a strategic pipeline project.

Canada’s military involvement in Afghanistan has made it easier for Canadian firms, including ATCO Structures & Logistics, to offer their expertise there, notably at the NATO base in Kandahar and at the Dahla Dam project. No involvement in these still-troubled countries will be without significant security challenges, however.

What’s next?

Who knows?

While there are opportunities for Canadian private-sector companies to be involved in the reconstruction of what has been damaged or destroyed by natural disasters, and to undertake new projects in recently liberated societies, this will involve huge risks and challenges. Human and cultural sensitivity will be required.

Socio-political risk cannot be underestimated, and should not be approached without expert advice. Funding may not be forthcoming, for a variety of reasons that should not be surprising. That said, Canadian companies can play a significant role in reconstruction and development. All things being equal, that is. B

Bruce Reynolds is the Chair of the International Construction Projects Group and a partner in the Construction Group at the Toronto office of BLG LLP. Bruce can be reached at breynolds@blg.com or 416-367-6255.

building august/september 2011

15

DOES LEED STILL LEAD The crisis of global warming has focused on the building sector as a major contributor of greenhouse gases. Among the various programs, systems and challenges that encourage architects and builders to create greener buildings, LEED is the best know. But is it the most effective?

By Sheri Craig Frank Gehry isn’t a fan of LEED. The Pritzker Prize-winning architect believes in building green, but says LEED is only one way among many to encourage it. “A lot of our clients don’t apply for the LEED certification because it’s complicated and in their view, they simply don’t need it.”

Gehry is among a growing number of LEED critics who claim that the certification system has become too onerous, too bureaucratic and distorted, giving added prestige to buildings mainly to attract tenants and justify premium rents. Some call it “LEEDwashing,” using LEED to make a building appear green when, because of its location, energy use or for a myriad of other reasons, the building really isn’t green at all.

But if there were not LEED, would people even be talking about building green? “Before there was LEED, it was like the Wild West,” says Stephen Carpenter, president of Kitchener,

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Ont.-based consulting firm, Enermodal Engineering. “People could make whatever claims they wanted about green building and energy efficiency. LEED was the game changer.” LEED, says Carpenter, used marketing and branding to move sustainability forward. “If we didn’t have LEED, we’d be back to the situation where there would be no standard, no reference, and no third party verification. LEED is an effective way of addressing issues.”

“The strength of LEED is that it is simple; its weakness is that it is simple.” — Sheena Sharp

LEED is not the only game in town Before there was LEED, there was the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), developed in 1996 for application in the U.K. and Canada and published by the Canadian Standards Association as BREEAM Canada for Existing Buildings, going online in 2000. That same year, the Canadian Department of National Defence and Public Works and Government Services supported the development of the system for the design of new buildings.

The online system provides assessment tools in five different categories: design of new buildings or significant renovation; management and operation of existing buildings; building energy management; building emergency intelligence; and fit-up. It is operated in Canada by BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association), initially as Go Green and Go Green Plus and now as BOMA BESt (Building Environmental Standards) with four levels of certification. The federal government uses the system for its entire real estate portfolio. In the U.S. it is called Green Globes and operated by the Green Building Initiative. It is widely used in Europe.

There is also the Living Building Challenge (LBC), the certification arm of the International Living Future Institute, based in Seattle, and founded in 2009 by the Cascadia Green Building Council, one of three original chapters of the USGBC and also a chapter of the CaGBC, serving the Pacific Northwest.

LBC is widely regarded as the world’s most rigorous green building performance standard. Operated in Canada by the CaGBC, it involves seven performance areas or “petals”: site, water, energy, health, materials, equity and beauty.

To achieve “Living” status, all program requirements must be met and proven during a full year of operation. A Living Building must generate all its own energy through clean, renewable resources, capture and treat its own water Those issues are energy and environmental performance. The problem is global climate change and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. According to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), U.S. buildings account for 39 per cent of CO2 emissions per year; their use of electricity accounts for more than 72 per cent of electricity use in the U.S.; and U.S. buildings are responsible for more CO2 emissions annually than any other country except China. To try to counter this situation, the USGBC developed LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) in 2000 encouraging the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings and neighbourhoods. There are now nearly 40,000 commercial projects in the LEED systems, either certified or registered. Projects in the process include over 7.9 billion square feet in the U.S. and 117 other countries with more than 1.3 billion square feet having earned points for basic certification (40-49), Silver (50-59), Gold (60-79) or the prize Platinum (80 or more) designation.

through ecologically sound techniques; incorporate only nontoxic, appropriately sourced materials; and operate efficiently and for maximum beauty.

LBC upped the ante late last year by introducing its 2.0 version, taking sustainable building to a new level involving accountability for community scale impacts, unrestricted access to nature, local food production and social justice. The original version applied only to individual buildings but the newer version has been expanded to include small in-home remodels, community initiatives and infrastructure.

Concern over global warning caused Santa Fe, N.M. architect Edward Mazria to establish Architecture 2030 in 2002.

Three years later, the non-profit organization announced the 2030 Challenge to architects and builders to change the way buildings and developments are planned, designed and constructed to rapidly achieve a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions produced by new construction. The goal is to achieve carbon neutral by 2030, where the construction and operation of buildings will no longer require the consumption of fossil fuel energy or the emission of greenhouse gases.

Mazria says the goal is to move the planet back from the present 391 parts of CO2 per million in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, where events, including the melting of Arctic ice sheets, should begin to stabilize.

Architecture Canada | RAIC promotes the 2030 Challenge, noting that “By the year 2035, nearly three quarters of Canada’s buildings will be new or renovated and this affords a great opportunity for architects and the design and construction sector to be leaders in addressing greenhouse gas emissions.”

A 2030 Challenge task force is developing information, documents and procedures that will assist architects, policy makers and clients design and create sustainable buildings.

LEED Canada is an adaptation of LEED tailored specifically for the Canadian climate, construction practices and regulation.

As of June, 378 commercial projects in Canada had achieved LEED certification with 25 achieving Platinum rating.

