gb&d Issue 45: July/August 2017

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

In This Issue July+August 2017 Volume 8, Issue 45

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The New Green Frontier

Etsy, Evolv1, and Geelen Counterflow are setting examples for sustainable work environments.

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The R-22 Paradox

Bluon’s new refrigerant will change the HVAC industry for the better.

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Nest Pro offers businesses a simple entry into the smart home market.

LOFTwall shows how you can cultivate collaboration, focus, and productivity in today’s distracted workplace.

Future-Proof Your Business

A Workplace That Inspires

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The New Nordic What it means to be car-free and climateneutral in Oslo.

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Table of Contents July+August 2017 Volume 8, Issue 45

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In Conversation Alan Ricks, MASS Design Group

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Editors’ Picks

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Event Recap

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Defined Design

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Custom Creations Coterie makes beautiful office furniture you’ll be proud to work at.

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9 Ways Steel Can Earn You LEED Points From transparency to raw materials, SMDI shows us how steel can help your building earn certification.

Curated by gb&d staff Take a closer look at another successful year of AIA.

Event Preview Check out Intersolar this summer.

Innerworkings

Typology

Up Front This new DPR Construction office in Phoenix is also a living lab for the community.

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The New Green Frontier The new green frontier may be your next office or commercial headquarters.

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A Modern Model Home REHAU helps to take one architect’s house to the next level.

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UP FRONT

Trendsetters

Spaces | Oslo

40 How Can We Do This Better?

Fabcon is inspiring

greatness, from making

better precast concrete

wall panels to taking

care of its people.

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Revival on the River A neighborhood on the river is dramatically transformed to become one of the city’s most popular—and sustainable—spots.

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The Root of Change A city farm, a library for the future, and a nomadic art project are inspiring generations.

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Building for the Future Oslo’s FutureBuilt program is bringing more sustainable buildings to Norway.

Punch List 82 WSLA Insights It’s easy to start a green team. Just look at what the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has done.

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Guest Column CBRE on how to create the perfect workspace.

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Person of Interest Mary V. Harvey of the Green Sports Alliance examines sustainability in the industry.

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Lessons Learned Business is sweet for the namesake of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams.

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GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Editor’s Note Chris Howe Inspiration is everywhere. At gb&d we’re always excited to talk with innovative thinkers, whether they’re developing niche products or part of larger, comprehensive green initiatives. For this issue, we got the opportunity to spend time in some of the most sustainable cities in the world, talking about both.

As part of this issue’s Spaces (page 68), we sent managing editor Laura Rote to Oslo to find out just what makes them one of the world’s greenest places. The Nordic city is newly home to the world’s greenest air terminal, but has long been leading the way when it comes to things like electric cars and pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly neighborhoods. The city is growing, too, with an average 10,000 people moving to Oslo each year over the last decade. To put in perspective just how green Oslo is—50% of all cars sold in Norway had electric propulsion (hybrid or purely electric motors) in the first months of 2017.

While Laura explored revitalized industrial areas and urban farms in Oslo, we spent some time over these last couple of months looking in our own backyards for inspiration. Take, for instance, the incredible new Etsy headquarters (page 30) that recently opened in Brooklyn. It meets the Living Building Challenge beautifully, with elaborate green spaces inside and out,

colorful art, and tons of employee health benefits—from bikes to a yoga room. Etsy is just one example of how corporate headquarters are stepping up to meet higher standards.

But all change doesn’t have to be big. Small steps can add up to great things. We’ve also been inspired by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who shares in this issue how creating a green team has changed the way they interact and do business. And then there’s the story of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams (page 88). She shows how something as simple as ownership—“Put your name on the sign”—can change the way you think about things.

Sincerely,

Chris Howe, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief

ON THE COVER PAGE 46

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The new Etsy headquarters in Brooklyn is bursting with life, from colorful walls to truly collaborative spaces. At the time of certification, it was the largest Living Building Challenge Materials Petal Certified space in the world.

Photo by Garrett Rowland, Gensler

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Editor’s Note Laura Heidenreich

gb&d Green Building & Design gbdmagazine.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Christopher Howe chris@gbdmagazine.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

Laura Heidenreich laura@gbdmagazine.com MANAGING EDITOR

The average employee with a typical 40-hour work week will spend approximately 10 years in an office in their lifetime. Let that sink in. An entire decade spent in the office. While that traditionally meant cubicles and dark offices, today’s workplaces are changing. And that’s making a world of difference.

For starters, we’re seeing more companies like LOFTwall (page 60) and Coterie (page 20) making products that brighten up our spaces and make us look forward to getting a little work done. Both are putting out products that enhance the employee experience, creating more employee-oriented spaces. LOFTwall does it with flexible, creative, and non-corporate– looking room dividers you’ll find in the likes of Slack and Tesla offices, while Coterie uses old world methods to craft unforgettable wooden conference tables that warm up that boring old meeting room.

But it’s also the corporate culture that’s changing, and Fabcon (page 40) is undoubtedly one of today’s best examples of a positive work environment. The

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Minnesota company is laser-focused on employee engagement and happiness. Just as CEO and President Tom Kuckhahn says: “It’s not just about how best to trowel concrete; this applies to how you run your back office, onboard employees, and communicate across departments as well.”

Focusing on keeping employees engaged is a core value for Fabcon, not necessarily through their products, but through their leadership, and that goes a long way in keeping staff happy.

In this issue, we also explore the many exciting developments that are happening in the world of R & D. Take, for example, Bluon (page 46), who even has actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio excited. Bluon experimented with several hundred formulas to make a better refrigerant before finding the perfect solution. “That was our sole mission in life for about three years,” says Peter Capuciati, executive chairman of Bluon’s board of directors. Through unrelenting research and much trial and error, the company was able to finally enter the marketplace with a true solution to one of the issues within HVACR and its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. That’s inspiring.

Whether it’s employee wellbeing (Fabcon offers unlimited vacation days and flex time) or looking for a better solution to what’s already on the market, it’s companies like these that are making the world a better place. The companies that do the best in the long run are those that never fail to ask, “But how can we do this better?”

Laura Rote lrote@gbdmagazine.com ART DIRECTOR

Kristina Walton Zapata kristina@gbdmagazine.com SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER

Brianna Wynsma

ACCOUNT MANAGER INTERN

Nick DiNardi

CONTRIBUTORS

Brian Barth, Lenny Beaudoin, Georgia Collins, Ashwin Jagannathan, Caroline Eberly Long, Mikenna Pierotti, Margaret Poe, Nancy Sutley, Mike Thomas, Emily Torem EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Jason F. McLennan MAIL

Green Building & Design 1765 N. Elston Ave. Suite 202B Chicago, IL 60642 The Green Building & Design logo is a registered trademark of Green Advocacy Partners, LLC Green Building & Design (gb&d) magazine is printed in the United States using only soy-based inks. Please recycle this magazine.

The magazine is also available in digital formats at gbdmagazine.com/current-issue.

Green Building & Design is a certified B Corp.

B Corp is to business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee or USDA Organic certification is to milk.

B Corps are certified by the nonprofit BLab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

Sincerely,

Laura Heidenreich, Associate Publisher

gbdmagazine.com

GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

Up Front Typology Inner Workings Trendsetters Features Spaces Punch List

gb&d

12 In Conversation Alan Ricks, MASS Design Group 14 Event Preview

Don’t miss Intersolar 16 Editors’ Picks

Curated by gb&d staff 18 Defined Design

This DPR Construction regional office in Phoenix goes above and beyond.

20 Sustainable Solutions

Get better office furniture with Coterie, and find out how steel can help you earn LEED.

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UP FRONT

In Conversation Alan Ricks MASS Design Group’s Alan Ricks examines the current and future role of architecture in social justice and human health

PHOTO: COURTESY OF MASS DESIGN GROUP

By Mikenna Pierotti Let’s face it—architecture and the built environments it shapes have never really been neutral. From Leonardo DaVinci’s ideal city to Richard Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, this aesthetic field has the innate potential to spawn new ways of thinking, interacting, and imagining simply because we eat, sleep, play, and work within it. But society hasn’t always given architecture its due.

Alan Ricks, co-founder and COO of MASS Design Group, aims to change that. In fact, MASS Design Group’s multifaceted mission can be partially summed up as the pursuit of proving a single claim—that architecture and design must once again become the foundation for some of the big conversations surrounding social justice and human dignity.

Begun in 2008 during the inspiring experience of designing and building the Butaro District Hospital in Rwanda, MASS, a nonprofit, was founded by Ricks and cofounder and director Michael Murphy on the premise that architecture isn’t merely a space to be inhabited—it can profoundly help or hurt the humans who interact with it. Today, the firm designs buildings intended to improve lives in more than 12 countries in Africa and the Americas, especially in resource-limited areas. By collaborating with the communities their buildings will serve and looking at each project as a long-term investment in people and environments, MASS creates spaces that are not only beautiful and affordable but also truly beneficial.

But that’s only one part of the battle. Changing the way architecture is practiced, thought about, and regulated is another. That’s why advocacy, research, and training are just as important to Ricks and MASS as a whole. And that’s a big part of Ricks’ role. He’s been a guest lecturer and speaker at Harvard, AIA events, TED, and other conferences; contributes to publications such as The Journal of Architecture and Stanford Social Innovation Review; has been appointed Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab and was named a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum (2014–2019). MASS also has a significant focus on training, sharing what they learn from designing and studying their impacts to others through courses, lectures, and workshops. In Rwanda, they supported the launch of the African Design Centre, where emerging leaders in design can learn how to design in a more equitable, sustainable, and just way. All these platforms are perfect for getting the message out.

That message? A building is never just a building.

We caught Rick in between his travels to and from MASS’s Boston and Rwanda offices and had a chat about the role architecture and design should play in human lives—from the hospitals that heal us to the office spaces that consume so much of our time.

gb&d: Help us wrap our heads around MASS’s mission. How would you explain it to someone who has never thought about design that way?

Ricks: There has been this debate for many years. Is design political? Is it social? Does design affect behavior? The pendulum has gone back and forth throughout history. Now we are emerging from an era that was previously dismissive of design’s impact. Today, many of us do believe design is political, social, and that it does affect behavior. But it comes down to a choice—whether, as designers, we are leveraging that opportunity to add value to issues of social justice or not. Ignoring the issues doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

At MASS, we are focused on having an impact on health, education, and issues of peace and justice. We are leveraging how the building process itself can be curated to expand that impact. In our design and in our advocacy, we are constantly thinking and talking about making decisions that have positive impacts on the economies, environments, and people actually involved in the project.

Ultimately, we are investing in the dignity of the communities we serve.

Our end game is to spark a shift in what society demands of architecture. And, much like the environmental movement, create a movement for the social impact of the building practice, one that is adopted both within the market and the government. We design buildings to serve as a proof of this concept, of what is possible from this philosophy, and then we measure them to see if we are delivering on those values and hypotheses. Then we do advocacy work to help promote what is working. Finally, we train people to adopt those practices. To scale that up ultimately leads to policy change and institutionalization. gb&d: The idea for MASS really took shape alongside a hospital project in Rwanda. Can you describe how that experience inspired you?

Ricks: We started MASS with a group of friends while in grad school. We felt there was a void in opportunities for young architects to come out of school and have opportunities to work on projects that could address some of the biggest challenges and have a meaningful, positive impact on people’s lives.

This was the peak of unemployment after the financial crisis, and yet the discourse was still around projects and methodologies of design that weren’t necessarily targeting the communities that might most benefit from good design. Figuring out a model that could allow us and others to work with communities that wouldn’t otherwise work with architects was the first step.

The first project we did was to design a This conversation continues on p. 15

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Editors’ Picks Curated by gb&d staff

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ORGANIZATION WATERPORE

COMPANY THONET

COMPANY AURORA SOLAR INC.

COMPANY MASH STUDIOS

PRODUCT SONNENBATTERIE

This simple yet brilliant solution from Amy Mielke and Caitlin GK Taylor aims to direct stormwater runoff into underground basins using an intelligent and flexible porous concrete surface. The new urban infrastructure can be hidden in plain sight and addresses water shortage in dry regions. waterporepartnership.com

After revolutionizing the furniture industry with the invention of bentwood, Thonet became synonymous with high-quality crafted furniture. The company continues to add to its rich history by creating innovative furniture designs, including modular seating options suitable for any space, in an environmentally and socially responsible way. thonet.com

Looking for a more efficient solar sales, system design, and analysis process?

The diverse Aurora Solar team in Palo Alto, California has designed a software that’s able to produce 3D models of buildings, engineer sophisticated solar designs, and run a module-level performance simulation validated

by NREL—all while calculating the costs and savings by switching to solar. aurorasolar.com

People spend nearly half of their adult lives in stressful work environments.

MASH studios offers a unique perspective on designing, engineering, and fabricating custom office spaces that brings forth a sustainable and comfortable workplace experience set to improve the quality of your workday. mashstudios.com

The sonnenBatterie is an energy storage solution for your home that can save you money, provide backup power, and even allow you to use your solar power at night. It’s easily integrated with other solar energy systems, so you can live comfortably knowing you won’t unexpectedly be in the dark. sonnen-batterie.com

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PHOTO: COURTESY OF MASH STUDIOS

MASH studios offers creative solutions for the office.

UP FRONT

Event Recap AIA Conference on Architecture

This year’s AIA Conference on Architecture took place in Orlando at the end of April, and it was one of the organization’s biggest events to date with all the latest in materials, products, and technologies presented by nearly 800 leading building product manufacturers. Mark your calendars now for the 2018 conference in New York City, June 21 to 23.

IN CONVERSATION with Alan Ricks Continued from p. 13

hospital in a place where they likely wouldn’t have used an architect to build—Butaro District Hospital in Rwanda. They might have worked with engineers and builders to get the job done, but we believed good design could actually improve health outcomes, improve the quality of care, improve the experience of the workforce, and do so in a way that could be more beautiful and no more expensive.

That first project was proof of concept.

We were able to do all those things and the impact is that the hospital has become the new national standard. The people asked for this to become the adopted policy and then asked us to develop new standards and guidelines for all of the district hospitals in the country. They then asked us to design two more hospitals to show how these standards could be implemented. That is a project that exhibits each of those phases MASS focuses on—designing a proof of concept, proving it works, advocating for it, and creating standards that can help educate others on how to replicate those principals. gb&d: So the built environment of a hospital may affect health. What about the spaces we spend the most time, like offices?

Former First Lady Michelle Obama was a top highlight of this year’s festival, which also included talks from the inspiring David Delgado and Dan Goods of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y T O D D W I N T E R S

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Ricks: Office spaces and workspaces are very clear typologies where design affects behavior.

The question is, how do you improve organizational health by changing the environment you work in? How do you achieve the types of interactions among colleagues that will be effective not only in delivering your services but also in the quality of life of your employees?

Those things often go in tandem. Curating the space to facilitate in interaction, collaboration, and serendipity among people—visitors and staff alike—is fundamental to having a vibrant and effective space.

Overwhelmingly we are already seeing trends away from the workstation and toward having more mobility, where you are encouraging people to work in a number of different environments during the day rather than being stuck in one cubicle. Having a variety and flexibility of space that is conducive to different types of work—heads down verses collaborative, quiet verses open—is the future of the workspace, so you’re not in one space all day long every day.

