Building Capacity

Seven years in, does LEED's tool for LEED for multiple buildings and on-campus building projects meet the market's needs? Elizabeth Powers, CSBA, LEED AP BD+C, ID+C Responds.

Since LEED was launched by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) our firm has encountered many projects interested in using the LEED Rating System but not quite fitting into the LEED mold. Over time O'Brien & Company has worked with our clients to ease these projects through the LEED process. Although some of the solutions we came up with could be deemed "elegant," there were a few project types that required quite a bit of heavy lifting, and where frankly, it felt like we were using the proverbial shoe-horn.

Of the latter, the most common situation we faced was a project that included multiple buildings or was a single building on some sort of larger site with a shared management or ownership structure.

First Generation Solution

The first tool that came out to help with these situations was the LEED Application Guide for Multiple Buildings and On-Campus Building Projects (AGMBC), 2005 version, generally referred to as the LEED for Campus' guide. This tool didn’t have much infrastructure behind it and it was unclear how to implement the structures provided within it. Thus it was not widely used. However, along with some Credit Interpretation Rulings, the AGMBC did set up some basic ground rules on how to deal with multiple building and buildings within campus settings.

Teams were able to use these concepts to certify multiple building projects under a single certification, or to apply campus wide resources, such as a central stormwater management system, or shared parking to a single building project. For example, the North Seattle Thornton Place project, which consisted of an apartment building, a condo building, and some retail, all over a single subterranean parking podium, was certified LEED-NC Silver under a single certification. (This project is also completing a LEED ND application under the pilot program.) And we recently dealt with a new building on a campus where they had just recently built a new parking garage. We allocated the campus parking across all the buildings on campus, including the new one and then added enough low-emitting parking stalls to earn a point for providing 5% of the parking for the new building (the campus actually added more, but we left the additional stalls available for other LEED projects on campus.

Getting Closer

The launch of LEEDv3 in 2009 promised a new version of the AGMBC and rolled a new series of minimum program requirements (MPRs) that resulted in defining LEED as applicable to only one building, unless you follow the AGMBC. Not many people realize this yet, but it has come up on many projects. If we did Thornton Place today, it would have been certified as 3 projects in a multiple building complex. The details of how this was to work were to be spelled out in the new AGMBC. Part 1 of the updated AGMBC came out in the fall of 2010 with an extensive new infrastructure in LEED Online v3 (LOV3) to support it.

Part 1 addressed situations where one had several different buildings on a campus setting and wanted to apply some campus-wide programs and resources such as parking, stormwater, purchasing or cleaning programs to each building. Although the system made a new bucket for all these campus credits to be reviewed simultaneously, it also resulted in additional process steps and fees. For campuses with lots of buildings and many shared resources this is a great option and actually save money even with the added fees. It allows a school itself to document, all at once and in advance, a good number of points for all future LEED projects (within the same rating system version, e.g. 2009). The project teams for those LEED projects can take credit for those credits and receive a discount on review of their project. This summer, the University of Washington compiled a set of campus credits for all the upcoming LEED 2009 projects and has submitted them for review. (In a side note, Huskies can be proud the UW was named #1 in “America’s Coolest Schools” in 2011 by the Sierra Club -- in part because of the number of LEED certified buildings.) For organizations like the UW, Part 1 of the AGMBC provides a great new tool.

On the other hand, for our projects with a few distinct buildings being built all at once on a single larger site, the new rules and the AGMBC process have mostly provided an added set of complications by requiring each building to earn its own certification and complete a new process if they want to take credit for comprehensive project planning. To illustrate, clients for a new small school campus we are working with have been frustrated because the campus hasn't been able to earn a single plaque for their project. And LEED for Neighborhood developments doesn’t offer a solution, as it doesn’t substantially address building design or really these types of campuses as they lack typical features of a neighborhood, such as housing and community amenities.

Part 2 of the AGMBC promised a pathway for a single certification: “Part 2 will contain guidance to help project teams certify a group of projects as a package where the entire project set will receive a single rating. These projects may constitute an entire campus or be a subset of an existing campus.” Part 2 was due out in 2011. O’Brien & Company and several of our projects waited patiently throughout the year to see if it could ease what seemed a burdensome new pathway.

Closer Still, But A Ways to Go

Finally, Part 2 came out almost the last day in October 2011, and, in my opinion, fell flat. The much anticipated innovation is the group certification, which basically allows a project with a number of identical buildings to receive certification for that group. In our experience, projects hoping for a single certification may have some buildings that are identical, such as two or three high-rise residential buildings, but always have several other buildings that are substantially different, such as a conference center or a fitness facility. It is also unclear just how different buildings can be and still be in a group. If similar buildings pursue divergent pathways for a prerequisite or credit, such as having central mechanical ventilation in one, and individual room natural ventilation in the other, it still seems multiple certifications will be needed. We have an administrative request into the GBCI on behalf of our clients, so we may learn things are bit better than we are currently interpreting.

Another challenge is that no infrastructure or fee structure was launched with Part 2 for group certification– that’s due in 2012. For projects that the group certification significantly benefits, that means it will have been three years since the launch of LEED 2009 and seven years since the launch of the AGMBC before the best tools for their projects are available.

