Building Capacity

There isn't anything better coming along.

I recently wondered aloud with Bronwyn Barry why members of our tribe (and by that I mean anyone actively working in the green building, sustainable development field on the West Coast), wait 'til the last minute to register for the Emerge: Leadership Skills for Green Building Advocates. In taking this route, it costs more money, risks not getting a place, and generally adds unnecessary tension to the process for you and for me.

Bronwyn, planner and convener for many successful Passive House California events cleared it up for me. "It's not just Emerge," she countered "but pretty much any event. What I've found is that people put it in their calendar, but hold out on actually registering, just in case something 'better' comes along."

Well, I'm here to say there isn't anything better coming along. "What Chutzpah!" I can hear you saying!

Maybe so, But I am certain that Emerge is genuinely different from anything else out there. It's a leadership workshop, and yes, there's lot of leadership offerings to be found. In fact, if you Google the term(s) leadership workshop, you'll get dozens of interesting entries. It's a workshop that incorporates sustainable concepts, as well, and yes, there are plenty of laudable offerings to be found in that realm as well.

And I've been told that the philosophy of Emerge -- an integrated systems-based  approach to leadership that combines the best leadership practices with an emphasis on servant leadership, change science and technology, and the collective intelligence and impact of community -- would be helpful for anyone endeavoring to lead social change in any realm.

However, Emerge has a specific mission, is designed with that mission in mind, and designed FOR those who align with that mission. And for that reason, it does a really good job. If you want to hear that from attendees, check out the testimonials (written and video) at www.emergeleadership.net. Emerge alumni share success stories relating to personal, organizational, and communitywide leadership. Anonymous evaluations compiled at the conclusion of the workshops are through the roof with positive ratings and comments. No lie.

Emerge is designed for you if: First, you are somehow involved in the shaping of our built environment and desire a built environment that is sustainable; Second, you know that leadership is involved in creating that world in the truest, biggest sense; and Third, you are personally committed to providing that leadership.

For that reason, you will find the Emerge curriculum incorporates examples, exercises, and stories pertinent to the overall mission: to create a built environment where sustainability is the norm, not an abstraction. Rather than professional motivational speakers, you'll find a faculty that is inspiring because we share your goals -- we just happen to be further down the road with some important lessons to share. The faculty scheduled for Winter 2012-2013 are award-winning dynamos, heartfelt speakers, and authors with a combined experience of nearly a century in the sustainable building arena.

Besides the obvious benefit of such a focused learning environment, there is the additional advantage of building a community that shares the emergent philosophy AND is committed to a sustainable building. When you leave you'll have become part of a network with strategic professional alignments and personal commitments. And you can stay connected through alumni "clinics" and fun gatherings.

Regardless of when you register, you'll get the benefit of all this, and more: CEUs for your LEED CMP, and/or ILFI Living Future Accreditation, a follow up mentoring session to complement the personal leadership development plan you created at the workshop, and permanent access to alumni resources on the Emerge Leadership Project website.

Additional discounts encourage membership in local green building non-profits and reward those who've taken the Sustainable Building Advisor Program and passed the national CSBA exam, and these exist for both the Early Bird and Standard optons.

So you don't HAVE to register by the Early Bird registration deadline...but it would be fabulous if you did. (Here's how.) Save some bucks, ensure your seat, and make me very happy.

Kathleen O'Brien is Editor of the Building Capacity Blog and contributes monthly to the DJC Green Building Blog. She has been in the sustainable building field for nearly three decades and currently provides special projects consulting for O'Brien & Company, the firm she founded over twenty years ago, and leadership training and mentoring through her legacy project: The Emerge Leadership Project (ELP). She was instrumental in the development of the Sustainable Building Advisor Program and the SBA Institute (SBAi).

International Living Future Institute Rolls out Living Future Accreditation in time for GreenBuild

For those in the sustainable building field hoping to distinguish themselves with a Living Future Accreditation  (LFA), the ILFI has just rolled out a clear path to do so.

There are actually two paths, Path One for those with LEED APs with Specialty, which requires 45 hours of approved education, and Path Two for those who are already certified as a Living Building Challenge/Facilitator, which requires 35 hours of approved education. Additional requirements, including prerequisites can be viewed at the ILFI site.

The LFA must be renewed on a two-year basis. According to Mona LeMoine, Vice-President, Education and Events for the International Living Future Institute and Executive Director of the Cascadia Green Building Council, "Accreditation demonstrates that an individual frames sustainability holistically and understands what is needed to help lead a transformation toward communities that are socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative."

LFA's debut includes an on-line education catalog that lists  approved programs that in the ILFI's view contributes towards an individual's capacity to understand sustainability in this transformative fashion and would earn hours towards accreditation. If you peruse the inaugural catalog you will see some familiar titles, such as "Emerge: Leadership Skills for Green Building Advocates" and the Sustainable Building Advisor certificate course offered by the SBA Institute.

These partner-offered programs are approved in addition to ILFI-specific training programs (required for the LEED AP Specialty Path) in order to benefit from existing educational resources that already support the comprehensive framing that implementing the Living Building Challenge successfully requires. It also, according to LeMoine helps professionals "avoid the hassle (and cost) of redundant training."  Each course listed in the catalog has been curated through an application process similar to those offered by other professional credentialing bodies (such as GBCI).

