INTEGRATED DESIGN PROCESS: 300-level

SESSION 26

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9:00am – Metro 4A

ABSTRACT:

This panel will discuss the ways in which young professionals have affected change in the New York City’s green building industry, and opportunities for future progress.

MODERATOR:

Brittany Grech, Sustainability Coordinator, YRG Sustainability

SPEAKERS:

Eric Deuser, Sustainable Construction Manager, One Bryant Park
Jessica Cooper, Architect, LB Architects
Joel Ndreu, Associate, Jaros, Baum & Bolles
Charles Marino, AKF

DESCRIPTION:

Urban Green Council’s Emerging Professionals represent a coalition of students and young professionals in the New York City area dedicated to promoting the integration of future leaders into the green building movement. They host periodic educational seminars on green building, promote social events to build the Emerging Professionals community, and arrange green building tours in New York City.

With the nonstop growth and interest in the green building industry in recent years, New York’s firms have rapidly evolved towards more sustainable building design, construction and operations. Young professionals are key contributors to this dynamic movement, and have the capacity to influence significant change within their firms, client companies, and industry colleagues. In this session our panelists will share their approach to jump-starting sustainability initiatives within their circles of influence as young professionals. They will also discuss actions and techniques young professionals can employ to spread the green message.

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DYNAMIC INFRASTRUCTURE: 300-level

SESSION 23

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9:00 am – Metro 2A

ABSTRACT:

PlaNYC, New York City’s sustainable growth plan, called for expanding the city’s clean distributed generation capacity by 800 MW. Though a total of 64 MW has been installed over the past three years, the city has a long way to go to reach its 800 MW goal. This presentation will focus on existing and emerging distributed generation strategies at the building and district scale that can contribute to de-carbonizing the City’s utility grid.

MODERATOR:

Kenneth A. Lewis, Director, New York Office, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

SPEAKERS:

Steven Caputo, Policy Adviser, New York City Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability
Florence D. Hudson, Energy & Environment Executive and Cloud Computing Strategist, IBM
Margarett Jolly, Distributed Generation Umbudswoman, Consolidated Edison

DESCRIPTION:

The presentation will begin with a look at 7 World Trade Center as an example of distributed generation technologies utilizing micro-turbines and a using Con Edison steam delivery system to generate electricity on-site. Design implications of distributed renewable energy systems on buildings will be illustrated with introductions of several Center for Architecture Science and Ecology CASE research areas.

The second part of the presentation will describe the critical need for distributed generation to aid in de-carbonization efforts and enhancing reliability, particularly through peak demand reductions. Incorporating distributed generation into She will then describe how distributed generation can be incorporated into Con Edison’s steam network—which is the largest in the country–—will also be discussed, along with and also discuss various incentives for clean distributed generation.

This portion of the session presentation will end with a summary of a range of distributed generation technologies available to design teams including such as Combined Heat and Power Plants (CHP), steam turbines, ice storage, and solar power.

In addition, the third presentation, the Mayor’s Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability will describe the city’s efforts to encourage distributed generation in the context of PlaNYC. The city will discuss its efforts through the Department of Buildings to streamline permitting of co-generation facilities, as well as the creation of Solar Empowerment Zones and a citywide solar map to accelerate the adoption of solar power.

The session will finish with a Florence Hudson of IBM Smart Cities/Smart Buildings will round out the discussion of by highlighting what is possible through a smarter approach to building design and planning, and how can innovation in design can lead the way.

Learning objectives/Questions addressed:

• How can distributed generation be used in a dense urban environment like NYC.
• How can distributed generation be interconnected into existing steam and electric utility grids?
• What incentives and policies exist to encourage clean distributed generation?
• What are the political and policy implications?
• What are the new technologies for distributed generation?
• How can innovative design and planning lead the way?

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HIGH PERFORMANCE CASE STUDIES: 300-level

SESSION 25

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9 am – Metro 2C

ABSTRACT:

A discussion of how energy-efficient systems were selected and integrated into two suburban office buildings designed to achieve LEED Platinum Certification. The SAP Americas project team will focus on the building’s high-performance triple-glazed curtain wall enclosure; the Biogen-Idec project team will discuss the building’s integration of a quarry water cooling system and solar array.

SPEAKERS:

Biogen-Idec Project Team:

Robert Evans, Principal, Evans Heintges Architects
Marie Nolan, Project Manager, The Green Engineer, LLP
Kevin Sheehan, Project Manager – Development, Boston Properties

Sap Americas Project Team:

Isidro Gonzalez, Architectural Design Department Manager, Aluminum Division, Schuco USA
Dan Nall, Director of Sustainability, WSP Flack + Kurtz
Gustavo Rodriquez, Senior Designer, FXFOWLE Architects

DESCRIPTION:

How can two suburban office buildings exceed many sustainable thresholds for energy, siting, water and air quality while still meet the needs and demands of the competitive commercial office market? This panel will present the integrated processes and building systems for two state-of-the-art office headquarters, one located outside of Boston and the other near Philadelphia.

