GreenClips.198 08.14.02 TOKYO TURNS TO ROOF GARDENS TO COUNTERACT HEAT ISLAND EFFECT In Tokyo, the realization that the city is becoming a vast "heat island" is driving a boom in roof gardens. "Over the last century, Tokyo temperatures have increased five times as fast as global warming," said Takehiro Mikami, a climatology professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University. Greenery occupies only 14 percent of central Tokyo, less than New York, London or Berlin. Plants play a crucial role in cleaning air and in cooling temperatures, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Last year a Tokyo city law mandated that all new medium-size buildings, those on plots over one-quarter acre, dedicate at least 20 percent of the roof to a garden. A variety of tax breaks are being put into effect to encourage roof gardens. Some building owners are installing a new form of ultralight and ultracheap roof garden, weighing as little as 16 pounds per square foot, that uses a low-maintenance variety of grass growing in four inches of vermiculite. A living grass covering protects roofs from sun damage and cracking and can save money by cutting heating and cooling costs. "Last winter we didn't use any heat at all," said Kazuyoshi Kojima, director of greenery promotion for Tokyo's Shibuya ward, of the four-story municipal office building under his 3,500-square-foot garden. Before the building had a roof garden, he said, air conditioning had to be turned on more frequently. The New York Times, 13 Aug 2002, p 3, by James Brooke. CANADA SHOULD LOOK TO BUILDING INDUSTRY FOR GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTIONS The Canadian federal government is growing uneasy with the political price it may have to pay to meet the reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) production called for by the Kyoto Protocol, says Vancouver-based architect Peter Busby in an opinion piece in "Canadian Architect." The government recently published a white paper, "Canada's Contribution to Addressing Climate Change," that proposes various policies to meet its Kyoto targets of reducing GHGs by 240 million tons (MT) by 2010. But the white paper hardly recognizes the construction industry's potential to contribute to the solution, suggesting that buildings could deliver a mere 1 percent (24 MT) of the required GHG reductions. However, under the Commercial Buildings Incentive Program from Natural Resources Canada, to date 1,138 buildings have produced an average energy performance reduction of 32 percent. Applied to all buildings in Canada, this level of performance could yield a permanent GHG reduction of 30 MT per year. Additional GHG reductions from building construction are possible. Specifying 50 percent flyash content in concrete, for example, could yield 26 MT of GHG savings. Photovoltaics could reduce GHGs by 80 MT per year. The federal government should stick to Canada's Kyoto commitment, says Busby, and look to Canadian industry to reduce the country's GHG emissions. The construction industry alone could realize large GHG reductions -- some 40 percent of what Canada needs to achieve Kyoto targets. Canadian Architect, Jul 2002, p 18, by Peter Busby. Email: pbusby@busby.ca. SAN DIEGO DEMONSTRATION GARDEN INSPIRES WATER CONSERVATION Most xeriscape gardens are organized by where the plants come from or how they look together. But at the Water Conservation Garden (WCG), an educational site at Cuyamaca College in eastern San Diego, landscape architecture firm Deneen Powell Atelier laid out three looping paths: a design loop, a maintenance loop and an irrigation loop. The design loop includes alcove gardens along a meandering path that portray landscape architectural concepts ranging from texture, contrast, framing, and balance, to materials choices, erosion control, soil analysis, and tree-staking. The maintenance loop features a "Backyard Makeover" display, a skeletal suburban house with two backyards. One yard shows a classic example of poor design, with turf overwatered by misplaced and maladjusted sprinklers. The other yard has a scaled-back lawn area, shrub beds and appropriate irrigation. Along the irrigation loop, a half-dozen small plots showcase different turfgrass species, each with its own water meter and a "gallons used this month" display. Irrigation hardware is a critical component in any water-efficient landscape. Designers and contractors visit WCG for hands-on experience with the computercontrolled system. In addition, dozens of hardware samples -- valves, backflow preventers, filters, controllers, and heads -- are displayed. The project is funded by the Helix and Otay Water Districts and the city and county of San Diego. More: http://www.thegarden.org Landscape Architecture, Aug 2002, p 66, by Kim Sorvig. MOLD FORCES CLOSING OF HILTON TOWER IN WAIKIKI Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, one of the world's largest resorts, has closed all 453 guest rooms in the newest of its six towers and is spending $10 million to rid it of a potentially dangerous mold called eurotium. Hilton opened the $95 million Kalia Tower last year. David Odom of CH2M Hill said that his team, which has been studying Kalia Tower blueprints as well as findings from Air Quality Sciences' mold investigators, has some ideas about the cause, but not enough to speculate. Identifying the humidity source is difficult, say mold investigation experts, because the problem could be from an architectural or engineering design fault, construction defect, malfunctioning equipment or any combination. Odom said typical causes of mold in other high-rise hotels have been most often linked to deficient air conditioning systems and air or water penetrating building walls. "It happens a lot more than you would expect," he said. Charlie Wiles of the American Indoor Air Quality Council said avoiding air pressure, condensation or water-leak problems in constructing or operating a high-rise hotel is difficult. Typically, buildings in humid climates such as Hawaii are designed to be slightly pressurized to keep warm outside air out. "In the case of Hawaii, keeping the indoor temperature above the dew point may prove to be extremely challenging," he said. The New York Times, 11 Aug 2002, and Honolulu Advertiser, 15 Aug 2002, by Andrew Gomes. [Full text: http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Aug/15/bz/bz01a.html ] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GreenClips is free of charge thanks to individual members and these sponsors: C&A FLOORCOVERINGS We choose not to just make carpet but to also make a difference. http://www.powerbond.com EPA'S ENVIRONMENTALLY-PREFERABLE PURCHASING PROGRAM Greening the government, one purchase at a time. http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp GREEN BUILDING SERVICES http://www.greenbuildingservices.com Green Building Services offers environmental design and energy efficient consulting services to help you design, build and market high-performance commercial buildings, through design charrettes, energy analyses and the entire LEED certification process. INTERFACE, INC. 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