There are many good reasons for the changes and tools that the USGBC has introduced for certifying multiple buildings and campuses. Some of those primarily benefit the organization in ease of administration and cost control (which could be seen to benefit USGBC members), others provide clarity and consistency in the application of the LEED Rating System which will be helpful to the market and projects considering LEED in the future. Therefore, I’m not disappointed to see the USGBC actively addressing the issue of multiple buildings and campuses, but I believe that there is still a fair sized gap in best servicing this significant building project type. I’ll keep you posted if we unearth some hidden benefits of the new AGMBC systems that change my mind.

Elizabeth Powers, CSBA and LEED AP (multiple specialties) is principal and part owner of O'Brien & Company, the oldest green building consultancy in the Northwest. She leads the firm's consulting team serving non-residential green building projects and is a regular contributor to the Building Capacity Blog.

Another Tool for Building Capacity: Newsletter Reports Trend Observations

Thank you faithful readers! After two years at Building Capacity Blog, our (nearly weekly) posts have garnered interest from multiple time zones and continents. As promised the blog has focused on issues you face every day in your sustainable building projects and programs, providing lessons learned straight from those who have applied them. The more practical the post, the higher the hits spike. We know what you like.

There's another tool, however, which I think you’ll find practical, timely and valuable. The O'Brien & Company newsletter, released bi-monthly, offers announcements about upcoming events and shines a spotlight on recently completed green buildings. Last, but not least, each issue features an article written by a staff expert at O’Brien & Company who shares his or her insights gained by working with many projects struggling to achieve the latest and greatest in sustainability.

In the December issue, Elizabeth Powers, Principal-Owner of O'Brien & Company, offered her observations on trends in 2011. Some of these will likely coincide with other "trend" articles you will read in industry publications, but a few are uniquely from the position of a long-time green building consultant who has watched the ups and downs, curves, tsunamis, and windfalls of the last several years. The newsletter's project spotlight actually focuses on two high performance projects celebrating LEED recognition in 2012 and representing two very different climates: a LEED NC Gold Fire Station in Seattle; and a LEED Home Platinum single family residence in Hawaii.

Check out Elizabeth's Trends piece and share your thoughts here on the Building Capacity Blog about what you've seen in 2011 and think you'll see in 2012.

Kathleen O'Brien, Founder of O'Brien & Company, the oldest green building consultancy in the Northwest, edits the Building Capacity Blog. Elizabeth Powers, CSBA and LEED AP (multiple specialties) is a regular contributor to the blog.

Institutionalizing Building Performance: A Collaborative Experience

The installation of building envelope components or HVAC equipment happens in a fleeting moment in the life of a building, yet is so important to long-term durability, performance, and occupant health. Installation failures do happen. With buildings, the key is to catch a potential failure or problem early to head off more complicated issues and fixes in the future. One of the benefits of 3rd party verified green building programs like LEED, Built Green, and Energy Star  is that they put a different pair of eyes on the project, focusing specifically on the details that contribute to better long-term outcomes.

Ideally, when a failure is identified in the field by a verifier, it is communicated with a side of education to the installer, and fixed. Sometimes the installer is not present and that poorly installed detail incurs cost for a return trip of both installer and verifier. When failures are repeated, they point to a deeper issue – the need for root cause analysis to understand why the same error is being repeated. Sometimes the answer is a physical or logistical one (“we can’t do it that way because piece A won’t fit into piece B”). Often, however, it’s about divergent priorities and perspectives: Contractor is rightly focused on delivering their service according to how they understand the scope, and the verifier is, also rightly, looking for compliance with the scope but has a different (we like to think better) understanding of it. When the contractor at the head office receives repeated non-compliance reports from the verifier in the field, they can begin to feel frustrated – They “know” the installers are doing what they are supposed to do and the verifiers “are just being picky” and “not understanding the real world.” Without careful (as in “care-full”) communications, things can sometimes get tricky.

After one such spree of non-compliance reports, I was surprised one morning when three managers from an insulation company showed up and asked to shadow me for a day of four inspections. Ok. I was tempted to get defensive! Instead, I went into uber-educational mode and I showed them my inspection process. What I am looking for and why; the building science behind the requirements. My capacity-building trap was sprung.

Picture the scene. Me and three guys hanging from the attic rafters above a white sea of blown attic insulation, careful not to disturb the loft, with an assortment of personal lighting devices and measuring tapes in hand. The scene shifts to the crawl space. Same lighting, now we’re on our backs, inspecting floor insulation. The dialogue of the day boils down to… This is what I am looking for, I say. This is how we could improve our process to make it easier for our installer, they say. Through this trading of understanding each other’s expectations and limitations, a common ground was being formed. A better product for our client would be delivered.

Verification work is part of our day to day to work. Rarely, though, do we have the opportunity to work in the field (literally) with managers to identify problems and solutions in this collaborative manner. At the end of the day, these guys were not a threat, they were allies and their showing up became an opportunity. They admitted they had arrived with some resistance, with the idea that we were being picky in our inspections. It wasn’t until we established an understanding of where each of us were coming from and the reasoning behind it that a level of trust formed. This allowed easier communication to flow.

But the story is not over. The dual benefit of an effective verification process is not just those realized within buildings themselves (such as demonstrated by the excellent installation in the photo) but also increased awareness and skills among the trades who work on them. To reap these fruits, the solutions discovered in our collaborative exploration have to be institutionalized at both company leadership and practitioner levels. I look forward to the next step, in which these lessons will be transferred across the board to installation crews. And not just technique, proper sizing and placement, but the "why." The "why" energizes tradespersons with pride in their craft to do the job the right way. I've seen it, with field installers signing their work after successfully passing a verification inspection. Imagine that!

