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Flower Power: The Phipps Conservatory’s New Center for Sustainable Landscapes

Posted in Gardens, Green Buildings, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials on 04/09/2013 | Leave a Comment »

Heralded as one of the Earth’s greenest buildings, the Center for Sustainable Landscapes (CSL) is the latest addition to the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Housed in a Victorian-era glasshouse presented to the city by industrialist Henry Phipps in 1893, the gardens have always strived to lead the country in “green gardening.” Since transforming into a non-profit, Phipps has also been dedicated to building sustainable facilities, including the first LEED-certified visitor center in a public garden; a new tropical forest conservatory, which is the most energy efficient in the world; and the first production greenhouses to be LEED certified, achieving the highest rating of Platinum. Richard V. Piacentini, the Executive Director of Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, recently visited New York City to discuss the garden’s role in the future of sustainable architecture and living.

The primary drive behind the Center for Sustainable Landscapes, as Piacentini puts it, is to function “as elegantly and efficiently as a flower.” While the merits of this approach can be questioned, the pure essentials of this poetic gesture are there. The building serves to use every drop of water that lands on its surface and is technically constructed to physically react to various elements of nature. Phipps decided to pursue all three of the highest green architecture and landscape standards: the Living Building Challenge, LEED Platinum, and Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) 4-star certification. Meeting these standards is “extremely intense,” as Piacentini put it, but is part of the “Phipps philosophy” that he feels is necessary to retain Phipps’ reputation as stewards of the earth.

The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, advocacy tool, and certification program that addresses development at all scales. The seven performance areas are comprised Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity and Beauty. These goals, as well as those laid out by SITES and LEED were mainly met in conjunction with one another. The CSL is designed to interact with its surroundings as a vital part of its daily operation. As one of the original 150 pilot projects of SITES, it features a “restorative landscape, highlighting native plants and a permaculture demonstration rooftop garden.” Other site features include a stormwater lagoon, a solar powered water distillation system, five rain gardens, porous paving and constructed wetlands that use plants and natural processes to clean wastewater.

Some 14 geothermal wells, earth tubes, locally sourced material and solar orientation are just a handful of the features that make this construction so well executed. However, in obtaining points for LEED certification, Piacentini was not satisfied with simply scoring. After having discussed the virtues of the CSL, Piacentini nearly forgot to add one of his most proud achievements of the project. In line with the idea of locally sourced materials, Phipps decided that all of the labor, design, and execution would come from locally sourced talent. Phipps looked within Pennsylvania to select the lead design team. The architect, the Design Alliance, is from Pittsburgh and the landscape architect, Andropogon Associates, hails from Philadelphia.

After the selection of local horticulturists, permaculturists, engineers, contractors and architects, a number of design charettes ensued with representatives of the Phipps organization. The idea of the charettes was to produce a dialogue among the talented pool of professionals selected to work on the project. The result: today, the CSL offers demonstration gardens, environmental education, interpretive signage, interactive kiosks, a green gallery, classrooms, and various outdoor environs for visitors and staff to enjoy. These ideas were products of the early discussions between the designers and, according to Piacentini, are at the “core of [the Phipps] philosophy.”

“A facilitated, integrative design approach” is how Phipps approaches the challenges of building in today’s environment. “The CSL is the ultimate expression of our systems-based way of thinking and acting, to blur the lines between the built and natural environments.”

This guest post is by Tyler Silvestro, a master’s of landscape architecture candidate at the City College of New York (CUNY) and writer for The Architect’s Newspaper.

Image credits: Phipps Center for Sustainable Landscapes / Alexander Denmarsh Photography

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Scaling up Systems to Make Cities More Sustainable

Posted in Green Buildings, Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Design, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management on 02/27/2013 | Leave a Comment »

At the Innovative Metropolis conference organized by the Brookings Institution and Washington University in St. Louis, cutting-edge designers and policymakers explained how some cities can use a systems-based approach to become more sustainable. Gordon Gill, principal, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture; Johanna Kirkinen, SITRA – Finnish Innovation Fund; Fabio Mariz Gonclaves, Professor of Landscape and Urban Design, University of Sao Paulo; and Erik Olssen, Transsolar, covered how this can work in Chicago, USA; Helsinki, Finland; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Masdar, United Arab Emirates.

Gordon Gill, an architect, is pretty famous now in urban design circles for his ambitious decarbonization plan for Chicago. The plan was inspired by Ed Mazria’s Architecture 2030 effort, which calls for buildings to be carbon neutral by that date. But it turns out the bold plan, which covers the entire Chicago loop, also had small beginnings. He and his firm were working on making a building in the loop more energy efficient. They discovered that a redesign could yield some 60 MW of energy savings per year. But the question became, “What is that saving worth?” How could the benefits be tapped? Gill found that scaling up savings into an entire “ecosystem,” so that buildings could leverage each other’s savings, was the way to go.

He assembled a group of 25 designers who surveyed the energy use and performance of all the 450 big buildings in the loop. Buildings went through thermal energy readings. “We looked at all the details.” A 280-page document was created with the Chicago city government (for which Gill also won an ASLA Professional Analysis and Planning Design Award) that found that “there are no linear patterns for a building’s energy behavior. The interconnectedness of the buildings were more critical than the age or height or other characteristic of a building.” Transit, building use, walkability — the broader human systems running through the buildings — had much more impact. For example, “if we increase density by 50 percent, we could reduce energy use by 20 percent.”

Gill added that it’s not just about engineering solutions, it’s also about improving the quality of life for the people living and working in these buildings. “We could just build a wind farm and take the loop off the grid, but that doesn’t deal with the design challenges.”