That is what people are pushing for today. These ideas are already penetrating the market, partially pushed by the start-up culture and by the more cutting-edge designs we’ve seen, and it’s starting to infiltrate all This conversation continues on p. 17

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Event Preview Summer 2017

IN CONVERSATION with Alan Ricks Continued from p. 15

segments of the market. But I also think it’s being supported by the industry. Look at folks like Herman Miller, who pioneered the cubicle, but are now moving away from it. The industry is starting to do some really robust research on using workspaces to facilitate behavioral change.

We hope that continues—that the people in these spaces and the people building these spaces become a much bigger part of the narrative. We hope that when you look at a building and evaluate whether you think it is good or bad design, you ask what is the value that is being created for those users and builders, and what effects it had and has on them. gb&d: How do you see the trend toward remote work affecting workspaces?

Ricks: I don’t see them changing drastically, and here’s why. We talk about remote work like it’s an emerging trend, but we’ve had it for a long time. In very few roles are people not doing work at home. Ever since people got the internet at home, even more so now with smartphones, very few people only do work from their station 9-to-5. When you ask a group of people who does remote work, not many would raise their hands, but if you asked who answers emails outside of office hours, probably everyone would raise their hand. Maybe all we need to change is having an acknowledgement of what we are already doing and how we can best facilitate that in a positive way. I don’t think office space is going to become any less important. In fact, maybe it becomes more important because it is where you go to actually have that face-toface interaction. gb&d: Describe your own offices.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF INTERSOLAR

Intersolar North America

DETAILS

Perhaps North America’s most popular When July 11–13 Where San Francisco solar event, this year’s Intersolar North AmerWeb intersolar.us ica takes place in mid-July with ample networking opportunities. This year, the solar event celebrates 10 years and will include an exhibition and conference that focuses on photovoltaics, PV production technologies, smart renewable energy, and solar thermal technologies. Discussions will also delve into the rise of project finance and the intersection of energy storage and electric vehicles. Exhibitors include everyone from manufacturers and suppliers to research institutes. In 2016 more than 18,000 visitors from more than 80 countries walked the show’s floors. gb&d

Ricks: We have about 35 people in 5,000 square feet. Most are grouped in what we call hives of about six people. We have six-person station desks, and then we have a number of breakout spaces—the largest being the kitchen, with a really large 10-person table. It’s the heart of our office space, where people hang out getting breakfast or having lunch. On Wednesdays people will give presentations and we’ll have beers in the office. We also have amazing large windows that face Boston Public Garden and Wilson Street, which creates an abundance of natural light. We also have a huge number of plants throughout the office, all of which are tropical species we use on landscape projects in Rwanda.

This conversation continues on p. 19

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UP FRONT

DPR Construction’s Phoenix regional office is a bright example of sustainability in an urban environment.

Defined Design DPR Construction

By Laura Rote Photos by Gregg Mastorakos

PV system The Phoenix office has a photovoltaic array and a solar thermal hot water system. The system was installed over parking canopies in two configurations—a staggered array and a flat tilted array in a contiguous plane arrangement—to provide shade to parked vehicles and maximize the number of skylights that could go into the roof.

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UP FRONT

IN CONVERSATION with Alan Ricks Continued from p. 17

gb&d: MASS marries advocacy and training with designing. How does that work?

Tubular daylighting Natural light from more than 80 tubular skylights fills the open workspaces at this DPR Construction office. Beyond reducing energy, the light from these tubes connects employees to the daily cycle of the sun, relieving stress and improving productivity. These provide 100% of the office’s lighting needs—even in closed conference rooms. Suffice it to say, you won’t find too many desk lights here.

Ricks: No two days are the same. I do work on design projects, and I still manage a portfolio of projects, but there are other aspects to my job, just managing a firm of this size that is working around the world and figuring out how we set up the organization to succeed in diverse environments is a big part of it. Also, because we are nonprofit, we have to raise awareness and funding to support these initiatives. I spend a lot of time traveling and speaking about our work with potential partners and supporters. I am one of two managing directors, but we also have a team of leadership. We have nine directors, and we make all decisions among that larger leadership team. We have three people in Rwanda, six in Boston. As a team, we evaluate what projects we are going to do, what we are going to fund, and how we are going to allocate our resources and our team together. gb&d: What needs to change?

Recognized by the International Living Future Institute, DPR Construction’s regional office in Phoenix is a testament to how much energy can be saved in the workplace—without skimping on comfort.

The net zero energy certified office is a showcase for urban sustainability, with in-office perks like a “Zen room,” where anyone can escape for some quiet time, a fully equipped gym and locker room, an outdoor courtyard, and a nap room. The open-office concept has nearly 60 workstations and floater spaces, plus nine conference and multipurpose rooms.

The facilities overflow with clever solutions, including nearly 90 climate-controlled operable windows, a zinc-clad solar chimney, and a 79 kW-dc rated photovoltaic solar panel–covered parking lot. A dashboard system allows employees to monitor water and gas usage, lighting and power consumption, and photovoltaic energy production in real time.

The transformation of the building has also been exciting—from a paint store in the 1970s to a windowless adult bookstore to sitting vacant to becoming the living laboratory it is today. gb&d HVLS fans DPR Construction installed HVLS (high volume, low speed) fans throughout its workspaces and its gym to save energy and increase comfort. The low speed delivers gentle air in place of strong winds, circulating at a high volume to distribute air over a large area and keep the space from reaching those too chilly or too hot extremes.

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Ricks: What we’ve learned in working in resource-limited areas is that we often overlook the sometimes small decisions we make when we’re designing and building. Where our building materials will come from and who will build with them. If we approached the process from the other direction, starting with our values about where our materials come from, the effect they have on the environment, and the people who will build with them, that drives how we make decisions.

Most of us agree with these values, but the current market doesn’t really allow for this deep investment in these approaches.

Often, architects are handcuffed by the time a project gets to them in terms of ability to influence things. We want to change how the brief is written, how RFPs are written, the criteria by which we evaluate how people design and how they are judged successful.

gb&d: How can we move our societies to adopt these values in building?

Ricks: It’s through the collective action and pressure we put on the government and the private sector to produce a built environment that is aligned with our values. Just as we have with the sustainability movement, we need that same kind of collective action and pressure to demand positive social impact and to hold accountable the stakeholders who have the power to make these decisions.

And then we need to recognize when we are doing it well and resist the urge to sweep it under the rug when we’re not. gb&d

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UP FRONT SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION

Custom Creations Coterie uses old world methods to inspire collaborative, sustainable spaces

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ne of the first things you’ll notice at Coterie’s Chicago studio is the impressive volume of custom furniture projects the husband and wife duo Jaime and Carrie Covert have going.

On a visit in late spring 2017, Coterie is wrapping up custom art deco bathroom vanities for Chicago’s new BLVD restaurant (“People are going to flock to that one,” Carrie says.); ceiling panels for the Sofitel hotel in Chicago; an industrial steel waterfall for a private home; and steel bases for three salvaged marble tabletops whose prior legs looked dated and needed a little love. They’re distinct styles for distinct clients, but they’re a breeze for Coterie, especially considering Jaime’s extensive training in Amish furniture-making and several apprenticeships in his youth, where he learned to build in many styles using old world joinery and other classic building methods. Add to that the couple’s pursuit of perfection, and you’ve got beautiful pieces.

The couple started Coterie after Carrie, at the time in e-commerce and marketing, became exasperated with her job. “Every time I started with a startup, it would implode and I would be out of a job.” Jaime suggested they build something together instead.

“She knew how to build a marketing plan, and I needed a business partner,” he says.

Now in their third year of business, the couple is busier than ever, adding to their robust portfolio of restaurants, hotels, retail spaces, and offices in Chicago and around the U.S. gbdmagazine.com

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF COTERIE

By Emily Torem

The Terms LIVE EDGE TABLE An unfinished edge of a tree that shows organic undulation in texture, color, and evenness OLD WORLD JOINERY Joining disparate pieces of a furniture item by carving out pockets in the physical wood for an adjoining piece to slide into HUDDLE TABLES Smaller than a conference table, these tables are perfect for a quick, informal meeting anywhere in the office

DESIGNING BETTER WORK SPACES “I love building gigantic conference tables,” Jaime says. “I think every office should have one.” It’s what most of those clients ask for, too.

Recently, a repeat office client wanted a more modern and open feel, so Coterie built them two giant tables from reclaimed oak with a steel base, plus two credenzas with contemporary flair.

Another way to cheer up an office? A sense of community. “Jaime’s built a lot of kitchen islands for offices lately so a team can enjoy lunch together,” Carrie says. “A lot of offices are very old-school with cubicles where you can hear a pin drop,” Jaime says. “I love when you can hear people and it’s very lively—huddle tables, conferences tables, somewhere to meet and share ideas.”

RECLAIMED WOOD IS WORTH THE EFFORT One of the biggest challenges as a small furniture business is reconciling client expectations about pricing with regard to reclaimed materials.

“People think reclaimed wood is cheap, especially if they have a stash of it, but there’s a whole acclimatization process that has to go on in the shop before we can use it,” Carrie says. Not to mention cleaning the wood. They’ve had to pull out not just nails, but bullets, dating back to the wood’s time as a tree.

That said, reclaimed lumber is one of Jaime’s favorite materials to work with, as it helps each piece tell a story, adding warmth, dimension, and context to a space or room. “I love working with reclaimed material,” he says. “When you’re cutting an old beam in a house that’s been there for 110 years, which used to be a 300-year-old tree, you’re getting textures and colors that are unexpected.” gb&d

Chicago’s Coterie creates unique conference tables that people want to work around.

Coterie is also passionate about small business and makes the time to connect with clients face to face. This past winter, a customer had a mountainous request—a 22-foot live edge table delivered to Virginia in a single week. The duo made it happen. “Jaime did some crazy overnighters and knocked it out,” Carrie says.

While the couple prizes collaboration with their clients every step of the way, they also get excited for moments where they get a handful of napkin sketches. “I love seeing what Jaime will come up with,” Carrie says. Ultimately, Coterie likes to see that their furniture does good and makes people happy. “It feels really good to provide office furniture for companies that care about their employees because they’re trying to make a warm, inviting space for them that will be energetic and inspiring.” gb&d july–august 2017

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UP FRONT SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION

From raw material to recycled content, steel can take your building from strong to certified sustainable

By Laura Rote One World Trade Center, the Samsung Headquarters, even a massive mall in Beijing—all are LEED Certified to varying degrees. And while, these days, most people know what it means to be LEED, achieving the certification is ever changing.

LEED v4 was introduced in 2013 and became the sole version of LEED certification available in late 2016. While it’s hard to say whether this update makes it more difficult to earn LEED recognition, new types of credits certainly make the achievement more complex. “The idea is to keep raising the bar, and that was absolutely the intent with version 4,” says Mark Thimons, vice president of sustainability for the Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI). “Architects and builders can get comfortable with a version of LEED to the extent that it’s no longer pushing the bar higher; in the eyes of USGBC, that’s when it’s time for revision.”

Building with steel is one major step you can take to help secure a LEED certification.

These are just some of the ways steel can help you rack up those points.

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NO. 1 RECYCLED CONTENT

Material from steel demolition or construction is easily recycled, with the magnetic properties of steel greatly facilitating its separation from other materials. In fact, steel is 100% recyclable—meaning any steel product can be recycled into another, from a car to a can or even another building. All new steel has some recycled content already.

Structural steel is recycled at about 98%, and anywhere from 60 to 80 million tons of steel scrap are recycled every year into new North American products.

The sourcing of raw materials recognizes the value of recycled content in materials such as cold-formed steel, and a credit is available for projects where at least 25%, by cost, of the total value of permanently installed building products in the project meet the criteria for responsible extraction.

NO. 2 TIGHT BUILDING ENVELOPES “Steel is dimensionally stable and, when properly designed, can provide an exceptionally tight building envelope, resulting in lower air losses and better HVAC performance over time. This helps to improve the overall energy profile of the building,” Thimons says.

Additionally, insulated metal panels— typically with steel exterior and interior skins—are readily available in a wide range of profiles, textures, and colors.

These are essentially sandwich panels that provide excellent insulation for a building’s exterior envelope. “They can provide a very architectural appearance, and at the same time deliver outstanding thermal performance,” Thimons says.

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PHOTO: COURTESY OF SMDI

9 Ways Steel Can Help You Earn LEED Points

UP FRONT

NO. 3 CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION WASTE MANAGEMENT

PHOTO: PIXABAY

NO. 4

Steel products can make a significant contribution to this credit, as less construction waste goes to the landfill when you use steel. In fact, all steel framing is 100% recyclable, resulting in negligible steel landfill waste.

Many steel construction products and assemblies are panelized off-site, pre-manufactured, pre-cut to finished size, and/or fabricated to precise project specifications before they are shipped to the jobsite, so on-site waste is minimized.

Additionally, steel scrap generated at the jobsite can be easily and economically recycled.

FLEXIBILITY AND STRENGTH

Design for flexibility, although limited to health care buildings, is another strong attribute of steel. “The nature of cold-formed steel (CFS) framing is that members are typically bolted or screwed together, and structural sections are often bolted, so pieces can be easily disassembled,” Thimons says. “Interior partitions made of CFS can be disassembled and relocated, making it very conducive to future adaptation of the space.”

Its durability goes a long way, too. Just think about when you look up at an exhibit hall or convention center. What do you see? Steel trusses. “Steel is a strong structural material, and steel framing systems are such that you can usually get very long spans between columns.

That’s important because it allows for wide open spaces,” Thimons says. “The limited amount of columns allow for more flexibility in the layout of the building’s floor plan. You don’t have to design the floor plan around where the columns are located.”

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NO. 5 HEAT ISLAND REDUCTION

The solar reflectance of steel roofing is particularly valuable for achieving energy efficiency in the heating and cooling of the building, and it’s attainable through the long-lasting durability of coatings that offer optimal solar reflectance for many years. These coatings are available in many finishes, colors, textures, and roofing profiles, tailored to your needs for optimal reflectivity and emissivity. All help to reduce the energy costs associated with air conditioning or heating loads.

In addition to these energy-saving benefits, steel roofs can contribute to a building’s use of renewable energy.

They provide the optimal foundation for photovoltaic (PV) installations, since the roof can be expected to last longer than the solar system it supports.

NO. 6 LOW-EMITTING MATERIALS The fact that steel doesn’t emit any volatile organic compounds (VOCs) goes a long way. Even painted steel products like roofing are not typically painted at the job site, so they don’t emit VOCs. The VOC emission level is one of the attributes of a product that helps it to qualify for the Health Product Declaration certification. Obviously you want your building to pass indoor air quality testing, and steel will not contribute to the emissions that are required to be tested.

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UP FRONT SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION

NO. 7 BUILDING PRODUCT DISCLOSURE AND OPTIMIZATION

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NO. 8

RAW MATERIAL SOURCE AND EXTRACTION REPORTING

Speaking of product transparency, does the company supplying the raw materials for the product publish corporate sustainability reports? The good news is, most North American steel producers do, and thus their materials will help qualify for points. When you use at least 20 different permanently installed products from at least five manufacturers that have released public reports from their raw material suppliers (the report must include extraction locations and a commitment to long-term ecologically responsible land use, among other factors), you’ve achieved one point.

NO. 9 PROTECT OR RESTORE HABITAT How does steel contribute to preserving an existing habitat where a building will be located?

