ECO-STRUCTURE AN AIA MAGAZINE
A MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
THE AIA COTE TOP TEN GREEN PROJECTS
THE 2011 AIA COTE TOP TEN GREEN PROJECTS JULY/AUGUST 2011
ECO-STRUCTURE.COM JULY/AUGUST 2011
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A MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS
EDITOR Katie Weeks kweeks@hanleywood.com
PM Photography
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Lidia Berger, HDR Inc. Carlie Bullock-Jones, Ecoworks Studio Eric Corey Freed, organicARCHITECT Michael Deane, Turner Construction Bert Gregory, FAIA, Mithun Sean O’Malley, SWA Group Tom Paladino, Paladino & Co. Patrick Thibaudeau, HGA
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624 trees ▪ 300 million Btu of energy ▪ 101,973 CO2 equiv. ▪ 247,343 gallons of wastewater ▪ 27,053 lbs. of solid waste
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Vol. 9, No. 4. July/August 2011. eco-structure® (ISSN 1556-3596; USPS 022-816) is published six times per year (Jan/Feb, Mar/April, May/June, July/Aug, Sept/Oct, and Nov/Dec) by Hanley Wood, LLC, One Thomas Circle N.W., Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20005. Subscriptions are free to qualified recipients. Publisher reserves the right to determine recipient qualification. Annual subscription rates for nonqualified recipients in the U.S. $15, Canada $64 (U.S. funds), all other countries $192 (U.S. funds). Back-copy price: $10 for U.S. residents. Copyright 2011 by Hanley Wood, LLC. Reproduction in whole or in part prohibited without written authorization. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. Periodicals postage paid at Washington, D.C., and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to eco-structure, P.O. Box 3494, Northbrook, IL 60065-9831.
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HOWTO combat global warming,
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builda
stronger infrastructure.
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CONTENTS July/August 2011
46
FEATURES
56
Making Their Mark 39
The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment’s Top Ten Green Projects for 2011.
48
Cherokee Studios Vancouver Convention Centre West Livestrong Foundation Greensburg Schools/Kiowa County Schools Step Up on 5th First Unitarian Society Meeting House Research Support Facility, NREL LOTT Clean Water Alliance Regional Services Center OS House High Tech High Chula Vista
On the Cover: Cherokee Studios, designed by Brooks + Scarpa. Photo by John Edward Linden. JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 7
CONTENTS
DEPARTMENTS Viewpoint 10 Greenscene 12 AIArchitect 15 Products 34 Deep Green 19
Two Stantec principals discuss a healthcare research project that integrates building systems for habitability, energy conservation, and resiliency.
31 23
Technology 23
This page, clockwise from top: Destry Jaimes; Jameson Simpson; Patrick L. Pyszka/City of Chicago Previous page, clockwise from top: Assassi Productions; John Edward Linden; John J. Macaulay
The high-performance unitized Liquid Wall aims to revolutionize curtainwall systems.
Flashback 27
The Chicago Center for Green Technology may have helped kick-start the city’s green-building boom.
Perspective 31
Pliny Fisk of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems.
Ecocentric 64
Attractive, green social housing is no illusion in this Spanish tower.
ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
Visit us online for more articles, news, and products. Among this month’s hightlights: Deep Green: The smartest and dumbest environmental regulations. Technology: Designing the building-landscape interface. Technology: Remote energy modeling. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/ecostructure Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com 8 ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
27 AN AIA MAGAZINE
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Circle no. 67 or http://ecostructure.hotims.com
Top Notch, but Something is Missing
Fifteen years ago, the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) marked Earth Day 1997 by releasing a list of the top 10 green projects at that time, dubbed the Earth Day Top Ten. The purpose in compiling the list was to provide a collection of exemplary sustainable projects that married qualitative design excellence and quantitative performance excellence. Each year since then, COTE has continued to release a new list under the now-named Top Ten Green Projects program. In this issue of eco-structure, we celebrate the 2011 winning projects. In addition to the highlights that start on page 39, our coverage of the 2011 Top Ten Green Projects continues online, with extended slide shows and detailed breakdowns of each project’s metrics including square footage, number of occupants, energy and water use, and percentage of space with natural daylight. In addition, you can check up on a number of past Top Ten projects in the archives of our Flashback column. Looking beyond this year’s individual winners, the awards program itself provides an interesting chronicle of the evolution of sustainable design and construction. Currently, the program reviews project submissions with 10 specific measures in mind: design and innovation; regional and community design; land use and site ecology; bioclimatic design; light and air; water cycle; energy flows and energy future; materials and construction; long life and loose fit; and postoccupancy evaluation. With this in mind, take a moment to browse past winners at aiatopten.org. Would a project that might have been considered award-worthy in 2001 still take home honors in 2011? Not necessarily, according to this year’s jury—and that’s a good sign. As one juror noted, “There were a lot of good projects that would have been award winners five years ago, but the bar has been raised. Now we want to see diverse project types, projects that resolve urban 10 ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
issues or social issues, and projects that change occupant behavior.” Added another: “At this point, they [these buildings] need to inspire. They need to inspire the occupant, the designer, and the populous in general. It’s not just sustainable strategies. It’s how seamless they are integrated in an effortless way. It had to be equally as powerful from the outside in as the inside out.” As you browse through our coverage in this issue and online, you may notice something missing: a healthcare project. Of the 150 projects that have won COTE Top Ten recognition over the past 15 years, not a single healthcare project has cracked the list. Why is this absence glaring? As one of this year’s COTE jurors put it: “You wanted to see largescale complex buildings on urban sites; Gnarly projects like hospitals that are usually energy and water hogs.” Healthcare facilities are notoriously energy intensive and unfortunately, often designed more for function and sterility than comfort. It’s a market segment that cannot be ignored by greenbuilding practitioners. Last July, as part of a focus on healthcare, eco-structure published a summary of strategies that could reduce the energy use of a 225-bed, 520,000-square-foot acute-care hospital in Seattle from an Energy Use Index (EUI) of 270 kBtu per year to an EUI of 108 kBtu per square foot per year. The strategies were the findings of a study called “Targeting 100! Envisioning the High Performance Hospital: Implications for A New, Low Energy, High Performance Prototype.” The study was produced by the University of Washington in collaboration with NBBJ, Cameron Macallister Group, Mahlum, Mortenson Construction, Solarc Architecture and Engineering, and TBC Consultants. The overriding goal of the study was to examine how a hospital—specifically the 225-bed, 520,ooo-square-foot model in Seattle mentioned above—could reduce its overall energy use by 60 percent in order to meet targets of the 2030 Challenge. Among the design strategies recommended were options that not only would benefit a facility’s bottom line, but also would improve patient and employee comfort, such as in-room environment controls, access to natural
light, views of nature, and additional green space. (Read more in the July/August 2010 issue, page 46; or read it online at go.hw.net/targeting100.) We continue to discuss the pursuit of a more environmentally responsive, occupant-friendly, and architecturally inspirational hospital in this issue’s Deep Green column, “Living, Breathing Hospitals,” on page 19. The column takes its name from a research study currently being developed by Stantec’s office in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the University of Cambridge’s Department of Architecture, and the BP Institute for Multiphase Flow, also located in Cambridge, England. This team is completing a multiyear study to develop a conceptual 250-bed acute-care hospital that is both energy efficient and effective in improving the quality of care for patients and staff. It aims to create a facility that reacts and capitalizes on its climate zone and environment, so that systems respond to natural energy flows and temperature swings. Their inspiration: the meters-high towers constructed by colonies of termites, or white ants, in the Australian Outback. The team is aiming to present its conclusions this fall. Will 2012 be the year that a healthcare facility makes it into the Top Ten? We’ll have to wait until next year to see.