Surprisingly, Helsinki doesn’t sound like it’s way far ahead of some of the most forward-thinking U.S. cities. Kirkinen said Finlanders have about the same carbon footprint as Americans given they drive a lot and use a lot of energy to heat buildings in winter. Her group, an independent sustainability research and innovation fund set up by the government (why doesn’t the U.S. have one of those?), is interested in pushing Finland beyond “energy efficiency to resource efficiency.” Sustainable well-being is defined as meeting “social, economic, and ecological” needs. Finland is taking a “systems-approach” to group energy efficient buildings into communities.

Her group is financing new approaches to “sustainable master planning that create sustainable lifestyles.” These communities would use 1/3 less energy. An international competition yielded some new ideas for these places that would capitalize on the country’s untapped wood resources. The result: new energy efficient buildings will now be made of local wood in a few pilot districts, with 7,000 wood apartments coming online. “We of course had to change the fire codes,” noted Kirkinen.

These communities of apartments will also incorporate solar power and community activities like urban farming and flea markets. Kirkinen said, “we have to take a comprehensive approach and deal with food, community, energy, and health together.”

Unlike Chicago or Helsinki, Sao Paulo has the hard problems facing many large developing world cities. “We have troubles with ecology, biodiversity, in an era of untrammeled growth,” said Gonclaves, a landscape architect and educator. He’s focused on what public universities can do to address these challenges — creating a human system or network to find new ways to do more environmentally-sensitive growth. Sao Paulo, as was discussed in a previous session, is sprawling out, with new rich gated communities or poor favelas or slums taking over parks and building right up to the edge of its water reservoirs. Incredible traffic is one result. So is incredible inequality.

Gonclaves said there are hundreds of universities offering architecture degrees in Brazil, but just one — the University of Sao Paulo — offering landscape architecture and urban design degrees. As a result, “Brazilians can’t talk deeply about ecology and landscape.” To remedy this, Gonclaves said his university has formed a network of landscape and urban design professionals across Sao Paulo and other cities in Brazil. He says his university is the only one doing this.

Sao Paulo is the currently the 4th greatest recipient of investment worldwide. “So many people are putting money in the city.” On top of all this investment, there are tons of new cars, which means more roads are being built. The result is a complete degradation of the stormwater management infrastructure. Remaining parks now close often because of flooding.

On top of this, many landscape architects working in Brazil are focusing on “closed, gated communities,” where there’s design work. “Design magazines all highlight the landscapes and buildings of gated communities.”

Gonclaves has set up 30 workshops, with the goal of creating “local solutions” in Sao Paulo and other cities. This is because “cities have very different issues.” He’s involving both private and public universities in the mix. To date, “private universities have been focused on selling diplomas and no research.” In contrast, “public universities are doing research but don’t want to deal with real estate.” He said “both approaches are wrong. We have to reconcile and produce good professionals who address public policy issues.”

While the designers mentioned above seek to overlay more environmentally sustainable systems on existing cities, there’s one that was designed from scratch using a systems-based approach: Sir Norman Foster’s Masdar in United Arab Emirates. The city, said Olssen, is designed to be a “carbon neutral, livable community out in the desert.” Interestingly, Olssen added that Masdar uses ancient Arabic city-making techniques but just updates them with modern technologies.

To create a livable environment, streets were purposefully kept narrow to keep sunlight off streets, like an old bazaar. Because the wind tops 100 degrees in the shade, wind was also designed to be kept out during the day, but maximized at night, when it’s cooler.

Masdar, interestingly, has a “reverse urban heat island effect”; it’s actually cooler in the city than the desert outside of it. The entire city will use 80 percent less energy than a comparable community in Abu Dhabi. Solar systems are embedded into all the buildings, while external shading systems are built into the external walls.

This is “district energy at all scales plus photovaltaic,” said Olssen. Now, the goal is to “apply the lessons of Masdar to other cities.” Already, Oman, Boston, Toronto, Dallas, are looking at how to use Transsolar’s systems in a “whole block or community.” Systems are configured based on “access to wind, solar, daylight, and the unique urban form.”

Image credits: (1-2) Chicago Decarbonization Plan / Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, (3) Pilot wooden buildings / SITRA, (3) Housing in a ravine. Sao Paulo / Urban Omnibus, (4) Reserva Granja Julieta gated community, Sao Paulo / Tishman Speyer, (5) Masdar / Copyright Foster + Partners, (6) Masdar building screens / Footprint blog.

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D.C. Wants to Be the Greenest City in the U.S.

Posted in Education, Environment, Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Policy and Regulation, Renewable Energy, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management on 02/20/2013 | Leave a Comment »

At the Old Capitol Pump House, a restored building along the Anacostia River, Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray announced the launch of the long-awaited Sustainable D.C. plan. The result of an amazing public outreach process that involved over 400 local green experts, more than 180 public meetings in front of 5,000 people, and 15 D.C. government departments and agencies, the plan is an attempt to make “D.C. the greenest, healthiest, and most livable city in the U.S.” by 2032.

Gray said D.C. is already a model for other cities. “We are what many cities hope to become.” For example, the district apparently already leads the nation in the number of green, healthy buildings, or LEED buildings, per capita. New schools must now reach the LEED Gold standard. But even more green buildings now seems to be the goal: the district has signed on to the National Better Buildings challenge, aiming for 20 percent energy efficiency improvements across all buildings by 2020. And they may be moving faster, getting 20 million square feet greener in 20 months. With the Sustainable DC Act of 2012 now signed into law, a new Property Assessment Clean Energy (PACE) program is underway, aimed at improving financing opportunities for greening commercial and multi-family housing.