Architecture Canada | RAIC notes buildings consume over 40 per cent of the raw materials and energy produced in Canada, adding that a significant reduction of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved in the building industry. “The energy performance standards and require-

“If LEED fades away, it will do so because it has been embodied into the building code.” — Sheena Sharp building august/september 2011

17

ments of Canadian building codes are lower than those of the U.S. and many other European countries. Building codes in Canada should be updated in a manner to reflect the serious global effort underway to create sustainable architecture and energy efficient buildings. Updated and more rigorous building codes will result in raising the energy efficiency of new building projects,” says the association. They conclude somewhat diplomatically by saying, “It is important to remember that building codes have always been based on the minimum standards of performance and design; clients can be encouraged to exceed minimum standards when it makes economic sense to do so.” And when ethical issues aren’t enough to persuade clients, the image of a prominent LEED plaque on a building might add incentive to the goal of exceeding minimum standards.

Better than nothing?

Sheena Sharp, principal of Toronto-based Coolearth Architecture and 2011 president of the Ontario Association of Architects, agrees with those who insist that LEED’s standards are too low but says, “The program now has higher standards than when it started. If anything, its standards will be overtaken. LEED’s target for energy use is 25 per cent better than Canada’s model energy code. However, that target will become law in Ontario effective Jan. 1, 2012.

“If LEED fades away, it will do so because it has been embodied into the building code,” she says.

“The strength of LEED is that it is simple, its weakness is that it is simple,” she explains. “Clients say they want to be good environmental stewards. LEED gives them a measured target to work towards. It can be a road map and I wouldn’t want to lose it.”

Sharp says it’s not difficult to determine where we should be in energy targets if we want to deal with a specific problem like rising global temperatures. “It’s a simple accounting model, if we want to stabilize the temperature where it is now, our buildings have to be built to use 80 per cent less energy by 2020 – in nine years,” she says. “Building is a slow process. A building built today can be here in 100 years. That means that new buildings must solve proportionately more of the problem. We will have to make new buildings very high performance and that also requires political will.

“Frankly, I don’t think a LEED-certified level building is a very green building. I think Silver should be the basic level.”

— Stephen Carpenter 18 building

august/september 2011

Take your pick…

The system began with LEED for New Construction (NC) and major renovation and now includes LEED for Commercial Interiors (CI), primarily tenant spaces in office and institutional buildings (2004); the Operations and Maintenance of Existing Buildings (EB:OM), introduced in 2004, revised in 2008; Core And Shell (CS) for speculative buildings (2006); LEED for Schools (2007); LEED for Homes (2008); LEED for New Retail Construction (2010); LEED for Neighbourhood Development (2010); LEED volume program for organizations planning to certify a large number of new construction projects or existing buildings (2010); LEED for Retail Commercial Interiors (2010); and LEED for Healthcare, a program introduced in 2007 with the rating system introduced this spring.

“What Ontario is doing doesn’t come close. We will have to go a lot further than what is required now. I suspect that future regulations will become tighter and tighter. And it will take a while for us to be able to build at the same cost,” she says.

So what comes first? Does public reaction push government regulation or does government regulation achieve the satisfactory public response?

Gehry had to deal with tight regulations when his firm designed the Novartis building in Basel, Switzerland, completed in 2009. “They don’t use the LEED program over there, the government just says that this is what you can and can’t do and things have to be built in a sustainable way,” Gehry explained when he was interviewed on PBS last year. “The Swiss government said the Novartis building couldn’t be air conditioned.

So we had to come up with another way to regulate the temperature. We built it entirely out of glass and cooled it with a geothermal system. The roof panels were made with photovoltaic glass that generates energy. And there is an opening at the top that lets hot air out — like a tepee. In the end, there’s no one way to do it, you have to be creative. Creativity and a will to do it.”

Does that will become watered down when it’s easier to achieve points by using environment-friendly materials like bamboo flooring and installing bicycle racks out front of a building than it is by devising a way to optimize the energy use of the building?

Walk the talk Toronto architect, developer and teacher of sustainable design at Ryerson University School of Interior Design, Lloyd Alter, describes the four sins of LEEDwashing on Treehugger.com: the sin of not following through; the sin of valuing gizmos over appropriate design; the sin of laughably inappropriate use; and the sin of wretched excess. “If people don’t operate a building in a green fashion, it doesn’t matter how it was built,” says

Alter. “I have been in LEED-certified spaces and looked in the janitor’s closet and seen the usual toxic supplies and a kitchen full of Styrofoam — the LEED practices ended as soon as the plaque went up.”

He argues his second point, “The key to building a green building is not to throw more technology at it but to use less.”

And he cites the Terry Thomas Building in Seattle that instead of heat pumps has awnings, natural ventilation, courtyards and vines.

Alter describes “inappropriate use” as an energy-efficient LEED building constructed in a totally automobile-dependent location causing more carbon emissions from employees and visitors driving to and from the building than was saved by designing the building. He suggests some kind of “deal breaker clause” that questions certification if any one thing is so out of whack as to bring the whole LEED process into disrepute, which dovetails nicely into his example of the fourth sin of “wretched excess,” symbolized by a 15,000 square-foot LEED-certified home in the tony beach side community of Manalapan Beach, Florida.

Carpenter agrees with the criticism. He suggests LEED could be improved if the emphasis is on actual building performance rather than predicted performance. “If someone says a building is energy efficient, how do I know? I’m especially sceptical on the energy and water use side. People spin their designs and think it’s a green building,” he says. “To achieve a LEED designation costs about $30,000 associated with certification. For a $10-million or $20-million building, that’s peanuts. That’s far less than what you pay to the city for building permits. And that’s just sending in money to have someone review drawings. I would argue that certifying a green building is exactly the same thing. But instead of building safety, it’s planet safety.”

Carpenter suggests that the performance of a building could be evaluated when construction is completed and the building rates a LEED Silver, for example. Then there could be bonus points if after a year, the building achieves its predicted energy savings. “Or the developer or architect could wait for certification. By the time the certification process is completed it’s almost a year anyway and the necessary data will be available,” he says.