Mike Morgan
VIEWPOINT
AN AIA MAGAZINE
High-tech, high style
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GREENSCENE Greenest by the Bay
No. 3: New York
No. 2: Vancouver
No. 4: Seattle
THE TOP 10 CITIES ARE: 1. San Francisco 2. Vancouver, British Columbia 3. New York 4. Seattle 5. Denver 6. Boston 7. Los Angeles 8. Washington, D.C. 9. Toronto 10. Minneapolis Alison Taylor, Siemens Corp.’s chief sustainability officer for the Americas, noted that “city budgets are as tight as they have ever been, but mayors are leading the charge around making their cities more sustainable.” Eric Spiegel, president and CEO of Siemens Corp., added that 21 of the 27 cities have set their own carbon-reduction targets. The index also includes in-depth portraits of each urban center, and it seeks to highlight initiatives and projects from which other cities can learn. For more info, visit eco-structure.com. eco-structure staff ▪
12 ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
AN AIA MAGAZINE
Photos: Courtesy Siemens Corp.
No. 1: San Francisco
San Francisco is the leading metropolis for environmental sustainability, according to a new study of major U.S. and Canadian cities conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by Siemens Corp. The Green City Index reviewed 27 major U.S. and Canadian cities with a focus on nine categories: CO2 emissions, energy, land use, buildings, transport, water, waste, air quality, and environmental governance. The cities chosen represent the most populous metropolitan areas in both countries. Within the nine categories were 31 individual indicators. Sixteen of those were quantitative, including the consumption of water and electricity per capita and use of public transportation; 15 were qualitative, including CO2 reduction targets and incentives for buildings. According to Siemens, the cities that performed best were the ones that have comprehensive sustainability plans that encompass multiple green initiatives including transportation, land use, energy use, and water use.
Blending Aesthetics & Energy-EfďŹ ciency VRF solutions from Mitsubishi Electric Cooling and Heating helped the Lance Armstrong Foundation fulďŹ ll its vision for a dynamic new headquarters while earning prestigious LEEDÂŽ Gold certiďŹ cation. Lance Armstrong — international cycling star and well-known cancer survivor — has built an unparalleled legacy of achievement. His LIVESTRONG™ movement, along with the Lance Armstrong Foundation, is dedicated to improving the lives of the 28 million people around the world living with cancer.
Designing an inspiring, collaborative, free-owing space was just the beginning. To achieve LEEDŽ Gold, the architects knew they needed an HVAC system that could earn LEEDŽ credits in the Energy 7 Atmosphere (EA), Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), and Innovation and Design categories.
After years based in a generic ofďŹ ce space in downtown Austin, Texas, the seven-time Tour de France winner decided to seek a new permanent home for his operations that would better reect and enhance the dynamic LIVESTRONG™ culture.
That’s where Mitsubishi Electric Cooling and Heating came in. The ďŹ rst two systems the architects looked at — DX (direct expansion) and chilled water — were rejected for being inefďŹ cient or too expensive. But Mitsubishi Electric’s VRF solution offered lower energy costs while ďŹ tting smoothly within the space’s aesthetics.
The Mitsubishi Electric Solution The foundation discovered a 30,000-squarefoot former warehouse near Austin. The loft-like space offered the openness, youthfulness and sense of energy that Armstrong sought. At the same time, he wanted the new headquarters to highlight the foundation’s concern for the environment. He turned to San Antonio-based Lake/Flato Architects to fulďŹ ll his vision of this becoming one of Austin’s ďŹ rst LEEDÂŽ Gold-certiďŹ ed facilities. Š2011 Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc.
Exclusive Two-Pipe EfďŹ ciency & Performance There was one key driver — make that two. Mitsubishi Electric offers the industry’s only two-pipe system that can simultaneously deliver heating and cooling to different zones within the same building. The two-pipe system requires many fewer ďŹ ttings, plus a smaller investment for installation and labor and equipment.
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Mitsubishi Electric’s low-proďŹ le, energy-efďŹ cient indoor units were ideal for the demands of the new facility’s open design: s s s s s s s
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In the end, Mitsubishi Electric was able to provide precise cooling and heating without interrupting or compromising the design aesthetics of the space. And that was vitally important to the designers. Additionally, Mitsubishi Electric was the leading factor in the foundation earning LEEDÂŽ Gold certiďŹ cation. According to Greg Lee, chief ďŹ nancial ofďŹ cer for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, “In less than two years, we already know that our new building uses 30 percent less energy than a conventional ofďŹ ce building, and much of the savings can be attributed to (Mitsubishi Electric’s) intelligent HVAC system.â€? 3UPERIOR ENERGY EFlCIENCY 5NOBTRUSIVE DESIGN Mitsubishi Electric’s VRF solutions met all of the foundation’s needs. And they have the industry-leading technology and products to handle your next project. To get more information about this and other projects utilizing Mitsubishi Electric solutions, visit mitsubishipro.com.
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photos: alchemy, llc 2010
Well Weathered A new old skin for one Wisconsin barn. by lori c onner
minnesotans and wisconsinites love their lake cottages, but a good number also retreat to the countryside for their downtime— Donna Brogan and her husband, Bert Hodous, among them. Inspired by the rolling hills of western Wisconsin, they opted for a farm near Blair (population 2,400). But Brogan, a self-employed cabinetmaker, and Hodous, a family physician, enjoyed entertaining, gardening, and husbanding chickens and Corriedale sheep so much that they soon decided to make the farm their primary residence. What had been a charming 1920s farmhouse for weekend adventures became a little unwieldy for everyday living, with a single bathroom, poor insulation, and 1970s-era interiors. Brogan and Hodous asked St. Paul, Minn.–based Alchemy Architects for help, having worked with Alchemy principal Geoffrey Warner, AIA, on other projects (including their primary residence). Warner is also the creator of the weeHouse (weehouse.com), an eco-friendly prefabricated structure available throughout the United States and Canada. “We love Geoff’s fresh take on homey, basic materials used in very innovative ways,” Brogan says.
After viewing the property, and touring old and crumbling area barns of the area, Warner came up with a twist on the 19th-century vernacular barn typology: wrapping the house in rough-sawn slats of local white oak in a way that mimics the organic sagging of an aging wooden structure. “The idea of wrapping the house in barn boards is an adaptation of the trend towards rainscreen façades,” Warner says. Inside the main living spaces, Warner inserted one steel and one hardwood volume, at the top of which rests an airy master bedroom suite and reading area. With the living and dining areas below, the effect is of a hayloft and granary floor. Warner also designed so-called “bag lights” (inspired by methane-capture balloons tethered inside local dairy barns), which are raised and lowered on a rope-and-pulley system. The shade is composed of
16
AIAPERSPECTIVE urban sanctuary
photo: william stewart
july/august 2011
two layers of insect screen to create a moiré pattern against bare dimmable fluorescent bulbs. Brogan paneled interior walls with salvaged hardwoods, and furnished the home with her own custom dining table, sideboard, sink and tub surrounds, and headboards. The groundfloor kitchen is illuminated with borrowed natural light from a secondfloor window floating down from a cutback in the ceiling. Guest rooms are positioned just below grade, and ramps, not steps, provide another barn reference while creating universal accessibility. Low-tech galvanized steel awnings protect the main entry and the horizontal slice of windows on the main floor. A giant awning panel cut out of the south façade porch siding is operated by a boat winch. The westfacing porch has barn doors that slide open for the breeze, and when closed act as a screen to prevent heat gain and glow in the afternoon sun. Along with the original farmhouse and an existing barn that serves as Brogan’s studio, the house shares hotwater heat from a wood-burning furnace and a trenched geothermal system. White thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) roofing reflects the sun and slopes subtly to an integral gutter and downspout that funnel rainwater into a garden cistern. Concrete thermal mass floors with in-floor heat, insulated R-35 walls, and an R-50 roof, as well as a heat-recovery ventilator, help keep interior temperatures consistent during Wisconsin’s extreme climate swings. A few large windows evoke traditional barn apertures and are strategically placed to avoid heat gain in the summer and winter heat loss. “Wintering here is fantastic,” Brogan says. “The sun is screened during the summer, but reaches all the way across to the far wall in the winter.” The total cost of construction was $360,000, but low energy bills and the reported delight of the neighbors are favorable outcomes. Blair BarnHouse also garnered a 2010 AIA Minnesota Honor Award and, this year, a prestigious AIA National Housing Award. Hodous says that the project inspires him to be more innovative and playful in everything he does. “I would like to see more of these kinds of inventive things that utilize technology for fun and fuel efficiency,” he says. “I feel very proud about that.”
