GreenClips.176 09.26.01 SUSTAINABILITY MOVEMENT NEEDS STRIKING GREEN BUILDINGS We live in an age where the American obsession with fame has begun to dominate the architecture world as well. But the famous architects most capable of creating dazzling structures tend to give green ideals short shrift. At the same time, architects committed to green design from William McDonough to mega-firms like HOK and Gensler tend to produce schemes that are aesthetically neutral. Ten or fifteen years ago there was a good reason for green architects to shun aesthetics for their own sake: the concern that a "style" of sustainable design would underscore its reputation as a fringe activity. But without a sexy aesthetic profile, a green building doesn't stand a chance of capturing contemporary public interest. Just because a building makes only a faint impression on the land as all green architecture aims to do doesn't mean it needs to make a faint impression on the eye. In fact, striking design can be green in one very important way: if a building is beloved, it will be maintained and preserved and there is nothing more environmentally friendly than longevity. The challenge now is to find a symbolic architectural language for green buildings, one that promotes even shamelessly hawks sustainability on irresistible aesthetic terms. Metropolis, Oct 01, p 112, by Christopher Hawthorne. REBUILT WAREHOUSE MAKES ITS MARK IN PORTLAND The Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center in Portland, Oregon, a 19th-century warehouse renovated with green techniques and materials, opened September 6. Tenants range from a fish-conservation group to a Patagonia outdoor-gear store to Portland's Office of Sustainable Development. The center will be one of Oregon's first buildings to earn a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. The center was developed by Ecotrust, an organization that nurtures eco-friendly businesses in the Northwest. The design goals for the development team -- developer Bob Naito, Walsh Construction and Holst Architects -- were to maximize natural light and air, process all rainwater on site and reuse and recycle as many materials as possible. A parking lot is surfaced in water-permeable asphalt with about one-third of the area planted with native species and "bioswales," which collect and naturally clean storm water. The building will soon be planted with a 7,000-square-foot grass roof to absorb and filter rain. A penthouse was built from remilled timbers salvaged from a building being demolished next door. Most of the other new wood in the building has been certified under the Forest Stewardship Council's stringent monitoring of forest management. Despite the design team's efforts, Ecotrust founder Spencer Beebe sees a few flaws, such as some two-by-fours that were possibly harvested from a clear cut. "Those boards gotta go," Beebe says. The Oregonian, 03 Sep 01, by Randy Gragg. [More: http://www.ecotrust.org/programs/natural_capital_center.html] ECO-FRIENDLY FABRIC CHOICES INCREASE Architects, designers, and their clients can now choose from an increasing range of stylish and affordable sustainable textiles. DesignTex, Knoll, and Herman Miller offer products made from a Terratex polyester fabric, which is manufactured entirely of postindustrial materials such as plastic soda bottles. NatureWorks fibers from Penn Nyla and Cargill Dow, and a new fabric from Terratex, are derived from renewable resources like corn and soy and are affordable and easy to clean. Their production requires 20 to 50 percent less fossil fuel and emits less carbon dioxide than the production of petroleum-based fibers. Other eco-friendly fabrics include Encore by Unika Vaev, a panel fabric constructed entirely of postindustrial materials. Carnegie offers IQ Smart Fabric, a plush upholstery and panel fabric that contains no chemical finishes. Luna Textiles' Patina is one of 85 of the company's panel fabrics made with 100 percent recycled polyester. And Habitat by Maharam is one of six patterns from the Content Series that is constructed of 100 percent "clean" worsted wool and is fully biodegradable. Metropolis, Oct 01, p 112, by Paul Makovsky. CHARRETTE PROGRAM TACKLES GREEN DESIGN PROBLEMS Adopting the view that the overall ecological health of any landscape region is dependent on the health of its individual sites, the landscape architecture faculty at the University of British Columbia offers a sustainable design charrette program that focuses on design at the site level. Through UBC's James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Liveable Environments, students and professionals come together to find the best possible answers to a given design problem. The program's first charrette resulted in six basic principles for sustainable development: 1) Locate different dwelling types on the same street or in the same neighborhood; 2) Provide buildings that present a friendly face to the street; 3) Locate homes within a five-minute walk of transit and shops; 4) Provide an interconnected street system; 5) Provide lighter, greener, cheaper, smarter infrastructure; and 6) Provide natural draining systems. While the first four principles are widely accepted in British Columbia at least in theory, says program chair Patrick Condon, principles five and six "are at the heart of any realistic and effective concept for sustainable community design. Unless and until we can engineer and implement [this new] infrastructure, where natural drainage systems replace conventional 'pipe and pollute' systems, we will never accomplish our linked goals of affordable housing and salmon habitat protection." More: http://www.sustainable-communities.agsci.ubc.ca. Landscape Architecture, Sep 01, p 110, by Heather Hammatt. ENERGY-EFFICIENT ELEVATORS AND ESCALATORS FROM KONE AND OTIS Recently KONE introduced EcoSystem MR, a gearless elevator that can be used in buildings with up to 36 landings. EcoSystem MR is based on KONE's energy-saving EcoDisc design. The EcoDisc is a slim, disc-shaped machine that fits inside a standard elevator hoistway, fixed to the guide rail, thus requiring no space other than the hoistway. (Conventional elevators require a machine room.) The EcoDisc uses up to half of the power needed by comparable conventional systems. Meanwhile, Otis offers the Gen2 elevator system, the first ever to use a flat, polyurethane-coated steel belt technology, another form of gearless technology. It saves energy, doesn't use hydraulic oil, and doesn't require a machine room. "Designers and builders like the flexibility of the machine-room-less design and the fact that the Gen2 system is as much as 50 percent more efficient than conventional geared elevators that use traditional steel cables," says Otis's Karen Jarmon. EcoStart, a new escalator technology also by KONE, conserves energy by adjusting voltage and current up to 120 times per second in response to escalator workload. One of the first EcoStart installations was at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where all 60 of the facility's escalators were fitted with the device. Tests at the airport demonstrated energy savings of up to 40 percent. More: http://www.us.kone.com or http://www.otis.com. Environmental Design + Construction, Sep-Oct 01, p 50, by Amy Colegrove. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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