New Branch of St. Louis Community College Features Green Building Elements

Another crazy week... this time, it was the neighborhood's National Night Out celebration on Tuesday (where I was one of the grillmasters), and just plain fatigue last night: these 100 degree days just take it out of you... and finally, packing for a quick trip to go visit family in northern Wisconsin this weekend... where, hopefully, it's a little cooler.

Still, didn't want to let the week get totally away from me here, and I was really pleased to see that the newest branch of St. Louis Community College, in the outlying suburb of Wildwood, has incorporated numerous green building features. According to the Post-Dispatch, the new branch features four cisterns to collect rain water, green roofs, sunlight sensors that dim indoor lights, and even twenty parking space with outlets for plugging in electric vehicles. While campus administrators note that those outlets won't see a lot of immediate use, wiring is in place to add more outlets should the number of electric vehicles used by students or staff increase in the future. And, oh yes... there are waterless urinals (take it away, Bobby...). The campus' web site notes that the branch was built with LEED certification in mind.

I've never seen numbers related to the environmental impact of community colleges specifically. On one hand, they're campuses built for commuters; on the other, they're geared towards local communities -- the P-D article notes that most students to this branch will come from a 30-mile radius (it also notes that's about the driving range for most electric vehicles). While I'm not crazy about the amount of suburban sprawl still spreading out from the city, and think this is an overriding issue we have to confront as a region, I'm pleased to see that the community college district is making these kinds of investments in green technology. Now if we can just get a Metrolink line out there...

Image source: St. Louis Community College

Categories: greenbuilding, communitycollege, greenroof, cistern, electricvehicles, stlouis, wildwood, missouri

Columbia College Revamps Architecture Curricula Around Sustainability

As I shift sustainablog towards more of a Midwestern focus (though, again, that won't be exclusive), I realize that I want to avoid it becoming "all Chicago all the time." But came across another great story out of the Windy City tonight, so I'll take that risk.

According to Chicago Journal, Columbia College will launch redesigned graduate programs in Architectural Studies and Interior Architecture in the Fall that focus on sustainability. While I've taken note of a number of new programs at colleges and universities that focus on green issues, this change seems a bit unique in that it's incorporating sustainability into the traditional programs, rather than creating a separate track for them.

"This is a prime time for us to jump aboard," said Joclyn Oats, director of architectural studies and interior architecture programs at Columbia. "It was sort of driven by what is expected by current practice."

All of the courses in the redesigned curriculums teach students to emphasize sustainable solutions from the beginning of the design process. Students can choose to focus on one of four specific track areas, including sustainability in general, adaptive reuse, museum design, and furniture and exhibit.

Oats, who has been heading the redevelopment process, said that because of LEED certification mandates by city government and incentives given architects and designers who produce sustainable projects, it was time for Columbia to educate students on environmentally conscious design before they get into the field.

"It was time for us to be accountable and to make sure our students understand that they are custodians of the environment," Oats said. "I think it will give them an edge over students studying interior and architectures, because they'll already come with the background and skills."

What's encouraging here is that the administration and faculty for this program have decided that sustainable design isn't a niche; rather, it's a field of knowledge that all graduates in these disciplines should master. LEED accredited architect Marina Panos of VOA Associates tells CJ that she believes this will become the norm: "I think that eventually all architectural schools will require classes in sustainability for their own accreditation."

As exciting as new programs in organic agriculture and renewable energy technology are (and they're very exciting), I think this development is really important: for at least this one program at one school, green is the mainstream. If cities and states continue to mandate LEED certification, or other green building criteria, that trend should continue to accelerate. Hopefully, it starts to spread into other curricula, also... engineering schools, anyone?

Photo credit: Josh Hawkins

Categories: architecture, columbiacollege, greendesign, greenbuilding, chicago, college

Chicago Green Exchange: A Model for Green Retail?

The green blogosphere has been buzzing for some time now with news about the planned Chicago Green Exchange, a 250,000-square-foot loft building in the Logan Square neighborhood. When opened (the developers are shooting for September 2008), the Exchange will be a truly unique space: part shopping mall, part business incubator, and part office complex, all with a green focus. According to today's New York Times, the project is not only attracting attention from us greenies on the web, but also the Chicago business community:

The owner and builder, Baum Development, says it already has commitments for nearly 30 of the 100 Green Exchange spaces. The prospective tenants include an electric vehicle dealer, a green building supply company and a treeless paper packaging company. The rents are expected to be $18 to $35 a square foot annually, in line with market rates for the area.

About 20 percent of the business spaces at Green Exchange have been designed so that the tenants can build a bathroom and small kitchen, enabling them to live there.