Chris Edlin, CSBA, LEED AP Homes and LEED for Homes Rater, Energy Star Northwest Verifier and Performance Tester, and LEED AP BD+C is Project Associate with O'Brien & Company, Inc. and a regular contributor to Building Capacity Blog. Chris provides technical assistance, plan reviews, and performance testing on a number of sustainable building projects ranging from single-family residential to high-rise commercial buildings.

LEED HC – A Sensible Leap Into Sustainable Health Care

Have you ever been in a hospital or medical clinic, observed the humming machinery, the constant overhead lights, the busy staff, the patients in varying degrees of distress, the human drama, but your first thought is “How much energy is this place consuming?” Congratulations, you are a building science geek. Welcome, you are among friends.

Pacific Northwest Health Care Provider Leaps Forward: I worked in healthcare, clinics and hospitals for many years as a Registered Nurse, then a Nurse Practitioner. My career change to Green Building Consultant felt pretty natural to me as I was always renovating houses on the side. And I have watched with special interest the emergence of LEED© for Healthcare (LEED-HC). So I was delighted to start work on a local LEED-HC project for a great organization where I used to work as a Nurse Practitioner. Group Health Cooperative has committed to LEED-HC Certification for two new or replacement clinics in Washington -- one in Puyallup (see rendering) and one in Burien. These will be among the first in the country to certify under this new Rating System. Along with the owner, CollinsWoerman, University Mechanical, and GLY Construction, are enthusiastically committed to the projects' sustainability goals, and in particular achieving the target for LEED-HC Gold and achieving a 30% energy efficiency improvement over a similar baseline building.

A Little History on LEED-HC:  It grew from the Green Guide for Healthcare (GGHC), a sustainable design “Toolkit” that integrates environmental and health principles into the planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance of healthcare facilities. GGHC originated in 2004 as a joint venture between the Center for Maximum Potential Building systems and Health Care Without Harm, aligning itself with the structure of LEED for New Construction. GGHC piloted 100 facilities, enabling LEED-HC to bypass the US Green Building Council's LEED pilot process. The first draft for LEED-HC  was released in November 2007, and projects began registering in November 2010. To date, there are 26 registered projects in the US ranging from medical clinics and Veterans homes to hospitals and cancer centers.

The Problem: Hospitals, open 24/7, use enormous amounts of energy. There are rigorous ventilation and pressurization needs; heating and cooling demands that vary from the OR to the ER and contribute significant mechanical loads; and intensive water needs. According to Energy Star, the average EUI of a hospital is 468 kBtu/ft2 while the average EUI of an office building is 193 kBtu/ft2. The healthcare sector is reported to contribute 8% of total US Green House Gas Emissions (JAMA, Nov 11, 2009). How can hospitals and medical clinics become high performance buildings, better neighbors and a healthy part of the community where they are located?

A Problem-Solving Tool: Despite the fact that LEED for Healthcare requires a mere 10% energy performance improvement over the baseline (like LEED NC, but its not enough), it  addresses several key aspects of the problem, with several new Prerequisites and Credits that make sense for these massively consumptive facilities, such as:

• Integrated Design: Integrated Project Planning and Design is a Prerequisite. 
• Energy: In Energy & Atmosphere there is a credit for buildings that limit products of combustion, a sure way to become a better member of the community and the planet.
• Daylight: Articulated floor plates that allow more daylight and views for patients and staff earn credit.
• Water: Medical equipment process water must be non-potable -- it's a Prerequisite. New credits for water use measurement and verification (you can’t manage what you can’t measure); and water use reduction for medical equipment, cooling towers and food waste systems.
•  IEQ: In Materials & Resources there is a credit for medical furnishings and mattresses that do not contain harmful chemicals or VOC’s.
• IEQ: While sustainably sourced materials garner credit, they are also required to meet the low emitting requirements in IEQ.
• IEQ: The bar for the low emitting materials credit is raised with the addition of carcinogenic limits for adhesives and sealants; and credit for limiting VOC content for exterior applied products safeguards construction workers and the community.

Respite Care: In addition there are credits for Places of Respite for patients and visitors, a place to heal and recuperate from ongoing treatment. Don’t you feel better already? For in-patients or patients with long wait times, for families waiting even longer for their loved ones, this is a place to rest the eyes, have a view, appreciate some nature and smell some flowers. This is evidence-based design, referencing research indicating improved outcomes for patients with a view of nature rather than a brick wall. Additionally this LEED-HC credit has a requirement for a private outdoor area for staff to take a break, away from patient care. This allows hard working medical staff some time and space to find balance in a stressful workplace. Group Health’s Puyallup Clinic has a green roof and rooftop staff area planned, incorporating shelter, access to nature and privacy. The project design also incorporates a respite area for patients and families adjacent to the ground floor clinics.

Existing Buildings, When a Problem is an Opportunity: Retrofitting existing hospitals and clinics offers tremendous opportunity for reducing energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and CO2. The Community Power Works program is working with all the major local hospitals in the Seattle area to conduct energy upgrades as part of $20 million in federal stimulus grant funding to energy retrofit hospitals, municipal and large commercial buildings. Puget Sound Energy offers customized grants to hospitals for energy retrofits and existing building commissioning. Environmental Purchasing Policies for hospitals such as mercury-free purchasing; buying products with recycled content; requesting reduced packaging; and purchasing reusable products  help reduce their environmental impact. Remember the old days when that bedpan was metal and cold?  It  was cleaned in an autoclave and reused for years. This is much more sustainable than the plastic ones that are often single use in emergency rooms. But I digress. Stay tuned for more postings on Hospitals and Sustainability. 