the recent aia national convention in new orleans provided a venue to assess the past, present, and future of sustainability as a strategy for healthy urban centers. I gleaned some of the most compelling lessons by looking out over the city from my room on the Hilton’s 29th floor. The landscape between the hotel and the convention center was pockmarked by hard-surfaced parking lots. There were no green barriers and no permeable surfaces to absorb rainwater. I also searched in vain for evidence of green roofs and solar arrays. The green median of the street that ran by the convention center was not planted with the indigenous live oaks, whose branches would have provided shade. Instead, there was a row of palms in a selfconscious branding gesture that told visitors they had arrived at a subtropical destination. I would have welcomed the shade. The trolley system was nice, but limited; and I saw few bike lanes and no system of bike rental stations, as you find in Washington, D.C.—a relatively new innovation there, but hugely successful. Of course there was the river, corseted by levees and floodgates, and downstream the various channels cut by the Army Corps of Engineers to facilitate commerce—mainly by the oil and gas industry so essential to the city’s economic well-being, but also a threat. Walk a few blocks from the Central Business District and there’s another New Orleans. The Warehouse District’s empty buildings are filling up with restaurants, galleries, lofts, and condominiums. New life spills out onto the sidewalks in what was undoubtedly a dead zone not too many years ago. In the French Quarter and the neighboring Faubourg Marigny, thick walls of the businesses and residences mitigate temperature extremes, large shuttered windows admit air while shading the interior, and ceilings are inordinately high. Behind the façades, there are often cool shaded gardens that, incidentally, absorb rainwater. The wide avenues and side streets of the Garden District are canopied by live oaks—and accessible by streetcar. The abundance of green space decreases pollution, cools streets and houses, and, sponge-like, soaks up the rain. For New Orleans and most American cities, the presence of a sustainable past offers a window to a more sustainable future. Recent work by local architects and those who have come to the city in the wake of Katrina provides evidence that these lessons are being learned. Let’s hope they succeed. Not only is it vital to the future of this great city, it’s a strategy for a more livable urban planet. Clark D. Manus, FAIA, 2011 President
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Living, Breathing Hospitals TWO STANTEC PRINCIPALS DISCUSS INTEGRATING SYSTEMS FOR HABITABILITY AND ENERGY CONSERVATION. Text Paul Marmion and Ray Pradinuk Illustration Henry Obasi
Would you pass up the opportunity to partner with a renowned university to research significant energy-use reductions in acute-care hospitals while also improving the quality-of-care environment for both patients and staff ? Neither could we. With a good portion of our work at Stantec dedicated to sustainable healthcare design, we’re well aware that hospitals consume a lot more than their share of energy and provide a lot less daylight and views than other building types do. We’ve been conducting hospital configuration and systemintegration studies for several years, and have begun to implement strategies that reduce energy and increase daylight in real projects. The aim of a recent collaborative study we’ve undertaken is to
see how far we can push the boundaries of energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality, using simple and resilient systems that harness natural forces and imbed nature’s beauty in the care environment. The model we’re testing embeds a wide range of strategies that would also make real hospitals more efficient, flexible, and generative of communication within and between care teams. There is a tremendous sense of shared purpose within the healthcare design community that leads to collaboration and knowledge sharing among academics and practitioners. Stantec’s office in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the University of Cambridge’s Department of Architecture in Cambridge, England, and the
BP Institute for Multiphase Flow, also at the University of Cambridge, are leading this research effort, with a good chance that other firms and universities will be added to the mix in later phases. Designing Naturally In sustainable design, many innovations have taken their inspiration from nature—a trend that’s become known as biophilic design. In the scorching Australian Outback, colonies of termites, known as white ants, construct amazing meters-high earth towers that utilize natural forces and the collective will and intelligence of everyone in the colony to keep the queen comfortably housed at between 30 C and 30.5 C. To keep their queen happy, her JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 19
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TECHNOLOGY
Concrete In Motion Text Heidi Moore Illustration Jameson Simpson
THE HIGH-PERFORMANCE UNITIZED LIQUID WALL AIMS TO REVOLUTIONIZE CURTAINWALL SYSTEMS. In early 2010, the New York City chapter of the American Institute of Architects put out an open call for submissions for an upcoming exhibition showcasing innovative curtainwall design. When architect Peter Arbour, Assoc. AIA, heard about the request, he began brainstorming an idea for a new type of building enclosure that would combine durability with design flexibility. Arbour put together a group of architects, engineers, and façade developers at Paris-based RFR Consulting Engineers, where he was a project manager at the time, and they began working together to determine the ideal material for such an application. The solution they settled on was ultrahigh-performance concrete. The team believed that the material had several desirable features, Arbour explains. It is fluid and lightweight, and can be used to create a high-performance unitized building envelope that integrates various building systems while eliminating the need for aluminum extrusions and minimizing the need for metal extrusions. The longevity of the material translates into extremely low life-cycle costs and provides
ecological benefits derived from not having to replace or repair the material as frequently as typical curtainwall elements. Testing has shown that ultrahigh-performance concrete has the capacity to last up to 1,000 years— exponentially longer than the typical 50- to 80-year life cycle of normal concrete. It is also extremely strong. Ductal, the ultrahigh-performance concrete from Reston, Va.–based Lafarge North America, has a denser and less porous matrix than other concrete and has been tested at 30,000 psi in compression strength. In comparison, concrete generally used for sidewalks clocks in at about 5,000 psi. Ductal’s “compressive strength and flexive strength allow us to create longer spans, thinner profiles and curvatures,” says Kelly Henry, architectural project manager at Lafarge North America. “You don’t have to use as much rebar or passive reinforcing, if any.” With Ductal, architects and designers are able to create a very thin and lightweight curtainwall system. From a design perspective, unlike the rigid lines characteristic of metal and glass exterior walls, the fluidity of concrete lends itself to curving JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 23
TECHNOLOGY
The fluidity of concrete lends itself to curving or undulating patterns and intricate detailing. “This system represents more of a design-driven technology,” says architect and Liquid Wall creator Peter Arbour.