The district wants to be greener looking, too (literally). There’s an accelerated tree planting campaign, with 6,400 slated to be planted this season alone. The goal is a 40 percent tree canopy, which would put D.C. in the top tier of major cities worldwide. Beyond trees, the city is implementing “high standard stormwater infrastructure investments.” For example, “we are now building more green roofs than anyone,” with 1.5 million square feet now in place. Green streets, like the first green alley built in Ward 7, are also being rolled out, with more potentially coming soon in Chinatown. Green infrastructure technologies may get a local boost, too, with the $4.5 million that has been dedicated to “innovative pilot projects.”

The district already has the biggest bike share network in the U.S., but “this may not be the case for long, as other cities are catching up.” The D.C. government now purchases 100 percent renewable energy. We have become a “number-one U.S. E.P.A. green power community.” All of this action has led to a 12 percent reduction in green house gas emissions over the past year.

Gray seemed to stress, however, that going green can’t just be the agenda of educated, liberal, white environmentalists. The diverse, multi-ethnic crowd seemed to underpin this point. “We need to focus on jobs, health, equity and diversity, and the climate.” So part of making D.C. more sustainable will involve “expanding access to affordable housing and economic development opportunities” for all, so that “we have one city.” Gray said: “We can’t push people out.”

The actual plan offers some 32 goals, 31 targets, and more than 140 proposed actions. Some goals are quite bold, like “a fishable, swimmable Anacostia River in a generation.” The Anacostia is currently one of the filthiest rivers in the U.S. Other goals: implement a zero-waste plan, with a 80 percent landfill diversion rate. Expand urban agriculture, with 20 more acres of land growing food, so that 75 percent of residents are within 1/4 mile of healthy, local produce. The city wants 1,000 new local renewable energy projects, with a dedicated wind farm for D.C. government operations.

Gray said “this is about nothing short than winning the future.” For a mayor still under federal investigation, Sustainable DC offers a positive way forward and certainly paints the city in a progressive light. As the mayor said, “who would have thought 10 years ago that we would have the biggest bike share network, 100 percent renewable energy for the district government, and 400 local people involved in crafting a new vision.”

But, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Pointed questions from the media at the launch event asked whether the mayor and city council will actually put the funds and government personnel behind this bold plan to “change our society.” In a telling comment, Gray said the District will need to wait to hear the results of the debate in Congress on “sequestration,” which could potentially result in billions being cut from the federal budget. Much of the district economy depends on federal government spending, which is why the mayor said the city must “diversify” into new sectors in his recent state of the district speech. In fact, much of the resurgence of the district in the past few years can be attributed to the new federal money pumped into the district (see a great New York Times article on this).

Perhaps Gray’s broader case is that Sustainable DC will help the district’s economy and people become more resilient to economic, environmental, and social shocks, and diversify into greener industries. This seems like smart local leadership that goes beyond the vagaries of federal spending. Grey also made a point of saying regardless of who is mayor in the future, the plan “reflects the interests of our community.” The plan goes beyond the mayor.

Still, it will be up to the D.C. government, private sector, and non-profit organizations to implement the plan at a very high standard. The race is on, considering many other top-tier cities have similar goals.

Read the Sustainable DC plan and also check out Becoming Greenest: Recommendations for a Sustainable D.C., ASLA’s 30-page report produced last year, which seems to have at least inspired a few of the District’s targets and actions.

Image credit: Diamond Teague Park, Washington D.C. Landscape Architecture Bureau /Allen Russ

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The Home of the Future Is Now a Reality

Posted in Ecosystem Services, Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Sustainable Design, Water Management on 12/06/2012 | 2 Comments »

Lakiya Culley, an administrative assistant at the U.S. State Department and mother of three, just moved into one of the most innovative, energy-efficient houses in the U.S. In Deanwood, a working class, primarily African-American neighborhood of Washington, D.C. that has recently struggled with foreclosures, Culley is now the proud owner of Empowerhouse, a home designed using “passive house” technologies by students at the New School and Stevens Institute of Technology. The home wasn’t just built from scratch though: it came out of the Solar Decathlon design competition, which was held on the National Mall in 2011. Developed in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, the house marks “the first time in the Solar Decathlon’s history” that a team partnered with civic and government organizations to make a house a reality in the District.

After some criticism that Solar Decathlon homes were getting out-of-control-pricey to build and therefore weren’t realistic real-world models, the organizers added a “affordability” category in which teams could earn points. Empowerhouse scored really high in that category in comparison with a home from Germany, which cost upwards of $2 million. In fact, according to a spokesperson at New School, each unit of the actual Empowerhouse in Deanwood (there are two apartments in the mini-complex) cost just $250,000, making it affordable in that neighborhood. The model has been such a hit that six more are being planned for Ivy City, another inner-city neighborhood in the District.

This “net-zero” home itself is a marvel. The home produces all its own energy needs and consumes 90 percent less energy for heating and cooling than the conventional home. The bright, bold exterior lights up the whole block.

But the fine exterior and healthy, light-filled interior built out of sustainable, recycled materials shouldn’t distract from the great landscape architecture components, which were integrated into the project from the beginning, said Professor Laura Briggs, faculty lead of the project, at the New School. As Briggs explained, the home is designed to capture all rainwater that hits it and surrounding homes.

Each unit has terraces with green roofs and small plots for urban agriculture that are designed to capture some water.

In the rear of the building is a rain garden that captures any rainwater that escapes from the roof gardens. On top of that, each unit has its own underground cistern, where rainwater is collected and then used to water the property.

The integrated system also synchs up with the front and sides of the home. There’s the District’s first residential green street, a deep trough filled with dirt and plants designed to soak up street runoff and deal with the oily pollutants that the runoff collects on streets.