Colleen Groll, CSBA and Senior Project Associate for O'Brien & Company, Inc.  is consulting on GHC's Puyallup and Burien Projects . In addition to her green building expertise, she brings more than 15 years experience in the health care services sector. She is a regular contributor to the Building Capacity Blog. Colleen recommends additional resources including Practice Green Health, The Healthier Hospitals Initiative, and The Department of Energy’s Hospital Energy Alliance.

Continuous Air Barriers in Multi-family Buildings

Alistair Jackson, CSBA and LEED for Homes QAD discusses a recent development in multi-family building performance.

With the implementation of the Washington State Energy Code of 2009 came the requirements (Section 1314.6) that multi-family buildings in Washington State include a continuous air barrier in the building envelope and, more challengingly, test that envelope for infiltration performance.  Projects that chose to pursue certification under the LEED for Homes Midrise Pilot ran into a similar requirement in that program a year or more before the WSEC implementation and so got a head start on the process.

The value of a tight building envelope has been broadly accepted in the world of single family construction for several years, supported by sound building science, as an effective way to reduce space conditioning energy, improve thermal comfort and improve moisture management.

In multi-family buildings, this broad acceptance has not yet occurred.  Part of the reason for this is the common assumption that multi-family buildings are dominated more by internal loads than by envelope loads (because of the skin to volume ratio), so the thermal and air-exchange loads of the envelope have tended to take a back seat to mechanical conditioning, ventilation and lighting issues.  In reality, however, the taller form of these buildings leads to significant pressure differences from bottom to top that can drive much greater air exchange across the building envelope for a given surface due to stack effect.   This must be countered by larger mechanical systems to keep the building balanced and comfortable. 

By improving air barrier continuity and hence controlling the leakage through the envelope, we tip the first in a line of dominoes that topple, one by one, towards better overall building performance.

Generally speaking, there are two approaches to creating a continuous air barrier in a building envelope.  The more “conventional” approach, originating in single family construction and long supported by Energy Star, RESNET and others, is to use rigid, self-supporting components of the building assembly – such as sheathing, framing, gypsum board, – to form the air barrier, ensuring continuity by sealing them together with resilient and often flexible materials (glues, caulks, foams) to form an air tight box.  This is a reliable approach as long as the craftspeople assembling the building understand the intent of the details and install them carefully.

On the scale of a six story midrise building, however, with 300 residential units in it and multiple transitions between wall assembly types, across floor plates, and so forth, this approach can prove challenging to manage and implement.

More recently, the availability of high-performance building wraps or membranes, designed originally as weather resistive barriers, has led to the exploration of using these products to also serve as a continuous air barrier – we’ll call this an “exterior membrane air barrier” system.  Manufacturers are providing installation guidelines for their products as an “Air Barrier System” with additional details that go beyond weather barrier requirements – notably addressing sealing to the structure, sealing of lap seams and fastening systems. 

This “exterior membrane air barrier” approach is attracting a lot of attention among the current raft of multi-family projects pursuing LEED for Homes Midrise certification. We’ve seen systems using Vaproshield and Tyvek CommercialWrap D on recent project specifications. With many of these projects using a qualified envelope durability consultant, there’s good confidence of a successful implementation. 

To date, we have been cautious about this approach because we’ve seen, first hand, that efforts to properly seal lap seams between sheets and at openings can be challenging and that the typical, liberal application of regular staples to fasten the wrap to the sheathing results in an equally liberal distribution of torn perforations in the wrap rendering it useless as an air barrier.  Furthermore, some wrap products can degrade with prolonged exposure to sun and wind, resulting in reduced performance over the long term.

So adapting this material and system requires some changes in approach and in understanding of the intent.  As we have seen in the past with changes of construction practice, adoption follows the typical bell curve – early adopters jump in and figure it out, then practice percolates into the mainstream.  Both the rigid air barrier approach and the exterior membrane approach demand attention to detailing to be effective. What remains to be seen is how quickly the construction sector will build the capacity to properly implement the details to a standard that will deliver performance. 

The good news is that the addition of a performance testing requirement means we'll see real measurements of the effectiveness of this new approach.  Assuming that the market place can actually deliver the capacity for large building infiltration testing (another story) by the time these buildings are completed, we should get good empirical data on the various approaches to creating a continuous air barrier fairly quickly as buildings are completed.  I’m on the edge of my seat . . .

Alistair Jackson, CSBA is a Principal at O’Brien & Company. He was involved in the development of the original LEED for Homes Pilot Rating System and is, among other things, the Quality Assurance Designee (QAD) for O’Brien & Company’s role as LEED for Homes Provider. He is a strong advocate for market-led innovation and market transformation towards sustainability. He is also a father of two – and impatient for change towards a better future.

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Maier Hall at Peninsula College: Early Collaborative Process Yields Healthy, Efficient Building, Gentle to the Site and High on the LEED Scale

When teaching Unit 1 of the 2011 Sustainable Building Advisor course at Seattle Central Community College last Friday, I showed graphs, pictures, comics, and told stories to make a case for an early integrative process as a key for cost-effective sustainable results. As I sat down to write this article about the Maier Hall Project at Peninsula College, I flashed back to a lot of early meetings where the design team diligently worked through the siting of the new building.