This is not all just talk from Carpenter. He chairs LEED Canada’s technical committee, which takes LEED from USGBC and adapts it to Canadian circumstances. His company’s Toronto and Calgary offices have earned LEED Platinum and the Kitchener headquarters was awarded double Platinum in June. “Frankly,” says Carpenter, “I don’t think a LEEDcertified level building is a very green building. I think Silver should be the basic level.” Although Carpenter is still a firm believer in the benefits of LEED, he says the vast majority of buildings in Canada are being built just to code, that there is a cooling off in demand for LEED. “Builders say that they’ve been there, done that. ‘We have our LEED project. Now we’ll go back to the old ways.’”

There has been valid criticism of LEED, Carpenter admits.

“But the system has addressed and continues to address its problems,” he says, by continually revising and reinventing itself. For

“I have been in LEED-certified spaces and looked in the janitor’s closet and seen the usual toxic supplies and a kitchen full of Styrofoam — the LEED practices ended as soon as the plaque went up.” — Lloyd Alter example, the three-step certification process for LEED-NC (New Construction) is now a two-step process, effective in Canada late 2010. “Most people are still using the old system because building was started before that date, but ultimately it will mean that certification will be achieved with one third less work, two submissions instead of three, and therefore less cost as well.”

Carpenter says there are also changes to becoming a LEEDAccredited Professional (AP). “It used to be that you’d pay a fee, take a one-day course, pass a multiple choice exam and get a good-for-life certificate.” Now, he says, there are three designations: Green Building Associate; LEED-AP with specialty; and LEED Fellow. All three levels require a test and also continuing education. Practitioners must also be part of the design and construction process.

No building left behind Joe Lobko, a partner with DTAH, Toronto, worries about one area that LEED and other green building systems are not addressing — the deteriorating stock of buildings, both commercial and residential, from the 1950s on when land was cheap and the suburbs beckoned. “That’s where the focus needs to be,” he says.

The inner suburbs of Toronto, for example, are full of apartment buildings that were poorly built in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s and are extremely energy inefficient. But how to refurbish them?

“We need major incentive programs for insulation and mechanical upgrades because to say that the operating savings can be used to finance the upgrading is a stretch. The math doesn’t quite work,” says Lobko.

He says what drives innovation is crisis, and cites University of Waterloo professor Thomas Homer-Dixon, who described “moments of contingency,” when people are scared, angry and prepared to consider alternatives to the status quo. “Much will depend on whether we’re prepared to seize the opportunities these shocks create,” says Lobko.

So LEED, widely established and recognized, is one opportunity and one solution. “Whatever works to deal with the problem,” says Lobko. “[Because] we have a narrow window of time to fix it, stop it, slow it down.” B building august/september 2011

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GOODBYE IVORY TOWERS, HELLO URBAN CAMPUS Photos by Kelly Morton

How new urbanism and the new economy are changing the “town and gown” dynamic.

By Rhys Phillips Friction between universities and their host communities, between “town and gown,” has been around since the Middle Ages, and many of the issues that sometimes led to violent confrontations between students, faculty and towns people have remained the same. While animosity based on perceived elitism has played a role, more practical issues were and continue to be the source of conflict.

This has included universities’ exclusion from municipal taxation despite generating heavy service demands; the negative impacts of unilateral and deleterious physical expansion without local planning control; and the impact of student behaviour on resident’s quality of life (for which the term studentification was coined). These irritants frequently occur alongside the enormous control many academic institutions have over their community’s economic prosperity.

Starting two decades ago, two key variables brought new urgency to the need to reassess the town and gown relationship.

First, a negative synergy intensified that saw a downward spiral for both universities and cities caused by the former’s impact on surrounding neighbourhoods. By the 1980s and ‘90s, many U.S. universities such as Columbia, Trinty and Clark, Jackson State and Iowa received wake-up calls as their catastrophic impact on surrounding urban environments depressed enrolments and hurt professional staff recruitment. Many institutions responded with aggressive neighbourhood partnership plans. While few Canadian universities and colleges have generated the kind of depressed neighbourhoods documented in the U.S, issues remain.

The second variable is the emerging potential for positive synergy between the emerging knowledge-based economy and post secondary institutions. As many experts have been pointing

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out recently, higher education’s impact on a region’s economy has increased expeditiously with the transformation to a knowledgebased economy. But the relationship between higher learning and economic development is complex and simply turning out graduates appears not to be a strong indicator of regional economic strength. As Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz discovered in a staff report for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York study (2011), “there is only a small net positive relationship between the production and stock of human capital in metropolitan areas.”

Indeed, Richard Florida, the University of Toronto’s superstar on the creative economy and its relationship to urban quality, warned in a 2008 article in The Globe and Mail that universities are more likely to be net exporters of knowledge than net importers. “Rather than as an “engine” of development, then, think of the university as an ecosystem or infrastructure for a knowledgedriven, creative economy. The key to the future lies in building stronger bridges between universities and their surrounding communities,” he concludes.

Both trends outlined above have resulted in increased academic investigation of the role post secondary institutions play in creating both better urban environments and sustained economic development. There has even been a growth of related organizations such as the Town and Gown Association of Ontario (2004).

While no simple answers have emerged, one avenue of action is clear. Both the long term success of academic institutions and their contributions to regional economic prosperity will depend on the quality of urban life that they foster. While university research and development levels may influence growth positively,

retaining and building “human capital” and attracting knowledge workers and their companies will depend on producing the kind of positive results many like Florida argue Toronto has produced with U of T, Ryerson University and the Ontario College of Art & Design. How universities and colleges are positively affecting urban development in other parts of Canada is quite varied but in many cases, the introduction of post secondary institutions is having dramatic impacts.

University of Winnipeg: Turning outward to engage the city When Lloyd Axworthy returned to his alma mater in 2003 as its president and vice-chancellor, Winnipeg, after decades of largely marking time, was already into a renaissance spurred by the western economic boom. His first assessment was that the 8,000student University, despite its presence on Portage in the heart of the city’s west end core, was both isolated from its community and in need of major infrastructure renewal. “Our lawns were fenced in, security guards determined access and more students were being crammed into facilities that had not grown in years,” he says in an interview. After six months of intensive discussions with students, faculty and the surrounding community, two things were evident. First there was a need to develop and renew campus facilities, take control of student services and create an open urbanism that engaged both immediate neighbours and the city as a whole.