Liquid Wall Exploded Axonometric Drawing
Ductal exterior frame
Passive Solar Panel Cross Section Passive solar unit
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Galvanized steel tray Single glazing 24 ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
or undulating patterns and intricate detailing. “This system represents more of a design-driven technology,” says Arbour, who is now based in New York and works for Seele, a façade contractor headquartered in Gersthofen, Germany, that specializes in complex geometric façades and glass structures. “It’s a three-dimensional visual opportunity. With emerging computer design technology, that’s something architects want. … Using technologies on the market, it’s an enormous struggle to find out how to achieve what architects are trying to do [using typical curtainwall materials].” Arbour and his team dubbed their concept the Liquid Wall. In order to develop a prototype for AIA New York’s exhibition, the team enlisted the help of Lafarge North America, who lent Ductal to the project; Ontario, Canada–based Coreslab Structures, manufacturers of precast concrete, whose Connecticut office helped built molds for the system and did the casting; and the Digital Fabrication Laboratory of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who milled the positive forms for building the molds. “Getting to work with Peter [Arbour] was a great opportunity for us to gain exposure into the architectural market and show off Ductal in a highly architectural product,” Henry says. Despite the benefits of ultrahigh-performance concrete, there were a few stumbling blocks in developing the Liquid Wall prototype. With no building codes in place for the material, as there are with typical façade materials such as aluminum and steel, developing the structural model proved to be a challenge. “It required primary research and analysis in ways that hadn’t been done before,” Arbour says. The team used the 3D digital models to build full-scale positive polystyrene forms, which were then used to case flexible rubber molds. From these, the team created the concrete components of the Liquid Wall by first casting the front half of what would become the wall’s frame. This component was pierced through with 3/16 inch-diameter, 3-inch-long glass-fiber pins set into the concrete, while a back half was cast in a second mold and set on top of the first half’s pins. Placed together, with a thermal break in between, the pieces resist shear stress. “As wind hits the panel as a vertical force, the
front and back pieces want to slide up and down, so the pins keep the two elements from moving relative to each other,” Arbour explains. Stainless steel anchors, infill panels, and tripleglazed vision panels—which deliver high thermal performance while allowing ample natural light to penetrate the building—were then installed directly into the frame. A key aspect of the Liquid Wall is the passive solar panel, a metal cassette in the spandrel area that contains flowing liquid, a nonfreezing mixture of glycol and water. As the liquid absorbs solar energy, it travels back into the building and is used for everything from domestic hot-water heating to underfloor radiant heat to dehumidifaction of forced air. “In the prototype we designed a radiator within the façade on the back face on the façade panel, so you get this kind of baseboard heater that’s built into the panel that uses solar-heated water,” Arbour says. Using solar energy within the façade system helps the building’s mechanical systems work more efficiently and greatly reduces the overall energy load of the building. In addition, the elements within the concrete framework can be replaced over time as technologies develop and improve, without the need to dismantle or raze the building, as the elements are held in with a metal angle. The angle can be unscrewed to remove and replace the parts. As a whole, the system is meant to be 100 percent recyclable. The Liquid Wall won AIA New York’s competition and went on display at the Center for Architecture in New York from October 2010 to January 2011 as part of the exhibition “Innovate: Integrate,” and it also was shown in May at the AIA’s national convention in New Orleans. While the prototype was dismantled after the exhibitions, Arbour retains the patent for the system and he anticipates physical testing and digital modeling of the wall to continue over the next several months. He hopes to bring it to market and make it available to architects in about a year. “It’s a good fit for the problems architects are facing now,” Arbour says. “It’s an industry coping with an increase in sustainable demands.” ▪ Heidi Moore writes about architecture and design from Chicago. AN AIA MAGAZINE
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FLASHBACK
Green Catalyst Text David R. Macaulay Photos Patrick L. Pyszka/City of Chicago
THE CHICAGO CENTER FOR GREEN TECHNOLOGY MAY HAVE HELPED KICK-START THE CITY’S GREEN-BUILDING BOOM. Sometimes it takes only the kernel of an idea—a catalyst—to begin to change preconceptions of energy, urban planning, and healthy buildings. While it was completed in 2003, the origins of the Chicago Center for Green Technology (CCGT)—a renovated 1952 warehouse on the city’s west side—predate both USGBC and its LEED system, which were founded in 1998. The project’s lead designer, Douglas Farr, AIA, founding principal of Chicago-based Farr Associates, recalls that when he joined the Chicago chapter of the AIA’s Committee on the Environment (COTE) in 1991,
the concept of a green building was murky. “I was suddenly immersed in a tight group of friends who were all interested in a topic that wasn’t very well defined,” he recalls. “So we spent the ’90s debating each other, trying to understand what we meant by an ‘environmental building,’ incorporating little features into our projects now and again.” In January 1999, a staffer from Chicago’s Department of the Environment attended the COTE chapter’s meeting to inquire about the then-new LEED rating system. This meeting led to a memorandum of understanding between JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 27
the city and committee, and that same year, with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the city settled on a vacant building and construction-waste-disposal site to create an energy-efficient building to display the highest standards of green technology. The COTE committee became a working design team, with each member contributing expertise from brownfield assessment to energy modeling, and materials selection to lighting design and LEED documentation. Four years later, the center became the third building the country to achieve LEED Platinum certification. The two-story, 34,000-square-foot center provided a demonstration of sustainable design to the public, city planners, and the local AEC industry, starting with the site. In 1995, Sacramento Crushing Corp. purchased the land and an existing building to use as storage for limited construction and demolition debris. However, the company exceeded the scope of its permit, generating 70-foot-high piles of rubble, and the U.S. DOE took possession of the property. During a $9 million cleanup over 18 months, the 17-acre site was cleared of more than 600,000 tons of concrete. The existing building’s shell was retained. Abundant daylight, tamed by exterior shading and insulated, low-E glazing that minimizes heat gain,
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is paired with high-efficiency electric lighting and daylight sensors to control energy use. Low-VOC paints and adhesives were used throughout the interior to improve indoor air quality, and 36 percent of building materials include recycled content. To manage stormwater on site, interconnected design elements include a green roof, rainwater harvesting with four cisterns that store a total of 12,000 gallons of water for reuse in irrigation, a bioswale, and light-colored pervious pavers that also help to reduce the heat-island effect. A ground-source heat-pump system, supplied by 28 geothermal wells, each 200 feet deep, is located beneath the bioswale. Finally, a photovoltaic array—including both rooftop and building integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs)—was designed to meet approximately 20 percent of the center’s electrical needs. Since the CCGT opened, it has added an additional 37 kilowatts of PV panels to the original installation, producing a total of 115 kilowatts on site. At this level, the installation at peak capacity can meet 40 percent of the center’s electrical needs. In 2007, the CCGT further developed its second floor as the legacy project for Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, adding a Green Tech Resource Center and classroom that houses literature, products, and displays on green-
building materials, renewable energy, sustainable landscaping, and other topics. Both spaces were rehabilitated primarily with recycled, renewable, or locally produced materials. As a result, the Resource Center features seven different kinds of flooring. The building also houses Green Tech U, which offers workshops and seminars on green technology, sustainability, and public policy for homeowners and building professionals, and several other environmentally focused tenants. The center is currently going through LEED-EB certification and most recently added a green wall demonstration to its eastern façade. Work in progress includes a permeable parking lot demonstration and a residential-scale wind turbine. As for Farr, since completing CCGT, his team has designed four other LEED Platinum– certified buildings. And Chicago currently boasts the highest number of square feet of LEEDcertified projects in the nation, with a total of 736 LEED projects already certified or currently in the certification process. Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, wants to double that number over the next four years. ▪ David R. Macaulay is the author of Integrated Design: Mithun and the blog greenarchitext.com. For more information on CCGT, visit aiatopten.org.
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LESSONS LEARNED • Prepare to be challenged over codes and permitting. Farr faced roadblocks from the city over waterless urinals, dimmable fluorescent ballasts, and geothermal wells. • Take advantage of continuous improvement in green technologies. In 2000, zoned lighting was state of the art, but is primitive by today’s standards: achieving 1 watt per square foot compared to the 0.4 or less that is possible through current controls, dimming systems, and occupancy sensors. • Experimentation is good, but include a Plan B where possible. Designers identified a pine tar– based pavement binder as an asphalt substitute for the center’s parking lot and paths, but its adhesive qualities tended to break down after several Chicago winters.