The new building replaces four (4) other buildings in a smaller footprint yet increases square footage by three. It is bordered by sensitive areas on three sides, including a patch of virgin forest, wetlands, and a steep slope. As I discussed in my class presentation, the design team, led by Schacht Aslani Architects, responded to these constraints with collaborative problem solving in a series of working sessions resulting in a beautiful and creative design solution.

The L-shape building wraps around the forest grove and creates an edge to the campus at the top of the slope. A breezeway allows students to pass through the building from the campus into the forest and leads them to a viewing platform at the edge of the wetland. The team included a wetland biologist who helped them understand there wasn’t enough water getting to the wetland because of previous development. They couldn’t infiltrate stormwater at building grade because of the proximity of the steep slope, so the team designed a system that sends 90% of the site’s stormwater to the wetland. Rainwater flows from the roof to the wetland in a runnel passing prominently in front of the Hall's front door, helping students understand the environmental story. Additional connection to the natural environment that shaped the building is made on the upper stories through views to the epiphatice (moss) green roof.This solution is just another paradoxical example of creativity being most available when working within constraints.

This creativity and process took significant design team time, early in the process.   Investing the level of effort this team did early in a project can be scary to project managers and owners as it indicates a possible trend towards budget busting.  Fortunately, this project exemplifies how shifting effort earlier in projects and working with an integrated team actually solves problems better and sooner, reducing design effort and minimizing costs. “Working cohesively through the design process, the design team created a synergy that enhanced the project overall," says Chris Edlin, O'Brien & Company's consultant on the project. "For example, it helped avoid the either-or situation where trees, which represent a campus asset, might have been sacrificed for program, which fulfills the college mission (or vice versa)."  Chris also notes that "a less integrated team may not have understood the stormwater/wetland relationship and spent more on pipe and pond stormwater solutions that wouldn’t have benefited the wetland.  The narrow floor plan resulting from the IP is also excellent for natural ventilation and daylighting, thus reducing long term operational costs.

The building is a 65,000 sq.ft., three-story center for fine arts, music, humanities and related instructional programs. The focal point is the 134-seat performance hall, which also serves as a multi-purpose classroom. The hall can be acoustically tuned for music, lectures and films. In addition to targeting LEED Gold, the structure is designed to exceed the current standards of the Architecture 2030 Challenge for reducing energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. Natural ventilation in offices and classrooms and daylight design are key strategies for achieving this goal.

Elizabeth Powers, LEED AP and CSBA, is principal and co-owner of O'Brien & Company, Inc., which just celebrated its 20th anniversary. Elizabeth is principal-in-charge on over three dozen LEED and sustainable building projects for the company. She advised on development of Integrative Process (IP) ANSI Standard, and is a strong proponent of the process for clients who want high performance for common sense budgets. Project photos from Schacht Aslani.

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Everything is Connected! Environmental Education and Community Center and Community Park Opens at Brightwater

In 2006, O'Brien & Company was selected by the Washington Energy Technology Center (now Innovate Washington) to conduct a strategic planning process for a Sustainable Energy Demonstration Lab (SEDL). As noted in our Final Report, The SEDL was intended to "foster the community’s knowledge of, and transition to, new energy saving technologies, with an emphasis on renewables."

The Lab is an element of the Environmental Education and Community Center (EECC) and Community Park, which opened with great celebration this past Saturday, September 24, 2011. It is always great fun to watch a dream unfold, so I was thrilled to get an invitation to the opening from The Friends of the Hidden River, a teacher-organized non-profit with whom we worked on the project. Lots of music, good food, public art, and perhaps most importantly, fun learning going on!

Early on, when the idea of a regional environmental education center was broached as mitigation for the Brightwater waste treatment facility, teachers from the region were adamant that in addition to covering water, the topic of sustainable energy should be part of the educational plan. "Everything is connected!" was a refrain heard over and over during the planning process for the SDEL, and making the connection between the water we use and treat and the energy system we consume to do that is indeed an important one.

Touring the EECC facility Saturday, I was pleased to see several elements of the SDEL in place. PV and Solar Hot Water Installations (funded by Snohomish County PUD) and related learning activities drew "students" of all ages, as did a solar oven and informational kiosks. Human operated bikes, artpieces in themselves, as well as electric vehicles, were in evidence on opening day to showcase green transportation modalities.

We anticipated in 2006 that the EECC facility would be a learning opportunity itself, and plans were to achieve LEED Gold Certification. Happily, (but perhaps not surprisingly given its constituents) the project team, including design firm Mithun, CH2MHill, the Project Managers at King County Wastewater Division as well as a host of others) blew past that goal to achieve LEED Platinum Certification. From our experience with LEED NC, this level of "green" would not have been possible without an aggressive approach to the Energy and Atmosphere Credits.

Two elements of the proposed Lab, an "Independence Hall" focused on promoting regional energy self-sufficiency, and an already-designed Energy Test Bed to test advanced emerging technologies are still awaiting funding, but a good foundation has been laid. Marie Hartford, with Friends of the Hidden River, is optimistic about these next steps. The group's grantwriter, Stephanie Hartford (yes, she's Marie's daughter!) has already enjoyed some success in gaining funding for the EECC and doesn't intend to stop.

Also, King County has indicated that if there is sufficient demand by teachers and schools to justify it, the County will work with the Friends on an addition to house Independence Hall on space that has already been provided adjacent to the new facility. The County has contracted with IslandWood to oversee the educational program at the EECC, and it's anticipated that this award-winning educational provider will ably grow regional demand.