Second, because Winnipeg’s demographics indicated the aboriginal population in the core was increasing rapidly as were recent immigrants, frequently from Africa, there was a need to respond to these new communities as well as the changing demands of the emerging information economy.

In response, Axworthy and the University have put into place both structured community engagement initiatives as well as an urban design approach to creating an academic precinct that facilitates a culture of inclusivity. Extensive shared community learning initiatives are now in place, such as drop-in clubs for mentoring and homework, a summer camp program, an Eco-Kids on Campus club and open access to high quality media labs and studios, all designed for inner city kids who experience a 50 to 60 per cent drop out rate after grade 9. A $3 million Opportunity Fund assigns tuition credits for at-risk kids as they successfully pass through high school that can then be applied against eventual university costs. Applied training initiatives prepare students for their future studies. The University also took back its food services and established Diversity Foods which in turn hired and trained 25 inner city residents. A commitment to fresh local produce has had a significant effect on the region’s market gardening industry, and First Nation’s communities are now suppliers of elk and other traditional meats. By winning an international competition sponsored by the McCarthy Foundation, the university received funds for a Masters Program in development that will see students from around the world studying in Winnipeg. CN Rail is working through the program to obtain native graduates to work with the many native communities in which the company operates.

Physically, the university has already made significant changes and additions. In 2005, the Winnipeg Community

Photos by Kelly Morton

Previous page: The four-storey, 50,000-sq.-ft. LEED Silver certified Buhler Centre is home to UWinnipeg’s Faculty of Business and Economics, Division of Continuing Education and Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, and cost approximately $15 million. Above: The McFeetors Hall complex is a LEED Silver building offering housing for both the university and surrounding community.

Renewal Corporation was created by the university to oversee its future development. With the assistance of Winnipegbased Prairie Architects Inc. and Hilderman Thomas Frank Cram, the Corporation developed a Campus and Community Development Plan that was released in 2007. In addition to being an educational centre of excellence, the plan’s principles focus on creating a model, pedestrian-centred urban village in the city’s downtown based on sustainability, accessibility and community development. Two key concepts emerged. First, the University had to be turned inside out because a “village” is not insular but a “vibrant, compact and diverse place with life spilling into the streets… there is a diversity and juxtaposition of commerce, residential living, education and recreation.” Second, instead of a holistic campus, there must be scattered places in which academic facilities and services are dispersed throughout the community. Then, with proper urban design, the new inside out campus and its scattered places are to be rewoven into a broader and more seamless community of university, local residents and supporting businesses.

In only six years, the University has made significant progress.

In a first wave of work from 2007 to 2009, the University’s iconic Wesley Hall was renovated and a large commons/park on Portage Ave. in front of the heritage building was put in place. This latter was the first step of the greening of the campus that has also now seen Spence St. become, in part, a pedestrian promenade.

This last June, the University announced the construction of the Richardson Green Corridor through the existing campus to link up with the new Furby-Langside campus, one of the university’s new “scattered places.” Other completed projects include the Canwest Centre for the Performing Arts and the redevelopment and expansion of the Ducksworthy Building to turn the Spence St. building “inside out.”

In 2009, the Furby-Langside campus saw the opening of the serpentine McFeeter Student Residence (Prairie Architects Inc.) that sits on a row of 28 street-oriented, single family townhouses for local residents. The residence, says Axworthy, helps ensure building august/september 2011

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there has been a net increase in local housing. Behind is the UWSA Daycare (2009) which sets aside 30 per cent of its spots for local residents. In June, the mini-campus saw the opening of the Richardson College for the Environment and Science Complex, a state-of-the-art teaching facility featuring public commercial space along the street. Nearby on Portage, the Buhler Centre, an architecturally distinctive addition to the avenue, opened in January with an interesting mix of the Faculty of Business and Economics, the Continuing Education department and the edgy Plug-in Institute of Contemporary Art. No surprise, there is bakery and café opening onto the street.

Construction is also well underway on the conversion of the former Greyhound Bus Station into classrooms, an income producing retail property that includes a 6,000-sq.-ft. university bookstore called the AnX at street level, and a transit terminal in partnership with Winnipeg Transit. Topping June’s many announcements and openings was the unveiling of plans for a new $31.5 million mixed-use wellness and athletics complex.

Axworthy is quick to point out that most new service facilities, such as this new Field House, set aside one third access for local residents as part of a “Community Charter.”

Other Winnipeg post secondary institutions are also part of the redefining of Winnipeg’s core. Indeed, Red River College deserves credit for initiating the trend with its Princess St. Campus (2003) in the historic Exchange District. This internationally praised complex saw the façades of 19th century Chicago-style buildings integrated into a striking new and greener centre for its creative communications and electronic engineering technology program. The College is now converting the nearby 107 year-old, 11-storey Union Bank Building — the country’s oldest steel and reinforced concrete skyscraper — into its Culinary Arts and Hospitality Program. In addition to education facilities and three public restaurants, the new $27 million Paterson Globalfoods Institute (also by Prairie Architects Inc.) will offer seven floors of affordable student housing, the college’s first. Not to be outdone, the more traditional “periphery campus” university, the University of Manitoba, opened the James W. Burns Executive Education Centre this June, also located in the Exchange District at 177 Lombard, once Great-West Life’s imposing head office.

SFU: Urban Sermon on the Mount Simon Fraser University in Burnaby B.C. was built in the early 1960s as part of Canada’s huge expansion of post secondary

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institutions required to accommodate the exploding baby boom demographic. Located on the very top of Burnaby Mountain, it represented the ultimate idea of the monastic campus, albeit commuter-based with few student residences, separated from but overlooking the hubbub of urban life. Indeed, its unique position, as well as its physical organization of buildings around an expansive but covered academia square, contributed to SFU becoming Western Canada’s centre of student radicalism in the famous decade of student unrest.

Its architects, Arthur Erickson and Geoff Massey, however, did not intend the new university to remain apart from the city. Their original conception was to have urban development move up the mountain’s western slope to join with the campus. It would take another 30 years before a quite different and radical strategy would emerge to connect the university with urban development.

