GreenClips.55 09.11.96 PARK SERVICE REPLACES DIESELS WITH PHOTOVOLTAICS A flip of the switch last month turned on the largest solar energy system in the US National Park Service (NPS). The park service installed 384 photovoltaic (PV) panels to generate electricity for Utah's Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The PV system replaces diesel generators that have blown 557 tons of pollutants into the air each year. The Utah Department of Natural Resources estimates the new system will save the NPS $100,000 per year in fuel and maintenance costs. - Deseret News, August 29, 1996, p. B1, by Lucinda Dillon. ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL GETS LOW MARKS IN PERFORMANCE The walls of the High School for Environmental Studies (HSES) are made of Fiberbond, a recycled newspaper product. Its ceiling tiles are fabricated from compressed seaweed. The HVAC system, light fixtures, skylights, and windows are energy efficient. Its drinking fountains and toilets use less water than standard fixtures. Joseph Begley recently retired as custodial engineer of the 235,000 square-foot, three building high school on West 56th Street near Tenth Avenue in New York. He says it "doesn't live up to the shingle hung outside the door". The ventilation system has never functioned properly and the air feels uncomfortably heavy by the end of the day. Begley also gives some of the green materials failing grades – he replaced the seaweed ceiling tiles more often than conventional ones because they discolor easily and he says the recycled paper walls don't insulate against noise. Long-term performance data on green materials and systems can be hard for specifiers to find. HSES architect John Amatruda of John Francis Borrelli Architect, P.C. is now working with Connecticut-based Steven Winter Associates on a computer program called Schoolspec to help school administrators select green materials and systems for their facilities. -Metropolis, September 1996, p. 70, by Kira L. Gould. EUROPEANS AGONIZE OVER SHOPPING MALLS Coalitions of small store owners facing extinction, politicians fearful for the future of town centers, and environmentalists concerned about automobile impact on the landscape are challenging developers of European shopping malls. Malls account for a large share of retail business in Europe, especially in France where large retailers now control 90 percent of retail trade. Builders and retailers are convincing local planners that American-style malls, advertising, and transportation can offset a decline in manufacturing jobs. In Troyes, an old French textile center 55 miles southeast of Paris, fabric industry jobs among its 125,000 residents dropped by half in 10 years to 12,000. The town's newly constructed McArthur Glen outlet mall offered 225 jobs to numerous applicants. Europe's central governments are struggling to brake suburban development - Britain has tightened restrictions on new shopping centers, Italy is considering a three-year moratorium on new malls, and Germany limits new malls except in the former east. In July French President Jacques Chirac bowed to anti-development pressure and further stiffened a 1993 law by subjecting construction of food stores as small as 3,000 square feet to Government approval. The debate over spurring growth without sacrificing the quality of centuries old, town centered life continues. - The New York Times, September 10, 1996, p. C1, by John Tagliabue. RMI STUDYING PERFORMANCE-BASED DESIGN FEES Last October the Rocky Mountain Institute hired researcher Gunnar Hubbard to coordinate a national experiment showing how clients can use performance-based fees to compensate architects and engineers for the extra time needed to design energy efficient commercial buildings. Performance-based fees reward designers when their building hits prearranged energy targets but penalize them when it falls short. Until recently, linking design fees to building performance has presented legal and logistical obstacles - most notably measuring performance "improvements" in a new building over nonexistent baseline data. But now new computer modeling protocols enable designers to estimate baseline performance. Hubbard will illustrate ways to overcome performance contract obstacles in four test projects. He has now selected three of them - a multiple-tenant 1.6 million square-foot office building overlooking New York City's Times Square, a 275,000 square-foot state building in Austin, Texas, and a 243,000 square-foot high school in Portland, Oregon. Douglas Durst will develop the 4 Times Square project - what he hopes will be the world's most ecologically sensitive office tower. - The Rocky Mountain Institute Newsletter, Summer 1996, p. 4, and Metropolis, September 1996, p. 66, by Robert Neuwirth. FURNITURE MAKERS ADOPT HOLISTIC AESTHETIC Furniture makers are using salvaged and recycled-content materials and designing their products for recycling at the end of their life. Philadelphia-based Parallel Product Design and Development uses wooden pallets and shipping crates to create elegant outdoor furniture. The Parkstuhl chair from Germany's C.G. Ahlers has a seat of Polyal, a new material made of shredded yogurt cups complete with small aluminum flecks from the cup seals. The company finishes the chair's steel frame with a powder coating to reduce over spraying. Philippe Starck designed the Louis 20Stacking Chair for German manufacturer Vitra with recyclable components -polypropylene shell, aluminum arms and legs - all attached by screws for easy disassembly. - Metropolis, September 1996, p. 41, by Suzette Sherman. ICFF EXHIBITORS SHOW GREEN FURNITURE Exhibitors at the 1996 International Contemporary Furniture Fair last May in New York City displayed earth friendly materials, eco-conscious fabrication, and an emphasis on usability. Large furniture manufacturers, one person design studios, student displays, and special exhibits all showed green products. Berkeley, California based designer Thomas Jameson conserves materials producing his 1950s inspired stools, chairs, and tables. His stock of 4-by-8-foot plywood sheets, for example, determines the shape of his stool or chair seats. Jameson's computer driven cutter makes a seat from each of 32 one-square-foot sections. Brooklyn, New York based Miller Greene's Fit System uses only a few components for an entire line of tables. The series features assorted sizes and shapes of tabletops and interchangeable cast metal legs in two lengths attached with a one screw assembly. But the Puzzle Series chairs and tables from San Francisco-based 3D Interiors requires no hardware at all. "If it can't be shipped flat by UPS, we don't make it," says owner Patrice Davis. Finished with water-based dyes, the laser-cut plywood sections assemble with a clever tab-and-slot system. - Metropolis, September 1996, p. 47, by Diana Friedman.