At the sides of the house, the parking space is actually made up permeable pavers that allow stormwater to sink into the underlying soils.

In terms of social sustainability, the piece so often left out of the puzzle, both the homes and landscape were co-designed with the community. Students met with community members, local organizations, and Culley, the owner, in a series of design charrettes. The result of all that outreach and collaboration will be more projects in the neighborhood, including a new community “learning garden.”

The project then is not only a powerful model for how to bring sustainable, affordable, community-based housing to the District, but also how to create real stormwater management solutions that address the truly local environmental problems: the heavy runoff that impacts the already polluted rivers.

Another benefit of the project worth noting: Habitat for Humanity now knows how to build out these passive house homes in a low-cost way.

While the house was built by volunteers from Habitat for Humanity, all of the landscape work was done with a few amazing local organizations: Groundwork Anacostia and D.C. Greenworks.

Image credits:(1) Lakiya Cullen and sons / Martin Seck, (2) Empowerhouse / Martin Seck, (3) Roof terrace / Sarah Garrity, (4) Rain Garden / Ashley Hartzell, (5) Green Street / Ashley Hartzell, (6) Permeable Pavers / Ashley Hartzell

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A New Park Where There Was Once a Canal

Posted in Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Landscape Architecture, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management on 12/04/2012 | 6 Comments »

Washington, D.C.’s Navy Yard has undergone an unbelievable transformation in the past few years. What was once an isolated naval base and seedy area made up of industrial buildings and strip clubs has become home to a real neighborhood — a mixed-use mecca composed of a new headquarters for the U.S. Department of Transportation and a residential and commercial complex, which is also a LEED-Neighborhood Development (ND) Gold project. The new complex, which is called the Yards, features a great new riverfront park by M. Paul Friedberg and innovative green streets by AECOM. These amenities are near a super-sustainable boat pier by local D.C. landscape architecture firm Landscape Architecture Bureau (LAB). Now, the neighborhood, which has seen an influx of upwardly-mobile urbanites, has the new “Canal Park,” a model neighborhood park by landscape architecture firm OLIN and architecture firm STUDIOS that has transformed a three-block brownfield into a simple yet enchanting space.

In recent years, the space was a drain on the neighborhood, a parking lot for buses. But way back when — before it was paved over in the 1870s — the place was part of the historic Washington City Canal, which connected the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers. According to OLIN, the new $20 million park is meant to evoke that historic waterway, with a “linear rain garden reminiscent of the canal, and three pavilions, which recall floating barges that were once common.”

Achieving the clear simplicity of the park clearly took a lot of effort. Lining the long, narrow park are lots of space for lounging on nice lawns, metal kinetic-feeling sculptures by David Hess, curved benches, and, in winter, an ice-skating rink.

The rink area is flanked by a cafe covered in publicly accessible green roof. The green roof features what must be a first: signs letting people know to curb their dogs around the sedum.

Underlying the space are some complex green infrastructure systems that help this place give back to the neighborhood on the environmental front. “Contaminated soils were replaced with a healthy growing medium and the native plant habitat was re-introduced.” A linear rain garden, which runs the length of the park, has signs saying “Water is reclaimed and recycled,” helping to explain its role to the visiting public. The rain gardens work together with deep tree pits and underground cisterns to collect, manage, and treat “almost all stormwater runoff on site” and from the neighboring blocks, some 1.5 million gallons of water each year. Treated, recycled water collected in the park is used to “satisfy up to 95 percent of the park’s water needs for fountains, irrigation, toilets and the ice skating path.”

Also, this truly-green park has 28 geothermal wells underground to provide a “highly-efficient energy supply for park utilities,” reducing park energy use by 37 percent. And the park is there to provide sustainable transport solutions for the broader neighborhood, too: it features the first electric vehicle charging stations this blogger has ever seen in person. Two stations with spaces for four cars (we think) can be accessed with a swipe of a credit card.

The wood structures in the park, which were designed by STUDIOS, feature “reclaimed and sustainably harvested wood from black locust trees.” Black Locust is a great alternative to unsustainable rainforest hardwoods like Ipe. The use of this wood in these pavilions is an excellent development really worth applauding.

Additional clear-plastic pavilions scattered at the edges of the park are opaque and both there and not there. They are apparently interactive “light cubes” that can display art and photography.

OLIN says programming will be ramped up to really maximize use of the new park. “The Canal Park Development Association, in partnership with the Capital Riverfront Business Improvement District, will host numerous events throughout the year, such as movies and concerts, holiday and seasonal festivals, farmers markets, art expositions, educational and environmental programming, storytelling events, and more.” The neighborhood clearly benefits.

Image credits: (1-3) OLIN, (4-5) Phil Stamper / ASLA, (6-7) OLIN

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Governor “Moonbeam” Takes on His Critics at Greenbuild

Posted in Green Buildings, Policy and Regulation, Sustainable Materials on 11/26/2012 | 1 Comment »

California Governor Jerry Brown, aka Governor “Moonbeam,” took on his many critics at the 2012 Greenbuild in San Francisco, saying the people who originally called him that are “no longer around, while I still am.” To huge laughs, he said “apparently, moonbeams have more durability than other beings.” In a rousing speech designed to rally the green building community, Brown walked the crowd through his profound “eco” philosophy, while also laying out a path for attacking climate change in California and across the U.S.