The novel commercial real estate project is part of the expansion of environmentally oriented investments and policies that are reshaping Chicago’s economy: office buildings with green roofs, a city-built incubator for green businesses, fleets of ultraclean buses and municipal electric vehicles.

The renovation of the former Frederick Cooper Lamp factory incorporates a range of green building practices, and the finished building will showcase features such as escalators that use 30% less energy than their conventional counterparts (they'll slow down when no one's on them), and parking spaces with outlets to recharge electric vehicles. Furthermore, the criteria for obtaining retail space includes a "green" clause, according to developer David Baum: "In order to be a tenant in Green Exchange, you must be doing something to advance the green marketplace."

When complete, the price tag for the complex will likely run around $40 million. That's sizable, but Chicago's green business community is already thriving with generous support from the city government and Mayor Daly. I've made three trip to the Windy City in the last year, and continue to be impressed: both the the public and private sectors seem totally committed to making Chicago a model of urban sustainable (re)development. Kudos!

Photo: Chicago Green Exchange. Credit: Peter Wynn Thompson for The New York Times

Categories: greenexchange, chicago, greenbuilding, greenbusiness

The Enertia Home: A Modern Marvel, or a Lot of Hot Air?

So, now that I've announced a Midwestern focus, I'll immediately stray... but for good reasons.

Last December, I took note of the Enertia Building System, a kit home that its developers claim can be heated and cooled by passive solar energy and a design that upgrades the decades-old "envelope house" concept. I was intrigued, and felt that intrigue was justified when Enertia was awarded the 2007 Modern Marvel of the Year award by the History Channel and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Not long after writing a post about Enertia and the award at Treehugger, I heard from Lloyd Alter, fellow TH blogger and architect. Lloyd wasn't so certain about the promise of this design; the other day, he pointed me to an article from BuildingGreen.com that also expressed some concern about the claims made about Enertia's ability to heat and cool the house space with sunlight and an innovative design. According to writer Tristan Roberts,

The Enertia design’s use of solar orientation, natural ventilation, and thermal mass are timeless and unimpeachable, and with proper implementation should reduce heating and cooling costs in any house. However, Sykes claims that the double-envelope system offers advantages over other passive solar homes. “We’re picking up solar energy and getting it in touch with the maximum amount of wood,” said Sykes. The Enertia design differs from prior double-envelope designs in its use of solid wood, which adds thermal mass; with the timbers prefabricated and cut by Enertia, it offers a log-home-style installation that is fairly straightforward and requires fewer steps than stick-frame walls.

No Enertia homes have extensive performance data, making it difficult to say how well the design works. Tom Miller of 36 Degrees South tested an Enertia home in Durham, North Carolina, under Energy Star protocol, and gave it a score of 67 in the Home Energy Rating System—better than the Energy Star threshold of 85 and the standard home score of 100 but far from the theoretical net-zero-energy score of zero. Miller said that the home’s score may not fully reflect its performance: only the outer wall of the double envelope could be counted, for a relatively low insulation value of R-6, and the beneficial effects of thermal mass aren’t counted in the protocol.

According to data published on the Enertia website, the Durham home has logged a 66% energy savings over a regional benchmark. However, Miller said that when he visited the house it was 80°F (27°C) and humid inside, whereas many people would be more comfortable with the thermostat at about 73°F (23°C) and with reduced humidity.

Miller’s report echoes a pattern that EBN found with other Enertia homeowners—they were willing to tolerate less comfortable conditions than the average homeowner. That kind of habit change is great for the environment, but it makes an apples-to-apples comparison with other homes harder, since any home can use less energy if the occupants are willing to compromise their comfort. Part of Enertia’s apparent virtue may simply be the virtue of its occupants.

That's a long quote, I realize, but it details a problem that will ultimately keep this home from the mass market: most people would love the energy savings, but want to also remain comfortable. While 73 degrees seems a bit excessive, few people will want to live in a warm, humid house.

Of course, that's just one example, but such anecdotal evidence could prove problematic, as Roberts notes there's very little test data available on the house. There's also a potential problem with fire hazard: Enertia claims that the homes inner walls provide an hour of fire protection, and that flame detection equipment is located in the outer section. The article notes that there are still open questions about that, though.

Finally, the homes are built from 100% FSC-certified sustainable lumber. That's a good thing, but a good thing that adds a premium to the price of the house. So, while the Enertia home may be all that its developers claim that it is, without settling the issues above with more authoritative data, it's hard to believe that many homebuyers will pay that premium.