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Circle no. 94 or http://ecostructure.hotims.com
PERSPECTIVE
Still Causing Serious Commotion
Interview Stephen Sharpe Portrait Destry Jaimes
In 1975, Pliny Fisk III co-founded the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems (CMPBS) in Austin, Texas. Thirty-six years later, the nonprofit affectionately known as Max’s Pot is still dedicated to advancing knowledge of sustainable design through education, research, and demonstration of architectural projects considered to have potential for contributions to site, regional, and global sustainability, as well as to human health. Fisk serves as its co-director, along with his wife, Gail Vittori. Fisk traces much of his passion for cross-disciplinary inquiry to his days at the University of Pennsylvania during the late 1960s and early 1970s. His professional accomplishments include helping to start the AIA’s Committee on the Environment (COTE) and serving as co-chair for the AIA’s Environmental Resource Guide (first published in 1992 and funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), one of the first efforts to green the profession. Through his leadership, CMPBS established the Laredo Blueprint Demonstration Farm in 1990 for the Texas Department of Agriculture and helped the City of Austin inaugurate the nation’s first green-building program in 1991. CMPBS is currently consulting on a number of sustainable initiatives for a variety of clients, including supporters of a controversial Formula One racetrack in Austin who want Fisk’s help in designing a complex of hightech green buildings. JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 31
“It is very important to be thinking about cycles, whether it’s energy-related, or whether it’s the water or the oxygen. It’s no longer: Let’s put cisterns out there. It’s the cisterns and the roof and the wastewater: That’s a cycle. … We’re designing cycles or we’re stopping the cycle.” The CMPBS turned 35 last year. What do you consider to be the biggest milestones in sustainability for you over this time? I think it’s a mixture of policy—local and statewide, and, to some degree, national—and the AIA Environmental Resource Guide and what we did with the Austin green building program. Then also the Advanced Green Builder Demonstration [an ongoing research project] for the state of Texas, which was fitting policy and good design together. Very, very neat stuff. How can commercial buildings become more green? If you built these [big box] structures more responsibly to start with, they could become something that we’re not even thinking of today, which is land. And those roofs —those are not only [for] PVs, but they are your urban gardens of the future. This is beyond green roofs. This is food, this is water, this is water processing, this is everything. Structurally, they have to be really adaptable. We have a design for the future of the big box—a holistic approach—and how the structure can actually begin to accommodate an unbelievable diversity of possible needs, all the way to the point of taking those parking areas and having a tensile structure span it, hundreds of feet, and putting very lightweight photovoltaic panels on the structure. This is a power plant. Parking in the future is your solar energy plant. How will the next generation of commercial buildings compare to those from today? I think the main thing is that there are now protocols for making these buildings adaptable from the start. There are protocols so that we can embed these things into a green-building program to say there’s another life to these buildings, that they are going to adapt. They’re either going to be torn down and put into the dump or pieces are going to be reused in a responsible way. What is a typical day like at CMPBS? Very, very unpredictable. To give you an example, Formula One is here. And then the developer who’s financing [a prototype for single-family housing] is here, so I have to run over and take down Formula One. We have to be careful sometimes about who sees what, because we are always delving into the unknown and unexpected. CIRCLE NO. 31 or http://ecostructure.hotims.com AN AIA MAGAZINE
Now the other thing that happened: The Meadows Foundation [which is funding CMPBS research on an experimental cement made from magnesium oxide and seawater] calls in the middle of all this and says, “Pliny, you really haven’t said how many units within a given period of time that you’re going to impact.” And this is happening right in middle of all this other chaos. I have to get them the numbers or they won’t fund it. Then I have a bunch of interns from all over the world. The disturbing thing is they have such a good time here that they have a very difficult time leaving and going back to either their own university or getting a job because they compare all their jobs to this crazy exposure that they’ve been through here. So here I have this dichotomy, these totally different projects, one after the other coming in, and these interns that come from these totally different experiences to try to get it aligned in some way. And that was Friday.
almost turn-of-the-century architecture bullshit that “I am me.” And we’re a little bit “I am me” still and we’re not really getting this citywide, planningwide way of cooperating. [Governments should say] you cannot do single entities, we’re not in the single entity thing anymore, and you’re not going to do a green building with a boundary around it. It’s impossible. By definition, it doesn’t work. ▪ Stephen Sharpe is the editor of Texas Architect magazine in Austin, Texas. For more on the CMPBS, visit cmpbs.org.
You’ve often been referred to as a maverick, yet now green building and environmentalism is moving more toward the mainstream. How has this migration changed your work, if at all? I’ve become more maverick. You were once quoted as saying that “nothing in the architectural world can be looked at in isolation. As in the natural world, each aspect of the system is connected to everything else.” How should this concept impact an architect’s work and processes? You first of all don’t differentiate between what is architecture and what is landscape architecture and what is planning. That is an impossibility. A building actually works within a sort of feedback system [in which] the building is an extension of the organism of yourself. It is very important to be thinking about cycles, whether it’s energy-related, or whether it’s the water or the oxygen. It’s no longer: Let’s put cisterns out there. It’s the cisterns and the roof and the wastewater: That’s a cycle. It’s the energy and the conservation of the energy together: That’s a cycle. We [at CMPBS] like to think of food, air, all the things around us in a truly cyclical manner, and we’re designing cycles or we’re stopping the cycle. If you can keep the cycle going and the user begins to recognize these cycles, then we’re doing our job. We call this eco-balance. It’s an eco-balance process and we can grow it nationally, by state, city, building, or room. [Architects must] get out of thinking “I’m doing my thing” [when] all the buildings around you in the commercial environment could be helping you do your thing. Get out of thinking “I’m going to do the perfect green building” and not realizing “there’s a building next door with the largest green roof I’ve ever seen in my life and yet I’m trying to stuff everything in what I’m doing while not cooperating with the guy next door.” I mean that’s a little bit kooky. It’s sort of like
CIRCLE NO. 24 or http://ecostructure.hotims.com
PERSPECTIVE
PRODUCTS
Mipolam Symbioz vinyl flooring from Gerflor contains 75 percent renewable raw materials including a plant-based plasticizer made from residue from grain such as wheat and corn. Its polyurethane treatment provides resistance to heavy traffic and eliminates the need for self-shine treatment. Along with low-VOC emissions, it is 100 percent recyclable at its end of life. The 2-mm-wide sheets are available in 26 colors and are fitted with solvent-free adhesive. gerflor.com; 877.437.3567. Circle 100 ecostructure.hotims.com
The vinyl-backed Cork Décor flooring by USFContract is ideal for commercial applications and features an acrylic nanobead lacquer protective finish to create a strong, resilient surface. The line’s tiles are anti-microbial, contain no formaldehyde, have more than 85 percent recycled content, and also undergo a water-based binder treatment, called Acrodur, that is designed to reduce emissions levels. The line components are GreenGuard certified and also can contribute to LEED points. usfcontract.com; 877.292.4044. Circle 101 ecostructure.hotims.com 34 ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
Flooring Text Hallie Busta
Athena, Poseidon, and Zeus, part of PacifiCrest’s Greek Collection of broadloom carpet, feature type 6,6 nylon fiber and come specified with the company’s BioCel system, a biobased polyurethane backing that is between 64 percent and 68 percent green by weight. The three products come in 24 colors, are third-party certified by CRI Green Label Plus, and can contribute to LEED points for materials and resources. pacificrest.com; 800.522.8838. Circle 103 ecostructure.hotims.com
Reclaimed carpet fiber from Interface’s ReEntry 2.0 process is being combined with fiber from salvaged commercial fishnets and post-industrial waste to be used in InterfaceFlor’s Raw and Striation modular carpet lines. Processed by global yarn supplier Aquafil, the type 6 nylon yarn is made from 100 percent non-virgin material and contains at least 25 percent post-consumer yarn content. Combined with the company’s GlasBac RE non-virgin PVC backing, the resulting carpet has 79 percent total recycled content. interfaceflor.com; 800.634.6032. Circle 102 ecostructure.hotims.com
Laticrete’s Glass Tile Adhesive is a one-step polymerfortified adhesive mortar for glass tile applications. The white-colored adhesive can be mixed on site by adding water and does not require additives or admix. It can be used with any type of floor or wall glass in interior or exterior applications, wet or dry, and includes antimicrobial protection to inhibit the growth of mold and bacteria. The GreenGuard-certified low-VOC product can contribute to LEED points, and is available in a 25-lb. recyclable bag and a 10-lb. carton. laticrete.com; 800.243.4788. Circle 104 ecostructure.hotims.com
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PRODUCTS
Ceilings
The EcoGrille is a wood suspended-ceiling panel system from 9Wood made from lightweight, farm-grown FSCcertiďŹ ed PaciďŹ c Albus, which is typically harvested in 12to 15-year cycles. The light-colored panels come with a soy-based adhesive cross-piece backer and are attached to heavy-duty T-bar runners. Panels are available in sizes 12 or 24 in. wide and in lengths of 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 ft. The product can contribute to up to six LEED credits. 9wood.com; 888.767.9990. Circle 105 ecostructure.hotims.com 36 ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
AN AIA MAGAZINE
Compässo Elite is an extruded aluminum addition to USG’s Compässo ceiling-trim systems. With proprietary splice plates and attachment clips, the system facilitates installation without the use of special tools. The company’s portfolio offerings combine to provide sound control, accessibility, and the use of lay-in fixtures. The new system comes in 2-, 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-in. profiles. usg.com; 800.950.3839. Circle 106 ecostructure.hotims.com
PRODUCTS
Armstrong’s AirGuard coating removes half of the formaldehyde in indoor air over 10 years of a building’s use, but in the first year it can remove up to 90 percent, according to the company. The UL-backed coating also helps reduce the length and level of exposure during periods of high formaldehyde concentrations resulting from human activity or from the use of cleaning agents or oece equipment. Applied to the back of the company’s Ultima ceiling panels, the coating is UL Environment certified and can contribute to LEED points in nine credit categories. armstrong.com/airguard; 877.276.7876. Circle 108 ecostructure.hotims.com
The Ecophon Master Solo S suspended ceiling panels from CertainTeed Corp. are manufactured from high-density fiberglass and feature 75 percent recycled content. The line’s surface offers 85 percent light reflectivity and 99 percent light diffusion, in addition to Class A sound absorption and a 0.95 noise-reduction coeecient. The panels can be combined with a variety of light fixtures integrated into or suspended through holes cut into the center of the panels. Suspension at different levels and angels can be incorporated in 3D installations. Panels come in two sizes: 48 in. sq. and 48 in. by 96 in. certainteed.com; 800.233.8990. Circle 107 ecostructure.hotims.com
NEWER ROOF. COOLER ROOF. SOLAR ROOF. Harness the sun with SOLR affordable solar roofing that’s building integrated and can offer payback in 10 years or less—for a solar roof that outshines the rest. For even more benefit, there’s the TOPR retrofit roofing solution and COOLR energy-efficient cool metal roofing. Call us to learn how you can layer on one, two or all three roofing solutions.