It is not that SFU has remained aloof from the intricacies of town and gown relationships. Quite the opposite. In 1989 it established satellite operations in the downtown core of Vancouver and recently opened its new Faculty of the Contemporary Arts facility in the ambitious mixed-use redevelopment of the historic Woodworth’s Department Store property on the edge of Vancouver’s troubled east end. In addition, the University has had a campus in the frayed suburban city of Surrey on the south shore of the Fraser River since 2002. This expanding campus is a key component of the city’s progressive efforts to develop a vibrant urban heart combining government, business, retail, culture and education (Building June/July 2010).

Back on the mountain, however, SFU is also busy creating a new/old urban form, a mountain top village with the less-thanpoetic name of UniverCity. In 1996 an Official Community Plan was approved that saw the transfer of 320 hectares of universityowned land to the City of Burnaby for the Burnaby Mountain Conversation Area. In return, the university was given the right to develop a 65 hectare, mixed-use community for over 10,000 residents divided into two distinct neighbourhoods on the east and southern slope. SFU established and became the sole owner of SFU Community Trust, a private company that works with developers based on 99 year leases. The Trust’s mission is two fold: to develop a model sustainable community; and to create an endowment fund to support research and teaching at SFU. To date, the development has generated $25 million for the university and another $150 to $170 million is expected by the time UniverCity is completed.

In an interview, the Trust’s president and CEO, Gordon Harris speaks with barely contained enthusiasm about the progress on the new community and its future. Almost 3,000 residents in market rate mid-rise condominiums and an affordable, shared equity complex developed by Van City are already in place. Supporting the village are two commercial buildings, retail services, one of two planned LEED-Gold elementary schools and a full supermarket with additional mid-rise residential projects being marketed. All buildings must meet rigorous design guidelines compatible with SFU’s modernism. “We also insisted,” says Harris, “that the commercial and retail services are in place before the residences were built.” The Trust also wanted to avoid UniverCity becoming a “company town,” he adds. Currently,

Images courtesy of SFU Community Trust

Previous page: UWinnipeg’s new $31.5 million Fieldhouse is a mixed-use wellness and athletics complex open to both students and community youth, and will include a regulation-size indoor soccer field. Above: The UniverCity Childcare Centre is being built to meet all 16 requirements of the Cascadia Green Building Council’s Living Building Challenge. Top right: Town Square is a public plaza that ties the campus to the residential community, and is lined with cafes and restaurants and provides a venue for events, festivals and concerts. Right: The new University Highlands Elementary School on UniverCity campus has space for 40 kindergarten and 275 elementary students. It occupies a repurposed and expanded former university building and is targeting LEED Gold certification.

approximately 40 per cent of residents have some connection with SFU and although this includes about 500 students, most are either longer term international or graduate students. This ratio is expected to be sustained.

The community is intended to far exceed current green standards with development regulated by the Trust’s own tough comprehensive green building code. The new Childcare Centre

by Vancouver-based Hughes Condon Marler Architects now under construction, will, says Harris, “set a new standard for sustainable construction.” Coming soon will be a neighbourhood energy utility that will use biomass wood waste from around the province.

Major new work is underway. Planning of the southern slope neighbourhood will start soon and over the next three years a high speed gondola will connect to the existing SkyTrain station below. This, says Harris, will replace 51 per cent of currently required buses to the university. Further integration with the campus will include linking the two areas with a common public square/transportation hub building. An additional two office buildings are planned to ensure non-university related employment. Finally, and in line with the new economy’s approach to “triple helix development” that links government, university and the private sector, there are plans to include a “discovery park” incubation centre in the Slope community.

Algonquin College: Suburban Transformation In the 1980s, the then-Region of Ottawa-Carlton approved a plan to develop vacant lands in the municipality of Nepean.

Although this parcel literally sits in the geographic heart of the amalgamated City of Ottawa (2001), it is well beyond the urban core and is wrapped on two sides by major arterials of Baseline and Woodruff Roads. The city opted primarily for suburban tract housing, but lands around the Centrepoint terminus of the busonly Transitway left open the opportunity to create a new, more urban hub for commercial and retail services. What emerged —

or did not emerge as much of the space remains undeveloped — has contributed little to urban life. This area, with its vacant land, strip mall retail, a few bland office buildings and one massive ugly office block, surface parking for commuters and the preamalgamation concrete Nepean city hall (now used by the City of Ottawa), has more the look of a small city in decline than a triumph in urban design.

East, across Woodruff’s six lanes, Algonquin College has been consolidating its once city-wide dispersed teaching facilities into a single campus over the last two decades. Despite the transit centre and the introduction of student residences (colleges were prohibited from developing residences until relatively recently), half the site remains surface parking for student commuters.

Hefty parking fees, however, has meant many students seek to park in the adjacent residential neighbourhood, creating friction with local residents. Bordering the campus’ northern edge and filling the corner of Baseline and Woodruff is Campus Square, a recent rebuild of a decaying mall into a standard big box/outlet development anchored by Loblaws and The Home Depot.

If this moribund scene seems typical of many frayed suburban corners, there is also one development now taking shape that suggests change may be on the way. Along Woodruff on the eastern edge of the Centrepoint lands, a striking new building is taking shape, linked to Algonquin’s original main building by an elegantly arched glass pedestrian bridge. The Algonquin Centre for Construction Excellence by Toronto-based Diamond and Schmitt Architects folds and undulates its way along the street line north towards Baseline. At last, the scruffy edge of Woodruff is being tamed by landscaped plazas and a humanely scaled façade. Targeting LEED Platinum, it features a very visible (and accessible with an elevated amphitheatre) living roof and is delightfully animated by vertical, multi-coloured glass bris soleils building august/september 2011

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Above and top right: The Algonquin College Centre for Construction Excellence is conceived as an undulating landscape that links the building with its natural surroundings. It is animated by brightly coloured sunshades and inclined grass slopes that lead to a rooftop amphitheatre – and still higher to the roofline.

Right: PCL Constructors and IBI Group Architects / Teeple Architects are the design-build team behind the new $52 million, 110,000-sq.-ft. Student Commons.

Anchored by a 700-seat auditorium for lectures and performances, the Student Commons is targeting LEED Gold certification.

that transform the building into a kinetic sculpture for both drivers and pedestrians.