Set on a picturesque site with extraordinary water features, wooded jogging trails and open spaces, Weston Corporate Center is a Class A office building in Weston, Massachusetts that serves as the corporate headquarters of Biogen Idec Inc. Originally committed to a LEED Silver Rating, the project team led by Boston Properties and Evans Heintges went above and beyond to eclipse the Platinum threshold with their construction submission, while avoiding any significant added costs. Beyond the standard LEED criteria, several unique features of the project include an onsite wastewater treatment plant, a state-of-the-art quarry cooling system, and Massachusetts’ largest privately owned ground-mounted solar array that exports 80,000 kwh to the grid annually.

A building’s skin represents a fundamental component of energy efficient design, occupant comfort and biophilia. The desire for a greater connection to the natural environment has resulted in high percentages of clear glazing in buildings, creating a challenge for designers and manufacturers in meeting energy codes and ambitious energy reduction goals set forth in LEED and other metrics. In the design of the SAP Americas headquarters expansion in Newtown Square, PA, the design team confronted and worked to resolve several opposing objectives – How does one design a building enclosure with continuous glazing that maximizes daylight and views, while remaining energy efficient and pursuing LEED Platinum Certification? In this portion of the session, members of the design team – FXFOWLE, WSP Flack+Kurtz, and Schuco USA will discuss the critical role of an integrated team in helping to attain the performance goals for the SAP Americas curtain wall and the overall building. Unlike a traditional enclosure design methodology, the architect, mechanical engineer and curtain wall manufacturer collaborated closely in a design assist process to achieve both aesthetic and performance requirements.

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ADVANCED FAÇADE SYSTEMS

SESSION 21

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9::00am – Altman B

ABSTRACT:

Panel will discuss the technical and energy efficient aspects of the Liquid Wall as an architecturally versatile, systems-integrated, high-performance, unitized building envelope of a type never seen before. Winner of the American Institute of Architects’ Open Call for Innovative Curtain Wall Design, the Liquid Wall is currently in full-scale prototype production.

MODERATOR:

Peter Arbour, Project Manager, RFR Consulting Engineers

SPEAKERS:

Robert Del Vento, Jr., Architectural Project Manager, Coreslab Structures
Mitsu Edwards, Structural Engineer, Project Director, RFR Consulting Engineers
Kelly Henry, Architectural Project Manager, Lafarge North America
Kevin D. Schaefer, Principal, CSArch

DESCRIPTION:

The Liquid Wall derives its name from the three aspects of its innovative design. The first is its fabrication method of concrete casting; the liquid state of poured concrete provides an architectural freedom unprecedented in glazed, unitized curtain wall design. The second is its inherent capacity for form-finding; the initial design, arising from a strict adherence to the structural criteria of a building’s envelope, results in undulating profiles and an aesthetic of “frozen flow.” The third and most important liquid aspect is the actual flow of liquids through the spandrel cassette, which captures solar energy transmitting it to systems for use as radiant heat, domestic hot water production, and dehumidification of ventilation systems.

Each Liquid Wall unit consists of two concrete frames cast in Ductal®, an ultra-high-performance concrete (20,000psi), and martensitic stainless steel tension bars. The panels are assembled using a cast-in, structural, thermal break technology of pultruded glass fiber. Vision panels are of clear triple glazing, maintaining an excellent u-value with a 70% glazed exterior wall.

The panel’s spandrel cassette is similar to an inserted shadowbox. It is a glazed assembly containing a system of tubes set against an energy-absorbing backpan. A non-freezing liquid mixture flows into the system from inside the building. The heated fluid is then recovered from the panels and transferred to one of several possible uses. This simple, passive harvesting of solar radiation energy significantly reduces a building’s fossil fuel energy consumption. The integration of the envelope with the MEP systems provides an economy of means and of construction without additional cost and without compromising the efficiency of the envelope installation process.

The use of ultra-high performance concrete reduces the required material by 90% relative to other precast concrete wall products. The post-fixing of reinforcing armature eliminates the need to extract steel rebar for concrete recycling. The Liquid Wall aims to be a 100% recyclable system, and is expressly designed to avoid the extensive use of typical high-carbon-footprint materials such as aluminium.