While waiting for this next chapter of the story to unfold, it is well worth a trip to the Brightwater Campus if you live in or are visiting the Northwest. Besides the energy learning opportunities mentioned above, there are some absolutely fantastic displays and engagement activities teaching the what, why, and how, of waste water treatment, and ways to conserve water and maintain water quality at our homes and businesses. You can also chill out on over 40 acres of looping trails among restored natural settings and artwork.

Kathleen O'Brien is Founder of and Special Project Consultant for O'Brien & Company, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary as a green building and sustainability consultant. Kathleen attended the EECC's grand opening with Nora Daley-Peng, also of O'Brien & Company, who reviewed artwork for the site as an advisor to 4Culture, and her 4-year old son, Ronan.

 

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Window Retrofit Dilemma – Low E or No Low E? Alistair Jackson, CSBA, LEED for Homes AP responds:

Barbara Loomis, Marketing Coordinator of Wood Harbinger would like to upgrade four, 12-year-old casement windows on the upper floor of her historic home located in Western Washington. Since the windows were installed by a previous owner before the house was placed on the Historic Register they can be replaced with "like kind." Suppliers are telling her she should buy Low-E windows. She's concerned about losing the benefit of the sun's energy and light, precious commodities in the Norhwest. What are her options? Should she surrender to Low E?

The windows in question include one window that faces a few degrees East of South East, two windows that face a few degrees South of South West, and a fourth window that faces North East. For this purpose we'll focus on the southeast/southwest facing windows, all of which are shaded from the summer sun through much of the day by two mature, deciduous trees.

The answer is yes, Barbara, yes to Low-E in your circumstances, but not the one the vendors are trying to sell you. In the end, that means the best, and most logical choice for your windows will cost you more than the standard Low-E package.

It is a quirk of market dynamics and politics that has resulted in the common misunderstanding that a “Low-E” window keeps the house heat in and the solar heat out. Window distributors and installers prefer to offer the same window packages from the Mexican border to the 49th parallel. Since most of the construction activity in that territory in recent years has been in areas where air conditioning is common, windows distributors have tended to focus on Insulated Glazing Units (IGU)s with low U-factor and low Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC). (For those who crave the details, see "technical details," below.) Unfortunately, that's not the best combination for a heating dominated climate like ours in the Pacific Northwest.

In the wake of the recent “economic softening,” a group of politicians compounded this problem (in the language of tax credits that were part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act) by requiring that windows that qualified for credit must meet the 30/30 rule; that is, they must have both U-factor and SHGC values below 0.30. The result has been that window marketers have even less incentive to mass-market windows with a SHGC above 0.30. A smart business decision, perhaps, but not good for energy efficiency.

But high SHGC windows can be found! Major glass suppliers, including Pilkington, Cardinal, PPG,  and Guardian, all offer Low-E glass that has a high SHGC. Pilkington for example, claim that double glazed windows using their Energy Advantage  Low-E glass can provide whole window u-factor below 0.30 and whole window SHGC of 0.50 or above.

These - U-0.30, SHGC-0.50 - are good numbers to use as a performance specification for this window replacement.

(Be sure to check that the U-factor and SHGC are listed as “whole window,’ not “center of glass.” The former is the type of data that will be listed on the NFRC label (National Fenestration Rating Council – NFRC) on the windows. The latter only addresses the glass performance, not the frame, and will tend to give lower u-factors and higher SHGCs, so can be deceptive.)

Unfortunately, from most window suppliers, this glazing specification will be a custom order – meaning more time and cost.  At risk of being unpatriotic, it might be worth looking to Canada for an off-the-shelf Low-E/High SHGC window. Our neighbors to the North seem to have cold climate glazing performance figured out.

If a custom window is the answer, at least it will also allow Loomis to select a window design that is more consistent with the style of her home. Good luck!

 

Technical details for those who want them: Heat energy passes through windows in two primary ways.

• Thermal conduction: Glass is a good conductor of heat so if air one side of a pane of glass is warm and the other side is cold, heat will flow by conduction from warm to cold. In energy efficient windows, this characteristic of glass is generally addressed by using two or three layers of glass, separated by a gas- and moisture-tight spacer at the edge and a void filled with inert gas that is a poor thermal conductor. This is what we call double- or triple-glazing but is more technically known as an Insulated Glazing Unit or IGU. Thermal conduction is expressed as a U-factor between 1 and 0 – a low U-value means less thermal conduction. U-value is the inverse of the more common R-value (resistance to thermal transfer) used for insulation. So if you divide 1 by the U-value of a window (or other material), you get its R-value, and vice versa.
• Thermal Radiation: Glass also allows heat to pass through it via infrared radiation, simply illustrated by sitting in a window seat on a sunny day, feeling the warmth of the sun through the glass. We want that warmth to come in during the heating season, but perhaps not during the summer when it might overheat the house. This radiation effect also works in reverse. In the heating season (Fall, Winter, Spring) heat from the warm surfaces (including your skin) inside of your house escapes through the windows as infrared radiation to the cold surfaces outside your house. This affect is addressed by coating the glass or installing thin films between the panes of glass that are made from materials that have low emissivity – hence Low-E. These materials are designed to reduce the amount of long-wave length infrared radiation that can pass through the glass, while allowing the shorter wave-lengths of visible light to pass.  A window’s ability to allow or prevent solar radiation from passing through is expressed as a Solar Heat Gain Coefficient or SHGC between 1 and 0 – the more radiation that can pass, the higher the number.