When steel assemblies are panelized off-site or when fabrication of steel framing is completed off-site, the job site benefits from much less on-site disruption, indirectly contributing to this LEED credit.

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PHOTOS: PIXABAY; COURTESY OF SMDI

Mechanisms like Health Product Declarations or Cradleto-Cradle certification and Declare Labels can all contribute to LEED points, demonstrating a company’s commitment to transparency in its products. “Some of the companies that make steel products will have gone through the process of getting one or more of those certifications, and that would allow them to potentially qualify for those LEED credits as well,” Thimons says.

Similarly, a number of steel construction products can contribute to points by submitting Environmental Product Declarations, or EPDs, compiled from life cycle assessments (LCAs). EPDs are now available for nearly all of the main steel products used in construction, and you can find the full list of EPDs at buildusingsteel. org/why-choose-steel/ product-transparency. aspx.

FRONT GREEN BUILDING UP & DESIGN

Up Front Typology Inner Workings Trendsetters Features Spaces Punch List

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28 Evolving Green

A commercial building in Canada is making headlines before it even opens.

30 Crafting a Better Workspace

Etsy inspires with its sustainable new headquarters in Brooklyn.

32 Going with the Flow

Geelen Counterflow in the Netherlands may be the greenest office in the world.

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THIS SPREAD Etsy’s new Brooklyn headquarters is sustainable and cool.

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The New Green Frontier?

YOUR OFFICE.

BY MIKENNA PIEROTTI PHOTO BY GARRETT ROWLAND, GENSLER

The average worker doing a typical 40-hour week—cranking out emails, answering phones, sitting in drawn out meetings— will spend a total of about 10 years in an office over the course of their lifetime. For many of us, that means a decade of breathing volatile organic compounds emitted from copiers and printers, cleaning agents, and paints. It means 10 years of working under florescent lights, in cubicles and dark offices, with little exposure to the outside world.

Many workers are exposed to even more environmental stressors, from extreme temperatures to excess humidity to inadequate lighting, acoustics, and ergonomic design. It’s a recipe for a modern phenomenon known as sick building syndrome, where the indoor environmental quality of a building can contribute to asthma, allergies, stress, and even depression, resulting in increased absenteeism and loss of productivity.

Yet these dangers have also become the catalyst for some of the most innovative design trends in the green building industry.

With a direct connection now drawn between human comfort and business productivity, the bottom line is fueling a green takeover from the startup to the Fortune 500.

Green offices aren’t just working smarter; they’re working kinder, both to employees and to the environments they exist within. These new spaces are rekindling a relationship with nature using everything from natural elements like salvaged wood to new concepts like biophilic design that have measurable benefits in human productivity, learning, healing, and psychological well-being.

We found three such spaces around the world, from the Netherlands to Brooklyn, that are bravely reimagining the future of the workspace—today—and already recouping the benefits. gb&d

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Evolv1, a modern, more-than 100,000-square-foot, Class A commercial building in Waterloo’s David Johnston Research + Technology Park in Ontario, is already making headlines—and it hasn’t even been completed.

That was the intent, says Adrian Conrad, chief operating officer at The Cora Group, one of the masterminds behind this project. Together, Cora Group, Sustainable Waterloo Region, the technology park, and anchor tenant EY Canada wanted to push the conversation about sustainable development. “[We] had this collective vision to see a replicable, net-positive energy, highly sustainable building be built in the Waterloo region,” Conrad says. “We’ve got all kinds of people setting targets around the world—wouldn’t it be nice to be sustainable in 10 years or 20 years? We’re doing it next year. We are on the ground now.”

Thanks to these groups’ unique collaboration, and the efforts of consulting group Stantec, evolv1 is on track to not only meet its LEED Platinum target, but perhaps set a new standard in the sustainable building industry. It was recently chosen to be part of the CaGBC’s Zero Carbon Pilot Program, one of just 18 other buildings and one of very few core and shell commercial projects. “It has became a mission of ours at Cora Group to push the limits of sustainability,” Conrad says. gbdmagazine.com

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF STANTEC

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This isn’t Cora Group’s first highly anticipated project. They have four other buildings in the park, each more sustainable than the last. This one, says Stantec’s Matt Cable, project manager during evolv1’s feasibility study, will be hard to beat, not only because of its features but also because of its practicality. “Adrian was looking to develop something really unique,” he says. “He wanted to be really forward-thinking as a developer and build something completely new, sustainable and, because he is a developer, something that has a business case for it.”

In order to tease out the complexities, Stantec relied on its proprietary energy modeling software to “essentially model all of the systems that you could possibly think of going into this building at the same time.” Rather than starting at the bottom and adding in pieces until they reached their sustainability goals, Cable says they took the opposite approach. “We used our energy modeling software to input all of the options, all the R-values for windows and walls, multiple electrical and mechanical systems—we put it all into the model, ran them all at the same time, and came up with a matrix of results. We were then able to backtrack and, by assigning costs, were able to find that balance of meeting the goals while making business sense.”

The final concept includes key features like an open-well geothermal system, tied into local aquifers, gb&d

that draws water into the building heat exchanger as a source for heating and cooling the building; a variable refrigerant flow system indoors; water retention, water collection, and water reuse for irrigation, which is also tied into a local bioswale; a significantly insulated and efficient structure with triple-glazed windows, solar shading, and a large solar wall designed to blend seamlessly into the side of the building; and, on the energy production side, a 700kW PV array.

And although the interior will be left to the tenants to outfit, the design team paid close attention to future inhabitants’ health with a three-story atrium, an open staircase to motivate workers to use the stairs, and a green wall to supply fresh air. Conrad also insisted on plenty of daylight. Despite the challenges of adding more windows when targeting high energy efficiency, the team was able to achieve a 40% windowto-wall ratio. Evolv1 is also located about 260 feet from a light rail transit station.

Initial construction of evolv1 began in spring 2017, and the team anticipates completion of the base shell by July 1, 2018. Conrad and The Cora Group are already planning their next headline-inspiring, sustainable structure. “This concept is already replicable,” Conrad says. “This is just evolv1—evolv2 will go in right across the road and make use of what we’ve learned.” gb&d

In Waterloo, evolv1 is well on its way to reaching LEED Platinum certification with its bevy of green features.

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Etsy employees work in a creative environment that includes inspiring biophilic design.

Crafting a Better Workplace

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and producers included First Third, Socotra Studio, Jason Hernandez, and In.Sek Design.

Biophilic design features also made their mark, providing a more direct connection with nature for employees and visitors with indoor plants (accessible from every seated space in the building), native planted landscaped terraces (created by landscape architect RGR), living interior walls, and custom green workspace dividers (by Greenery NYC)—all fed by a more than 3,000-gallon rainwater collection tank.

Although Etsy and Gensler made the authenticity and safety of the materials in this space paramount to the concept, they recognized the difficulty of materials sourcing for many designers and builders and wanted to take on that challenge to, in a sense, light the way for others.

“Materials are complicated, and it’s challenging for designers to prioritize between local sourcing, transparency, toxicity, life cycle assessment, and corporate social responsibility, all while weighing the design intent, durability, and cost. Even manufacturers that want to responsibly source are faced with a sea of third party certifications that require sustained investment to maintain,” Briefel says.

Employee health, both safeguarding it and providing opportunities to improve it, is a top priority. The building has storage for more than 100

PHOTOS: GARRETT ROWLAND, GENSLER

For David Briefel, sustainability director at renowned collaborative design firm Gensler, building a new, sustainable workspace for online marketplace Etsy fit seamlessly into both companies’ missions. Inspired by Etsy’s goal of reimagining “commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world” and by direct input from Etsy employees, Gensler set about creating a space that would make waves.

The new, 200,000-square-foot headquarters in Brooklyn was an inspiring example from its inception.

“The project embraced the Living Building Challenge benchmark as an opportunity to instigate change in the building industry and to set a new standard for sustainable construction and design,” Briefel says.

To do this, Gensler and Etsy made some groundbreaking choices— scrutinizing every material, installation method, and design choice and paying close attention to how Etsy interacted with the Brooklyn community. “All materials were vetted to avoid harmful or toxic chemicals (LBC Red List), and consultants were asked to disclose 100% of the products’ ingredients,” he says.

In doing so the project team had to, effectively, “rewrite the specifications book for the more than 1,500 items used on the project.”

To stay true to Etsy’s mission of creating a space that celebrates makers and the narrative of materials, the design team brought in more than 750 maker pieces, including 600 handmade desks. Some of the contributing artists

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bikes, a meditation and yoga room, and “dynamic planning principals that encourage movement throughout the space, up and down the daylit stairwells with views of the Brooklyn Bridge,” Briefel says.

Quiet spaces were a popular request on employee surveys, so the new space provides plenty of opportunities for workers to move around and find their own niche in nearly any corner of the nine-story building. Collaboration spaces, gender-neutral bathrooms, craft rooms, and small dining areas on each floor are just a few more perks of working for this certified B Corporation in its Brooklyn headquarters.

In the building’s “Eatsy” cafeteria, organic and locally sourced meals are served twice a week while digital scales on zero waste carts and open source waste tracking software help the company track energy usage by floor and from the building’s rooftop PV array.

Setting out to challenge the idea of the typical workspace was one of the biggest challenges for the design team, but their efforts paid off. At the time of certification, Etsy’s new headquarters was the largest LBC Materials Petal Certified space in the world and the first in New York City. “It holds, not only Etsy, but also the entire design team, industry, and community partners to new standards of sustainable design.” gb&d gb&d

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Going with the Flow It has been called the greenest office in the world.

Geelen Counterflow’s Netherlands office received a 99.94% BREEAM certification scheme ranking, the highest ever as of April 2016. This family business, which manufactures dryers and coolers for the food and feed industry, is already at the top of the green game, creating products that are energyefficient and hygienic.

But as the company expanded to meet steady growth, the need for a new head office building became more than an opportunity to add space. This, says Counterflow’s managing director Sander Geelen, is all part of the company’s mission “to become 100% sustainable as soon as possible—office, factory, and products.”

The problem today, as he sees it, is an “excessive emphasis on short-term financial goals [while] ignoring environmental and social impact…an excessive emphasis on energy consumption only, ignoring carbon footprint of the building or employee health.”

When approaching the build of their own office space, Counterflow took a new approach. The original site consisted of more than 107,000 square feet of production workshops and approximately 7,000 square feet of office space. Their goal with the new facility was to grow their capacity with an eye on the future, with enough room to expand over the next decade. At the same time, a big challenge would be to accommodate both the day-to-day work processes while increasing opportunities for employees to interact, benefiting from a design that maximized natural light, views, and comfortable acoustics.

The design, crafted by Netherlands firm Architecten En Bouwmeesters, also needed to break down artificial barriers between office and workshop personnel. To do this,

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This Netherlands office combines greenery and high ceilings with solar panels and abundant natural light.

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the design minimized the differences between the spaces, starting with making sure all employees accessed the building from the same entrance.

Convenience was also key, with functional areas like the reception, meeting and printing rooms, bathrooms, and a covered patio all easily accessible from the facility’s cafeteria, which also increased opportunities for interactions between employees at all levels.

The building’s airtight construction was similarly laser focused on the health and well-being of people and the environment, with timber pre-fabricated walls, floors, and roof assembled with beech dowels rather than chemical glues, sealed with linseed oil rather than chemical paints or finishes—all of which amounted to a negative CO2 footprint of 2,400 tons.

Aesthetics go hand in hand with efficiencies in this facility, as large, high window openings allow both daylight and warmth to reach deep into the building, minimizing the need for more lighting, all of which is LED and controlled by sensors. Even the suspended ceilings, which allowed the concealment of air and cable ducts and provided sound absorption, were intentionally designed to maximize worker comfort.

The facility’s HVAC system today is its own technological feat, allowing temperature and CO2 concentrations in all rooms to be controlled and heat and humidity to be recovered, creating a thermal efficiency of more than 80%.

Two ground source heat pumps generate the building’s heat and cold using the regulating power of the earth in different ways depending on the season.

At the same time, solar thermal panels provide hot water to the kitchen and washrooms while rain is collected from the roof and used for flushing toilets and watering the building’s unique green wall.

And unlike some conventional office buildings, Counterflow’s solar panel system is more than a PR stunt.

The 327W solar panels on the roof generate a full 50% more energy than the building needs.

At the end of the day, this impressive project was completed on a budget comparable to conventional building construction practices, Geelen says. However, the more impressive numbers were less tangible, measurable only in the motivation and attitude of employees and future impact on the environment. But that was the real goal. “Ecologic and economic goals should be and can be aligned,” he says.

“Anything else is to profit now at the expense of future generations.” gb&d gb&d

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF GEELEN

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GREEN BUILDINGTYPOLOGY & DESIGN

Up Front Typology Inner Workings Trendsetters Features Spaces Punch List

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36 A Modern Model Home Windows from REHAU

are the finishing touch on this architect’s dream home.

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A MODERN MODEL HOME An architect sets out to build a high-performance home that integrates a wide range of sustainable technologies

By Margaret Poe

Rainer Schrom is quick to admit he’s not a builder. But he always dreamed of building his own house, so he gave himself a challenge: to design a modern home that’s sustainable, energy efficient, and low-maintenance—all while sticking to a budget.

The resulting four-story dwelling, complete with expansive windows, radiant heating, and a solar array on the roof, meets that challenge head-on. And it integrates seamlessly into the landscape. “I just like the idea of the outside and inside flowing continuously,” he says. “We used the same materials inside and out, so the separation almost disappears.”

Schrom, a licensed architect and principal at Stamford, Connecticut–based Partners For Architecture, carefully selected every element of the home to meet his quality, efficiency, and aesthetic standards. He wanted to use his home to showcase a number of sustainable technologies he’d used individually in other projects— demonstrating that used together, these features made a modern home greater than the sum of its parts.

REHAU HAS THE ANSWERS

The windows and doors were an essential part of that equation, given the quantity and size of these

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INNER WORKINGS

Windows from REHAU

helped this architect achieve the highly sustainable house he always wanted.

elements. Schrom knew they’d need to be high-performing systems in order to maintain a secure building envelope. That, in turn, would allow him to downsize his heating and cooling equipment and reduce total energy usage. “Once you insulate well, you don’t need a lot of heat and cooling to maintain a comfortable environment inside,” he says.

After determining he wanted to incorporate tilt-turn windows and tilt-slide and lift-slide doors, Schrom considered his options. As opposed to single-pane windows with aluminum frames, he realized a vinyl solution would give him the best results.

He went with the REHAU System 4500 tilt-turn and fixed models for the home’s 41 custom windows.

The European-style design allows Schrom to tilt the window to easily ventilate the home without letting in rain, or to easily clean the glass. The gasket seal is critical in securing the building’s envelope, Schrom says. In addition, the windows’ large size means they feature significant expanses of glass, reducing the amount of frame used and resulting in fewer moving parts— decreasing the potential for air and water leaks, he notes.

These double-pane, high-performance windows were the perfect fit, says fabricator Ioan Sita, vice gb&d

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF REHAU

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Fast Facts 19 MONTHS Construction time for the home

0 Fossil fuels used to heat or cool the home— it’s all electric power, some of it generated by the solar panels on the roof Down to 0.18 U-value potential on REHAU tilt-turn System 4500 windows

Down to 0.20 U-value slide doors easily open to the great outdoors.

president of Starr Windows and Doors. As on every project, Sita’s team analyzed the performance requirements, aesthetics, and engineering specifications to determine the right product. In this case, the REHAU windows and doors had the high U-values Schrom was searching for without putting him over budget, Sita says.