In ancient Greek, Brown said “eco” means house. As an example, “economy” means “rules of the house.” “Logos” means “lord, god, or the deep principles or patterns of nature.” So ecologos or “ecology is the bigger house we all live in – the environment. It’s more fundamental than economics. Economics sits within ecology. Not the other way around. This means through our economy, we can’t repeal the laws of nature.” Furthermore, humanity “can’t mock the laws of nature or thumb our noses at the climatic system. We have to learn to work with nature.”

Unfortunately, the reality is that climate change is the “least important item on the agenda.” Climate change gets some lip service from politicians, but is still seen as a “little too out there” so politicians focus on the day-to-day issues of “crime, taxes, jobs, roads.”

The only positive trend may be that “we know far more than we did 50 years ago about the climate.” With Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, which launched the modern environmental movement, and the Earth Summit, the 1992 UN conference in Rio, which effectively launched the sustainability movement, “there has been progress.” Today, scientific academies all around the world have independently expressed themselves on the climate, saying that “long-term, there are irreversible consequences.” The Union of Concerned Scientists even recently wrote a letter, a “warning to humanity,” saying that “people are on a collision course with nature.”

In California, Brown has pursued an ambitious agenda, which builds on a legacy of environmental action. Under Brown’s first term as governor, California was the first state to create fuel efficiency standards for appliances, leading the charge across the U.S. Now, the state has the only functioning cap and trade system for reducing carbon emissions in the union. As part of this effort, California is now quantifying greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and moving down the emissions quotas each year. “Year after year, this has required a collaboration among powerful forces.”

Today, California also has the most number of green buildings in the U.S., two times more than Texas, its nearest competitor. The state is also putting “more investment into renewable energy than anyone else. We are not waiting.” Still, Brown wants to go further: “We we need to get to zero-net energy buildings across the state. We need to get to a surplus of energy.” The state is now aiming for all residential buildings to be zero-net by 2020, and all commercial buildings to reach that goal by 2050. In addition to achieving net-zero buildings, Brown wants all of these buildings to be healthy. “People want healthy buildings — they want indoor spaces to be as healthy as outdoors.”

To move forward the effort to make indoor spaces healthier, Scott Horst, senior vice president at the U.S. Green Building Council and the man in charge of LEED, said the upcoming LEED version 4 will be moving forward with a controversial effort to provide credits for those buildings that “disclose chemicals in materials.” The effort, apparently, created “blow back” by groups aligned with some chemical and building product manufacturers. The result was an onslaught of letters from Senators and Congressional representatives “threatening that the federal government and state governments would stop using LEED as a rating system and benchmark.” Comparing USGBC’s efforts to Rachel Carson’s efforts to end the use of DDT, the chemicals in sprayed agricultural fertilizers, Horst said the backlash reflected “old patterns of industry versus the environmental movement.” Horst said “we can’t have an us versus them approach. We have to have business at the table.”

As William McDonough, one of the world’s leading thinkers on materials and ecology, showed, at least some businesses have gotten the message and are joining commercial and environmental goals. Announcing the official launch of his Cradle to Cradle (C2C) rating system, which “assesses a product’s safety to humans and the environment and design for future life cycles,” McDonough brought out a number of leading building product manufacturers to talk about how they use C2C, a “fulcrum for change,” to do business differently now, more in tune with the environment. The overall goals: to treat “materials as nutrients” and use these materials to achieve targets related to “revitalization, renewable energy, water stewardship and breaking social barriers.”

McDonough said his C2C approach is critical because “there are now 2,500 chemicals in mothers’ milk.” He asked, “is this our intention, to poison each other? How about the intention to improve our shared health and well-being?” The movement for healthier materials is “fundamentally a question of social justice. Do we want to tyrannize the next generation?”

Image credit: Governor Jerry Brown / Wikipedia

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Cities Advance on Climate Change

Posted in Climate Change, Green Buildings, Policy and Regulation on 11/21/2012 | 1 Comment »

According to a panel of environmental officials from some of the most sustainable cities in the world, cities make up 2 percent of the world’s landmass, but account for two-thirds of the world’s energy and 70 percent of the carbon emissions. As a result, mayors play a central role in alleviating the climate crisis and leading the world to more sustainable patterns of development. In a session at the 2012 Greenbuild in San Francisco, officials from member cities of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group — Vancouver, Melbourne, San Francisco, Tokyo — discussed how their cities are taking action now to deal with climate change, reduce energy use, and make the built environment greener.

Rohit Aggarwala, advisor to the C40 group, said a majority of the 63 cities that make up the C40 group “want to focus on green buildings.” These mayors want to “encourage green building retrofits now.” Aggarwala added that mayors, who are “managers, and by nature impatient,” are looking for “smart, pragmatic solutions.”

Sadhu Johnston, City of Vancouver (and former chief sustainability officer for Chicago), said his city’s population has grown 27 percent and jobs have grown 18 percent since 1990. However, during the same time frame, carbon levels have been reduced. “At 4.6 tons of carbon per person per year, we have the lowest emissions per capita in North America.” Vancouver’s success is in part due to programs that capture landfill gas for energy, expand public transit, and build mixed-use communities. Johnston said there has also been a focus on increasing density downtown: “There’s been a 75 percent increase in people downtown.” The city has seen a 48 percent increase in LEED-certified buildings, and now there’s now a minimum LEED gold certification level for new buildings.

Still, the big challenge is to reduce carbon emissions by 33 percent by 2020, which isn’t far off. How can the city do this? Johnston says LEED-Neighborhood Development (ND) Platinum “districts” have acted as a key catalyst, leading to a new energy system based off old infrastructure. These new super-sustainable districts are now ”connected to the sewer mains” where they capture heat from the existing legacy system. “The idea is to reuse waste heat and reuse the legacy steam systems of the city.” The private-owned systems are now being connected to more and more developments. Indeed, new developments have to make a connection, while older developments can make one on a voluntary basis. Johnston said a key to the program’s success was that the Vancouver city government tested it first. “You have to lead by example. You have to do this before telling the private sector to do it. Running your own utility system, you find the issues first.”