CLEVELAND: 800.283.5262 ATLANTA: 800.929.9359 DALLAS: 877.853.4904 DENVER: 877.375.1477 www.sheffieldmetals.com
CIRCLE NO. 51 or http://ecostructure.hotims.com
For Over 50 Years Varco Pruden has been building a reputation for innovation… Design Innovation… Architects and building owners demand design flexibility and affordable building solutions. Varco Pruden meets and exceeds those demands. Driven by a commitment to solving customer building problems and overcoming design limitations, VP pioneered groundbreaking innovations such as “custom concept” more than 50 years ago. Today, Varco Pruden still leads the way with technology developments through VP Command™, our proprietary engineering and design software which allows architects and owners to use a customized, VP approach to achieve their building objectives.
Product Innovation… Along with creative systems’ solutions, VP offers the most comprehensive line of adaptable framing and sheathing options. Beyond the industry standard framing options, VP offers specialized systems including open-web framing and Deck•Frame™ a framing innovation allowing system design with EPDM roofing. Further, VP’s WideBay™ system offers an ideal alternative when projects require more open space between frames. VP roof choices include industrial and architectural panels backed by long-term warranties for finish and weather-tightness. SSR and SLR II are both mechanically seamed, high-performance roofing products suited for new construction or retrofit applications. VP wall panel options include a choice of shapes, colors and textures to meet customer requirements, thermal performance needs as well as local building codes and community covenants.
Service Innovations…
With nationwide service centers staffed by trained, experienced engineers and project managers, ten IAS AC-472 accredited manufacturing locations and a national network of more than 1,000 authorized VP Builders, VP delivers an unmatched level of service. Varco Pruden continues to build the reputation for innovation with ideas that shape our projects, our company and our industry.
Visit www.VP.com for more information about Varco Pruden Buildings’ innovations. • Recycled Material Content • Cool Paint Finishes • Passive Lighting Panels
• Member USGBC • End-of-Use Recyclability • Energy Efficient Insulation
©2011 Varco Pruden Buildings is a division of BlueScope Buildings North America, Inc. All rights reserved.
Circle no. 62 or http://ecostructure.hotims.com
ACCREDITED AC 472
BUILD SMART
BUILD GREEN
MAKING THEIR MARK Text KJ Fields Illustration Jameson Simpson
THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING CAN BE IDENTIFIED BY SEASONAL CHARACTERISTICS, AMONG THEM NEW BLOOMS ON THE TREES, MORE DAYLIGHT, AND CRISP MORNINGS FOLLOWED BY WARM AFTERNOONS. FOR THOSE SEEKING EXEMPLARY SUSTAINABLE DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, SPRING ALSO BRINGS WITH IT THE WINNERS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT’S (COTE) TOP TEN GREEN PROJECTS. THE 2011 WINNING PROJECTS, SHOWCASED ON THE PAGES THAT FOLLOW, ARE WORKING EXAMPLES OF THE POWER OF A THOROUGHLY INTEGRATED APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURE, NATURAL SYSTEMS, AND TECHNOLOGY. JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 39
COTE TOP TEN Cherokee Studios, Los Angeles, Brooks + Scarpa Residents at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles enliven the streetscape and regulate their environment through a series of occupantcontrolled perforated-metal-panel screens. Designed by Brooks + Scarpa, the project’s metal screens offer passive ventilation, privacy, and shade. Additional passive features such as building orientation, solar-ventilation chimneys, operable windows, and a private courtyard work together to make the building nearly 50 percent more energy efficient than similar conventional structures. A variable refrigerant flow system moves heat and cooling from one part of the building to another to meet demand, while the insulated building envelope, low-E windows, high-efficiency lighting, and occupancy sensors also minimize energy consumption in the building. The roof includes a 30,000-kilowatt solar PV system; as a result, tenants pay 30 to 40 percent less in operating expenses. Measurement and verification for the Living Building Challenge is currently being conducted and LEED Platinum certification is pending. Team members worked with the city to change established standards. Zoning was altered to allow a live/work space; sidewalk width was increased and bike racks were added; and the project located the first privately funded stormwater retention system in Los Angeles’s public right-of-way. The retention system and a vegetated roof retain 100 percent of stormwater on site.
Photos: John Edward Linden
JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 41
COTE TOP TEN
Vancouver Convention Centre West, LMN Architects Aspiring to embrace a dense urban environment and strengthen landscape habitat, the Vancouver Convention Centre West reclaimed a former brownfield site and tripled the existing convention center’s size. The 22-acre development with 1 million square feet of convention space accommodates 225,000 annual visitors, and its 400,000 square feet of walkways, bikeways, public space, and plazas constitute a major public gathering space on the water. In addition, the center hosts 400,000 indigenous plants and 240,000 bees on a 6-acre vegetated roof—the largest of its kind in Canada and part of a chain of continuous habitat from the center to Stanley Park. LMN Architects added an artificial reef below the waterfront to function as part of the natural shoreline and to support migrating salmon and other marine species. Highly efficient, hydroelectricity-powered seawater heat pumps heat and cool the center, and free-cooling economizers also cool the space in busy seasons. Innovative measures help the center reduce its potable-water consumption by 73 percent. For three-fourths of the year, an on-site bioreactor wastewater-treatment plant cleanses approximately 60,000 liters a day of black- and graywater for reuse in toilet flushing and landscape irrigation. During summer months, the facility uses sewage from cruise ships to augment lower sewage flow rates. The project is LEED-NC Platinum certified.
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Photos: Nic Lehoux
COTE TOP TEN
Photos: Hester + Hardaway
Livestrong Foundation, Austin, Lake | Flato Architects When the Livestrong Foundation sought new headquarters, it chose to renovate a 1950s paper warehouse in an inner-city neighborhood in Austin, Texas. The office’s programming mimics its urban surroundings with a variety of distinct but interrelated neighborhoods. Lake|Flato Architects reduced the building’s carbon impact by retaining more than 80 percent of the existing 28,295-square-foot structure and reusing and recycling nearly 90 percent of construction waste on site. Salvaged-pine roof decking was remilled to construct flexible-use enclosures for the workspaces; existing concrete became retaining walls, garden elements, walkways, and a new entry; and composite beams were transformed into benches and furnishings. The warehouse’s concrete walls and deep floor plate were challenges for passive lighting. The team reoriented the building’s approach and replaced the roof’s center bays with north-facing sawtooth clerestory windows to bring daylight and views to almost all of the regularly occupied spaces. Automated controls adjust light levels. The loading dock was transformed into a side entry with a vine-covered buffer that reduces heat gain, and a high-efficiency variable-volume refrigerant mini-split system offers employees zonal temperature control. The LEED-NC Gold–certified facility is designed to save 39.5 percent in energy costs over comparable offices.