The 11 doors in the home also introduced unique challenges. Schrom selected System 2500 lift-slide doors in the living spaces to easily open out onto the patios, while not blocking any of the view. In the bedrooms, tilt-slide doors were installed. Unlike a typical sliding door, Sita notes that these have a full compression of gaskets around the frame, creating an airtight thermal envelope.

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Throughout the home, and including the doors and windows, Schrom chose materials colored all the way through, as opposed to coated products. If the exteriors peel or crack down the line, the same color will show through underneath—eliminating the need for repainting or future maintenance. Other features of the home, which Schrom’s family moved into in spring 2017, include a solar array on the roof, a rainwater harvesting system, radiant floor heating, and a geothermal heating and cooling system.

For Schrom, the completion of his home is a dream come true. “To live in a modern home with all these features and the comfort and the big glass and the views, it’s a whole different experience,” he says. gb&d

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF REHAU

potential on REHAU lift-slide System 2500 doors

System 2500 lift

GREEN BUILDING INNER WORKINGS & DESIGN

Up Front Typology Inner Workings Trendsetters Features Spaces Punch List

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40 How Can We Do This Better?

Fabcon’s commitment to its employees and clients alike leads to continued growth.

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TRENDSETTERS

How Can We Do This Better?

How one question has led to five years of growth for Fabcon With nearly 1,000 employees working in four manufacturing plants and constructing in 38 states, Fabcon is not simply a precast wall manufacturer, though they’re also the biggest of that in the nation. The 47-year-old American company is also changing the way buildings go up—quickly, efficiently, and precisely—and setting an example for what it means to care for your customers and employees through constant communication and more benefits.

VALUES THAT MATTER Tom Kuckhahn joined the company shortly after his time at the University of Minnesota. He started as a structural designer, followed by a stint as the first Fabcon manager of R & D. He then moved through the ranks as director

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of engineering, vice president and, in 2016, president and CEO. He says Fabcon’s values are a major reason he’s stayed for 20-plus years.

Some people are surprised to learn the breadth of what goes on at Fabcon—that it’s truly a company with an appetite for finding a better way to do things. Kuckhahn started in the fall of ’94, and by the spring of 1995, the company had a new CEO—a 30-something who was ready to throw gas on the spirit of innovation already at Fabcon. “That’s still central to who we are today,” he says.

Kuckhahn is a problem solver at heart, and there’s no shortage of problems to solve in manufacturing and construction. “We believe there’s always a better way,” he says. “It’s not just gbdmagazine.com

PHOTO: COURTESY OF FABCON

BY LAURA ROTE

TRENDSETTERS

Tom Kuckhahn has a long history with Fabcon, becoming CEO in 2016.

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about how best to trowel concrete; this applies to how you run your back office, onboard employees, and communicate across departments as well.”

He also acknowledges that employees have lives outside of Fabcon. “When you’re asking someone to get the job done, they have to figure out how to do that and continue to live their life.”

Ideals like these carry over from the

a corporate recruiter and training for hiring managers has moved the candidate evaluation process from focusing exclusively on skills to gaining work style, critical thinking, and problem-solving insights. For those who become lead contenders in certain roles, the evaluation process is followed by an assessment tool that benchmarks compatibility with not only job function,

original founders, David Hanson and Gerald Rauenhorst. The company’s commitment to that is clear, from its unlimited vacation policy to flex time to work from home. “The job isn’t necessarily about me seeing your butt in the seat for 40 hours in the week,” Kuckhahn says. “It’s about getting the job done.”

Doing more to hire and retain the right people is essential, and providing opportunities to develop existing talent is a major focus. Fabcon has enhanced its employee screening tools to align with its values and implemented new talent development processes.

For example, the recent addition of

but culture and team members, too.

Coupled with talent development tools, employees can define their paths and access the resources they need to achieve their goals. Fabcon also evaluated compensation systems and improved its 401K and profit sharing programs. “We want to make sure people can make a career out of Fabcon.”

Of course, the company would be nowhere if not for its biggest values— safety and quality. These are nonnegotiable. “You don’t get to be in the construction and heavy manufacturing business and not have safety as a strong priority,” Kuckhahn says. “You have to be able to work safely first and foremost, and you have to be able to make a highquality product.”

CONTINUED GROWTH Recently, Fabcon went through a change

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in ownership that again set the company on a growth curve, as it transitioned from private family ownership to private equity in September. Now the company looks to where it may be able to expand to reach more customers.

Fabcon’s precast concrete wall panels are very well insulated, so anyone with a large single-story building—think office warehouses, distribution centers, manufacturing facilities, data centers, and even theaters— and significant heating or cooling needs in an area with little seismic activity can benefit. The company currently has manufacturing sites in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, and Kansas, and 80% of its projects are within 200 miles of a plant, meaning they can reach job sites in as many as 33 states.

The demand for Fabcon is clear, as the company is on pace for a record year for the fifth year in a row. Fabcon expects to put up 14 million square feet of wall panels this year, and the Pennsylvania plant is expanding by a million square feet.

E-commerce is driving much of that. Just think about the sheer amount of orders going through Amazon or its competitors. They all need warehouses, and many of those will need to be new to meet demands like automated storage and retrieval and flat, usable space. It’s a sweet spot for Fabcon, who gets buildings like these up fast. “Warehouse construction year over year is up 20%. We’ve been building a lot of them.”

INSPIRING INNOVATION Fabcon hasn’t always focused on precast concrete wall panels, though. Originally, the company made a precast concrete floor plank that ended up being used for walls for many years—until, that is, staff said, “There has to be a better way.”

In 2001, Fabcon developed VersaCore, giving buildings a higher percentage of recycled-product content, a higher level of energy efficiency, and load bearing wall panels that supported large equipment loads. Since then, Fabcon has gone through three product iterations to even further improve, resulting in the current VersaCore+Green wall systems, which incorporate up to 58% recycled gbdmagazine.com

TRENDSETTERS

THIS SPREAD: PHOTOS COURTESY OF FABCON

BETTER PRODUCTS

content. And because the panels are lighter, fewer hauling trips are required, reducing not only cost, but carbon footprint as well.

He says the original, decades-old product also had physical limitations— namely that most panels were 8 feet wide. If you wanted something smaller, you had to take the 8-foot panel and cut it down, tossing out the extra. If you wanted a wall with an opening, you had to make the whole panel and cast out the part you didn’t need.

With VersaCore, you can cast openings right then and there the way you want them, reducing waste. “We began to implement more and more little ideas that saved money for both Fabcon and the customer. It really set us on a different path and drove innovation.”

LESSONS LEARNED Kuckhahn knows how you roll products or initiatives out is as important as the ideas themselves. “If we roll things out the wrong way, they won’t be effective. gb&d

I’ve learned to engage our employees a lot sooner and make them part of the idea generation process, make them part of the problem-solving process.

That’s really a mentality that is central to lean manufacturing. And we’ve continued to embrace that.”

In its day to day, Fabcon uses a method called “Managing for Daily Improvement” to assess the company’s core KPI goals up close. “Let’s break it down to crew level. I may have a high-level corporate KPI for efficiency that doesn’t mean anything to guys setting up the bed to be cast today. Ask them, ‘What does efficiency look like to you? Let’s set goals. Let’s talk about what’s coming up, what didn’t work well yesterday, and how to fix that.

Let’s track that.’” He says it’s not only part of treating people with respect; it’s furthering that nurturing spirit of innovation by engaging people. The changes you want to accomplish are a lot more likely to stick if the employees were part of the process. gb&d

“We make the lightest, strongest wall panel on the market,” Kuckhahn says. Using a Fabcon panel, you don’t need exterior columns, so you save on materials and cost. Because the panels are light, they’re also more cost-effective to ship. And since the wall panels are produced in one of four manufacturing plants across the U.S., they can be shipped to job sites across more than half the country. “If you’re Walmart and you want to build a store in any one of these 30plus states, you can choose Fabcon and get the same experience, the panels are going to look the same. There’s a lot of value in that.”

Plus, Fabcon puts up the panels themselves.

Fabcon engineers and produces its panels in one of its U.S. production facilities and ships the finished product to the job site in as little as eight weeks, whereas a smaller outfit could take months longer. You don’t have to hire another crew to erect the panels once they arrive onsite, like with some precasters.

Fabcon brings a small team—five or six people—to set its own panels, to further save time and labor, making it even easier to do business.

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GREEN BUILDING TRENDSETTERS & DESIGN

Up Front Typology Inner Workings Features Spaces Punch List

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46 The R-22 Paradox Bluon makes a new refrigerant that could help save the world.

52 Future-Proof Your Business Nest Pros make smart home customers’ lives simpler.

60 Open Office 2.0 LOFTwall brings flexibility and creativity back to the workplace.

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THE R-22 46

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PARADOX New refrigerant maker Bluon rescues the HVAC industry from environmental catastrophe

PHOTO: COURTESY OF TARKETT

BY BRIAN BARTH

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IN 1987, 197 countries signed the Montréal Protocol as part of a global effort to prevent irreparable damage to the Earth’s ozone layer. The intent was to discontinue the use of ozone-depleting substances, which are commonly used in refrigerants within HVAC equipment, over a period of decades, allowing time for the industry to adapt. CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), the worst offenders, were the first to be phased out. More recently, HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) are being phased out. The process began in 2004 and ends in 2020, at which point no HCFCs will be manufactured or imported into the U.S. or the developed world. In the context of commercial and residential HVAC systems, this primarily refers to the refrigerant known as R-22.

This noble effort has already begun to heal the ozone layer. But along the way, a new, unexpected problem has emerged. According to Peter Capuciati, a physicist who has devoted the last seven years to finding solutions to overcome limitations in HVAC efficiency, the replacement refrigerants now on the market—while they don’t contribute to ozone depletion—actually reduce the performance of HVAC systems, increasing energy consumption by anywhere from 5 to 30%, depending on the product.

“The whole idea of the R-22 phase-out is to have an environmental benefit, so it’s actually backfiring in the sense that all of the prior replacements are having a negative impact on the planet due to their increased electricity consumption,” Capuciati says. In 2011, Capuciati cofounded Bluon, a new refrigerant manufacturer and HVAC service provider, to address this shortcoming in the market.

Racing the Clock

Worldwide, HVAC-R systems consume approximately 40% of all electricity. Given that electricity accounts for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., the HVAC-R share of the global warming crisis stands around 12%—equivalent to half of all the cars and trucks on the road, which certainly get far more attention as a climate change culprit. Unfortunately, as the 2020 deadline for phasing out R-22 approaches, that number stands to rise as building owners and managers scramble to replace their refrigerant with one of the handful of non-ozone-depleting products approved thus far.

After several years of experimentation, Bluon came up with a refrigerant formula unlike any other on the market. It reduces energy use by 5 to 25%, depending on the application, with an average energy savings of 15 to 18%. Known as TdX 20, the

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PETER CAPUCIATI COFOUNDED BLUON IN 2011 IN AN EFFORT TO ADDRESS A SERIOUS SHORTCOMING IN THE REFRIGERANT MARKET.

product achieves these results by carrying more heat at lower pressure, maximizing the use of the entire coil and minimizing system losses inherent to HVAC equipment.

“We tried several hundred formulas, testing each one on various pieces of equipment in the field and in the lab, to find an approach that would actually increase efficiency,” says Capuciati, who is now the executive chairman of Bluon’s board of directors.

“That was our sole mission in life for about three years. Finally, we discovered something unexpected that wasn’t showing up in the models. That if we stacked five or more different refrigerants together, enabling them to phase-change in sequence (vaporize), a domino effect occurred resulting in more productivity from the coil and less work from the compressor—thus lowering electrical consumption.”

By September 2016, TdX 20 had cleared the regulatory hurdles at the EPA and other permitting agencies and received its official ASHRAE designation—R-458A—the final step to enter the marketplace. It was not a moment too soon, says Douglas Reinke, Bluon’s president and CEO, not just because of the looming 2020 deadline and the urgency of fighting climate change, but because R-22 had suddenly spiked in price. Now that the end of R-22 production is drawing near and new supply is drying up, re-claimers and suppliers who have been stocking up are taking advantage of the situation, creating a supply and demand dynamic that is deeply unfavorable to building owners and end-users.

Goodbye Skyrocketing Costs and Inefficiency

As TdX 20 production ramped up late last year, they were able to drop their price to $13 per pound wholesale at a supply house, while the price of R-22 continues to rise above and beyond $25 per pound. By 2020, R-22 is projected to cost $40 per pound or more.

“Sixty-five percent of HVAC systems still run on R-22, and in total they require about 200 million pounds of replacement refrigerant per year for repairs and maintenance purposes,” Reinke says. “With the price skyrocketing, everyone is looking for alternatives, but unfortunately all the alternatives, except for Bluon TdX 20, are less efficient, so they will actually increase electricity bills.

And because HVAC systems using TdX 20 run at lower pressures and compressor temperatures, they last longer and need fewer repairs. All those factors combined make a pretty powerful business case for the end-user.”

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GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT WITH THE BLUON ACCREDITATION PROGRAM A Resource for Mechanical Contractors Jason Saunders, the service operations manager at the California-based HVAC contractor Indoor Environmental Services, was an early adopter of TdX 20 and has seen such demand for the product from his clients that he now has a number of Bluon-accredited technicians on his team. The Tier 1 accreditation, geared for systems 20 tons and under, can be completed online in less than an hour, while the Tier 2 option, for larger systems, also includes inperson training with a Bluon technician.

“It’s definitely something I value from a contractor standpoint because you would not want just anyone installing the product,” Saunders says. “It needs to be done in the right way and applied to the correct type of equipment.”

He says his team now offers to replace R-22 with TdX 20 any time they open a client’s system for maintenance or repairs, and they tout it at their monthly lunch-and-learns with customers.

His clients have come to see it as a “no-brainer,” he says, especially now that the price of R-22 refrigerant has gone through the roof.

“We did our own independent R & D to make sure Bluon’s claims were realistic,” he says.

“We’ve installed it in a number of units already, with excellent results. We really do believe it is the refrigerant of the future. It’s the real deal.”

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When the Montréal Protocol was drafted, the vision was that building owners the world over would invest in new HVAC equipment designed to run on a different type of refrigerant, adds Capuciati. “That didn’t turn out to be economically viable for most, which is why there are still so many of the legacy R-22 units out there, even as we approach 2020.”

According to Bluon’s cost analyses, replacing the HVAC equipment on a 100,000-square-foot commercial building with a modern system costs about $1 million, the equivalent of $3,000 per ton of capacity. In comparison, replacing existing refrigerant with TdX 20 costs about $150 per ton, or $45,000 for a 100,000-square-foot building. The resulting energy savings pay for the investment in one to three years, depending on the building, system, and cost of electricity.

Big Change, Big Names

Bluon’s list of clients has grown dramatically during the company’s short existence. Their approach has led to deals with major real estate companies like CBRE and PMRG, energy management providers such as Schneider Electric, health care institutions like Kaiser Permanente and corporations ranging from Carl’s Jr. to ESPN. As a testament to Bluon’s innovative global warming solution, movie star and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio came on board as an advisor and investor in the spring of 2017.

