GreenClips.204 11.06.02 HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY ADDRESSING ITS FACILITIES' ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS Although health care buildings are among the least prevalent commercial building types, they are the fourth highest consumer of energy, accounting for 11 percent of all commercial consumption. The health care industry also contributes five million tons of solid waste annually to the nation's landfills. And the industry is now awakening to the irony that health care facilities may be exposing patients to a host of harmful substances. Last February, the American Society of Healthcare Engineering released a statement calling for environmentally friendly construction practices that will protect the health of building occupants, the surrounding community, and the larger world. The U.S. Green Building Council has been discussing construction guidelines for health care facilities. Medical schools at Harvard University and Emory University in Atlanta have green building projects in the works, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center is developing a model for a future facility they've named the Green Health Center. The California-based health care network, Kaiser Permanente, which serves 8.4 million members, is interested in phasing out the use of materials made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), including vinyl-backed carpeting, in its buildings. PVC, which is ubiquitous in most modern health care facilities, has become a focal point of the movement toward safe and healthy hospitals. More: http://www.noharm.org <http://www.noharm.org/> ; http://www.h2e-online.org <http://www.h2e-online.org/> ; Utne Reader, Nov-Dec 2002, p 85, by Karen Olson; and Interiors & Sources magazine, Oct 2002, by Greg L. Roberts. SWEDISH APARTMENT BUILDING IS GREEN FROM THE GROUND UP In Malmo, Sweden, residents are settling into the 500 new dwellings built for last year's housing exhibit, "Bo01 City of Tomorrow." Among the new structures is the Tango building, designed by the Swedish architecture firm FFNS and California's Moore Ruble Yudell. The architects responded to a call from the organizers to build the sustainably minded fair's most technologically sophisticated, energy efficient dwellings. Rather than clean up the brownfield site (it was once a Saab factory) through costly excavation, the architects turned to botany, putting in plants that extract underground pollutants and purify the soil. Rainwater collected on the roofs irrigates the courtyard garden, while other runoff water flows into a cleansing cistern before draining into the ocean. The 27-unit project includes triple-glazed curtain walls on the courtyard façades that provide greater insulating power than standard double-glazed skins. Rooftop photovoltaic panels generate more electricity than the building consumes; the extra energy is sold to the local electric company. In each apartment, a Web-accessible portal enables tenants to monitor their energy consumption, hopefully alerting them to wasteful activities so they can change their ways. This will also let the architects and engineers assess Tango's performance over the long term, letting them judge just how green the fair's greenest building really is. Dwell, Dec 2002, p 26, by Raul Barreneche. [More: http://www.moorerubleyudell.com/03Fe_Pr/3HM.html ; http://www.sweco.se/templates/Project____9569.asp# ] DENVER'S STAPLETON IS EARNING REPUTATION AS MODEL OF SUSTAINABILITY The transformation of Denver's former Stapleton International Airport, which closed in 1995, into a mixed-use model for sustainable development recently earned it a Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities Award. Presented in June by Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf, the award honored Stapleton for pursuing an ambitious set of smart-growth goals. Jurors especially praised the system of citizen involvement and the public-private partnership between the City of Denver, Forest City, and the Stapleton Redevelopment Foundation. The $4 billion redevelopment of Stapleton, slated to span 15 to 20 years, will include 12,000 homes and apartments, 10 million square feet of office space, and 3 million square feet of retail uses in a series of pedestrian-scale neighborhoods where residents can walk to work, stores, schools, and public transportation. Parks and open space will comprise approximately 1,100 acres, increasing Denver's park system by 30 percent. All of the homes are being constructed to meet the "Built Green Standards" established by the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver. Eleven hundred acres of pavement from runways, parking lots, and tarmac have been removed and recycled. And Westerly Creek, which had been in a pipe below a runway, has been brought into the sunlight. Urban Land, Oct 2002, p 34, by Tom Gleason; and New Urban News, Oct-Nov 2002, p 3. [More: http://www.stapletondenver.com ] SEEKING TO CUT WATER USE, SANTA FE MAKES UNUSUAL DEMAND ON BUILDERS Overtapped by drought and development, Santa Fe's current water supply can barely keep up with demand. As a result, the City Council recently ruled that for every new home built, builders must first install, free of charge, 8 to 12 new high-efficiency toilets in existing homes, hotels and shops. Santa Fe's population, now about 66,000, is increasing by about 1.5 percent a year. The city's main water sources have been depleted in recent years by periodic drought and overuse. By mid-July, the city had issued 473 permits this year for new single-family homes -- more in seven months than in any full year since 1990. At one point, the City Council passed a building moratorium but rescinded it under pressure from home builders. On average, city officials say, the toilet rules are expected to add $3,000 to $4,000 to the cost of a new home, in a market where the median price is about $265,000. The builders and their allies say a long-term solution must include new water supplies for Santa Fe, partly entailing the spending of millions of dollars on infrastructure to take advantage of the city's rights to divert large quantities from the San Juan River. But others say that increasing competition for water in the state and across the West will make it hard for Santa Fe to acquire substantial new sources. The New York Times, 3 Nov 2002, by Douglas Jehl. BRITISH COLUMBIA OFFICE PARK GETS THE GOLD Vancouver Island Technology Park (VITP) in Victoria, British Columbia, is the first project in Canada to achieve gold certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system. John Juricic, co-owner of E-Traffic solutions, one of the tech park's tenants, is stunned that his company's productivity levels have increased by 30 percent since taking occupancy in April. Juricic attributes the improvement to an increase in work space and the park's positive environment -- including walking trails, a basketball court and high-tech lighting. Probably the greatest lesson the building's design team came away with was the importance of having a "mindset that you can do things differently and it won't cost you more," says Joe Van Belleghem, VITP development manager. Van Belleghem's team worked with an $11.9-million (Canadian) budget to develop the 165,000-square-foot building. Instead of spending $600,000 on a conventional storm-sewer system to carry stormwater offsite, a series of bioswales and biofiltration ponds was created that cost only $125,000. The developer also worked with BC Hydro to create a plan to convert the landfill gas from a local landfill site, run it through combustion engines and create electricity. "It's a very profitable venture and we just went out for a proposal call to the private sector to design, build, own and operate it," Van Belleghem says. "We're hoping that we're going to get green power cheaper than you usually do." Saanich News (BC), 9 Oct 2002, by Vern Faulkner; and Business in Vancouver, Aug 2002, p 18, by Alison Northey. [More: http://www.vitp.ca ] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GreenClips is free of charge thanks to individual members and these sponsors: ATHENATM ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ESTIMATOR www.athenaSMI.ca <http://www.athenasmi.ca/> The Athena Sustainable Materials Institute has launched its groundbreaking software a systems model for assessing the life cycle environmental implications of building or assembly designs. The Estimator gives architects, engineers and researchers life-cycle assessment (LCA) answers about conceptual designs of new buildings or renovations to existing buildings, including industrial, institutional, office, and both multi-unit and single family residential designs. The Estimator incorporates the Institute&Mac226;s internationally recognized life cycle inventory databases, covering more than 90 structural and envelope materials. It simulates over 1,000 different assembly combinations and can model 95% of the building stock in North America. The software is easy to use, allowing users to track entries, view detailed results and make comparisons. To make the AthenaTM Estimator as transparent as possible, the Institute offers a companion CD containing all supporting database reports in pdf format. To order visit www.athenaSMI.ca <http://www.athenasmi.ca/> and go through the animated tutorial. 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