Panelists will also discuss the Liquid Wall Prototype, which is being constructed using the direct transfer of 3D computer modelling to CNC milling of pieces that are used to create state-of-the-art flexible molds. The fabrication of molds and of the panels is a repeatable process that can streamline the production of facades covering large surface areas of multiple designs that precisely address the needs of various orientations and solar exposures. All sunshading devices and decorative grillwork can be cast of-a-piece with the structural framing, allowing reduction of the costs and risks of on-site assembly procedures. In addition, the smooth, highly detailable finish of the cast concrete provides endless design possibilities for architects and façade designers, possibilities not seen since the use of cast iron and cast terra cotta, with an integral structure and environmental performance that exceeds the ever more stringent criteria of today’s building envelope.

The functions required by building envelopes remain the same throughout the process of technical innovation. All facades must insulate without thermal bridging; they must provide water and air seals and secondary drainage channels; they must resist the vertical spread of fire; they must be constructed efficiently at an industrial scale; and they must operate reliably without excessive maintenance costs or systemic failure. The Liquid Wall is a system that achieves all of this while tapping into our most universal and dependable source of free energy.

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PROGRESSIVE POLICY & RESEARCH: 300-level

SESSION 22

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9:00am – Altman Gallery

ABSTRACT:

A discussion of different carbon reduction strategies being pursued by New York, other American cities, and the federal government, and how closer coordination between these entities can significantly shrink our carbon footprint.

SPEAKERS:

Laurie Kerr, Senior Policy Advisor, NYC Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability
Cliff Majersik, Executive Director, Institute for Market Transformation

DESCRIPTION:

Many cities have set or would like to set citywide carbon reduction goals, but they lack clear strategic direction.  Since they are unable to estimate the carbon impact of the building-related policies that they are pursuing, it is difficult to know where to begin, how to set priorities, or how to track progress.  A lack of such analytical tools means that they may have thoughtful individual strategies, but no overarching plan that could connect the smaller pieces and create a compelling narrative.  Understanding the scale of impacts from particular code strategies would make the critical difference between traveling by instinct or having a map, and would help policy-makers prioritize which measures are most worth pursuing and which measures are ultimately most worth fighting for.

The first major steps in mitigating climate change are doable now at the scale of a city as large as New York, and they will not just clean our air, but will create jobs and save money.  Necessary ingredients include:

• A clear analytical foundation
• A mix of strategies that includes a focus on existing buildings
• A requirement that the strategies be sustainable – economically beneficial and environmentally sound
• Knowing the impact of these strategies
• Political will

In developing PlaNYC, there was a careful analysis showing that providing cleaner, more reliable power, embarking on cost-effective efficiency efforts, and improving transportation could lead to a 30% citywide carbon emission reduction by 2030.  Now, three-and-a-half years after the publication of PlaNYC, the city’s efforts are very much underway, and appear to be on target.

Laurie Kerr, Senior Policy Advisor in the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, will explain how New York City’s strategies fit together to reach the City’s 30% carbon reduction goal.  She will take the audience through policies already in place like the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, potential future policies such as the passage of Green Codes Task Force proposals, and additional contributions including the repowering of cleaner power plants and other strategies that will collectively shrink the city’s carbon footprint.

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DYNAMIC INFRASTRUCTURE: 300-level

SESSION 27

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9:00am – Metro 4B

ABSTRACT:

A diverse panel presents the Gowanus Green case study, a proposed neighborhood of sustainable mixed-income housing, parks, community facilities, and retail, to illustrate the reclamation of a brownfield site along Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal and the transformation of disused open space into a ‘sustainable’ public amenity.

MODERATOR:

Guido Hartray, Associate, Rogers Marvel Architects

SPEAKERS:

Stephen Whitehouse, Partner, Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners
Sue McCoy, President, Philip Habib & Associates
Andrew Jackson, Project Manager, Hudson Companies
Carter Strickland, Deputy Commissioner for Sustainability, NYC Department of Environmental Protection

DESCRIPTION:

Gowanus Green—a proposed neighborhood of sustainable mixed-income housing, parks, community facilities, and retail – will reclaim a brownfield site along Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. Among New York City waterways, the canal is one of the most severely afflicted by combined sewer overflows (CSOs), yet the brownfield sites along the canal make conventional retention strategies difficult due to the risk of further contamination. The Gowanus Green Master Plan takes this challenge as a starting point to structure the neighborhood’s urban design around biofiltration. This strategy would reestablish the neighborhood’s ecological and recreational connections to the canal as a shared amenity.

PLANYC has identified inland waterways such as the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek as particular challenges in the city’s work to control CSOs. The waterways tend to concentrate a disproportionate share of sewer outfalls with a history of industrial use and contamination, which makes them incompatible with conventional stormwater mitigation strategies. These two characteristics have overlapped in recent years with a growing drive to recover the waterfront for recreational purpose, which makes finding a solution to improve water quality imperative.