Rich Hopkins, the director of engineering for the western division of PMRG, a commercial real estate firm with more than 180 million square feet in its nationwide portfolio, can attest to the efficacy of TdX 20. It’s not just a concept on paper, he says; it works as advertised in real-world conditions. As a participant in Bluon’s product testing pilot, he’s been using TdX 20 for the last two years in the Anaheim Pacific Center, a class A high-rise in Southern California that is one of PMRG’s signature properties.

“I did a side-by-side comparison of a unit with R-22 and one with TdX 20 and tracked the results for about a year,” Hopkins says.

“We put all kinds of gauges and sensors on the unit and were pleasantly surprised to find that the pressure and temperature dropped considerably, which is the best way to extend the lifespan of an HVAC system. We also saw about a 15% drop in energy use, which is helping us reduce our carbon footprint.”

Hopkins is now looking to roll out TdX 20 across the 18 million square feet of real estate he personally oversees throughout the West, from California to Arizona and Hawaii. As an engineer, there’s a big upshot to working with a company founded by technically minded problem solvers, he says. “They answer my calls, they come out and advise me.

Doug will get on a plane and fly out to my site if I have any questions.

The support from Bluon has been phenomenal.” Thanks to Bluon’s effort, it seems that the Montréal Protocol might fulfill its potential after all. gb&d

“

THE SUPPORT FROM BLUON HAS BEEN PHENOMENAL.”

RESPONSIBLE FOR. gb&d

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FUT PRO

URE OF

YOUR BUSINESS Nest Pro offers businesses a simple entry into the smart home market

BY ASHWIN JAGANNATHAN

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By becoming a Nest Pro, industry professionals can diversify and expand their offerings, ultimately reaping the rewards of the smart home.

For Gene LaNois, head of Nest Pro, it’s easy to see that smart home solutions are becoming the norm, and getting in on the ground floor will pay dividends for companies down the line. “It’s a great time to get into an area with so much growth in it,” he says. “It’s a new trade that’s being started.” Whether you face competition from local businesses or big franchises, expanding your offerings into an area people want—smart homes—helps you stay relevant.

But what is Nest Pro, exactly? It’s Nest Labs’ program that enables HVAC or home automation professionals to install Nest’s roster of smart home products with special support and training from Nest.

Nest Pros can install products like the Nest Learning Thermostat, Nest Cam Indoor and Outdoor security cameras, and Nest Protect smoke

and carbon monoxide (CO) alarm.

Nest’s simple but intelligent products have made it a leader in the smart home market.

THE DEMAND

Becoming a Nest Pro is easy and free, LaNois says. You simply visit the Nest Pro website (pro.nest.com), sign up, and provide details about your business. Applicants can be approved in as little as 24 hours. Once training is complete, Nest Pros can install any of Nest’s products. From there, Nest Pros can find new customers and establish a foothold in the smart home market. Becoming a Nest Pro also provides you with leads. When a homeowner’s furnace breaks, who are they going to call?

It’ll likely be the nice individual who installed their thermostat who can also do so much more.

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ow more than ever, improvements to heating, cooling, security, and so much more inside our homes are at our fingertips.

The demand for smart home solutions—and the experts who install them—is soaring.

“

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IT’S A GREAT TIME TO GET INTO AN AREA WITH SO MUCH GROWTH IN IT. IT’S A NEW TRADE THAT’S BEING STARTED.” Gene LaNois, head of Nest Pro

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NEST FOCUSED

ON MAKING THESE PRODUCTS IN OUR HOMES MORE BEAUTIFUL, THOUGHTFUL, AND USEFUL

BY PROVIDING REAL VALUE IN ADDRESSING COMFORT, ENERGYSAVINGS, SAFETY, AND SECURITY.” Mike Soucie

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home products by big-box retailers.

The runaway success of Google Home— which is compatible with the Nest Thermostat—has also brought increased awareness to the industry.

The Works With Nest program, which encompasses more than 130 products that are compatible with Nest products, represents one of the most intriguing features and reflects the promise of smart home products. If, for example, a Nest Thermostat owner who also owns a Google Home happened to be lying in bed and felt a little chilly, they

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could ask Google Home to turn up the heat without moving. This kind of responsive design is increasingly what consumers expect out of homes, and Nest is at the forefront of providing it.

In fact, according to a Coldwell Banker survey, 44% of Americans say smart home technology is a must when moving into a new home. According to the same study, one out of three people who desire smart home tech also feel intimidated about installing these products themselves. It’s a discrepancy that

presents one of many opportunities for Nest Pros to create business.

THE BRAND

Within the smart home space, Nest—thanks in part to its establishment as a pioneer in the early days of the industry—draws some of the highest name recognition of any company. Mike Soucie, from Nest’s product marketing team, pointed to a survey conducted by Kelton Research that showed 21% of consumers named Nest as the top brand in the smart home industry.

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Nest products work together to keep people safe and comfortable.

Percentage of U.S. broadband households who say smart home tech is an important component of a “move-in ready” house.

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Percentage of U.S. broadband households who feel too intimidated to install smart home technology themselves.

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Percentage of people surveyed who name Nest as the top brand in the smart home space (the highest percentage out of any brand in the survey).

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Percentage of U.S. broadband households who believe smart home technology is a major selling point when buying a home.

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In addition to Nest’s early success with the smart home, Soucie attributed some of its prominent name recognition to a reputation for well-crafted, visually appealing products. Soucie adds that Nest also aims to take a more thoughtful, people-centric approach to design. “Nest products make connections between different parts of people’s lives to create personalized experiences that do even more to keep them comfortable, secure, safe, and help them save energy.”

BRIGHT FUTURE

Moreover, becoming a Nest Pro allows businesses to associate themselves with the Nest brand, LaNois says. For example, after successfully installing a Nest Thermostat, a homeowner, having been convinced of the Nest Pro’s expertise, may continue to seek out that same Nest Pro to install additional Nest products, like one of their smart security cameras.

“Our buyers are trying to invest in their homes,” LaNois says. This works to the advantage of prospecgb&d

tive Nest Pros, who can find a reliable new source of business after installing their first smart home product. Additionally, as the number of smart home products in one household increases (we all know those people with lots of gadgets), the installation process can become more complicated, and more suited to a professional.

Thoughtful touches make Nest more personalized than your average gadget. For example, working in tandem with a Nest Cam, Philips Hue light bulbs can automatically switch on after the camera detects movement, with the aim of scaring off potential intruders and helping to keep you and your family safe. For Soucie, the goal with Nest is to create “products that learn and anticipate your needs, get better over time, and can think for themselves to take meaningful action on your behalf.”

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Nest’s array of benefits also helps to neutralize the relatively high cost of

some of their devices. While a Nest Thermostat generally costs $249, LaNois says it can pay for itself with savings on electricity bills within two years.* When it comes to the advantages of being a Nest Pro, they’re as attainable for independent contractors as they are for larger businesses. “There are no new tools you need,” LaNois says.

Once a business or contractor becomes a Nest Pro, LaNois says the biggest challenge is simply staying abreast of all the developments in the rapidly changing and expanding market. It’s a good problem to have—one that presents opportunities for growth for new Nest Pros as it helps them learn their new trade. Ultimately, he sees the smart trade shaking up how we conceive of trades altogether. “By becoming a Nest Pro, you’re able to appeal to a whole new group of customers and establish yourself as a valuable consultant.” gb&d

* Independent studies showed that Nest saved people an average of 10-12% on heating and 15% on cooling.

Based on typical energy costs, we’ve estimated average savings of $131 to 145 a year. That means the Nest Learning Thermostat can pay for itself in under two years. Individual savings are not guaranteed.

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OPEN OFFICE 2.0 HOW ONE COMPANY’S FLE X IBLE , CR E ATIV E , AND NON-COR POR ATE –LOOK ING R OOM D IV ID E R S AR E BR INGING FOCU S BACK TO THE WOR K PLACE .

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SEVERAL YEARS AGO,

The research showed that the side effects of open office design— increased background noise, ease of interruption, lack of both physical and “psychological” privacy, and so on—were undermining the very ideals of collaboration and productivity the model symbolized. The concept seemed to be broken.

Yet in the years leading up to this shift, one entrepreneur had fortuitously (and somewhat unknowingly) been working on a fix.

Designer Steve Kinder, who had studied industrial design at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) and worked in roles that melded product, furniture, and interior design, was running his own event company in Dallas, helping businesses create displays for trade shows and retail spaces. And the partitions and walls he was designing out of modular aluminum frames were getting attention. People wanted to know where they could get similar setups for their offices and homes.

A new business was born.

The initial room dividers Kinder launched through his new company LOFTwall, started in Dallas in 2008, were intended for residential and loftlike spaces. While the concept received warm feedback from the design community, it wasn’t until a couple years later when the company tapped into the office furniture industry and the rising need for openoffice remedies that LOFTwall found its sweet spot in the market.

PRIVACY MAKES A COMEBACK

“Around 2012–2013, the whole open office shift really started to take place and more designers and companies started looking for partitions,” Kinder says. LOFTwall’s freestanding room dividers emerged as a tool for these companies to optimize their open offices without having to resort to the fixed, compartmentalized architecture of the past. In other words: No construction required. “People still need delineation of space and a sense of perceived privacy. They want visual barriers to divide their spaces without having to build walls.”

The company’s products, appearing at companies like Slack, Tesla, and Apple as well as in education and health care settings, are modular, which means they’re easy to install, reconfigure, and add onto as needs evolve.

Companies can choose designs by size, color, material, and frame style.

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LOFTwall’s core design, FRAMEwall, for example, allows companies to choose panels from around 30 finishes (solid colors, translucent panels, laminate wood textures, and even magnetic and dry-erase surfaces) that all fit into frames made out of 70% recycled aluminum.

(These frames can be recycled at the end of their lives, too.)

Other designs include FLOX, which is made of renewable wool and designed to absorb noise; WAVEwall, which brings the visual punch of ribbongbdmagazine.com

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a spate of articles in publications like The New Yorker and The Atlantic began to shoot down the almighty “open office”—the trend of wall-less desk-lands that had come to characterize around 70% of U.S. workplaces.

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like panels to a space; and DESKdivider, which mounts to desk- and tabletops, offering low-height separation that balances privacy with openness.

REIMAGINING CORPORATE DESIGN

Across its product line, the company takes a designforward approach through the use of bold colors, minimalist detailing, and unique finishes—avoiding the gray sameness that characterizes so much of what we’ve come to think of as office furniture. LOFTwall also works with organizations to create custom designs that fit project sustainability requirements (such as LEED) or to manufacture styles that fit their brand, such as the system they made for performance menswear brand Mizzen+Main.

Mizzen+Main founder and CEO Kevin Lavelle says, “I didn’t want anyone to walk in [our workspace] and say, ‘They bought standard office furniture.’ Our brand is young, fresh, and unique, but it also has a timeless feel to it.” To fit that vibe, LOFTwall helped the company create dividers that feature elements like wood panels and even partitions wrapped in the company’s signature technical fabric. Other panels are sounddampening to help minimize distraction in certain parts of the workspace.

“We have one long section of our office for people who definitely need a little space and division,” Lavelle explains, referring to customer service and sales teams who spend much of their workdays on the phone. “And then we have an open, bullpenstyle area for people who are super collaborative and working together all the time.

[The dividers] give a bit of separation and make it feel like it’s not a giant space.” The gb&d

company had designed the panels for a previous office they eventually outgrew, and when they moved into their more spacious spot, they simply reconfigured the LOFTwall system and ordered additional pieces to create a new conference room.

Lavelle appreciates this ability to adapt the layout as the company grows, adding that the new arrangement has “meaningfully diminished” requests to work remotely.

“People feel like they can be more focused,” he says.

MAKING SPACE FOR QUIET AND COLLABORATION

This is exactly LOFTwall’s aim, and in helping clients like Mizzen+Main and others structure their workspaces, Kinder helps teams designate four types of spaces, all of which

work together to balance individual concentration with productive teamwork.

The first category, which Kinder calls individual focus space, is the area where employees do most of their critical work. “You want to divide the space or have lowheight barriers to minimize distraction,” he says. The second type of space, an intimate dialogue space, is a small private area for team members to have one-on-one conversations or participate in webinars without distracting colleagues. The third type of space is a group meeting area, such as a conference room.

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CASE STUDY

MIZZEN+MAIN During its first several years of operation, performance menswear startup Mizzen+Main worked out of a variety of unconventional spaces before finally claiming its own office. In designing the space, founder and CEO Kevin Lavelle wanted it to be beautiful, functional, and flexible, knowing the company would continue to grow.

“Since we couldn’t have 25 offices, we were wondering, how do we do that in an open office environment?” he says.

Lavelle worked with LOFTwall to design a series of custom dividers that fit his brand’s fresh vibe and diverse team. Here’s how that looks: + One-of-a-kind partitions made out of the company’s own technical fabrics + Additional dividers made out of brass and wood that suit the brand’s style + Acoustic panels that help curb noise in high phone use areas + Meeting-friendly whiteboard surfaces built into certain partitions + Delineation of both private and collaborative work areas + The ability to reconfigure (or add onto) the layout as the company evolves + An overall vibe that pairs privacy with startup-style collaboration

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By allocating these spaces, companies affirm different personalities and facilitate the different ways people work. “It’s not a cookie-cutter office environment anymore,” Kinder says, explaining that, far from the model of the late 20th century in which cubicle-driven layouts forced everyone to work the same way, today’s workplace is about employee empowerment and autonomy. Individuals are entrusted to find their own best way to meet expectations.

Accordingly, Kinder hopes LOFTwall’s designs can help companies create more “agile” employee-oriented workspaces: neither too compartmentalized nor loose, providing the right mix of spaces for a company’s makeup.

THE FUTURE WORKPLACE

According to Kinder, the open office isn’t going away. “In another 10 years, we will see the open plan continue to be popular, with fewer fixed architectural elements that constrain how space is used,” he says, adding that privacy, productivity, and health and wellness at work will remain key topics of conversation.

Along with these trends, LOFTwall is working on making its designs even more flexible and multitasking— using the walls as a backbone for shelving or enabling them to function as different work surfaces, for example. The company also developed a phone booth–esque module for the office, called Hush, earlier this year.

Yet the company’s mission extends beyond the products themselves, says Kinder, who sees his designs as tools for making environments that inspire people. “We’re not about making walls, but creating work environments and communities that foster innovation and help people find balance.” gb&d gb&d

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Revival on the River

A neighborhood in Oslo is transformed into a sustainable hub of entertainment.

74 The Root of Change

Discover an urban farm, a library for the future, and a nomadic statement on climate change.

76 Building for the Future

Norway’s FutureBuilt program brings sustainability experts and inspiring ideas together to make some of the world’s best architecture.

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SPACES OSLO

THE NEW

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F O R O S L O, G O I N G GREEN MEANS BEING C AR- FREE A N D C L I M AT E NEUTR AL BY 2030

BY LAURA ROTE

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orway’s capital is undeniably one of the greenest cities in the world—both literally verdant, with protected forest and plentiful parks, as well as being a hotbed of sustainable initiatives.

Fewer parking spaces, more electric charging stations, municipal buses that run on biofuel, widespread car-sharing, and countless bicyclists and pedestrians are evidence of the thinking here, as all seem to ask, “How can we be even greener?”