For Krista Milne, City of Melbourne, getting to carbon neutral by 2020 will be a challenge because the city doesn’t have the power to limit carbon emissions from all sources. The city government also has to deal with the state and national governments. In Melbourne, 53 percent of emissions come from buildings, so retrofitting buildings is a key goal. Over the next 10 years, the city aims to revamp 1,200 buildings. This is expected to require some $2 billion in investment. But the program is expected to create some 8,000 new jobs.

Milne said the city has discovered an “information barrier – the business case for private property owners isn’t clear.” Banks also thought fnancing for these building retrofits was risky given many of these buildings already have large mortgages. So the city council recently created a new scheme for “environmental upgrade financing” that enables financiers to off-set the risks. Essentially, the city guarantees that the financing will be paid back, which lowers the cost of financing. Property owners are also now allowed to pass on some of the costs of upgrading buildings to tenants, as “they benefit too.”

To date, some $5.6 million in deals have been made. Just 2-3 years into the 10 year program, Milne said some 10 percent of the goals have been accomplished. But the most valuable impact may be that the governments of Sydney and New South Wales are now following Melbourne’s model. Another big push will focus on “decarbonizing the energy supply,” in the same way Vancouver has.

San Francisco has an equally as ambitious program, befitting its status as the greenest city in North America (see earlier post). This hub of new technology development on the west coast seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2017 and 80 percent by 2050. A key target in its program is greening buildings, which account for 53 percent of all emissions. The city’s new “world class green building policy,” said Melanie Nutter, San Francisco Department of the Environment, means “all new buildings will be LEED gold.” Nutter also said the “existing green building ordinances” mean property owners have to “report energy use to the city every year and audit their energy systems every 5 years.” This “transparency helps inspire the use of retrofits.” The city has a retrofit financing policy, too.

Nutter focused most of her talk on the city’s innovative zero-waste policy, which is truly one of the most ambitious in the world. Currently, the city has a 80 percent diversion rate — which means that 80 percent of trash is not going to landfill, but is being turned into compost or recycled. The city has partnered with a set of private firms to implement its programs but new policies and regulations have also helped. Plastic bags and styrofoam containers have been totally banned. All retailers have to participate in mandatory “composting and recycling programs.” Small and medium businesses now get “financial incentives” to improve their compliance with composting and recycling measures. “They can offset their garbage bills by 70 percent.” Some 65 percent of building demolition waste is also now diverted from landfills. To reach a 100 percent total diversion rate, the city needs to improve its compliance rate, Nutter said.

In Tokyo, Teruyuki Ohno, Bureau of Environment, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, said a new cap and trade system has been used to encourage the growth of green buildings. The building sector there accounts for some 48 percent of total emissions. Under the city’s cap and trade system, a 6-8 percent reduction in emissions is required by 2014, and another 17 percent of reductions are needed by 2019. Some 1,300 buildings are also now being targeted for retrofits.

Tokyo now has a mandatory reporting system. Ohno said the system was voluntary in the past, but that proved not to be enough. So reductions — and the reporting needed to measure real reductions — are now required. “A reporting foundation was necessary. You need data.”

Image credit: ASLA 2011 Student Collaboration Award of Excellence. Plant Lab / Rockne Hanish, Ileana Acevedo and Chris DeHenzel

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USGBC’s Fedrizzi Takes Aim at Detractors: “We Are Right”

Posted in Active Design, Climate Change, Education, Green Buildings, Policy and Regulation on 11/14/2012 | 1 Comment »

In a full-frontal attack on the “so called journalists” behind a recent USA Today investigative report, which called into question the effectiveness and integrity of the U.S. Green Building Council, along with other “cynics, scoundrels, and detractors,” Rick Fedrizzi, founder and president of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) argued that the green building movement is “right” at the opening of the 2012 Greenbuild conference in San Francisco . Comparing the green building movement to the movement for human rights, women’s pursuit of the right to vote, equal rights for African Americans, and marriage equality for gay Americans, Fedrizzi argued that “LEED [its rating system] is not perfect but evolutionary by design.” He also stated that “no one can deny that the built environment is far more healthy and hospitable than it was 20 years ago.”

Fedrizzi asked, “so you can’t wear a business suit and be an environmentalist at the same time?” USGBC members can “do their core businesses – green buildings — more responsibly while also doing well.” In fact, “in capitalism, growth is essential.” Any movement that “creates new markets and jobs” while improving the health of well being of people living and working within buildings “must be doing something right.” He said detractors argues that “toxins are just a fact of life.” Fedrizzi said USGBC members want “teachers and students to be in schools that keep everyone healthy. Our focus is on the people working within these green buildings, not the emblem on the front of the building.” The U.S. green building movement also aims to “reduce carbon emissions and energy use while creating millions of new jobs.”

The head of the USGBC also took aim at climate change deniers, arguing that Hurricane Sandy clearly demonstrates that rising sea levels can have a significant impact. Unfortunately, the presidential candidates “hardly mentioned climate change at all during the last campaign, and from 2009 to 2011, stories that featured climate change fell by 42 percent.” He applauded Bloomberg BusinessWeek‘s latest cover story, “It’s Global Warming, Stupid.”

With President Obama elected to a second term, the shift now needs to be on improved environmental governance. “Obama needs to do more to push green buildings forward.” In a political segment featuring images of Rush Limbaugh, Fedrizzi said the administration and USGBC also needs to “attack special interests” who are holding back progress. But perhaps the overall message was bipartisan: “This can’t be about blue or red states, but green states.”