One building cannot rescue an entire frayed landscape but it is the initial and very important first step in a larger planned transformation now underway. In 2003, the city scrapped its failed ad hoc approach to the area’s development and commenced an urban design process involving Centrepoint commercial land owners and hundreds from the surrounding residential communities. Initially, Algonquin was an interested but back seat participant. But when the idea of “jumping” Woodruff with a major new institutional building on land donated by the City of Ottawa that would link directly into the transit hub arose, the College sat up and took notice. During an interview, Rick Chiarelli, the area’s municipal councillor and a key driver of the planning process, says that what emerged was “a political idea linking together seemingly unrelated things rather than a classic urban planning decision.” The college’s plans for a state-of-theart construction crafts building was joined with the city’s desire for an underground transit station that will eventually act as the distribution hub between light rail and buses. By doing so, both senior levels of government could be tapped for funding.

If an outstanding $26 million in funding to complete the transit tunnel materializes, says Chiarelli, a much more ambitious transformation will proceed. The city’s plan for a pedestrian friendly retail “main street” linking the transit station to the existing civic centre and its two-stage theatre complex will proceed. Private sector commercial buildings would join additional Algonquin buildings. The latter would stretch south and north of the new construction building along Woodruff, further burying the transit station. In particular, with Algonquin’s large Support Worker Program, a health sciences complex to the south would be a good fit with the area’s current grouping of elder care facilities and housing. “The base levels of all these new buildings,”

Images courtesy of Algonquin College

states Chiarelli, “will be open to the public and include retail services.” Equally important, he adds, parking will be restricted with no additional traffic expected.

The City of Ottawa has a history of progressive urban plans that wither on the vine. The quality of the new Construction Excellence complex, however, is a solid first step in the Centrepoint town and gown plan. So, too, is the recently completed City of Ottawa Archives building that will eventually anchor the new community’s southern boundary. Designed by Ottawa-based Barry J. Hobin and Associates Architects, the Archives provides a strikingly colourful yet elegant urban icon. Similarly, the College has started construction of a $52 million Student Commons by Toronto-based design architect Steven Teeple (with IBI Group Architects) that will act as an impressive southern gateway just of Woodruff and provide a service and cultural centre for residence and commuter students alike. Eventually, Chiarelli, hopes to see student residences rise above the outlet stores across Navaho Drive. “The smartest thing we did,” he concludes, “was to see the power in working together and in the amazing synergies available to us.” Hopefully, the quality of design Algonquin and the city are promoting in their new buildings will flow into private sector projects and a high quality transit-based urban village will emerge.

The face of students is changing rapidly, with working professionals in urban cores being attracted to night and weekend training, and even geography itself becoming less salient a factor in urban higher education in the Information Age, as more students seek distance learning and online degree programs, making town-gown parameters increasingly difficult to define in the near future. B

For an expanded version of this article, visit www.building.ca 24 building

august/september 2011

A Mirrored

Reality

How Building Information Modeling can close the costly gap between building plans and actual progress.

By Michael Laurie

Centuries ago Plato and Aristotle debated various ideas regarding the ways in which art imitates life, and today it is clear that hightech digital representation is doing a spectacular job of mimicking reality. The potential this holds for the building industry is phenomenal. Modern buildings have sensors and monitors to make them smarter and more efficient, and architects produce amazingly realistic-looking models and drawings. Unfortunately, however, much of this technological innovation does nothing to practically advance design concepts or improve the actual hands-on process of controlling costs and erecting or managing buildings. A costly gap still persists between the architect’s drawing board and the nuts-and-bolts world of the construction site or budget-conscious building management team.

What is to blame is a missing link that exists between oldfashioned 2-D drawings and plans and the wonderfully futuristic digital renderings and computerized building systems of today.

Even when generated by a computer, a 2-D line drawing remains severely limited in its usefulness. It may be a visually sophisticated and attractive representation, but its relationship to reality only skims the surface like an image in a mirror.

BIM as a Bridge to the Future To address those profound limitations, Building Information Modeling (BIM) solutions take an exponential technological leap forward from conventional CAD drawings by bridging the gap between the industry’s stagnant past and parametric future.

BIM is a software platform that represents a building as a fully three dimensional computer model with an associated database.

Instead of only providing symbolic lines that must be interpreted by people in order to add a depth of knowledge, the model is based on objects — solid shapes or voids with their own intrinsic value-added properties. The model is also flexible and interactive, based on the interdependent relationships between represented objects. Increase the width of the windows in the building model, for example, and the BIM software automatically adjusts the thickness of surrounding walls in order to compensate.

One powerful advantage of BIM software is that it immediately detects incongruent geometry, incompatible measurements, and similar design errors — whereas when 2-D drawing’s inconsistencies are often hard to identify. BIM virtually eliminates mistakes like, for example, a structural engineer’s supportive beam winding up in the same space already occupied by a mechanical engineer’s ductwork or a void needed to run plumbing pipes.

Even when such design errors or spatial conflicts are detected, they typically become noticed only after construction has already started, and add as much as five per cent to cost overruns. BIM, however, clarifies the process from concept to creation, facilitating coordination and communication between multiple teams or participants. Changes made by one contributor to the model are instantly conveyed to everyone else and reflected in the model in real time. Meanwhile the user retains the convenient option of being able to generate both 3-D views and traditional 2-D drawings from the model.

Simulation Stimulates Savings BIM also becomes a digital simulator. Factors such as energy consumption, temperature fluctuation, the influence of solar orientation, the cost of local utilities, or revenue potential from rooftop leasing of cellular tower space can all be experimented with, analyzed, and precisely calculated and reported.

2-D plans are dependent upon the reader of those plans for deeper interpretation. Study them, for instance, to determine which lines represent windows or stairs. But the symbolic 2-D representation of a wall conveys no information about its materials or history. The 2-D format is smart, in other words, while a BIM platform is extremely intelligent and has a photographic memory.

The BIM platform, for example, lets the user click on the line that represents the wall and instantly gain access to a deeper archive of data. Click on that line and notes, photographs, document files, and virtually any other type of digital data that might be helpful and appropriate pops open.