The business of green building is booming in Oslo, too, as 10,000 people move to the city each year and more developers and architects pursue sustainable construction to accommodate them. Eco-friendly initiatives are on the rise—requirements like the one that mandates all new municipality-built buildings be “energy-plus-houses.” It’s no longer enough to be zero-emission; these structures must also generate energy.

“We want to have a green city that’s literally green— parks, rivers, trails, everything,” says Rasmus Reinvang, a political advisor with the Green Party. This past year, the party became the third largest in Oslo—a feat Reinvang calls a revolution. “That was a testament to the fact that a lot of people want an even more ambitious environmental agenda.”

The Green Party is among those working to make Oslo climate-neutral by 2030. The city is tracking emissions as well as making sure the municipal pension fund invests in green projects, not fossil fuel–based projects, Reinvang says. Oslo also aims to have a car-free city center by 2030.

“The goal is to make it a more beautiful, healthy, nice city where people can thrive and where space is prioritized for people, not for machines.” Because Oslo is smaller than many European capitals (roughly 660,000 people live in the municipality), more experimentation is possible as well, Reinvang says. For example, the city uses programs like FutureBuilt (page 76), a 10-year program, to identify sustainable pilot projects in an effort to develop carbon neutral urban areas and impressive architecture. The program’s goal of 50 completed pilot projects by 2020 will likely be exceeded soon, as the number surpassed 40 in spring 2017.

The city is already doing a lot to show its true colors.

It’s home to what’s being called “the world’s greenest airport terminal” after a massive renovation and addition was revealed in early 2017, complete with living walls and abundant natural light. The airport is the first to receive the BREEAM Excellence in sustainability rating. The city offers incentives like tax credits, access to public transport lanes, and waived tolls to anyone driving electric cars, plus credits for electric transport bicycles.

Efforts like these and the already dramatic transformations of former industrial neighborhoods like Grünerløkka (page 71) are just some examples of what can be done in Norway. Reinvang says he saw a real shift in Oslo in 2008, after the Oslo Opera House was finished. He says the building is not only beautiful; it’s made of high-quality materials with illusions to icebergs and is a symbol of democracy. “It’s an opera house, but everybody can go there.” In the years before, he says Oslo had a bit of small town mentality, but that’s changed.

“When the Opera House was built—and it was designed

by Norwegian, Oslo-based Snøhetta—people were like, ‘Oh. We can do nice things. We can be something.’ Maybe we’re not as old as cities like Amsterdam, but we can make great new buildings.”

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SPACES

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The now thriving Vulkan area is home to a popular food hall and Norway’s first Energy Class A hotel.

REVIVAL ON THE RIVER Ten, even five years ago, the hub that is now the Vulkan area between Oslo’s city center and the Grünerløkka borough didn’t exist. Developed along the scenic Akerselva river walk—a popular spot for bicyclists and pedestrians, complete with waterfalls and even a salmon ladder—this bustling area is now home to two Energy Class A hotels, an uber popular food hall, the country’s largest charging facility for electric cars, and a plethora of restaurants and bars.

“When we started the project in 2004, we wanted to make a city within the city with a multitude of activities,” says Sverre Landmark, commercial director for Aspelin Ramm, a leading developer in Oslo.

Today, the 170,000-square-foot former industrial area is made up of many adapted buildings, like Mathallen Food Hall, Norway’s first food hall and host to a myriad of local eateries, shops, and entertainment in a renovated factory building. The name Vulkan comes from the steel work that took place here so many years ago. In Greek mythology, Vulcan is the god of fire and handicraft—including metalworking—and Landmark says the name was meant to be, as what used to be a cold, unfriendly place has become something warm.

He says what exists in this area today is a huge departure from the neighborhood of old. “Kids were not allowed to play here … glass windows were damaged, there was a lot of graffiti, drug addicts were hanging around. It was really nasty,” he says. “It’s difficult to describe because it’s so totally different now.”

On a spring day in 2017, the scene is vibrant. Students sit in the sun in the park, while locals and visitors alike fill seats at bars and restaurants overlooking the rushing river. On any given weekend you’ll find a special event on Vulkan’s grounds. A Conflict Kitchen–inspired goat festival was taking place in May, while a theatrical performance kicked off hours later at Norway’s national stage for dance, Dansens Hus. People of all ages hop on city bikes at the station just outside Scandic Vulkan Hotel, Norway’s first Energy Class A hotel.

“We decided very early on that working with sustainability, energy, and environmental issues was going to be core to this project,” Landmark says of the hotel and the Vulkan area. A system of geothermal wells that runs nearly 1,000 feet deep supplies all of Vulkan’s buildings with heating and cooling. Nearby, you’ll notice Bellona House, Norway’s equivalent to

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Did You Know...

O S L O H A S A “ B E E H I G H WAY.” Anyone can join the Pollinator Passage and help save bees by building bumblebee boxes or planting flowers. Two large hives, home to approximately 400,000 bees, can be found on the roof at Mathallen.

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PHOTO: FINN STÅLE FELDBERG. PREVIOUS SPREAD: TORD BAKLUND FOR #VISITOSLO

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SPACES OSLO

BEAUTIFUL ESCAPES SURROUND THE POPULAR MATHALLEN FOOD HALL IN THE VULKAN AREA OF OSLO. YOU CAN EASILY SPEND A DAY ON THE AKERSELVA RIVER WALK OR EXPLORING THE NEIGHBORHOODS IN AND AROUND HISTORIC DAMSTREDET, WITH HOUSES THAT DATE BACK TO THE LATE 1700S AND 1800S.

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SPACES

of square meters by 10%, you reduce energy consumption by 10%. It goes without saying.”

Part of Aspelin Ramm’s focus in revitalization, though, has been getting a head start on changing perceptions.

Rather than waiting for the new buildings at Vulkan to open, for instance, those involved in the project organized temporary activities like festivals and concerts to get people thinking of the area differently in the years leading up to the grand reveal. Then, by the time the development was complete, it was already top of mind.

While the project has saved some historic buildings, it’s also preserving small business, like the butcher who was operating in the countryside before opening a thriving shop in Mathallen. “During the last 20 years in Oslo, every week a specialty shop was closed,” Landmark says. “All the specialty shops more or less disappeared.” In a time when mom-andpops were being replaced with chains, it was important to create a space that could sustain itself with shopping, dining, and recreation to bring people back. “We needed to create this community.” The food hall is also home to mega events like the Norwegian final for the Bocuse d’Or (the world championship for chefs).

Location, of course, is key, and Landmark suspects the popular food hall and everything around it wouldn’t exist at all if not for the river—long a source of life and necessity, from the former steel mill to modern-day recreation. Now 200 people work in the food hall—more than the number who worked here when the area was full of steelworkers, Landmark says. “It’s all about the history. If you replace that with something new it wouldn’t be the same.” gb&d

G R E E N H O US E TODAY , Aspelin Ramm is working on a similar revitalization project—at Landbrukskvartalet, or “the agricultural quarter.” The former dairy building in Oslo will become another multi-use area, while the Norwegian Farmers’ Union and other agriculture-related businesses will remain onsite. The massive facility—one of nine buildings on the property—ultimately stopped production in the ’70s.

While the project team awaits a years-long rezoning process before it can truly transform into a multi-use mecca like the one in Grünerløkka, it’s using the space for coworking and other activities. The main building, often referred to as the Greenhouse, is filling with small companies and startups, like Nabolagshager (Neighborhood Gardens), where you can learn about urban gardening or contribute to city beautification, and Råjuice, which makes cold-pressed juices with raw materials.

Soon, you’ll find a coworking kitchen where businesses like food trucks can lease time for meal prep.

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Greenpeace, with its extensive solar water heating system. Both Scandic Vulkan and neighboring PS:hotell have state-of-the-art insulation solutions and recycle energy from coolers and elevators.

Across from Scandic Vulkan, a mixeduse building combines offices, shopping, dining, and apartments with rooftop terraces that overlook the city, a former silver mine, historic houses, and the city’s oldest church (circa Middle Ages). The building is also home to the Michelin starred Kontrast restaurant, which harvests some of its herbs in a rooftop garden there.

When Landmark joined Aspelin Ramm in 2004, the company was already focused on high-quality architecture using good materials, but that has since increased to include focusing on more energy saving programs. “It’s been escalating. That has to do with us, our experiences, and the society around us,” he says. “Today we see people are attracted to projects with high energy standards.

Now it’s not a question of if you should do it; it’s how far you should go.”

Sometimes all it takes is a little creative thinking to make a big impact.

“Far more important than saving just a little amount of energy is to reduce the consumption of space,” Landmark says. “For instance, in our offices we do not have a canteen area because we can use (neighboring) PS:hotell’s.” Why make an office cafeteria when there’s a kitchen next door? Using what you have is more efficient, it gets people out and networking with neighbor businesspeople, and it helps PS:hotell, whose mission is to train, as nearly 90% of its employees are people who need support to join or rejoin the regular workforce. Plus, you do save energy. “If you reduce the consumption

Also, like the Vulkan area before it was developed, the Greenhouse is an area that’s currently not widely regarded. “The people’s impression of this area is not very good,” Landmark says. On the other side of the train tracks, the “new city” was constructed, including some of the city’s BOKBACKA PS:HOTELL AKERSELVA RIVER WALK most expensive apartments, facing the GODT BRØD GRÜNERLØKKA SCANDIC VULKAN BOGSTAD MANOR sea. Then there’s the corporate part of HANDWERK OSLO LOSÆTER CITY FARM Oslo, close to the Greenhouse. Landmark says the area is ripe with potential.

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••••••••••••••••••••••• • woman • • • • • • pushes • • • • • • •a• wheel••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• barrow across the grass.

• ••••••••••••••••••••••• over the hill, hens • Just ••••••••••••••••••••••• • are • • •clucking.

• • • • • • • •“This • • • • •is• how •••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• going to win climate • we’re ••••••••••••••••••••••• • change,” • • • • • • • says • • • • Anne • • • • • Beate ••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• Hovind, looking out • ••••••••••••••••••••••• atop a ship-shaped • from ••••••••••••••••••••••• •“bakehouse.”

••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• is the proj• • •Hovind ••••••••••••••••••••• manager at Oslo’s • ect ••••••••••••••••••••••• • Losæter • • • • • • •, •located • • • • • •a • •short ••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• but a world away • walk ••••••••••••••••••••••• • from • • • • the • • • •city’s • • • • opera ••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• house and the buzz of • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • ••••••••••••••••••••••• • •••••••••••••••••••••••

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••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• • tourists •••• at hotels. Many ••••• people, locals included, ••••• • don’t • • • • realize Losæter is ••••• here, but the discovery ••••• of the fun. “This • is • • part •• • place • • • • makes it possible ••••• • for • • •a • lot of people to be • creative,” •••• Hovind says, ••••• adding that the farm ••••• • has • • • •continued to evolve • since • • • • it started less than ••••• five • • • • •years ago. “It started • out • • • •one way, and today • we • • • have • a city farmer ••••• • here, • • • • we have a public • bakehouse, •••• we have a ••••• baker who wants to do ••••• A lot of people • workshops.

•••• • are • • • involved • now. It is ••••• • the • • • •most strange, oddest • place,” •••• she laughs.

••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• ••••• •••••

THE ROOT of CHANGE Losæter is in the former container port known as Bjørvika, where the Alna River meets the fjord. It’s home to countless cultural institutions, like the new Munch Museum under construction and the new Oslo Public Library. “We’re also building a cultural institution— without walls—for the more immaterial, tacit kind of knowledge about farming and baking.”

This hub for art and urban food production is laid-back but growing. Today it includes the Flatbread Society inside the bakehouse, an

ancient grain field, and private allotments for the community, though the latter are temporary, as Losæter transitions to become more of a collective farm. The common area was initiated by an art collective called FutureFarmers, with California’s Amy Franceschini as the lead artist.

When they started the project, though, the area didn’t even have good soil.

But Hovind knew a farm was possible—she had photo evidence from the 1940s. “I saw this picture here with this farming land and this is exactly

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THIS PAGE, PHOTOS: MONICA LØVDAHL; SVEIN KJØDE

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

SPACES

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Farmers and volunteers from all over Norway participated in a symbolic soil procession to help kick off Losæter.

the same place,” she says, flipping through photos.

“This is the best place to grow things. That was hard to imagine.”

Several years ago, the Losæter team hosted a soil procession, inviting farmers and friends to join in a symbolic walk from the nearby botanic garden down to the Losæter site.

Farmers from all over the country showed up to donate healthy soil. “It was very special,” Hovind says.

Getting your hands dirty may be more important now than ever in this busy world, Hovind says, pointing to a book she read called “The Denial of Nature” by Arne Johan Vetlesen. “The main message is, if we’re not connected to the soil by physical experience, we will lose our empathy and take positions that are not good. For me personally, this is so important.”

The Bakehouse (pictured) is also special—a place where you can commune with others over bread. Its design to look like an old boat is no coincidence, as it calls back to the Norwegian rescue boats that used to rescue people along the coast. “Now we’re rescuing grains,” Hovind says, referring to the ancient grain project. gb&d

gb&d

S A LT A short jaunt from the city farm, you can also explore SALT, a nomadic art project that’s made its way around Norway and is on display in Oslo through October 2018.

While SALT has three saunas, bars, a coffee shop, an event space, and a beautiful view of the sea and opera house, it’s the project’s message that resonates. It also doesn’t hurt that after you walk along the shoreline and under a massive fish rack— one of several large

Future

wooden constructions on the site—you can sit at one of the surrounding picnic tables drinking beer by the water all day.

The art project comes from the north, from a land of Arctic people who have long lived in harmony with a harsh climate, moving in keeping

with the seasons and animal migration.

SALT looks at how the ocean has given Norwegians its many resources, and how future generations will also need these resources, drawing attention to the effects of climate change on the country’s own coast.

Library

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ovind is also part of another truly unique project—Future Library, already award-winning though its much lauded Silent Room won’t open until 2019. It’s attracted the likes of Margaret Atwood, among others.

Scottish artist Katie Paterson conceived of and launched the Future Library project in 2014, with plans to commission one unpublished book from a different author each year for 100 years, only to be published in 2114. Those stories will then be printed on paper made from 1,000 trees planted in the forest just north of Oslo for this purpose. The books will be on display in the Silent Room when it opens, but you won’t be able to read them for a century.

Most likely, none of us will be reading them at all. But hopefully, someone will.

“It’s about hope. It’s about trust,” Hovind says.

Each year, the author travels to Oslo for a ceremony in the forest before sealing the stories away in the library. The first year featured Atwood; last year it was David Mitchell; and this June Icelandic author Sjón, perhaps best known for his work with Bjork, brought his work. “People cry. I cry every year,” Hovind says.

THIS PAGE, PHOTOS: BAARD HENRIKSEN

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BU I LD I N G for TH E FU T U R E Look out over Oslo on any given day and you may be struck by the number of cranes you see. Apartment buildings, schools, offices, museums—every type of structure imaginable seems to be in demand in this growing city.

And a program called FutureBuilt is working to make sure many of those are climate neutral.

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july–august 2017

Launched in 2010, the program is aimed at developing carbon neutral urban areas and high-quality architecture across 50 pilot projects by 2020. “All pilots have to have a carbon footprint 50% lower than business as usual,” says Birgit Rusten, program leader. FutureBuilt works with private and public developers and architects and has partners in four municipalities (including Oslo and nearby Drammen) as well as national stakeholders like Enova—the state company that contributes to reduced greenhouse gas emissions by supporting energy and climate technology development.