COTE TOP TEN
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Greensburg Schools/Kiowa County Schools, Kansas, BNIM Citizens of Greensburg, Kan., joined together to rebuild after a 2007 tornado decimated 95 percent of the town, including its schools. BNIM helped three rural community school districts consolidate their K–12 education into one 132,000-square-foot school. The facility reinforces ties to the community by being located in the heart of town; opening two gymnasiums, the library, a distance learning center, and cafeteria to the public after hours; and providing shared outdoor recreational facilities. The project is pursuing LEED Platinum certification. An on-site 50-kilowatt wind turbine supplemented with power from a nearby wind farm provides the facility with 100 percent renewable energy. Building orientation and operable windows offer daylight and ventilation, and structural insulated panels and a rainscreen cladding system lower thermal loads. The gymnasiums are daylit thanks to sawtooth, skylit roofs. These strategies combine to reduce demand on the mechanical system—a geothermal groundsource closed-loop heat pump. The school manages 99 percent of on-site precipitation through constructed wetlands and six cisterns that store rainwater for irrigation use. Condensation from HVAC equipment is reused as make-up water in cooling towers. Recycled and reclaimed materials include lumber from cypress trees salvaged from Hurricane Katrina and exterior paneling reclaimed from warehouses in nearby states.
Photos: Assassi Productions
COTE TOP TEN
Photos: John Edward Linden
Step Up on 5th, Santa Monica, Brooks + Scarpa This mixed-use project provides affordable housing in Santa Monica, Calif., for those who are homeless or mentally disabled. Equipped with 46 apartments that are less than 250 square feet each, the building is within walking distance to the city center, has transit access to community services, and includes a ground-floor art gallery and studio to foster interaction between residents, artists, and the public. Brooks + Scarpa provided residents with a healthy environment through formaldehydefree MDF cabinetry, low-VOC paints, natural linoleum, and fluorescent lighting with low mercury content. By leveraging prevailing winds, operable windows, and ceiling fans, the building enhances thermal comfort and natural ventilation, and eliminates the need for air conditioning in the apartments. The windows and two courtyards bring in ample daylight. The building is designed to be nearly 50 percent more efficient than a conventionally designed project thanks to features such as double-glazed low-E windows, concrete floors and walls that act as thermal heat sinks, and a highly efficient hydronic heating system. The installation of a 30-kilowatt PV system will make the project a net-zero-energy building. The facility retains all stormwater on site through a subsurface infiltration system to prevent runoff into the Santa Monica Bay.
JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 49
COTE TOP TEN
First Unitarian Society Meeting House, Madison, The Kubala Washatko Architects In 1951, Frank Lloyd Wright designed the First Unitarian Society Meeting House in Madison, Wis., to hold up to 125 congregation members. Today, this National Historic Landmark serves a congregation of nearly 1,500 members. In 2008, a 20,000-square-foot addition designed by The Kubala Washatko Architects tripled the existing seating capacity with a 500-seat auditorium, and added office and amenity spaces. Parking, however, was reduced and bicycle storage spaces were added. The addition mitigated localized flooding of neighboring properties through an 8,078-squarefoot vegetated roof, an underground infiltration chamber, rain gardens, and bioswales that retain nearly all of the stormwater on site. The LEED Gold building’s narrow width and interior courtyards allow daylight to spill into 76 percent of the structure. Locally sourced materials include columns made from red pine salvaged from windstorm-felled trees, recycled-newspaper insulation, and local landscape stone. Thanks to a high-efficiency multiple-stage water-to-water geothermal heat-pump system of 16 250-feet-deep wells, radiant floor heating and cooling, and operable windows that ventilate and cool 73 percent of the building, the addition is 40 percent more efficient than a comparable facility, and its water use is 35 percent lower. So far, the facility’s energy performance is within 2 percent of models and a team from the University of WisconsinMadison is conducting ongoing post-occupancy evaluation.
Photos: Zane Williams
COTE TOP TEN Research Support Facility, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, Colo., RNL The NREL Research Support Facility’s designers looked to the climate and ecology of Golden, Colo., to devise a deeply passive solution for the 222,000-square-foot office building that houses a data center. Committed to achieving a net-zero-energy building on an annual basis, architecture firm RNL sliced energy use by reducing loads. Narrow, 60-foot-wide office wings optimize daylight while shading strategies control solar gain. An underfloor air-distribution system delivers 100 percent outside air to offices, and operable windows offer cross ventilation. Decoupled from the space-conditioning system, the ventilation air is tempered by passive heat from a transpired solar collector on the south façades, which is stored in a large thermal labyrinth under the two main office wings. The labyrinth is also a thermal sink for the LEED Platinum–certified center’s reject heat. Thermal mass and purging heat at night help keep the building cool, and water-based radiant heating and cooling systems are efficient. Overall, the facility is designed to achieve energy savings of 46 percent. A two-component PV system will provide 1.6 megawatts of renewable electricity; the second component will be installed later this year.
Photos: Frank Ooms
JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 53
COTE TOP TEN LOTT Clean Water Alliance Regional Services Center, Olympia, Wash., The Miller Hull Partnership Educating the local community about the importance of water conservation drove the design of the LOTT Clean Water Alliance Regional Services Center in Olympia, Wash. The Miller Hull Partnership brought water to the forefront by prominently placing a reclaimed water pond spanned by two bridges that lead to the center’s entry. LOTT provides Class A reclaimed water to the community, and the project’s use of reclaimed water in its pond, toilet flushing, and irrigation of two large green roofs helps reduce potable water use by 80 percent over a comparable building. The mixed-use facility includes a renovated 7,700-square-foot water-quality laboratory, 21,300 square feet of new offices, and a 3,500-square-foot education center. Certified LEED Platinum, the facility reduces energy 61 percent over ASHRAE 90.1 through a variety of passive and energy reuse strategies. Motorized louvers on the west and south façades prevent solar gain, reflect daylight across the stretched fabric ceiling in the office areas, and passively heat the space in winter. Clusters of existing oak trees now shade the north façade. Methane captured from wastewater treatment is used in a cogeneration plant and serves as a power loop connected to water-source heat pumps. Heat recovery from the laboratory’s fume hood exhaust system is used to temper outside air. To address future expansion of the LOTT facility, the roof deck and green roof on the fourth-floor office level can be removed and replaced with offices.
Photos: Nic Lehoux
JULY/AUGUST 2011 ECO-STRUCTURE 55
COTE TOP TEN OS House, Racine, Wis., Johnsen Schmaling Architects A mix of floor-to-ceiling glazing, outdoor rooms, and open views lend an expansive sense of space to a compact urban-infill home along Lake Michigan in Racine, Wis. Johnsen Schmaling Architects designed the 1,900-square-foot OS House with an 8-inch-deep superinsulated exterior rainscreen to protect the building envelope and to improve indoor comfort for the family of four who live there. Agricultural-based closedcell expanding foam insulation supplies an R-34 value in the walls and R-53 in the roofs. Window sizing and placement help eliminate the need for artificial lighting during the day. A geothermal ground-source heat pump with a vertical-loop system heats and cools the home, and a solar hot-water panel augmented by a tankless hot-water heater provides domestic hot water. Photovoltaic laminates on the roofing membranes combined with a freestanding PV array generate nearly 70 percent of the home’s electricity. Innovative framing techniques reduced construction lumber by 30 percent compared to conventional construction standards and decreased thermal bridging. The house is able to grow with the family, with a basement that can be converted into a bedroom and outdoor rooms that can be enclosed. The building materials and rainscreen inhibit mold and mildew. The project earned LEED Platinum certification, and the PV and geothermal systems’ performance will be monitored over the next few years.
