Green Options

Since the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 1800’s, there has been an uneasy relationship between good design and mass-production. In recent years, another concern has crept into the dialogue: sustainability. And for most buyers, inexpensive, easily-obtained — and disposable — furniture seems to carry the day.

But Seattle-based furniture design company Meyer Wells is interested in bringing craftsmanship [...]

Last spring, Green Building Elements writer Philip Proefrock called attention to the fact that the building industry has, so far, been slow to marry sustainability with good design.  (See his discussion of Green Architecture Versus Great Architecture.) But in the last several months, it has become increasingly common for LEED certification and other green building performance measures to move away from their headline status and be relegated to the footnotes. This shift is, in fact, a good thing, since it implies that a significant number of new construction projects are simply expected to incorporate sustainable features.
In September, the American Institute of Architects Montana chapter recognized the Bozeman Public Library with an Award of Merit.  According to the jury, “With its grand civic spaces and filtered light, the building celebrates the act of reading. The building honors its context relating to both the town and rugged mountains beyond.” The library fulfills its function as a cultural and civic center for the town of Bozeman partly by leveraging architectural features, as high design has always done.

At 900,000 sq. ft., the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation campus currently under construction in the city of Seattle will be one of Washington’s largest green office campuses. The finished headquarters complex will include two six-story office-buildings and a state-of-the-art visitor center.

Designed by NBBJ and built by Sellen Construction, the campus is targeting LEED Gold. Campus office buildings will include such sustainable features [...]

Another Pacific Northwest city is exploring modular design as an option for supplying affordable, green housing.
The Tacoma Housing Authority (THA) in Tacoma, Washington, is in the conceptual design phase with its 110-unit modular housing community known as Hillsdale Heights. The complex will be located on a 7.3 acre site formerly occupied by the Hillsdale Lumber sawmill; 60 of the units will be low-income rentals, and the remaining 50 will be affordable townhomes. The project was designed by Seattle firm GGLO, who has experience in creating mixed-use, multi-family, sustainable developments.

Green building tours are becoming popular in many cities, and are an excellent means of introducing green construction options to professionals and laypeople alike.

The Cascadia Region Green Building Council will host a tour of green buildings on September 25th, 26th, and 28th in the Victoria, Vancouver, and Okanagan regions of British Columbia. British Columbia is the Canadian province with the most LEED-certified buildings per capita, and Cascadia’s Green Skyline tour [...]

In August, Seattle’s Queen Anne/Magnolia neighborhood Design Review Board approved a proposal for Seattle’s first prefabricated apartment building. Known as “inhabit”, conceptualized by Unico Properties and designed by architectural firms Mithun and HyBrid Seattle, the structure will be comprised of factory-built, wood-frame modular units.

Two of the prototype models were put on display on the base of Unico’s Rainier Tower last fall. But inhabit’s first permanent installation, at Dexter Avenue North (in West Lake Union), will consist of 62 units that will be manufactured in Idaho, shipped to Seattle, and stacked in groups of 3 and 4 atop a concrete base. The base will also accommodate parking and live-work units. Each prefabricated module will be either a 450 sq. ft. studio apartment, or a 525 sq. ft. one-bedroom unit. It is hoped that the first tenants will move in by May.

According to the Washington Post, the United States is currently seeing a dramatic increase in hospital construction. American Hospital Association senior vice president Rick Wade is quoted in the article as saying that we are experiencing the most significant hospital building boom since after World War II. (For discussion of the various social and financial trends that are influencing this boom, as well as its economic ramifications, see the Washington Post article referenced above and Health Beat by Maggie Mahar.)

The Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield, Oregon, which opened in August 2008, features many of the amenities that newer hospitals are becoming known for. The building is over 1,000,000 sq. ft in size, is set amidst 181 riverfront acres, and blends hospitality design with health care design. In fact, the design architect for the building was WATG, a firm that specializes in destination design and hospitality. Anshen+Allen was the architect of record, and focused on health care design.

Across the arctic and subarctic, many native tribes still occupy their traditional lands — but most do so in decidedly non-traditional ways. Western products of every description have been adopted by northern peoples, but one of the products that is least suited to the northern climate has also become one of the most widespread: wood frame housing.

All of the materials necessary to build a wood frame house must be shipped into subarctic regions. Once built, a house in the far north must be able to withstand frequent high winds, and be extremely well insulted. Often, the fuel necessary to heat the home must also be shipped in. With fuel costs spiraling ever upward, the worsening of an already severe housing shortage is causing subarctic communities to explore alternative housing forms.

Author’s Note: While I usually report on green building developments in the Pacific Northwest, today I am examining green building trends in my own geographic region, Southeast Ohio. The architect for the LEED project discussed below is my husband, Don Dispenza.

Nationwide, there are currently more than 12,000 building projects pursuing LEED certification. But in economically depressed regions, there are still only a handful. For example, in Southeast Ohio, defined as an eight-county region in the Appalachian foothills, there are only two registered projects on the USGBC website. In areas such as this, which have a minimal amount of new construction overall, increasing a project’s cost by building green is rarely considered.

An exception is the Chamberlain Office Building in Athens, Ohio. The building’s owner, Russell Chamberlain, is a local real estate agent whose desire to build green stems from his own personal value system, and also from the belief that that investing in LEED certification will differentiate his company as being a progressive one. The project is expected to achieve a LEED Silver rating.

The LEED for New Construction rating system awards a total of 69 points in 6 categories: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Innovation and Design.

The project obtaining the most LEED points (for new construction) has, until recently, been the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center in Wisconsin, which received 61 points. But last week, Phase I of the Dockside Green development in Victoria, British Columbia, set a new point record. (Green Building Elements first covered the Dockside Green project in February.)