Obviously, this is a concept that will have a lot of appeal on its face, and some of these potential problems may require nothing more than some tweaks in design and marketing. A home that requires no energy other than sunlight for heating and cooling is a worthy goal; one that can, in reality, take great advantage of passive solar design in order to lower energy use significantly will still have an awful lot of appeal, and provide a return on investment for its owners. If the Enertia system can only accomplishes the latter, that's still a step forward. But, of course, they can't use "No fuel, no power... no problem" as a marketing slogan, or claim the home will heat and cool "without the use of fuel or electricity."

As always, very interested to hear your thoughts...

del.icio.us tags: enertia, greenbuilding, zeroenergy, fsc

Image source: Enertia Building Systems

The Solar Synapse: Thinking Ahead for Solar Installation

I've pointed to St. Louis-based Solar Night Industries a couple of times over the past couple of years, and have enjoyed my occasional email exchanges with company president and founder Jason Loyet. I'm not sure why it took so long, but Jason and I finally got together last week to meet in person and talk business. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the company's work, but was most impressed by a product they've created for homebuilders that could help pave the way for wider residential adaption of solar energy systems: the Solar Synapse.

The Synapse solves a problem that I didn't even know existed until I met with Jason: wiring a house or building for solar panels. Obviously (I'm saying "duh" to myself), solar panels don't just plug in -- an existing building's wiring has to be retrofitted for the system. This can be relatively expensive: Solar Night claims that the typical rewiring job costs over $4000. For those of us with existing homes and buildings, that's just a part of the costs we have to pay to install a PV system. The Synapse, however, is a pre-wiring kit that allows the builder of a new home to wire it for solar, and at a significantly lower price than the traditional retrofit. As Jason told me, builders are already installing wiring systems for things like home theatre systems: why not for solar panels?

The builder gets a number of benefits for installing this system. First, s/he can market it as "solar ready," a characteristic that's going to continue to rise in popularity. Secondly, the system can earn a home LEED standard points: "one for education and one for forward-looking home engineering." (Note: the LEED system for homes is still in development). These systems may even qualify a builder for grants from local, state or the federal government. Homebuyers, of course, will pay a bit of premium for this system, but it's lower than paying for that retrofit mentioned above.

I'm probably sounding like a spokesperson for the company, but this is one of those ideas that made so much sense that I smacked myself on the head for not thinking of it first! As energy prices continue to rise, consumers are going to continue to look for alternatives. Knowing that they can just "plug" a system in (OK, it's a bit more complicated than that) makes it more likely that they'll add those panels to the house. It's a win-win-win-win (at least): for the buyer, homebuilder, SNI themselves, and, of course, the environment.

I'm planning to interview Jason for Green Options, and we'll be talking more about this product. Stay tuned...

del.icio.us tags: solar, green, building, electricity, renewable, energy, missouri

Indianapolis Making Plans for a More Sustainable City

Even though I live smack-dab in the middle of flyover country, it's easy to get entranced by all the green activity on the coasts, and miss what's going on in my own backyard. Chicago's certainly in the game, right up there with San Francisco, Portland and NYC, and now I find out that Indianapolis is looking hard at sustainability measures they might implement. Right now, the (very impressive) green roof atop the parking structure of the Indianapolis Museum of Art stands alone in terms of major sustainable development projects (and yet another example of a museum going green), but city leaders hope that roof sparks the imagination of citizens and government officials alike. According to the Indianapolis Star, the mayor and other officials are looking at a wide range of projects:

City officials hope the rooftop can help inspire a larger movement toward more environmentally friendly building practices in Indianapolis as part of Mayor Bart Peterson's pledge to push a "sustainable" city agenda.

Following in the footsteps of cities like Chicago and Seattle, city officials are exploring various measures. Under consideration: switching to alternative fuel sources, planting more trees, upgrading walkways, overhauling the city's recycling program and cutting government energy consumption.

All of these efforts are appealing not only for giving Indianapolis some green cred: they could also save a lot of money. Green roofs are expensive, but because they retain so much storm water, they're much more affordable than drainage systems (of course, that also means that engineers and planners have to consider the water weight on the building structure). Then there's the energy savings, the lessening of the urban heat island effect, the absorption of pollution... that's all from just one technology that can be widely used.

Indianapolis is still very much in the planning stages, but they're clearly thinking about a multifaceted approach to sustainable development, which is key -- one technology won't do everything. Combine those green roofs with cleaner fuels for public transportation and city vehicles, a more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly downtown, and some urban reforestation efforts, and Indianapolis won't just have a greener city -- they'll have one that's much more appealing to potential residents and business owners.

Photo credit: Charlie Nye/Indianapolis Star

Categories: indianapolis, greenroofs, cleanfuels, urbanplanning, sustainability, museum