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Forget
stereotypes and talk radio hyperbole. “Green” architecture is
not a movement in favor of cave dwellings and straw huts. It is
a highly technologically sophisticated subdiscipline that is pushing
the limits of technology to create buildings that are less wasteful,
and hence are more comfortable, easier to maintain, and healthier
to live or work in.
Much like the space program spun off new technologies useful to
businesses on Earth, green architecture is spinning off technologies
and materials that are moving into mainstream architecture. Some
of the leaders in this work are right here in St. Louis.
• Bill O’Dell, design principal and director of science and technology
at Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum (HOK), helped draft the U.S. Green
Building Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design
(LEED) standards for commercial buildings. HOK designed the St.
Louis area’s two most prominent environmental buildings: the Missouri
Historical Society’s Emerson Center and the Nidus Center.
The new history museum was designed to use no more energy than
the old museum, despite having four times the exhibit space. According
to Mark Husser, who was the lead architect on the project, the
museum uses 50 percent less energy than a comparable new building
constructed to current energy conservation standards.
The key to identifying the techniques that would produce such
an energy-efficient building was computer modeling. HOK refined
a computer model developed by the Department of Energy. Architects
modeled a long list of possible conservation measures to determine
the best combination of techniques to get the greatest savings
in energy costs.
The key to selecting those techniques was the Historical Society’s
agreement to base decisions on life cycle costs instead of initial
costs. Many building budgets use initial costs as the yardstick
for measuring which equipment to buy, but that often means owners
end up with equipment and systems that are expensive to operate
and maintain. The Historical Society authorized the architects
to sum initial costs with maintenance and operating costs, and
then pick the best deal.
The end result is a building with lots of high efficiency, low
emissivity glass to maximize natural light while minimizing heat
loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer. Photoelectric
cells and occupancy sensors turn lights on only when needed. Oversized
ductwork permits the use of lower powered fans, and displacement
ventilation allows the staff to air condition only occupied zones.
• John Hoag, principal in Hoag Associates, is helping draft the
U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards for residential buildings.
Locally, he worked on Operation Healthy Home for the St. Louis
County Housing Authority, the Moorehead residence and Coral Condominiums.
In all three of those projects, Hoag specified products that were
both energy efficient and promoted good indoor air quality. Icynene
insulation, for example, is so tight it not only seals against
energy loss, but also stops the intrusion of dust, mold and pollen
from outside. Sealed combustion furnaces and water heaters draw
their make-up air directly from the outside. They are energy efficient
and, Hoag says, they don’t draw dust, pollen, and moisture indoors
from around doors and windows, as does the typical indoor air
return. They also are safer in a tight home, because the carbon
monoxide exhaust cannot flow back into the house to poison anyone.
Hoag also favors radiant heat barriers over the insulation to
reflect heat back towards its source: to the inside in the winter
and the outside in the summer; light-colored roofing materials,
since a dark-colored roof can account for 50 percent of the heat
a building absorbs in the summer; and an in-stream ultraviolet
filter to kill bacteria entering the heating, ventilating and
air conditioning system.
The advantages of sealed combustion furnaces and ultraviolet filters
are so great, says Steve Loos, of the Home Builders Association
of Greater St. Louis, that they are rapidly becoming standard
features on new homes, even ones not specifically designed to
be “green.”
• Tom Tyler, president of Answers, Inc., wrote the first environmental
references into the American Institute of Architects master specification
system, MasterSpec, in the late 1980s. Today he is pushing against
local codes and ordinances that restrict innovation.
Tyler champions the idea that changing the ways businesses operate
in order to reduce waste is the key to reducing the environmental
impact of buildings.
Life cycle costing is one such change. Over the 30-year life of
the typical office building, he says, the cost of construction
is only two percent of the total cost. Maintenance is six percent,
and staffing and the associated costs of operating the building
account for the other 92 percent. Thus, if you spend a little
more in design and construction to get a building that is more
efficient to use, it will be returned many fold during the lifetime
of the building. Tyler says he has found that the best way to
promote green building in St. Louis is on its higher efficiency,
not because it is good for the environment.
One of the major approaches Tyler uses is to look at how a client
uses space. “Our approach is to ask our clients questions like
‘Do you need it?’,” Tyler says. “We promote multiple use spaces,
which cuts down on the number of spaces you need, which reduces
the size of the building envelope you need. We’ve found, by doing
a good job on space analysis, that typically a client can get
10 to 15 percent more use out of his space, or can reduce the
building footprint he needs.” And that means less material is
used to construct the building, which means there is less shipping
of material to the building site, and there is less waste.
In environmental terms, Tyler would rather save a tree from being
cut down than find a way to recycle the lumber later, even though
it means lower fees for his firm, since architectural fees and
construction fees normally are based on the square footage of
the building.
What future green spinoffs might become popular? Tyler points
to waterless urinals and leased mechanical services. Waterless
urinals use high-tech materials that are so slick that nothing
sticks to them. They save on water; they use less pipe; and they
cost less to maintain, since they have no moving parts to break
or valves to leak.
The concept of leased mechanical services is simple: the mechanical
contractor sells a building owner a heating, cooling and ventilation
service rather than equipment. The cost of the service is pegged
to the energy used, the kilowatt-hour, for example. The developer
or building owner still has an economic incentive to save energy
by conserving its use. The mechanical firm, however, now has an
economic incentive to get the most efficient and reliable system
possible, because his profit depends on operating the system for
less than the fee he is collecting.
The economic advantage for a developer or owner is a reduction
in up-front costs. Mechanical systems generally account for 20
percent or more of the cost of constructing a new building. If
the owner doesn’t have to pay that at the start, he has more money
for other things.
Peter Downs is a free-lance writer and editor of Construction
News & Review.
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