Creating public connections to the water and improving its quality are essential. From this dual challenge emerged the Swale Trail, a richly planted rill that forms the backbone of the project, connecting the wider Gowanus neighborhood to the canal and overlaying the structure of the project’s public space with its hydrology. Along the way, it collects water from streets, green roofs, rain gardens and play areas before arriving at Canal Park in a wet meadow Meditation Garden—the last stop before joining the Gowanus Canal.

The design integrates the need for active and passive recreational space of a dense urban neighborhood with the areas required to handle stormwater. Each aspect of the water management plan responds to complex site constraints and public jurisdictional issues. Site engineering will be coordinated with a complex plan for brownfield remediation to be evaluated through the EPA Superfund review process. Site design constraints include underground parking structures and contaminated substrates that limit the desirability of infiltration strategies. The site, presently in public control, will be parceled into private sites, public streets, and public parks. The intended flow of stormwater from private to public lands will require overflow controls and new agency agreements.

The outdoor spaces of Gowanus Green will comply with newly revised design standards of New York City’s Waterfront Zoning. Accessible from three entrances, Canal Park will be a 1.6-acre city-owned space, featuring an undulating lawn, a waterfront esplanade, an outdoor amphitheatre and a series of native woodland and meadow gardens. These landscapes are framed by residential buildings with a ground floor gallery, restaurant and community center opening onto expansive terraces with flowering trees and ample seating. The dynamic relationship of the ground floor uses and the parkland contribute to an engaging, active public space.

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HIGH PERFORMANCE CASE STUDIES: 300-level

SESSION 24

DATE // START TIME // ROOM NUMBER:

Thursday, September 30, 2010 – 9:00am – Metro 2B

ABSTRACT:

Four unique case studies explore the challenges of managing the requirements of historic preservation and the sustainability goals of LEED:

• Lion House at the Bronx Zoo
• International Toy Center, New York
• McCarren Pool, Brooklyn
• J.W. McCormack Courthouse and Post Office Building, Boston

MODERATOR:

Gwen Kilvert, Assistant Director for Sustainability & Energy Management, The New School

SPEAKERS:

Sylvia Smith, Senior Partner, FXFOWLE Architects
David Burns, Partner, STUDIOS architecture
Scott Demel, Associate, Rogers Marvel Architects
Lisa Howe, Director of Preservation, Goody Clancy

DESCRIPTION:

The practice of historic preservation has been recognized for several decades in the United States as a notable contributor to the built environment and cultural heritage. Individual buildings or entire campuses and neighborhoods have received local or national landmark designation. Work at those properties is then gauged against the requirements of local and federal regulations and review, and the guidelines of the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation.

Over the past ten years, the LEED system has established itself as a primary reference metric for sustainable building design and construction practice. An owner’s independent decision, an organization’s attitude towards property management and operation, or a government policy can all be factors in determining the implementation of LEED, Do the requirements of historic preservation and the sustainability goals of LEED occur separately throughout a project, or are the benefits of one recognized and accommodated by the other?

This panel will present four projects notable for both preservation and sustainability goals. For each, the project parameters and strategies will be outlined, along with an overview of the LEED goals and the contribution of preservation work towards LEED points. The projects are:

1) Lion House at the Bronx Zoo

Originally designed by Heins & LaFarge in 1903, the Lion House is an historic landmark on Astor Court at the center of the Bronx Zoo. The rehabilitation and repurposing of the Beaux Arts building integrated the principles of sustainable design with landmark requirements. The Lion House was the first New York City landmark to receive LEED Gold Certification.

2) International Toy Center

In 2009, 200 Fifth Avenue was restored as a landmark one hundred years after its doors first opened. Facing New York’s historic Madison Square Park, this fourteen-story commercial building was underused and underappreciated for decades. Today, through a combination of vision and stewardship, 200 Fifth Avenue has once again taken its place among the great commercial buildings of New York City.

3) McCarren Pool and Bathhouse

Constructed during a WPA program and opened in 1936, the renovation by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is currently in construction with a $50 million capital investment to rehabilitate this Brooklyn pool and adapt the original bathhouse into a year-round community facility. The building and site is a New York City Landmark and is targeted for LEED Silver certification, as required by Local Law 86, New York City’s Green Building Ordinance.

4) J.W. McCormack Courthouse and Post Office Building

The renovation of the historic 1930′s John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse at Post Office Square in Boston was completed in 2009, under the auspices of the GSA Public Buildings Service’s Design Excellence Program. The $136 million renovation re-established the elegance and functionality of the 600,000sf, 22-story building. A Local Landmark in the City of Boston and eligible for the National Register, the building is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification, exceeding the GSA requirement of LEED Silver.

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