Low-E Terminology: The fact is that Low-E coatings don’t just reflect heat in one direction. They tend to have an effect on the rate of thermal transfer in both directions, though the extent of this effect varies with the type of coating used (research Pyrolitic and Sputtered coatings for more information). It also depends which surface of the glass the Low-E coating is located on. Typically, this has been limited to the protected surfaces facing into the cavity between the panes, but some treatments are hard enough to withstand being located on the outer surfaces, creating more performance options. It is quite possible to create an IGU that reduces thermal transfer by conduction – a low U-value - but allows solar radiation to pass – a high SHGC. For those interested in even more detail, there’s a great resource at the Efficient Windows Collaborative.

Alistair Jackson, CSBA is a Principal at O’Brien & Company. He was involved in the development of the original LEED for Homes Pilot Rating System and is, among other things, the Quality Assurance Designee (QAD) for O’Brien & Company’s role as LEED for Homes Provider. He is a strong advocate for market-led innovation and market transformation towards sustainability. He is also a father of two – and impatient for change towards a better future.

Did you enjoy this article? You might also like these Building Capacity Blog articles:
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Part 2: What’s The Story? Developing a Green Building Education Plan - Elizabeth Powers, LEED AP BD+C, CSBA Reports on Developing a Green Building Education Plan

This is Part 2 of a two- part blog. Before you read this blog, please take a moment to skim last week’s article (Part 1).

Now that you’ve got a good storyline for your green building education plan, let’s talk about how to put together an effective presentation and earn credit for it in LEED or other rating systems.

It is fundamental to good storytelling to know your audience. A building’s green building education program should be geared toward the audiences to which the building most directly relates or the groups of people that are most interested in stories about that type of building. There are usually two or three groups to target which will involve using different communication tools with different messages. Let’s look at two examples.

For a university campus academic building, the most direct audience is the faculty that teaches or works in the building and the students that take classes there. Communication tools with this group should be physically linked to working and learning in the building, like building signage, electronic kiosks, and visible sustainable design features. The messages can share what features were built into the building, the benefit of those features, and how they, as building users, can help keep the building green.

Other audiences include alumni and funders, potential students, and the nearby community. Communication with these groups is more likely through electronic media or one-time events like grand openings or potential student tours. The messages for alumni and funders can demonstrate responsible use of funds by reducing operating costs and how building features improve teaching and learning. Potential students (and their parents) are also concerned about costs, but more likely want to hear how green building supports a good education. The environmental stewardship message fundamental to green building will resonate with alumni, funders, students and the community.

For a residential apartment building, the obvious primary audience is building tenants. Good ways to reach this group are electronic kiosks or a display of building features in the lobby, an informational brochure provided on move in, and building newsletters. For prospective tenants, your green building message is a sales tool. You can use signage on sample green features in a leasing center or model unit, create a take-away brochure, and develop a tour script for use when walking prospects around the building. The message for current and prospective tenants is that the building is efficient, helping them save on rent and utilities, and is better for the environment than other apartment buildings. As any building, the education should also enable the tenants to live green in the building by explaining how to use, take care of, or benefit from green features, and providing additional ideas of activities they can engage in on their own. A good example is providing all new tenants a green cleaning kit upon move in that also points out the durable, easy to clean finishes used in the building.

A secondary audience for all buildings is the greater real estate, design, and construction community. This group is the audience most likely to be interested in how many LEED points the project received and how it was done. As this group is often responsible for developing green building education, a lot of what is produced is about the LEED story on the project. This can be a good story on a project, and the role of LEED should not be excluded from the story, but think carefully about what makes this LEED project unique from others and what elements of LEED the targeted audiences care about. A good way to reach out to the building industry audience is web based case studies and tours with local green building organizations. These industry case studies and tours can share detailed lessons learned about green design and construction practices and LEED documentation.

The process of identifying the audiences and communication tools for stories is a natural set-up for putting together a package that will earn a LEED Innovation point, meet the Living Building Challenge education imperative, or earn the Sustainable Sites Initiative credit. Let’s look specifically at the requirements for LEED.

To take advantage of the educational value of the green building features of a project and to earn a LEED point, any approach should be ACTIVELY instructional. Two of the following three elements must be included in the educational program:

• A comprehensive signage program built into the building's spaces to educate the occupants and visitors of the benefits of green buildings. This program may include windows to view energy saving mechanical equipment or signs to call attention to water-conserving landscape features.
• The development of a manual, guideline or case study to inform the design of the buildings based on the successes of this project. This manual will be made available to the USGBC for sharing with other projects.
• An educational outreach program or guided tour that focuses on sustainable living, using the project as an example.

 Following this structure, the first step is to decide if you will do a building signage program. This is probably the most durable and long lasting tool in your communications tool belt and can support a tour program as well. More engaging signage like window or “truth” walls, or electronic kiosks showing energy and water usage make a “signage” program one of the most effective education elements.    
In some cases, a signage program may not  make sense, as with buildings that have a very small audience or limited public access. In that case, a good approach is provide an overview sign next to the LEED plaque in the building lobby or put information from a case study on an electronic kiosk.

   A building case study does make sense for almost all projects, although there may be different versions distributed to different audiences. For the audience most likely to learn about the building on your organization’s website or marketing, use your storylines to organize and write the most effective case study for your that audience. [Example Left – BSCS] For sharing the technical details and lessons learned with the building industry, we recommend completing a project profile in the High Performance Buildings Database. This comprehensive resource is recommended and used by the USGBC and others to produce case studies and stories about green buildings. Its detailed structure is a great way to make sure you collect and organize all the green building information about the project.

