Capstone - Nesthouse

Nesthouse

Cradled among evergreens, just north of Banff, Canada, is the NestHouse boutique hotel. This luxurious hotel is a hub between the attractions of tourism-driven Banff and the natural appeal of the surrounding mountains. The hotel itself was inspired by a bird’s nest: a natural structure that cradles its precious cargo, keeping it warm, insulated, and safe. The NestHouse was designed to provide visitors with stunning views from within a safe, comfortable and nature-driven interior, when guests are not enjoying time outdoors.

Tasha

LEED Checklist

Sustainable Sites

1. Site Assessment: 1 Credit

The site for The NestHouse project’s construction will be assessed before design so that sustainable options and site design opportunities may be evaluated. This assessment will include thorough examinations in the areas of topography, hydrology, climate, vegetation, soils, human use, and human health effects.

2. Site Development Protect or Restore Habitat: 2 Credits

Because The NestHouse was designed to allow guests to form a connection with the natural environment, its design will conserve existing natural areas to protect habitats and promote biodiversity. 40 percent of the greenfield area on the site will be preserved and protected from all development and construction activity. The site will be landscaped with native or adapted vegetation, and 30 percent of the disturbed areas of the site will be restored to create a thriving habitat for native organisms.

3. Open Space: 1 Credit

The NestHouse focuses its design on connection to the environment, and encourages interaction between the environment and guests. More than 30 percent of the total site area is dedicated to outdoor space, and is vegetated with native plants to preserve the original habitat.

4. Rainwater Management: 3 Credits

Rainwater runoff will be reduced by replicating the site’s natural hydrology process, and by using low impact development (LID) and green infrastructure, runoff will be managed for the 95th percentile of local rainfall events.

5. Heat Island Reduction: 2 Credits

To reduce the heat island effect, 75 percent of parking will be underground, roofing and pavement materials will meet the three year aged SRI value, native trees and vegetation will be utilized to provide shade over paving areas, and a vegetated roof level will be installed.

6. Light Pollution Reduction: 1 Credit

To improve visibility of and access to the night sky, all uplight and light trespass requirements will be met by the calculation method, and all exterior luminaire requirements will be fulfilled. To achieve this, some methods may include exterior luminaires dimming automatically based on the amount of natural light present, and the exclusion of internally illuminated exterior signage.

Water Efficiency

1. Outdoor Water Use Reduction: 2 Credits

To reduce outdoor water consumption, the landscape will be designed to thrive without a permanent irrigation system. This will be achieved in part by planting vegetation that is adapted to the site’s natural environment.

2. Indoor Water Use Reduction: 6 Credits

Low flow and high efficiency plumbing fixtures will be installed in the project to ensure that indoor water use is significantly reduced.

3. Cooling Tower Water Use: 2 Credits

A one time potable water analysis will be conducted to optimize the project’s cooling tower cycles.

4. Water Metering: 1 Credit

Permanent water meters will be installed for the indoor plumbing fixtures and fittings, domestic hot water, and process water.

Energy and

1. Enhanced Commissioning: 6 Credits

The project will implement an enhanced commissioning for mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and renewable energy systems and assemblies in accordance with ASHRAE Guideline 0 2005 and ASHRAE Guideline 1.1 2007 for HVAC&R systems. In addition to this enhanced commissioning, monitoring based procedures will be developed to identify measurable points and evaluate the performance of energy and water consuming systems. Finally, the envelope will also undergo an advanced commissioning process as it applies to the building’s thermal envelope.

2. Optimize Energy Performance: 18 Credits

During the design process, efficiency measures will be analyzed and play into design decision making. Efficiency measures will improve up to 50 percent of the project’s energy performance. Whole building energy simulation will be used throughout the design process to analyze efficiency. This analysis will enable informed decisions to be made during the project’s development to find efficiency opportunities, increase levels of energy performance, and reduce environmental and economic harms related to excessive energy use.

3. Advanced Energy Metering: 1 Credit

Advanced energy metering will be installed for all whole building energy sources and individual energy end uses that represent 10 percent or more of the total annual consumption of the building. The meters will be permanently installed, record at intervals of every half hour, and transmit the data to a remote location. Electricity meters will record both consumption and demand, and the system can store all meter data for over 36 months. The data collection system will use a local area network, and the data is remotely accessible. All meters within the project’s system will be capable of reporting hourly, daily, monthly, and annual energy use.

4. Renewable Energy Production: 2 Credits

As previously mentioned, the NestHouse will feature a green roof. Included in the roof design will be solar panels (owned by the project) that will create 5 percent of renewable energy for the building.

5. Enhanced Refrigerant Management: 1 Credit

To reduce ozone depletion and minimize direct contributions to climate change, this project will select refrigerants that will minimize or eliminate the emission of compounds that relate to these issues. The combination of all HVAC&R equipment within this project will comply to the formulas found through USGBC.