Click on a drawing of a wall, for example, and a notation can building august/september 2011

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pop into view that describes it as a four-inch wall constructed in 1986 with drywall and R-15 fibreglass insulation. The note reveals that there is also electrical wiring and plumbing pipe inside the wall, and it gives the wiring capacity and describes that it is a hot water pipe. Another feature lets the user click on an HVAC vent that penetrates that wall, take it out, rotate it around in 3-D, and examine it in detail while also easily retrieving the service warranty and manufacturer specs.

Then there is the issue of change. Decide to enlarge a window and it becomes necessary to rebuild the wall around it to accommodate that change. But there may be thousands of changes over the course of a single project. To accurately reflect these in the drawings through constant redrawing costs time and money. The production of drawings traditionally accounts for a large percentage of the architect’s fees, and if the shape of a building is altered late in the game that necessitates lots of expensive redrawing. Plus the architects have to maintain an updated schedule of materials as the design progresses, so cost projections calculated prior to those changes become obsolete, as does the entire construction schedule.

Affordable and Adaptable Applications Until recently the cost of BIM was prohibitive, and it was only used in industries like aerospace or automotive manufacturing.

But within the past few years the futuristic technology has finally become available at affordable prices that do not require any special computer infrastructure. Implementation of BIM within the commercial building industry typically amounts to a small fraction of the return on investment, especially now that it is so valuable in predicting construction costs and reducing energy consumption through more efficient designs or retrofits.

BIM is also a powerful tool for building management, maintenance, and marketing, and it facilitates the creative innovation and imagination of designers and architects. They can use a BIM platform to test practically unlimited ideas and concepts without causing significant expenses or delays. B Michael Laurie, P.Eng. is president of PLANiT Measuring which provides onsite building measuring and BIM services. He can be reached at mike@planitmeasuring.com or 1-800-933-5136

Visit www.building.ca for more articles on Building Information Modeling.

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Digging the Future of

Vertical Gardens As installation technology improves, so does interest in living walls and all the benefits that come with them.

By Denise Eichmann

More and more businesses today are looking to green walls as a way to add natural beauty while dramatically improving energy efficiency by moderating indoor air temperatures and humidity levels. Every inspired landscaper digs their shovel into their soul and plants their own nature into their work. Green walls provide an inspired palette for landscape architects to harness and cultivate the joyful power of nature to best serve their clients.

Vertical gardens provide a net positive impact to the environment over their life span. Foliage plants of indoor vertical gardens significantly improve indoor air quality by moderating temperature and humidity levels and filtering the air to remove harmful volatile organic compounds. VOCs have significant vapor pressures which can be dangerous to human health and have adverse effects on the environment. Studies have found concentrations of VOCs in indoor air that is commonly two to five times greater than what is found in outdoor air. Sources of anthropogenic (man-made) VOCs include new furnishings, wall and floor coverings, and office equipment like printers. In the span of a year, a 50 square feet vertical garden can consume as much CO2 as a 14-foot high tree with as much as one pound of dust removed from the air per square foot.

Living walls can provide a living barrier that gently guides people to where you want them to go. In many buildings there is a need to channel pedestrian traffic towards landmarks including check-in desks, escalators and common passageways.

This is particularly important in premises with large, open areas such as those found in airports, hospitals, universities, and other large commercial spaces. Living walls provide natural divides and reference points that make any space come alive with vitality.

Many buildings have features that are best kept covered, such as harsh structural elements, service areas, and storage facilities.

Vertical gardens, with their wide range of size, shape, habit and leaf form can provide an elegant solution that is both attractive and functional. If properly designed and implemented, a green wall may positively affect securing certain LEED credits.

With living walls becoming more common as every greenconscious business desires to visually showcase its green initiatives, shoddy systems with poor long-term performance are quickly flooding the market. Designing, building and installing beautiful yet functional and environmentally beneficial green walls takes experience and practice. In a “buyer beware” marketplace, it is important to invest in a living wall system that has a proven track record of sustainability and to select an installer who has a well-documented history of successful installations with full-scale maintenance capabilities to warrant both plants and irrigation.

Living plants require water, nutrients and light to survive.

High-quality commercial vertical gardens come complete with their own “life support” system which is comprised of a supporting structure to hold the plants vertically; a growth medium to ensure plant longevity; an irrigation/ fertilization system to deliver the correct amount of water and nutrients; and a drainage system to properly dispose of or re-circulate the spent water.

Proper selection and design of a system for a particular locale necessitates plumbing and electrical considerations.

As such, the location of your living wall is significant, not only from a visual standpoint but from a mechanical point of view. Is your desired location accessible to plumbing and electrical? What is the infrastructure of the supporting wall? Is the green wall building august/september 2011

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Photos courtesy of Nedlaw Living Walls

Nedlaw Living Walls awarded Cape Breton University project

Previous page and above: Two green walls designed by Breslau, Ont.-based Nedlaw Living Walls include one in the east end of the Direct Energy Centre in Toronto, and one for the University of Waterloo Summit Centre for the Environment, built in 2007.

framing attaching to concrete, metal or marble? With the right infrastructure in place, nearly any location can be accommodated but the budget may be higher for a green wall location far from water lines and with no natural light, for example.

Understanding the lighting needs required for the selected plants is also crucial for sustainability. Most interior living walls require supplemental lighting. Establishing healthy lighting for plants requires an experienced green wall professional who not only knows the light requirements of specific plant species but can perform light studies and collaborate with the electrician to specify fixtures to meet those requirements. Metal halide light fixtures and lamps provide the closest color temperature to natural sunlight and assist to promote photosynthesis which is critical for plant survival. Adding photo luminescent sensors to the green wall is a smart decision as it can reduce the electric consumption.

Your selection of featured green wall plants should be based upon microclimate conditions, plant growth habits, and the availability of light. An exterior north facing wall requires an entirely different plant palette than a south or west facing wall.

For example, featured plants on exterior walls in an arid climate differ from what can be used in a cold one. Plants for interior walls are chosen to reflect low, medium and high light scenarios.

Interior tropical plants require a minimum of 10 to 12 hours of at least 150 foot candles of light per day to flourish. In a typical commercial hotel environment, there are on average about 30 to 40 foot candles of light versus 5,000 to 10,000 foot candles of light that can be found outside on a bright sunny day.