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Photos: John J. Macaulay
COTE TOP TEN High Tech High Chula Vista, California, Studio E Architects Situated near a land mesa overlooking the Otay River Valley in Chula Vista, Calif., High Tech High Chula Vista sculpts a gradual separation between existing development and site ecology. Parking is layered toward development and followed by buildings, playfields, and a revegetated slope that blend into the environment. Studio E Architects designed the 44,400-square-foot charter school with three interior courtyards, operable windows, and vented skylights for daylight and enhanced indoor air quality. Large, south-facing PV-covered canopies shade the courtyards and meet nearly 80 percent of the school’s electrical needs on an annualized basis. Movable interior walls and roll-up doors create dynamic spaces that blur the boundaries between formal classrooms and the outdoors. The school achieved a LEED Gold rating and Collaborative for High Performance Schools verification. Cost-effective modular building components can be relocated to offer future flexibility. To reduce transportation impacts, the school established a comprehensive transportation-management program that includes free transit passes for students in need, and will conduct an annual audit of transportation modalities and adjust its schedule and walking and bike paths in response to findings.
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Photos: Jim Brady
STATS CHEROKEE STUDIOS
Building gross floor area: 32,000 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 36 (plus 300 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 98 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 97 Total water used (gallons per year): 195,450 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): 3.66 Total energy used (MBtu per year): 832,183 (simulation) HERS performance rating: 50 EPA performance rating: 83 Percent total energy savings: 43 LEED rating: Platinum, LEED-NC v2.1/2.2 (pending) Total project cost: $6,250,000
VANCOUVER CONVENTION CENTRE WEST
Building gross floor area: 1,200,000 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 160 (plus 225,000 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 23 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 3 Total water used (gallons per year): 8,369,113 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): Zero (simulation) Total energy used (MBtu per year): 41,501 Percent total energy savings: 59 LEED rating: Platinum, LEED Canada-NC v.1.0 Total project cost: $883,000,000
LIVESTRONG FOUNDATION
Building gross floor area: 28,295 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 62 (plus 800 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 100 Total water used (gallons per year): 61,132 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): 2.16 Total energy used (MBtu per year): 1,093 (simulation) EPA performance rating: 75 Percent total energy savings: 39 LEED rating: Gold, LEED-NC v.2.2
GREENSBURG SCHOOLS/KIOWA COUNTY SCHOOLS
Building gross floor area: 131,944 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 410 (plus 10 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 90 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 50 60 ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
Total water used (gallons per year): 762,586 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): 5.61 Total energy used (MBtu per year): 3,652 (simulation) EPA performance rating: 43 Percent total energy savings: 60 LEED rating: Platinum, LEED for Schools, v.2.0 (pending) Total project cost: $45,200,000
STEP UP ON 5TH
Building gross floor area: 31,600 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 46 (plus 65 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 99 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 96 Total water used (gallons per year): 650,150 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): 20.6 Total energy used (MBtu per year): 846.7 (simulation) EPA performance rating: 75 Percent total energy savings: 48 Total project cost: $11,400,000
FIRST UNITARIAN SOCIETY MEETING HOUSE
Building gross floor area: 24,327 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 2 (plus 658 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 76 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 73 Total water used (gallons per year): 203,100 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): 8.35 Total energy used (MBtu per year): 810 (actual) EPA performance rating: 42 Percent total energy savings: 41 LEED rating: Gold, LEED-NC v.2.2 Total project cost: $8,000,000
RESEARCH SUPPORT FACILITY, NREL
Building gross floor area: 222,000 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 822 (plus 60 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 66 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 67 Total water used (gallons per year): 791,202 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): 3.56 Total energy used (MBtu per year): 7,281 (simulation) EPA performance rating: 100
Percent total energy savings: 46 LEED rating: Platinum, LEED-NC v.2.1/2.2 (pending) Total project cost: $64,000,000
LOTT CLEAN WATER ALLIANCE REGIONAL SERVICES CENTER
Building gross floor area: 32,483 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 28 (plus 200 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 77 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 45 Total water used (gallons per year): 346,884 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): Zero Total energy used (MBtu per year): 996 (simulation) EPA performance rating: 91 Percent total energy savings: 59 LEED rating: Platinum, LEED-NC v.2.2 Total project cost: $13,500,000
OS HOUSE
Building gross floor area: 1,940 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 4 Percent of the building that is daylit: 100 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 100 Total water used (gallons per year): 13,900 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): 7.16 Total energy used (MBtu per year): 41.7 (simulation) HERS performance rating: 33 Percent total energy savings: 67 LEED rating: Platinum, LEED for Homes v.1
HIGH TECH HIGH CHULA VISTA
Building gross floor area: 44,395 square feet Number of permanent occupants: 585 (plus 30 visitors) Percent of the building that is daylit: 86 Percent of the building that can be ventilated or cooled with operable windows: 88 Total water used (gallons per year): 949,960 Calculated annual potable water use (gallons per square foot per year): 5.14 Total energy used (MBtu per year): 808 (actual) EPA performance rating: 94 Percent total energy savings: 50 LEED rating: Gold, LEED for Schools v.2.0 LEED rating: $11,543,000 Data provided to the AIA by each architecture firm as part of the COTE Top Ten Green Project submissions.
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ATTRACTIVE, GREEN SOCIAL HOUSING IS NO ILLUSION IN THIS SPANISH TOWER.
Text Lindsey M. Roberts Photo Jordi Surroca
64 ECO-STRUCTURE.COM
Outside in, top to bottom, the Torre E.I.0.5 apartment tower in Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain, looks a bit like an M.C. Escher building of visual infinity. What seems like a five-floor building that blends in with the neighboring 1960s and 1970s residential buildings is really a space-maximizing, fully recyclable 15 floors with 75 apartments. Barcelona-based Roldán + Berengué (R+B) completed the 111,007-square-foot tower as part of the Plaça Europa, a node on the Grand Via de les Corts Catalanes, the longest road in Spain. This last node in the master plan for Barcelona, Europa, is focused on social housing. In Spain, buildings for social housing prescribe both minimum and maximum floor dimensions—
fixed in this case at 79 feet square—leaving the architects with little room to maneuver and design. R+B overcame this restriction primarily by playing with the typical façade-building relationship. In this project, “the inside is overlapping the outside,” says principal José Miguel Roldán. While the façade itself stays static, portions of the volume recess 20 inches to 7 feet back to form “megawindows.” In this framework, the architects grouped together five sets of three floors each, and framed each set with the brise soleil. The effect is a trompe l’oiel where the building only seems to have five floors from far away. Sheets of 8-millimeter-thick, high-pressure laminate panels hang off of a hidden structure of recycled aluminum to make the megawindows, which are nearly 33 feet high with varying widths. This exterior strategy helps the building look smaller than it is, but also gives each apartment shading, ventilation, and three solar and visual orientations, with views of Tibidabo Mountain, Montjuïc hill, or the Llobreagat River. “We called it ‘multifocality’ of the building,” Roldán says. Once the firm designed the outside, it then went inside, distributing the program from the top. On each floor, a double-loaded corridor divides six units. The units have 9.3-foot-tall ceiling heights that offset their small size, which ranges from about 603 to 2,110 square feet. The top-down design was done so that “the compacted residential volume on the superior floor releases a space three levels tall, with a T-form in the lobby,” says Roldán, who calls the lobby an “interior street.” The mail lobby is at points 22.3 feet and 33 feet tall. For the building’s construction, the firm evaluated material origin, fabrication energy, CO2 emissions, and capacity for end-of-life recycling. The firm estimates the life cycle to be 50 to 60 years for the façade. Each material had to be made out of recycled material and be recyclable itself. Steel bars in the concrete structure, aluminum in the brise soleil, and wood in the interiors are all 100 percent recycled and recyclable. The finished structure may be tossable, but it’s certainly not toss-worthy. Its well-executed design won’t be easily discarded. ▪ View more photos at eco-structure.com. AN AIA MAGAZINE
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Brookwood Medical Center, Birmingham, AL photo: Fred S. Gerlich Studios
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