Material and Resources

1. Building Life Cycle Impact Reduction: 4 Credits

This project features wood floors and architectural wood ceilings and wall elements. To encourage adaptive reuse and optimize resources, 75 percent of the project’s surface area will include salvaged and repurposed wood, among other reused materials. If this credit cannot be fulfilled, raw materials complying with LEED’s “Building Product Disclosure and Optimization Sourcing of Raw Materials” credit will be followed.

2. Building Product Disclosure and Optimization Environmental Product Declarations: 2 Credits

The project team will use at least 20 different permanently installed products sourced from at least five different manufacturers that provide environmental product declarations which conform to ISO 14025 and EN 15804 or ISO 21930 and have at least a cradle to gate scope, or from USBGC approved programs. In addition, products that comply with USGBC approved programs or third party certified products that meet the same requirements will account for 50 percent, by cost, of the total value of the project’s permanently installed products.

3. Building Product Disclosure and Optimization – Material Ingredients: 2 Credits

At least 20 different permanently installed products from at least five different manufacturers that use programs aligned with LEED’s guidelines to demonstrate their chemical inventory to 0.1 percent will be used. Products that document their material ingredient optimization by using GreenScreen v1.2 Benchmark, Cradle to Cradle Certification, and/or other USGBC approved programs will account for at least 25 percent of the cost of the total value of permanently installed products in the project.

4. Construction and Demolition Waste Management: 2 Credits

At least 75 percent of this project’s total construction and demolition material will be diverted, included in at least four materials streams. This will reduce waste disposed in landfills and incineration facilities.

Indoor Environmental Quality

1. Enhanced Indoor Air Quality Strategies: 2 Credits

The following strategies will be used to promote occupant comfort, well being, and productivity by improving indoor air quality:

2. Low-Emitting Materials: 3 Credits

Products used in this project will achieve and exceed the threshold level of compliance with emissions and content standards provided by USGBC, or the related guidelines provided by the CDPH standard method or the German AgBB Testing and Evaluation Scheme.

3. Construction Indoor Air Quality Management Plan: 1 Credit

To minimize indoor air quality problems caused by construction, an indoor air quality (IAQ) management plan for the construction and preoccupancy phases of the building will be developed. This will include protecting absorptive materials from moisture damage, and avoiding the operation of permanently installed air handling equipment during construction.

4. Indoor Air Quality Assessment: 2 Credits

In the period between construction and occupancy, a baseline IAQ test will be conducted to determine that contaminants do not exceed the recommended concentration levels.

5. Thermal Comfort: 1 Credit

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and the building envelope will meet the requirements of ASHRAE Standard 44 2010, or a local equivalent. This will create a comfortable and quality environment and promote occupants’ productivity and well being.

6. Interior Lighting: 2 Credits

All of the hotel’s suites will provide individual lighting controls, enabling guests to adjust the lighting to suit their individual preferences. These will include at least three lighting levels (on, off, midlevel). The lighting used in the project will have a rated life (or 70 for LED sources) of at least 24,000 hours (at 3 hour per start). Direct only overhead lighting is specified for less than 25 percent of the total connected lighting load for all the suites. All light sources within the project will have a CRI of 80 or higher, excepting lamps and fixtures specifically designed for effect or other special uses. Furniture finishes included in the design will meet the thresholds for area weighted average surface reflectance (45 percent for work surfaces, and 50 percent for movable partitions).

7. Daylight: 3 Credits

To connect guests with the outdoors, as this is a major theme of the NestHouse’s design, manual glare control devices for all regularly occupied spaces will be provided. Spatial daylight autonomy of at least 75 percent is achieved within the project, due in part of the large windows in each room and encasing the lobby, providing beautiful views of the surrounding scenery. Annual sunlight exposure of no more than 10 percent is achieved, and this will be demonstrated through annual computer simulations.

8. Quality Views: 1 Credit

A direct line of sight to the outdoors is available for all regularly occupied floor area of the project’s design. 75 percent of this floor area has multiple lines of sight to vision glazing in different directions at least 90 degrees apart, and the views include flora, fauna and sky; movement; and objects at least 25 feet from the exterior.

9. Acoustic Performance: 1 Credit

Maximum background noise levels from heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems per the local equivalent of the 2011 ASHRAE Handbook, HVAC Applications, Chapter 48, Table 1. Sound reinforcement, reverberation time, and sound isolation will also comply with relevant guidelines to provide spaces with effective acoustic design that promotes communication and well being.

1. LEED Accredited Professional: 1 Credit

One of the principal designers in the project team is a LEED Accredited Professional (AP) with a specialty in hospitality design. This designer will help streamline the LEED application and certification process.

Regional Priority

1. Regional Priority: 4 Credits

Four of the six Regional Priority credits for Banff, Alberta, are included in this project. These credits include optimizing energy performance, building life cycle reduction, light pollution reduction, and indoor water use reduction.

Urban

Lobby Rendering

bedRoom Rendering

nesthouse branding