I am going on a tour today of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation building, which the rich environmentalists so ironically call the "Fish Shack." I am going through work- our head of "Vertical Construction" is taking us there on a bus. The Fish Shack tours are so popular that they have a tour guide and they charge money. The building we are going to today is LEED platinum (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a building industry standard for green construction and you get different certification levels depending on how green you are). My old grad school Alma Mater, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara, is also LEED Platinum (also in a sensitive coastal area- how do people get away with this?). I will learn some cool things today and pass them on to you. In the meantime, check out my last post about the Green Building network.
Update: The tour was very well attended by leadership at Frederick County, including a bunch of Directors and Department Heads involved in constructing and maintaining County buildings. It reflected the interest in these folks as well as the Board of County Commissioners' new strategic plan element that calls for LEED certification.
What did I learn? First of all, I learned that CBF was able to build on an existing pool and poolhouse site from an old inn and that is how they were able to have their facility on the beach. Second of all I learned that I would be much more productive and call in sick less often if my office had natural light, windows that open and give fresh air, a large airy cafeteria, and views of the beach from my office. So I highly recommend this for everyone. Third, I learned about a few great applications of green building materials and a few not-so-great. The great and not-so-great (quoted from the CBF website, with my comments in blue):
- Good: Insulation: Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), used as an alternative to conventional framing, require considerably less wood and have a higher R-Value. (The higher the R-value of a material, the better it is at resisting heat loss or heat gain.) The SIPs are used for both walls (R 23.5) and ceiling (R 30), which greatly improves the building's "envelope performance" and reduces energy demands. This stuff can be a little hard to work with. The newer version of these panels allows for conduit to go through where the old ones did not. You get a lot of R-value for the thickness.
- Great: Solar Hot Water Heater: The Merrill Center's solar collector system provides hot water for the building. This renewable energy source minimizes the use of fossil fuel and reduces air pollution. My dad has solar hot water heat for his house and it saves him a ton of money. Solar water heating is efficient because the solar energy can be directly used as heat rather than converted to electrical energy. The more you convert between types of energy, the more energy you lose.
- Reserving Judgment: Photovoltaic Panels: Photovoltaic solar panels convert solar energy directly to electricity to reduce CBF's dependence on commercially generated electricity. These panels only produce about 5% of the energy for the CBF building. Part of the problem is where they are located on the building. These are also an older generation of solar panels. The new ones are a lot more efficient. They may never pay themselves off but they do reduce outrageous amounts of greenhouse gases.
- Don't Know: Ground Source Heat Pump: The Merrill Center uses a ground source heat pump system for heating and air conditioning. Forty-eight wells, each 300 feet deep, utilize the earth's constant temperature as a heat sink in the summer and heat source in the winter. I am a big fan of the idea of geothermal heat. I could not tell from the tour how well this worked in this commercial application. The Liberty Village Cohousing Community in Libertytown has geothermal heat in the houses and they love it. They say it is very comfortable and saves a lot of money.
- Good, Bad, and Reserving Judgment: Cork flooring and wall panels come from cork oak trees. Cork, which is harvested without killing the tree, regenerates in seven to nine years. Bamboo, used for the stairs and flooring in the lobby, can be harvested every three to five years and replenishes itself naturally. Posts, beams, and trusses are made from Parallam--Parallel Strand Lumber, utilizing wood that is usually wasted. I have cork laminate floor in my kitchen and love it. But the cork tiles at CBF looked terrible. I can't tell if it was the material, the installation or the application but it did not work well there. I reserve judgement for now but can tell you that I love the ones in my house. The bamboo seemed to be holding up really well. It was a little dinged up but they only wax the floors twice a year. Plus you can get bamboo now that is stained and does not show marks as much, The Parallam was very cool- a highlight. There were also cementitious fiberboard panels for the exterior of the building that we happen to be using for the Thurmont Library- very cool. The MDF interior trim looked horrible and I suggest using the recycled trim that they sell at every hardware store that is made from recycled polystyrene- not that I love styrofoam, but as long as they make it somebody should recycle it into the building industry's product of the year. Check out the top green building products of 2006 in this link.
- Great: Certified Wood:The wood in this building (decks, plywood, and all dimensional wood) is either certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or drawn from sustainably managed forests. FSC forests are managed to conserve biological diversity, protect endangered species and their habitats, and encourage forest regeneration and succession. The wood is harvested using methods that control erosion and minimize forest damage. To build the Merrill Center, CBF placed the largest single order of certified wood to date. This is a little-known element of LEED certification that a lot of people do not take advantage of.
- Outstanding: Water: The Rainwater Catchment System--roof, gutters, storage tanks, and filters)--reuses rainwater for everything but the kitchen sink and showers and reduces the need to draw from groundwater wells or from municipal water systems. Rainwater is used for fire suppression, hand washing, mop sinks, the desiccant unit make-up, laundry, and gear-washing equipment. This also reduces the amount of water that would flow out of the building and into the Bay, carrying pollutants with it. Altogether, the Merrill Center uses 90% less water than a typical office. The building as a whole uses about 90 gallons per day. THE BUILDING AS A WHOLE. This is amazing. We don't need to use drinking water for all water applications and this building really demonstrates that too.
- Mixed Review: Daylighting: A large expanse of southern glass with exterior shading is balanced by high northern clerestory windows and dormers for an even distribution of daylighting throughout the building. When sunlight is abundant, light sensors and electronic dimmers minimize the use of electric lighting. The building is very bright. The natural light seems excellent and since I love light, this would be a place for me. Because of all of the windows and some shady areas created by the solar panels, parts of this building get really cold in the winter. The building can get very hot in the summer, even with all of the shading. Some of this can be fixed but not all. An office like this requires a culture change.
- Great: Composting toilets: Our composting toilets use no water at all. Human waste is composted naturally to produce topsoil for our landscaping. This saves water and reduces the load on sewage treatment plants that contribute nutrient pollution to the Bay. CBF uses Clivus Multrum toilets. ThorpeWood uses these toilets also. They mulch human waste. Everyone who has them swears they are the greatest things ever. Just don't fall in- it's a long way down. Everyone who has these toilets sounds like a cult member. If there are any problems with them, I doubt anyone will ever tell me. Or maybe they are just that good. They do blow a breeze on your butt.
- Great: Local Materials: The Merrill Center conserves energy and reduces pollution (in this case vehicle fuel), by using local materials. More than half of the materials for this building came from within a radius of 300 miles. Worth looking for.
- Great: Minimal Materials: The Merrill Center design also conserved resources simply by using less materials. The exposed structure is visible because CBF used almost no interior walls and no fancy finishes. This creates a very modern, exposed architecture look.