Kathleen O'Brien is Editor of the Building Capacity Blog and contributes monthly to the DJC Green Building Blog. She has been in the sustainable building field for nearly three decades and currently provides special projects consulting for O'Brien & Company, the firm she founded over twenty years ago, and leadership training and mentoring through her legacy project: The Emerge Leadership Project (ELP). She was instrumental in the development of the Sustainable Building Advisor Program and the SBA Institute (SBAi). If you visit the GreenBuild Expo, you can learn more about both ELP and SBAi at Booth T-34 in the North Building.

RFM's Sustainable Urban Infill Project Transforms: More than Bricks and Mortar

Kathleen O'Brien recently returned to the former site of a derelict Sears Auto Store and now the award-winning high performance headquarters for RiceFergusMiller. This urban Infill project reveals how a sustainable built environment is about so much more than bricks and mortar.

 In 2009, James Jenkins and I met with RiceFergusMiller principals and staff to lay groundwork for sustainable goal-setting for their new office and studio. They had just purchased the old Sears Auto Center near their existing (and crowded) digs in downtown Bremerton and wanted to showcase sustainability. In addition to O'Brien & Company, Shawn Oram from Ecotope participated in the workshop, bringing a depth of building energy expertise and innovative spirit.

RFM was still in the process of cleaning up the building at the time to see what they had. As prelude to the workshop, we carefully (and I mean carefully!) wended our way through the abandoned structure that in the 80s had been an anchor for Bremerton's retail business core. Old signage gave us an inkling of what it must have been like at its peak, but it was truly a mess. However, it was hard not to get too excited. Here was an existing building in a downtown that was crying out for revitalization, with a team invested in all three aspects of sustainability -- environment, economy, and social benefit. Wow!

And in particular, they had the good sense to recognize the importance of "place" in achieving sustainable goals. "We didn't want to replicate green building projects being built in more urban areas. We wanted a project that was the most sustainable it could be, and that would further the agenda, here in Bremerton," Principal Steve Rice opines. In addition to keeping a piece of Bremerton's retail heritage intact, they have proven that with a bit of willingness to experiment, what they call "high performance sustainability" is achievable even outside green building hubs. Unlike nearby Seattle where LEED buildings abound, RFM's LEED Platinum headquarters is one of a very few LEED buildings on the West Sound. LEED is the nationally recognized rating system of the US Green Building Council (GBC).

One of the major factors in how far any client is willing to go is risk. In that early workshop, we ran through an analogy of river rafting and asked the RFM team to choose which "class" of difficulty they were willing to take on, with Class 1 representing the least risk and Class 6 representing suicidal risk (really). They chose Class 3 - Difficult. This class requires expertise for maneuvering, scouts who have been there before, a good operator, and a good boat. In a recent interview and tour of the facility, I asked Steve whether the project experience rated a Class 3, and he quickly responded that it was probably more difficult than that. But like any good run after it's done, the satisfaction he and his mates are experiencing is written all over Steve's smiling face.

And he wants everyone to know about it. "This may seem weird, but for me this building is a sort of 'temple' where everyone who comes here leaves as a bit of a green disciple, because they all see it makes sense." The first floor is designed for easy reconfiguration for public events. In the 15 months since they've opened (June 2011) they've had nearly 40 community events with anywhere from 10 to 200 attendees at a pop. Whether the event is focused on green building or not, host Steve gets to say something about what they've been able to accomplish.

Which is no small thing. At a very reasonable $105/sf cost, RFM's design team reduced energy consumption from the CBEC Standard for this building type by 78%, saving $24K annually. They saved 58% in construction costs due to retaining as much of the original structure and materials. They've reduced water consumption by 70% and save over 60,000 gallons of potable water a year. And, according to Steve, they've done this with off-the-shelf components, used innovatively. They were also willing to work with local officials when water saving technologies didn't pencil out simply because of municipal billing policies, rather than just giving up on them.

Much of what they've accomplished has been made visible by leaving elements exposed. Rather than an industrial environment however, the building has a very clean, calming aesthetic. Even the 14-foot fan circulating air above the heads of those in the lobby for practical reasons, provides flair, and for those of us in the biz, a reminder that hidden under the building's success is the circular pattern provided by an integrated project process.

Steve recalls that after that very first workshop, he and his partners realized that this was much bigger than even creating a high performance building -- which is big enough. They were creating a story of transformation. Of a derelict building in a struggling downtown. What they may or may not have realized is that, in the opinion of this author, they too have been transformed -- into the best type of green building evangelists there are. The kind who practices what they preach.

Kathleen O'Brien is Editor of Building Capacity Blog, and contributes monthly to the Daily Journal of Commerce's Green Building Blog. She has been in the sustainable development field for nearly three decades. She provides consulting on special projects for O'Brien & Company, the firm she founded over 20 years ago, and provides leadership training and mentoring through her legacy project: The Emerge Leadership Project. Her book The Northwest Green Home Primer, is popular with both professionals and the public. James Jenkins now works with BNBuilders.

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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