The third option for the LEED innovation credit, an educational outreach or tour program, is a good place to leverage what you’ve already done in preparing signage and/case studies to do additional outreach. If you conduct a grand opening or LEED plaque event, distribute hard copies of the case study or make a brochure and do a building tour. Collaborate with local green building or industry organizations to provide another tour or two, or to do case study presentations, and you have the foundations of a educational outreach/tour program.  Round it out with an article in the local media, ongoing green building blurbs in a newsletter, or an annual tour.

The above elements can be combined in ways to best match your building’s purpose and audiences, whether it is hands-on with signage and tours, or more arms length with digital case studies, presentations, and newsletters. Whatever the method, remember that a green building education program is most effective and engaging when it tells a unique story that is compelling and appropriate for the audience(s) you are trying to reach.

Elizabeth Powers is Principal/Owner of O'Brien & Company, a mission-based firm in its 20th year focused on achieving sustainability in the built environment. Powers leads the green building consulting services team and is a regular contributor to the Building Capacity blog. O'Brien & Company publishes the blog as well as a monthly newsletter. For the most current edition of the newsletter, please see www.obrienandco.com/news-and-events/newsletters

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What’s The Story? Elizabeth Powers, LEED AP BD+C, CSBA Reports on Developing a Green Building Education Plan

LEED, the Living Building Challenge, the Sustainable Sites Initiative and other rating systems offer opportunities to earn credit for, or require, the development of a green building education plan. The intent of the credits is to inspire and educate others by sharing the feasibility and benefits of green building. Too often however, the materials produced to meet the letter of the requirements are just a litany of LEED credits or building features, without drawing any lessons or meaning from the accomplishments. Whether a project is doing green building education for credit or out of a desire to pass on lessons learned, and whether the program will be big and splashy, or simple and low-tech, it is worth taking moment to craft an effective and compelling education plan for your project. Not only will this actually accomplish the intent of the rating system requirements, it yields better results in getting press coverage, marketing your project, developing community support, fundraising and even gaining support from building occupants and users in keeping your building green.

The foundation of such a plan is a good story. Every project has unique characteristics, challenges, and accomplishments that can teach others important lessons about green building. O’Brien & Company has found that project teams often need a little guidance in finding the heart of their story and understanding the lessons of the project.

This article talks about developing a good story. Next week, the blog will address developing content and deciding on the types of educational media to use.

When tasked with developing a green building education plan, don’t start by looking at the LEED scorecard, instead, go back to the origins of the project. Pull out the eco-charrette report, owner’s project requirements (OPR), or other documents that defined the vision and goals for the project. Reflect back – what were you trying to accomplish on this project and how did it play out?

Try writing down the three most significant challenges or accomplishments of the project as the story lines. Ask yourself and your team - When did the project get stuck on accomplishing the goals, and how did you get beyond it? What green approach failed on the project and what did you learn from it? What will you always remember about this project? What green feature will you definitely incorporate on your next project? What are you most proud of when you drive by the completed project? You could do this with the project team and stakeholders as charrette-style brainstorming exercise and see what themes emerge. Then you can pull out the LEED scorecard as another lens to think about the unique story of your project.

The best stories may not be individual building features, but human stories that resulted from the project. Here are some examples of stories that still stand out for me from one of our earliest LEED projects, Merrill Hall by the Miller Hull Partnership. This project accomplished the following:

• A diverse community of stakeholders came together to seek alternative funding and enable the Center for Urban Horticulture to rise from the ashes of a fire (literally) and create a building that exemplified their mission of stewardship.
• The project inspired a student group to lobby for green building standards campus-wide, leading to adoption of a LEED requirement for capital projects.
• The design opened the space to the surrounding natural environment and created a great outdoor living room for more collaboration and education.

Do you feel your project is more boring than this? Think it won’t lead to wholesale change like Merrill Hall? Maybe, but there is still something to be learned. Here are some of the fun stories from the more mundane projects we’ve worked.

• A contractor figured out how to collect rainwater from a nearby hillside to pressure test waste water tanks at a waste water treatment plant instead of using large quantities of municipal water which saved resources and a lot of money.
• An industrial park building put in bike racks and shower and restrooms for tenants (something tenants usually have to build themselves) to earn LEED points, one of several LEED features that attracted tenants and caused the park to lease out quickly.
• An office building renovation of a 1960’s building earned LEED Gold after starting out with a stretch goal of LEED Silver.

The message from these examples is that your project is unique, has a story to share, and people can learn from every green building. Tune in next week for discussion on how to turn these stories into a “credit-worthy” green building education plan.

 

Elizabeth Powers is Principal/Owner of O'Brien & Company, a mission-based firm in its 20th year focused on achieving sustainability in the built environment. Powers leads the green building consulting services team and is a regular contributor to the Building Capacity blog. O'Brien & Company publishes the blog as well as a monthly newsletter. For the most current edition of the newsletter, please see www.obrienandco.com/news-and-events/newsletters

Did you enjoy this article?  You might also like these Building Capacity Blog articles:
CSBA Reports on Developing a Green Building Education Plan Part 2 
Do I Need A Green Building Credential?
SBAi: Introducing the Next Generation of SBA Education & Service
Green Building Jobs in Lousy Market
Time to Deal with Your LEED AP Credential