GreenClips.234 02.25.04 HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREENCLIPS! This year is GreenClips' 10th birthday! Celebrate by donating to GreenClips. Your donations keep us going year after year. Visit www.greenclips.com for info. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KAISER PERMANENTE: A LEADER IN GREENING THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY The Oakland, CA-based Kaiser Permanente (KP), the nation's largest nonprofit health plan, has at its core a commitment to provide healthcare services in a manner that protects and enhances the environment. "They've extended 'do not harm' from patient care to doing no harm to the web of life," says Michael Lerner, with the advocacy group Healthcare Without Harm. KP's environmental protection successes are tangible, ranging from energy efficiency to air pollution prevention to the discontinued use of mercury and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). KP's environmental initiatives are grouped into three main areas: 1) green buildings, 2) environmentally responsible purchasing, and 3) sustainable operations. It's the green building group, under the direction of Carol Antle, which is perhaps the most fully developed. With its nationwide network of 30 hospitals and 431 medical office buildings, KP is in a position to effect change. A very small, 20,000-square-foot remodeling of a clinic space in Southern California served as a pilot project to test KP's evolving strategies. Everyone expected that the project was going to cost more and take longer. Instead, with a little upfront planning and sourcing in areas such as demolition and waste management, they brought it in on time and within budget. Antle describes it as "the most influential 20,000-square-feet that KP ever built." Green @ Work, Jan-Feb 2004, p 17, by Penny S. Bonda. [About Healthcare Without Harm: http://www.cehca.org/hcwh.htm ] BENEFITS OF CONTINUOUS VENTILATION IN RELOCATABLE CLASSROOMS School districts throughout the United States are increasingly using relocatable classrooms (RCs), also known as portable or modular classrooms, because of a growing student population and state and federal mandates for class-size reduction. A recent study by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and others indicates that the indoor environmental quality and energy efficiency of RCs can be improved. Four high-performance RC designs in two California climates (extreme and moderate) were studied. Each was equipped with two HVAC systems: a standard 10 SEER heat-pump air conditioner (HPAC) system and an energy-efficient hybrid system with an indirect/direct evaporative cooler (IDEC) and a natural-gas heating system. The IDEC supplies continuous ventilation even when heating or cooling is not required. It consumes as much as 70 percent less cooling energy than the HPAC system and is quieter. The researchers found that teachers did not always turn on the IDEC system as instructed. When they did not, CO2 concentrations in the classrooms rose to well over 1,000 ppm, with peaks of almost 3,000 ppm. During periods of window use only, indoor CO2 levels often exceeded 1,000 ppm, indicating that windows alone may not provide adequate ventilation. The substantially lower CO2 concentrations during IDEC operation demonstrate the benefits of continuous adequate or enhanced ventilation. The IDEC system's continuous ventilation was also effective for controlling concentrations of other indoor-generated pollutants, including formaldehyde. Download the full report: http://buildings.lbl.gov/hpcbs/s_arc.html Environmental Energy Technology Division News (newsletter published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Fall 2003, p 1. HIGH TECH MEETS AGE-OLD WISDOM IN DELIVERING FRESH AIR TO INDOOR SPACES Modernist architecture has often taken the reliance on climate control too far, resulting in buildings that show no regard for energy costs or the effects of working and living without fresh air or daylight. Some architects have begun to redress this situation by designing naturally ventilated buildings. At the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, engineers placed a large plenum underneath the seating areas to store air before it is dispersed through the audience. The air rises from grilles under each seat, picks up heat, and moves out of the occupied space through ceiling vents. Air quality is greatly improved because the rising air carries particulates up and out of the building. The system is also more energy efficient than traditional overhead ventilation systems. At University of Florida's Rinker Hall School of Building Construction, in hot-and-humid Gainesville, the 48,000-square-foot classroom building is naturally ventilated using an enthalpy wheel. "Once the incoming air gets past the wheel, it has been preconditioned," says Randolph Croxton of Croxton Collaborative. "It has not been cooled adequately to be comfortable for people in the classrooms, but now when you send that air to your air-conditioning unit, you've got a much smaller load to deal with, so you can really downsize the system." Metropolis, March 2004, p 102, by Julien Devereux and Martin C. Pedersen. [Full text: http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0304/bre/index.html ] MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF EDWARD BURTYNSKY Photographs spanning half of Edward Burtynksy's career, including 60 large-format images, explore the unconventional beauty of manmade environments: quarries, mines, tailing ponds, refineries, recycling plants and dismantled oil tankers. On exhibit at Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario through April 4. Metropolis, Feb 2004, p 103. [More: http://www.ago.net ; http://www.edwardburtynsky.com ] IS THE TIME RIPE FOR A NATIONAL CODE ON AIR BARRIERS? In 2001, Massachusetts took the somewhat controversial step of requiring in its energy code airtight envelopes with continuous, structurally supported barrier materials. Last year, as many as 20 states entertained similar code revisions. But does it makes sense to require air barriers for all projects across America's diverse climate? "Emphatically yes," contends Wagdy Anis, a principal of Boston's Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbot. "Air barriers improve how the envelope and HVAC systems function. Our firm designs air barriers for projects in all climates." Not everyone agrees. Building owners have voiced concerns about the added costs, and masonry manufacturers and contractors say the air-barrier provisions rule out such common, cost-effective designs as the simple concrete-block walls used in big-box retail. Meanwhile, manufacturers are aggressively marketing air-barrier solutions. Products include Enviro-Crete Series 156, a painted-on air barrier (http://www.tnemec.com); Procor, a line of rubber-based membranes (http://www.na.graceconstruction.com); Sto Guard, a fluid-applied system (http://www.stocorp.com); and "house wraps" such as Tyvek (http://construction.tyvek.com). Air barriers have been required in Canada since the 1980s. "We build more tightly than in the United States," says British Columbia engineer Mark Lawton, "and contractors are used to building this way -- even electrical contractors know to seal their penetrations. It's standard practice." Architecture, Feb 2004, p 77, by C. C. Sullivan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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