The program looks at three areas—energy in use, the embodied energy in building materials, and mobility/transportation, including where a project is located and how it’s served (i.e. bicycles, parking, and public transportation).

As the program nears its 2020 deadline, the process to become a FutureBuilt project has become stricter, requiring nearly zero-energy or plus-energy status.

“A couple of years ago we said passive building is not good enough for us anymore,” Rusten says, adding that while it was ambitious in 2010, they quickly realized more could be achieved.

Unlike a certification system like LEED or BREEAM, FutureBuilt is a support system with access to experts as well as being a place to try out new ideas and even products like low-carbon concrete. “We are an arena for innovation and a showcase for climate-friendly buildings,” Rusten says. The program has been

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THIS SPREAD: ILLUSTRATION: COURTESY OF FUTUREBUILT; PHOTO: THOMAS TVETER

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One of FutureBuilt’s current projects, Ulsholtveien 31, is comprised of low-carbon first

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you put all these forces together, there is so much opportunity.”

FutureBuilt projects run the gamut, from a nearly zero-energy school with solar panels on its facade to a 16-story multi-use building that doesn’t require any purchased energy for heating or cooling.

FUTUREBUILT

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so successful the municipality is discussing whether to extend it or launch a new program around its ideas.

Rusten says it’s not hard to reduce your carbon footprint by 50%. “You have to have the knowledge, you have to have the guts, and you have to want to do it. But the technology, it’s not rocket science. The solutions are already there.

You just have to put it together the right way, and you have to make the right decisions. You have to have the architects who have the knowledge, and the developers, the advisors. When

home residences in Furuset— Oslo’s climate friendly urban development less than 10 miles from the city center.

The first tenants were scheduled to move in in summer, and the project itself came about as part of a competition. Generally speaking, if there is no design team commissioned for a FutureBuilt project, the organization will help the developer organize an architectural competition to find the right team.

FutureBuilt assisted The Bethany Foundation Oslo to establish the Ulsholtveien 31 competition, won by Haugen/Zohar Arkitekter and Dronninga Landskap with Odd Steinsvik as energy consultant. The project is both a rehab and new construction, with nine apartments in the existing, low-energy building and 27 in the new Passive House, cross-laminated timber (CLT) project. “The decision to keep the existing house and not demolish it gave us a lot of benefit,” says Dan Zohar of Haugen/Zohar Arkitekter.

While it may have been cheaper to demolish, not doing so reduces CO2 and has a social benefit, as it’s a building with a long history.

“Just tearing it apart and coming up with something new would have created a negative vibe,” Zohar says.

As for the new construction, CLT—massive, prefabricated, solid engineered wood panels—has the benefit of speed and precision, Zohar says, going up in as little as one day with 30 to 40 crane lifts. He says CLT allows for more control, as problems can be solved early on the drawing table. “It gives

Local art is required in all new municipality buildings. Paintings in Brynseng School were done by Torunn Skjelland and Vigdis Fjellheim.

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SPACES OSLO

× THESE C O M PA C T A PA R TMENTS F E AT U R E LOFTED AREAS AND HIGH CEILINGS.

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july–august 2017

building send surplus heating to charge nine underground wells for geothermal heating, and a shared geothermal heat pump is the main energy source for heating and water in both the old and new buildings. The original building also has a solar thermal collector on the roof and heat recycling of greywater.

The project solves a ventilation challenge in an environmentally friendly way, using what’s called the Lunos ventilation system. “Ninety percent of the heat is being recovered just by this,” Zohar says. “It’s quite interesting because we have no pipes. There are no air ducts.”

But before all of the bells and whistles were added,

THIS SPREAD: PHOTOS AND ILLUSTRATION: COURTESY OF FUTUREBUILT

us much more predictability for the schedule and how long things will take and how much things will cost.” With CLT, you can see everything digitally before each piece goes to the machine to be cut and then go on to be assembled at the job site.

Ulsholtveien 31 has solar panels, a green roof, and reduced parking—with nine spaces (two have electric charging stations) and an emphasis on bicycling and car-sharing. An onsite bicycle shop is added value for residents and neighbors alike.

As for utilities, hot and cold water and electricity can be measured and tracked using an app. The solar panels on the roof of the rehabilitated

square meters is not environmentally friendly. So there was a discussion with the municipality—how small can we build?”

The end result is apartments ranging from 300 to nearly 700 square feet, but they don’t feel too small with abundant natural light, large windows, great views, and skylights. Depending on the unit, you’ll find high ceilings and lofted areas, too.

Zohar says the project will serve as an example for the future. “What we said for the competition is volume versus area. The smaller the apartment, the more volume it gets.”

There’s a community aspect to Ulsholtveien 31, too, as the team wanted to create incentives for neighbors who might not be thrilled to have young peo-

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gb&d

SPACES

ple moving in next door. In addition to the public bike shop, the project includes a large public space that will host classes, films, and special events. And all of the apartments’ entrances face an open backyard, which bleeds into an existing nextdoor park and offers a lovely outdoor communal area.

The wooden cladding is left untreated for low maintenance and a reduced carbon footprint at Ulsholtveien 31.

I N N O VAT I V E SCHOOLS Just as there’s a need for housing in rapidly growing Oslo, there’s a need for new schools. “Previously, people moved out of the cities when they had kids. But now they

stay and people don’t want to go out anymore and live in the suburbs,” says Pia Bodahl, FutureBuilt’s head of communications. “They want to stay in the city center, and they prefer having small flats to living in these huge houses that people perhaps preferred before.”

In May, the final touches were being added to the Brynseng School, Norway’s most energy-efficient school to date with an extensive array of solar panels. Nearly 12,000 square feet of solar panels were connected to the building’s facade—they literally make up the front of the building, rather than being on the roof—in winter so the team could almost

immediately use the energy produced (approximately 100,000 kilowatt hours per year). The panels give the building an interesting look and provide total energy for the school while it’s in session. They also save the team from having to use another material for the facade.

The students can download an app to see their energy production and use.

The approximately 120,000-square-foot primary school will house 840 students when it opens in August, and Bodahl says it’s one of FutureBuilt’s most ambitious projects so far. It has a fifth-floor sports hall filled with natural light (to combat a lack of space out-

july–august 2017

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SPACES OSLO

ILLUSTRATION: SNØHETTA/MIR

s s s Gullhaug Torg is a 16-floor multifunctional building from Avantor and Snøhetta that will have clean natural ventilation and no need for purchased energy for ventilation, heating, or cooling.

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july–august 2017

side), automatic water and lights, and landscaping that will produce fruit while kids are in school so they can learn to grow some of their own food. You’ll find zero parking spaces, save for two spots for electric vehicles and two handicapped spaces. Instead, students and staff are encouraged to use one of the many other transportation options—the metro station, tram, or neighboring bike trail. The school has 230 bicycle parking spots, 180 of them under roof.

Brynseng School is a nearly zero-energy building, meaning it’s 70% below technical standards of other projects in Norway, says environmental advisor Bodil Motzke. It has low-carbon concrete, low-emission indoor materials, and 20 energy wells that provide 90% of the energy used for heating, ventilation, and hot or cold water. Natural light floods in through high windows throughout the building. From a design standpoint, the halls are wide, with large automatic doors for students to come and go between classes.

Many classrooms also share adjacent rooms where small-

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• • • • •It • •elimi••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• watching multiple groups). • •• •• •• •complete •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• the need for ventilaOn the other side of a hall-•• ••• ••• ••• •nates • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • way from the sky-high gym, • •• •• •• •tion • • • • in • • the • • • ceiling • • • • • • and • • • •walls, ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • • • • • •space • • • • • • • • money.

•••••••••••• you’ll find four-pane glass • •• •• •• •saving • • • • • • • • • • and • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• says this technique that keeps the space from • • • • •Rusten • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • •save • • • • • • •team • • • • • • • • of ••••••• becoming too warm on sun-• •• •• •• •will • • • • • • • the • • • • • • • •30% • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • • • • • • • costs.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ny days. “Between one of the•• ••• ••• ••• •••building • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • “triple zero” layers there are small tubes, • •• •• •• •• •• •The • •• •• ••new • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • have ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• like straws, that are angled • •• •• •• ••building • • • • • • • will • • • • • • • •natural ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • • • hybrid • • • • • • ventilation.

• • • • • • • • • •Heat••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• in a way where the sun and • •• •• •• •and • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• ••and • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • cooling will be based the heat will get in when the• •• •• •• •ing • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • •geothermal • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •and •••••• sun is low during the winter•• ••• ••• ••• •on • • • • • • • • • • • • heating • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • • • • • • •and • • • low • • • •tempera•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• and we will get the warmth • •• •• •• •cooling, • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •heating • •• •• •• •• •• ••and and the light inside. But in • •• •• •• •ture •• •• •• ••cooling •• •• •• •• •• ••in •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • • • • and • • • •floors.

• • • • • Solar • • • • •panels •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• the summertime when the • •• •• •• •walls • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• integrated into the sun is high, the heat will • ••• ••• ••• ••will • •• •• ••be •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •and, • •• •• •• •continuing • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• ••with be reflected outside again,” • •• •• •• •roof •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Motzke says.

• • • • the • • • •trend • • • • •in • •Oslo, • • • •you’ll ••••••••••• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •find • •• •• •• •no • •• ••car • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • parking, as the • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• building is near a public •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• and plentiful • •• •• •• •transport • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• ••hub • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• ••bicycle • •• •• •• •• •• •• ••The •• •• •• •• •• •parking.

•• •• ••develop•• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• er, Avantor , teamed • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •up • •• ••with •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • •Snøhetta •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• It’s difficult for Rusten to • •• •• •• •architect • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •(respon•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• pick a favorite FutureBuilt •• ••• ••• ••• •sible for everything from the • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • project, as each seems more• •• •• •• •city’s • • • • •beautiful • • • • • • • •Opera • • • • • House •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • •• ••Powerhouse ambitious than the last. That• •• •• •• •to •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• ••Kjørbo •• •• •• •• •• ••,••the •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• said, projects like Gullhaug • • • • world’s first rehabbed office • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • to produce more Torg 2A are near and dear • •• •• •• ••building • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • than • • • • • • uses) • • • • • • • the ••••••• to her heart. The interesting•• ••• ••• ••• •energy • • • • • • • • • •it • • • • • •for • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• in Oslo’s design was inspired by an • •• •• •• •project Nydalen — • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Austrian project by Dietmar • • • •another • • • • • • •former • • • • • •factory • • • • • •area • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• transforming.

“It’s a Eberle. When Oslo devel- • •• •• •• •that’s • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Rusten opers toured that project, • ••• ••• ••• ••very • •• •• •• •cool • •• •• ••project,” •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• ••says.

• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • also known as the office •• •• •• •gb&d •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• gbdmagazine.com • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • gbdmagazine.com • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

COMING SOON

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

GREEN BUILDING & DESIGN

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gb&d

82 How to Start a Green Team

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power shows how it’s done.

85 Creating the Perfect Workplace

The experts at CBRE walk through what it takes to make a better work environment.

86 Person of Interest

The Green Sports Alliance’s Mary V. Harvey looks at how athletics have changed over the years.

88 Lessons Learned

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams’ founder shares some sweet wisdom from her B Corporation.

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PUNCH LIST WSLA INSIGHTS

Here are a few tips to start your own green team:

1

START SMALL BUT AIM BIG. It was during

2

GET MANAGEMENT SUPPORT. General

3

DATA, DATA, DATA. For LADWP facilities,

4

INCLUDE THE OPERATIONS TEAM. We

5

RECOGNITION IS A GOOD INCENTIVE. It is

6

FIND OTHER CHAMPIONS. Internal

7

TAKE ACTION. Don’t wait to be asked.

one of the team’s first brainstorms that the idea of achieving LEED certification for our headquarters was inspired. As a result, JFB (LADWP’s John Ferraro Building) achieved LEED certification in time for the building’s 50th anniversary. A year later, it achieved LEED Gold via the LEED Dynamic Plaque. strategies in companies are normally communicated top-down. Green strategies can make bottom-up strategies possible. the team researched data on energy, water use, and waste, and produced simple but impactful reports. Facility managers reviewed this data as meaningful information that could help them make decisions on savings and opportunities to help save energy and water.

How to Start a Green Team The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power leads by example 2015 WSLA WINNER

If you’ve ever thought of enhancing your company’s sustainability but didn’t know where to begin, take a cue from us at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the nation’s largest municipal utility,

Nancy Sutley Chief Sustainability and Economic Development Officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, LADWP

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july–august 2017

and start a “green team.”

After I came on as LADWP’s first chief sustainability officer, we solidified internal efforts to walk our conservation talk. As we ask our customers to conserve energy, we do the same. The LADWP Green Team is a group of volunteer employees that meets monthly to discuss how LADWP can reduce its carbon footprint. What started in 2013 with four employees has grown to 25 members.

LADWP has big goals and targets, including being coal-free by 2025, increasing renewable energy, energy efficiency, and local water supplies. The Green Team’s goals are more internally focused. Thanks to our efforts, LADWP employees use less water and electricity at our facilities, and we believe those practices follow them home, too.

knew the team was working when those in charge of LADWP facilities (HVAC supervisors, superintendents, facility managers, etc.) began making time for Green Team meetings. These are busy professionals who saw the team as a forum to vet plans and listen to ideas. This collaboration shows how a Green Team can affect corporate culture and build relationships. important to celebrate achievements along the way. Last year, LADWP facilities responded to the mayor’s Save Energy LA initiative, asking commercial and municipal buildings to reduce energy use by 5% in summer. LADWP facilities reduced energy use by 9% and honored the top facilities for their efforts to reduce their environmental footprint.

The mayor publically honored LADWP. champions from high levels of management can help you get your ideas adopted more quickly. Seeking support from outside agencies and other utilities by keeping in touch to share best practices and lessons learned can also be beneficial.

Start your own green team today.

Nancy Sutley, a 2016 WSLA award winner, became LADWP’s first chief sustainability and economic development officer in 2014. She oversees energy efficiency, water conservation, economic development, and electrification of the transportation network. Before LADWP, Sutley served as chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

gbdmagazine.com

2017

women in sustainability leadership awards

THE WOMEN IN SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP AWARDS WAS CREATED TO HONOR POWERFUL WOMEN THAT ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD BY IMPLEMENTING LASTING CHANGE.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF VANDUSEN

Visit gbdmagazine.com/WSLA to learn more.

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PUNCH LIST

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gbdmagazine.com

PUNCH LIST

Creating the Perfect Workplace Clear vision, understanding, and flexibility are key

Lenny Beaudoin Senior Managing Director

PHOTO: COURTESY OF CBRE

Georgia Collins Senior Managing Director

We believe a workplace is a lever that can enable people to do their best work.

When done well, a great workplace can inspire individual creativity and drive organizational performance. When done poorly, a workplace may impede productivity and breed resentment, or even mockery, among the people who use it.

We believe, having advised organizations around the world on their workplace strategies, that the best workplaces balance both “work” and “place.” These environments are deliberate in how technology, HR policies, facility services, and events function within a physical space to create great work experiences.