USGBC members can help “break the cycle of denial” about the environment. As an example, he argued that only with a campaign for increased transparency can we understand the impact of unhealthy materials in the built environment. He pointed to asbestos, asking whether building designers and contractors would “use this material given what we know now.” Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), endrocrine disruptors, “all of these things hurt our kids.” Transparency “helps us make better decisions.” So, Fedrizzi announced a new campaign to get building product manufacturers to “prove that their products are the best and healthiest.” This effort also got a major boost with the announcement that Google would be providing USGBC with a $3 million grant to research materials and public health.

In an earlier speech, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee said San Francisco has become the greenest city in the US in part because of its full embrace of LEED. The city now has 48 million square feet of LEED buildings and recently won an award for its green building policies from an international green building group. Lee wants to further improve the city’s already impressive indicators. San Francisco diverts 80 percent of its waste from landfills and has the highest rates of compost and recycling in the nation. “We also have the best compost. Our compost is sent to Napa Valley to create the nation’s best wines.” The mayor then highlighted efforts to create a LEED platinum city center through retrofitting existing infrastructure and buildings and creating a new multimodal transportation hub.

Image credit: ASLA 2009 General Design Honor Award. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco / image copyright Tom Fox

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With SITES, Regenerative Design Moves Forward

Posted in Ecosystem Restoration, Gardens, Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Landscape Architecture, Public Spaces, Sustainable Design, Waste, Water Management on 10/09/2012 | Leave a Comment »

In a session on measuring regenerative design at the ASLA 2012 Annual Meeting, Danielle Pieranunzi, Affil. ASLA, LEED AP, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin; Joel Perkovich, ASLA, Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens; Jose Almiñana, RLA, FASLA, Andropogon Associates; and Michael Takacs, ASLA, Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc., discussed recent developments in the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) pilot program.

Pieranunzi began the session by describing the development of sustainable landscape metrics for the SITES rating system. Aiming to improve ecosystem services while bolstering natural systems that we typically view as free, the SITES program is envisioned as a stand-alone rating system, operating on a 250-point scale with 4 levels of certification. This certification system could be applied to projects ranging form small-scale residential sites to parks and streetscapes.

The 2-year pilot program, which ended last June, tested the program metrics on locations spread across the U.S. Of course, developing a landscape sustainability metric is not easy, and the SITES program must define measures for hydrology, soils, vegetation, and materials. The pilot program allowed for critical testing of these measures, which can now be adjusted and refined.

Perkovich discussed one pilot project: the Phipps Center for Sustainable Landscapes (CSL) in Pittsburgh. The CSL grounds are located on the 15-acre Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden campus. Opened in 1893, the initial plant collection for the conservatory came from the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Phipps Conservatory touts itself as the world’s “greenest” public gardens and it was the first to become LEED certified.

The new CSL headquarters is on a 2.65-acre site, the former location of a City of Pittsburgh Department of Public Works salt storage facility. The new design includes a 24,350 square foot building and is designed to be net-zero energy and water. In fact, the building is expected to be 80 percent more energy efficient than a conventional building.

Almiñana explained CSL’s design. The integrated design process included nine months of design charrettes with the local community and local designers. This process established a need for the site to be both an extension of the Phipps campus and to fit into the larger landscape. Almiñana discussed how the design offers natural air circulation by connecting the building design into the site, zero-waste energy through the deployment of interventions to generate energy and moderate temperature, and net-zero water by exploring the potential of every site surface.

Takacs talked about the hydrological design of the CSL site. To achieve a 100 percent, net-zero water level, 100 percent of water on the site must be captured or reused. Therefore, the design used pervious paving, bioretention areas, an open water lagoon, underground storage, a green roof, and rain gardens to dramatically reduce runoff. This system even captures runoff from the upper campus Botanical Gardens, which requires a tremendous amount of water to function.

For sanitary water treatment, the CSL design uses an array of tools including a septic tank, constructed wetlands, sand filters, and a solar distillation system. By employing these treatment elements, the CSL site generally doesn’t release anything back into the public sewage system.

As more landscapes like the Phipps Center for Sustainable Landscapes are designed, built, and monitored, the more refined and sophisticated the SITES rating system will become. Each SITES project provides vital knowledge and creates incentives for the construction of future regenerative sites. The session ended with this thought: “What if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place?”

This guest post is by Ben Wellington, Student ASLA, Master’s of Landscape Architecture Candidate, Louisiana State University and ASLA 2012 summer associate.

Image credits: (1, 3, 4, 6) Landscape Voice, (2, 5) Andropogon Associates

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In D.C., New Eco-District Plans Unveiled

Posted in Forests, Green Buildings, Green Roofs, Landscape Architecture, National Mall, Policy and Regulation, Public Spaces, Real Estate Development, Renewable Energy, Smart Growth, Sustainable Design, Sustainable Materials, Sustainable Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Revitalization, Water Management on 07/12/2012 | 1 Comment »

After two years of internal debate among 17 different federal agencies and the D.C. government, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) released its long-awaited plans for a new Southwest Eco-District designed to undo the worst damage of the massive “urban renewal” projects inflicted on L’Enfant neighborhood over the past decades. Designed to transform the spooky, almost pedestrian-free area just south of the Mall into a highly sustainable, people-friendly cultural and business destination, the Eco-district plan means to take on many challenges at once. As Elizabeth Miller, ASLA, the intrepid landscape architect who is guiding the project, explained, this 110-acre, 15-square block project is meant to showcase “high performance buildings and landscapes” while creating space for 19,000 new federal workers and solving some of the worst pedestrian access problems.