Interior plants that thrive in low light (75 to 150 foot candles)

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Nedlaw Living Walls has been awarded the contract for development and installation of a living wall system at Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The 16-foot tall by 23-foot wide structure will be a key feature of the University’s Centre for Sustainability in Energy and the Environment (CSEE) and is scheduled for installation over the summer.

The living wall will be located on the mezzanine level overlooking the atrium in the public area of the CSEE building and will be a vertical garden comprised of diverse tropical plant species. In addition to its role as environmental art and an interior amenity, the living wall will also contribute to indoor air quality through the recirculation and natural filtration of internal air through the growth medium, which is a unique feature of the patented Nedlaw Living Wall biofilter system.

The living wall for the CSEE was designed in collaboration with Halifax-based Barrie and Langille Architects Limited and its Toronto associate Moriyama and Teshima Architects.

Michael Barrie, project team leader, notes that interest in environmental features such as living walls has increased significantly in recent years, pointing out that this is the fourth installation his firm has worked on with Nedlaw Living Walls since 2009. Two completed installations are located at the Waterfront Campus of the Nova Scotia Community College in the new Centre for the Built Environment in Dartmouth, and a third is featured in the newly renovated NSCC Institute of Technology Campus in Halifax. include the Scindapsus and Philodendron genus such as the Silver Satin Pothos, Neon Pothos, Goldon Pothos, Jade Pothos, and Heartleaf Philodendron. Medium light thriving plants (100 to 250 foot candles) include the Dallas Fern, Cretan Brake Fern, Rabbit Foot Fern, Begonia and Peperomia species. For environments with maximum light (150 to 250 foot candles), plants such as the Alocasia Amazonica, Hawaiian Schefflera, Hedera Ivy, Purple Waffle Plants and Creeping Fig are ideal.

The average person today spends about 90 per cent of their time indoors with about half of the world’s population living in cities. Green walls improve a building’s air quality and enhance the emotional and physical well being of the people who come into contact with it. Green walls act as acoustic barriers which can counter the noise pollution which plagues urban dwellers.

Green walls harmonize buildings with nature and provide a living canvas for green wall professions to add the beauty of nature to any man-made structure. B Denise Eichmann is a Senior Project Manager and Design Expert for Ambius, and a Certified Landscape Professional (CLP) based in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, whose newest area of expertise focuses on the design, construction and installation of vertical gardens and living walls. She can be reached at denise.eichmann@ambius.com or www.ambius.com.

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viewpoint

BY STEPHEN CARPENTER, PEng

Water Officials Behaving Badly When it comes to green building innovation, there is a secret player at the design table that can either help or hinder project goals: building codes and officials. Incorporating energy efficiency standards like ASHRAE 90.1 into code (e.g., Ontario Building Code) has helped raise standards across the industry from design teams to HVAC product manufacturers. However, in many cases building codes are outdated and the officials that enforce them can be overly restrictive in their interpretations or enforcement. Let’s take water requirements as an example.

Recently I’ve seen three examples of terrible water policy and enforcement that demonstrate the types of problems design teams and building owners run into across the country when trying to create tomorrow’s high performance buildings in yesterday’s policy environment.

Bad Example 1: Ridiculous Water Policy

Enermodal was the LEED consultant on a new southwestern Ontario library. The project design achieved some great results, particularly in regards to water. Low-flow water fixtures were the main hero when it came to creating a building with 42 per cent predicted water savings.

However, after the building was constructed, local regional water officials required the building operations staff to run all taps for half an hour at the start of every day due to an apparent worry about lack of chlorine in the pipes. Their concern was that new piping would absorb the chlorine, decreasing levels to below an acceptable level. They missed the point that it isn’t that we want chlorine in our water; it is that we don’t want bacteria. If there is some reason for concern, test the water for bacteria!

Additionally, the chlorine level already met the Ministry of the Environment chlorine requirement which includes generous safety factors, but the municipality had arbitrarily higher levels as their standard. There was no evidence-based reasoning for this higher requirement.

As a result of this policy, the water use for the library is 800 per cent higher than predicted! What a waste of water and waste of money for a small project with a limited operations budget.

Bad Example 2: Cistern versus Rain Barrel – what’s the difference?

At A Grander View, Enermodal’s Kitchener headquarters, water officials inspecting our design drawings forbade the use of water from our rainwater cistern to supply hose bibs. Their rationale was that the building code specifically allows rainwater to be used for toilet flushing but does not mention other possible non-potable uses.

Therefore since it is not specifically allowed, it must be disallowed.

Many building teams would have given up with this ruling, but in this case we were persistent. We made the point that the Region — in an effort to promote water efficiency — gave out rain barrels to residents to water their gardens. And a rainwater cistern, we argued, was essentially a rain barrel (only with more filtration and purification).

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In this case we prevailed and the code official allowed rainwater to be used for garden watering. However, it would be nice for code officials to think outside the box and be solution oriented rather than throwing up roadblocks to efficiency.

Bad Example 3: Requiring Irrigation Waste

Irrigation is far and away the largest water use at typical office buildings. Thus, more commercial offices are using native species landscaping which is naturally attuned to our climate and summer droughts as to require no irrigation. However, as LEED consultants, we often have to fight city officials who require irrigated sod.

For example, on a social housing project, we had to fight hard with officials to allow native species on the site with no irrigation system. On a southwestern Ontario spec office project, the building owner used native species landscaping directly around the office. However, city bylaw required that sod be used on the perimeter of the property and be irrigated.

The effect of this decision was readily seen recently when the one year performance data came back from Enermodal’s Measurement & Verification program:

Water use was ridiculously high, particularly in July and August, and irrigation water use between four and eight times higher than the building’s water use throughout the year!

These three examples demonstrate that it is time building code authors and officials take a larger view of their job and endeavour to see how codes can help achieve municipal, city, and societal goals rather than hold back progress. B Stephen Carpenter is president of Enermodal Engineering and was Canada’s first LEED Accredited Professional as well as serving as the current chair of the Technical Advisory Group for the Canada Green Building Council. Enermodal has been Canada’s largest firm exclusively dedicated to creating energy and resource efficient buildings since 1980, certifying more LEED buildings than any other firm.

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