Those experiences, in turn, have the power to create positive emotional connections to work and to the company that offers them, building allegiance to people, place, and organization—which we know to be the key to attracting and retaining great talent. gb&d

Attracting and retaining great talent is more important than ever before: 55% of corporate real estate executives who responded to CBRE’s 2017 Americas Occupier Survey said talent attraction and retention were among the main drivers of their organization’s approach to workplace strategy. While there is no single recipe to creating the perfect workplace, we’ve found that through adherence to core principles—engaging your people intelligently in the process, thinking holistically about the overall experience of work, providing new services and tools—you’ll be more likely to succeed in creating a workplace that drives competitive advantage. Here are the principles we believe are most critical in producing an exemplary workplace:

are of increasing importance, and employers are starting to take notice and address these amenities.

ARTICULATE YOUR VISION ABOUT WHAT SHOULD CHANGE AND WHY

Work can and will happen everywhere. Flexibility and choice are highly prized by employees. In fact, 45% of respondents to CBRE’s Americas Occupier Survey said flexible working was most important to their labor force. However, bringing people together is key to driving more collaborative cultures. We believe the two are not mutually exclusive. By making the office a highly functional, delightful place to get work done, employers can offer flexibility while ensuring that the office is a place people choose to be.

Be clear about your vision for change and how you think that change will benefit your business. This may involve supporting new ways of working or shifting the way work gets done in the organization.

KNOW YOUR PEOPLE AND WHAT THEY NEED TO BE EFFECTIVE

Fundamental to the idea of creating workplaces that attract people is understanding the people themselves.

Go beyond generations and work to understand both the work patterns and life stages of your people so you can appropriately tailor solutions to their needs. For example, access to outdoor space, rest areas, and wellness facilities

MEET YOUR PEOPLE’S BASIC NEEDS EXCEPTIONALLY WELL

Great workplaces start with the foundational elements we all need to be productive at work: convenient access to a wide variety of spaces that enable different work patterns and preferences, seamless technology, support of well-being, and the ability to easily find information and access other people. This doesn’t mean addressing all wants and wishes of your people, but rather, researching what they need to be effective.

MAKE YOUR OFFICE THE CENTRAL DESTINATION IN A NETWORK OF PLACES WHERE WORK GETS DONE

FOCUS ON DETAILS AND DELIGHT FOR A WORKPLACE THAT MAKES PEOPLE FEEL VALUED

the form of attraction and retention of top talent, amplified by increased loyalty, well-being, and engagement.

Investing in turnkey, flexible opportunities translates to employees feeling that they are valued, and the work they do is important.

By addressing each of these, you will be more deliberate in aligning your workplace with your larger operational, HR, and financial priorities. Doing so will allow you to challenge your status quo, creating a more sustainable workplace and making your people happier and more productive.

Lenny Beaudoin oversees CBRE’s Global Workplace practice and jointly manages the business in the Americas. A recognized leader in the industry, he has worked on engagements across a wide range of markets and industries giving him an informed perspective on leading global trends. Known for challenging the status quo in pursuit of bold outcomes, his creative approach to finding and solving problems blends his love of data with his talent for facilitating unique client experiences.

Georgia Collins jointly manages CBRE’s Workplace practice in the Americas, with specific responsibility for the team’s service lines. An expert at helping people understand and link business objectives with real estate strategy, she thinks the office should play an integral role in building and maintaining organizational culture and so is focused not just on the physical place, but on the total experience of what it means to go to work.

Research shows real economic benefit to caring for your employees, namely in july–august 2017

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Person of Interest Mary V. Harvey

gb&d: You went from high-profile player to high-profile advocate. How did you become involved in environmental issues?

“I remember water rationing ... To this day, I take twominute showers.”

Interview by Mike Thomas

Former World Cup champion and Gold Medal–winning soccer goalie Mary V. Harvey has been an active part of the American and international sports scenes on and off the field for nearly three decades. She has been environmentally conscious for even longer. Upon returning to the U.S. in 2008 after a five-year stint with FIFA overseas, she became chief operating officer for Women’s Professional Soccer and began looking for her “next

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Harvey: It’s an interesting progression, I suppose. I grew up in Northern California, and two things happened during my early teenage years. One is that that first drought of ’76, ’77. I remember water rationing. I remember putting bricks in the toilet and everybody’s lawns were dying and we were using the laundry water to water plants. I remember my mom painting, with fingernail polish, what 13 gallons looked like on the bathtub. And to this day, I take two-minute showers. You go through something like that, it makes an impression. The other thing that happened growing up is that the family next door, their oldest son became a really early advocate for recycling. So at an early age, I had an awareness of the importance of reusing. gb&d: What does it mean to be green in the sports world?

Harvey: The origins of the green sports movement are a bunch of stadium operators in the Pacific Northwest who are in this environmentally conscious community—Seattle, Portland— and they’re trying to match up the values of the community with how the stadium operates and conducts itself. Because people in these communities come into these stadiums and they don’t see things that they’re used to seeing and they’re like, “What’s going on here?” So there’s an expectation [from] fans and communities, when they go to professional sports [events], that the professional sports organizations are going to mirror the values they have.

gb&d: What is the Green Sports Alliance doing to educate the sports world about the importance of going green?

Harvey: First of all, we’re a convener. So every year, we convene people who are actors in this space, [from] people who run stadiums and arenas to people who work in front offices at teams or leagues to vendors who participate in compostable food projects [and] sustainably made textiles. So we convene the industry, and that in and of itself provides value to people who are active in this area. Beyond that, we work individually with members and share case studies and make them available. Pretty much soup to nuts what you can do to address any one of a variety of areas. On top of that, there are webinars every month that do a deeper dive into each one of these areas and provide educational material. gb&d: What are some examples of improvements to the built environment at stadiums and other venues?

Harvey: The Golden 1 Center [Sacramento Kings] is LEED Platinum Certified and the host of this year’s Green Sports Alliance Summit. There’s also a solar array on the roof and it is entirely solar powered. In addition, they do extensive composting and displacement ventilation for air flow to enhance fan comfort and experience. The STAPLES Center [in Los Angeles] uses hydrogen fuel cells and also has a solar array.

Fenway Park [Boston Red Sox] has Fenway Farms, a rooftop garden that contributes to cleaner air, storm water drainage, and more. And Ohio State University has an extensive composting program, is breaking ground on a new compressed natural gas fueling station, and is making campus electric vehicle charging stations available to the public. gb&d: Having been involved in the sports industry for so long, what evolution have you witnessed in terms of green consciousness?

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PHOTO: COURTESY OF GREEN SPORTS ALLIANCE

opportunity to give back.” After a chat with Green Sports Alliance Executive Director Martin Tull, her search was over; several months later she was on its board. The position enables Harvey, who now serves as principal of Ripple Effect Consulting, to combine her lifelong passions to great effect.

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Mary V. Harvey joined the Green Sports Alliance to give back to an industry she’s long loved.

Harvey: I’ve lived in parts of the world where environmental consciousness has been very high. I grew up in California, so use of water in particular, but later on other things. And then I lived in Northern Europe, which has been in many ways much more advanced than we are. It’s mandatory that you do certain [environmental] things or you get fined; it’s not voluntary. I was an expat for 11 years in

three countries, all of which had very progressive environmental policies.

And the green sports movement over there sort of is born out of compliance to existing laws, as opposed to [in the U.S.], where it’s voluntary. So the green sports movement, just in the short time I’ve been involved in the GSA, has grown tremendously. Greater traction.

Greater awareness. And I think even now, with the Paris accord and all of

these things, there’s much more topof-mind conversation around environmental stewardship and the need for it.

It’s much more mainstream than ever before, and that’s not going away; it’s just going to increase. gb&d: You were at the White House last year for the Sports Climate Change Roundtable. What can the U.S. Government do to help organizations like yours and others with messaging when it comes to convincing these sports organizations to go green, to reduce their carbon footprints?

Harvey: Certainly, having a declaration of a Green Sports Day [by the Obama Administration] and having the Executive Branch behind it was incredibly helpful.

It’s in press briefings and it’s a matter of record, so it gives you—I don’t want to say legitimacy, because it was a legitimate movement even before that—but it credentializes it for sure: This is important.

This matters. gb&d: Looking back over the past decade or so, is there one positive change in particular you’re most proud of?

Harvey: There’ve been so many. I would say just witnessing the nature of the conversation. When I joined the [GSA] board, we were very much focused on how to grow the movement, but through teams and leagues and venues.

While there are varying degrees of implementation, a lot of them have sort of reached an inflection point to where we’re now talking about fan and athlete engagement, community engagement. gb&d: The GSA seems like a great marriage of experience and interests for you.

Harvey: Yeah, I just loved them and what they were trying to do, and it made so much sense to me personally.

I’m not an expert in this field; I’m just an athlete that grew up during water rationing in California and has never forgotten it. gb&d

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Jeni Britton Bauer LESSONS LEARNED

a community organization.

And it’s a “no-brainer” that Jeni’s supports women- and minority-owned businesses. u It’s good to be recognized.

Interviewed by Margaret Poe Photography by Darcy Hemley

u Why ice cream? Jeni’s path

to becoming an ice cream entrepreneur began at age 21, when she was studying art and art history at Ohio State University. She developed an interest in essential oils and dreamed of moving to France to become a perfumer.

One day she attempted an “edible perfume” by folding cayenne oil into store-bought chocolate ice cream. It was a revelation. Within six months she had opened her first shop, Scream Ice Cream, in Columbus’ North Market.

“With so many things we end up doing in life, it’s a weird confluence of things we’re interested in, timing, luck, whatever. You just go with it at some point, and your passion continues to build.” u Untapped potential offers endless opportunity. That’s

what Jeni realized when she made that very first batch back in 1995. People weren’t making spicy ice cream back then. They weren’t folding rose petals or basil into grassgrazed milk. In fact, most people didn’t even think ice cream could be a premium product. Jeni knew she could raise the bar for a food that people already knew and loved. “We have this vision, this North Star: What does it mean to us to make the best ice cream the world has ever known?” u It all comes back to people.

Jeni initially set out to set a new standard for American ice cream. But very quickly,

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“I know we make the best ice creams when we work together.

I know we do the right thing when we work together.”

she saw there was more to it. “I realized ice cream was even more interesting than I thought. Ice cream brings people together.” The dessert, it turns out, is merely the catalyst for connection. u “Every year in entrepreneurship the rules change.” And that’s part of

the fun. Each new challenge encourages Jeni’s team to take new steps and push beyond what they thought they could do. That has meant rapid growth: Jeni’s now has 31 scoop shops across the country, from Columbus to Los Angeles, and a Washington, D.C., location is set to open this year. They also sell ice cream in groceries across the country and online. u “I feel like I make a mistake every single day.” But when

you’re charting a new course, that’s the only way to learn.

“My role in the company has always been to make the best ice creams and learn how to make them better. And to believe in what’s possible.” u Live your values. “We built

Founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams and author of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts

the company doing what we thought was the right way to build a company.” Jeni never would have considered buying ingredients from a big distributor when she could work directly with local farmers and producers.

Instead of spending a lot of money on marketing, they hold an event where proceeds from ice cream sales go to

Jeni’s has been a certified B Corporation since 2014, a certification that recognizes the company’s commitment to social and environmental standards. Once Jeni, her husband, and business partner Charly learned what B Corps involved, they realized they were already following many of the practices, from paying a living wage to using resources in a sustainable way. For example, they started composting because it felt bad to throw out food waste. “We just live this way every single day.” u Look people in the eye.

“I know we make the best ice creams when we work together. I know we do the right thing when we work together, when we’re not just up in an office making decisions.” This way Jeni also stays accountable: to her employees, her customers, and the community. “When you look people in the eye, it’s hard to not try to be a good person.” u Put your name on the sign. The first week Jeni’s

was open, back in 2002, Jeni was working her way through a mound of dishes at midnight. She’d been there since 6:30 a.m., her feet were swollen, and she had another hour’s worth of dishes to go. She figured she’d leave them for the morning, but as she took her apron off to go home, she saw her name on the sign. “So I turned back around and did the rest of the dishes. And that’s exactly how this company has gone since then. It means something when you put your name on it.” gb&d gbdmagazine.com

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Directory & Index

ADVERTISERS

B Bluon, 46 bluonenergy.com 855.425.8686 C Construct, 8 constructshow.com Coterie, 20 coterieinc.com 773.638.9245 E Entrematic, 17 entrematicfans.com 866.696.2464 Excel Dryer, 44 exceldryer.com 888.957.2007 F Fabcon, 40, Back Cover fabcon-usa.com 800.727.4444 G Greenbuild, 34 greenbuildexpo.com L LOFTWall, 60 loftwall.com 214.239.3162 Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, 66 myladwp.com

PEOPLE & COMPANIES

A African Design Centre, 13 American Iron and Steel Institute, 22 Aspelin Ramm, 70 Avantor, 80

B Bauer, Jeni Britton, 88 Bellona House, 71 Bodahl, Pia, 79 Briefel, David, 30 Brynseng School, 79 Butaro District Hospital, 14 C Cable, Matt, 29 Capuciati, Peter, 48 Carl’s Jr., 51 CBRE, 85 Covert, Jaime and Carrie, 20 Conrad, Adrian, 28 D DiCaprio, Leonardo, 51 DPR Construction, 18 E Eberle, Dietmar, 80 Enova, 76 Etsy, 30 Evolv1, 28 F FutureBuilt, 76 FutureLibrary, 75

N Nest, 2, 3, 52 pro.nest.com 855.847.6378 R REHAU, 36, 91 rehau.com

S SMDI, 22 smdisteel.org 412.922.2722 T Tarkett, 5 tarkett.com 877.827.5388

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G Geelen Counterflow, 32 Geelen, Sander, 32 Gensler, 30 Google Home, 58 Greenery NYC, 30 Green Sports Alliance, 86 Grünerløkka, 70 H Hanson, David, 42 Harvard Innovation Lab, 13 Harvey, Mary V., 86 Haugen/Zohar Arkitekter, 77 Hopkins, Rich, 51 Hovind, Anne Beate, 74 I Indoor Environmental Services, 50

International Living Future Institute, 19

Starr Windows and Doors, 38 Steinsvik, Odd, 77 Sutley, Nancy, 82

J Jeni’s Ice Creams, 88 K Kaiser Permanente, 51 Kinder, Steve, 62 Kontrast, 73 Kuckhahn, Tom, 40 L LaNois, Gene, 54 Landmark, Sverre, 71 Lavelle, Kevin, 64 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 82 Losæter, 74

T Thimons, Mark, 22 Tull, Martin, 86 U Ulsholtveien, 31, 77 W Women’s Professional Soccer, 86 Z Zohar, Dan, 77

M MASS Design Group, 14 Mathallen Food Hall, 71 Mizzen+Main, 64 Motzke, Bodil, 80 Murphy, Michael, 14 O Oslo Opera House, 70 P Partners For Architecture, 36 PMRG, 51 PS:hotell, 73 R

Rauenhorst, Gerald, 42 Reinke, Douglas, 49 Reinvang, Rasmus, 70 RGR Landscape, 30 RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), 62 Ricks, Alan, 14 Ripple Effect Consulting, 86 Rogers, Matt Rusten, Birgit, 76

S SALT, 75 Saunders, Jason, 50 Scandic Vulkan Hotel, 71 Schrom, Rainer, 36 Schneider Electric, 51 Snøhetta, 80 Soucie, Mike, 58 Stantec, 28

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