At the beginning of the hearing today, NCPC Chairman L. Preston Bryant, Jr said the project can go a long way to “breathing new life into the city.” While the whole Eco-District may take 20 or 30 years to design and implement, “we have a once in a generation opportunity to make this happen.” He added that NCPC and its many federal partners are eager to move forward because there are some synergies that make the timing right: The Department of Energy (DOE) building is “coming to a lifecycle decision,” meaning that it’s ready to be torn down because it’s now highly inefficient in terms of energy and water use; the Southwest waterfront plans are moving forward, with $2 billion in private sector investment set; and the D.C. government-led Maryland Avenue redevelopment project is on its way.

Miller outlined a vision for an Eco-District that provokes the imagination, at least among sustainable designers. She said the new District will “capture, manage, and reuse water, energy, and waste” and work beyond a single building, leveraging clusters of buildings to create a new system. At the same time, the plan will take aim at the incredible lack of public access — the barriers, the highways, and grade changes — that keep people away, except for the federal workers that have to go there for work.

Diane Sullivan, sustainability planner for NCPC, said a sustainable mixed-use community will arise out of a set of new “guidelines, objectives” that will frame neighborhood development efforts and the creation of new environmental systems.

On developing the neighborhood, Sullivan said that a user survey of D.C. residents found that the lack of amenities was the overwhelming reason why people didn’t want to move down there or even hang out there. So the goal is create a new tree-lined 10th street (or L’Enfant Place) that can connect the Mall to the new Southwest waterfront development while also making that connection itself an exciting cultural destination, lined with 1.2 million square feet in new space for up to 5 new museums, along with farmers’ markets and other draws.

Better pedestrian access is also key to making all this work. In the new plans, Miller said Virginia and Maryland Avenues will re-appear, carving new paths through new buildings as park-like avenues for promenading. Sullivan said the new local street designs cutting up the mega-blocks are still being worked out. She asked, “which streets should be monumental? Which should be local?”

To better get those pedestrians — all those federal workers — to the area, a “better inter-modal system” will be put in place, with a revamped, solar roofed-L’Enfant station, offering both commuter rail and Metro. To ease pressure off Union Station, more commuter rail may be directed there somehow.

The saving grace of the scary L’Enfant Place now is the fountain in Dan Kiley’s Modern-era Benjamin Banneker park, with its dramatic overlook across the Washington Channel. Unfortunately, the rest of Kiley’s park was not well realized. With spaghetti loops of highways cutting through, it’s a matter of taking your life in your own hands to go from the park to the waterfront. In the new plans, Kiley’s park will be completely redone but the area will still serve as a monument to African American surveyor Banneker. The new, more sustainable park will more easily connect to the waterfront while providing a new visual identity for the “eco” part of the district.

Now, on the systems that will make the district more eco: First, many of the old federal buildings will go, getting a revamp so they meet the goals of Obama’s Executive Order 13514, which calls for federal agencies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy use. The ones that stay, like the famed Brutalist HUD building, will be updated to be more efficient.

Sullivan said the goal is to have “zero-net energy district as measured in carbon.” Pretty near impossible unless fully renewable power is the rule for the new Eco-District. Sullivan said solar PVs and solar thermal systems (for hot water) will be added to the roofs of the new buildings wherever possible, while ground-source heat will also be tapped. A central facility run by GSA, which runs on natural gas, will still be used (but that won’t get them to zero emissions).

Heading down towards the water, the freeway that cuts off the connection between Benjamin Banneker park and the waterfront will be capped with a new layer covered in solar panels.

For water, the goal is to reduce potable water use throughout the Eco-District by 70 percent and manage all stormwater where it falls. All building greywater will be reused while blackwater will go to the new anaerobic plant. Rainwater will be caught by acres of green roofs (including edible ones), green streets, trees, and planters. What isn’t caught will be funneled into cisterns underneath 10th street and used later. Green infrastructure is then clearly a central part of the strategy. Permeable areas overall are to grow to 35 percent, while the tree canopy is to reach 40 percent (a solid target). (Right now, the barren area has just 8 percent tree cover). While we didn’t hear anything substantive about creating a wildlife-friendly landscape designed to attract diverse species, we hope that’s in the works.

There are more ambitious goals for waste reductions: Some 75 percent of construction materials for the new buildings will be reused, and 80 percent of everyday waste will be diverted from the landfill. A composting program will be put in place, too.

So, how will this all actually work? Sullivan sees some government buildings first getting a light rehabilitation and then others will undergo a full rehabilitation. Three federal buildings will be “re-purposed” as major infill development begins. Then, big redevelopment will start over the freeway. At the same time, critical projects like a new Banneker park and a new 10th street landscape will begin next year.

What’s this all going to cost? Miller and Sullivan said an economic feasibility study only provided some high-level numbers, but they did say the federal government would make back its multibillion dollar investment over 20 years through reduced energy, water, and waste fees; increased revenues from private sector developers; and improved local tax gains.

While we hope this project is a sure thing, new governance structures and partnership and financing agreements will need to be worked out among all the partners, including the private sector developers who are key to making this all happen. Let’s hope this is not a protracted process. As the Eco-District gets moving, it can become an innovative showcase for how to revamp government hubs across the U.S.

Learn more about the bold plans. D.C. residents can attend a public hearing on the proposals on July 19. The comment period will be open for three months. Comments will be incorporated into a final plan ready to go by early 2013. By the end of next year, NCPC hopes to have design competitions launched for a new Banneker park and 10th street, its two priority public projects.

Image credit: ZGF Architects, courtesy of NCPC

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