GreenClips.57 10.09.96 GREEN PRACTICE TIPS FROM GENSLER The interior, architecture, and planning firm Gensler organized a Design Ecology Network among its professionals in 1991 and now has volunteer members in about two-thirds of its US offices. Network member John Carter, a senior associate in Los Angeles, offers a few tips on practicing green design. Advocating environmentally responsible design by stressing cost savings can be tricky, especially when one of the client's profit centers pays for construction and another for operations. "Image is the final selling point," says Carter. "I tell them this is what you should do, and besides, it's going to be good publicity." At bidding, he prefers to ask for add-alternates rather than delete-alternates for psychological reasons. Asking for a bid with delete options can make contractors feel they'll lose business if the client trims the bid. But asking for a bare-bones bid with add options can make contractors feel they'll gain business by keeping the price of alternates low. - Interior Design, September 1996, p. 46, by Judith Davidsen. NATURAL VENTILATION IN ZIMBABWE Designers and developers increasingly export the air-conditioned glass tower, born in Europe's temperate climate, around the world - even to Africa with its extreme climate and scarce resources. But a new 26,000 sqm office and 5,600 sqm retail development in Zimbabwe's capital Harare offers an alternative and inspiring model for future development. Architect Pearce Partnership persuaded the developer to ventilate, heat, and cool the building naturally. Engineers Ove Arup & Partners devised a passive services strategy that includes enormous thermal mass, external walls shielded from direct sunlight, and small windows - less than 25 percent of the surface area – on the sunny north face. Concrete mass cools or warms fresh air as it circulates through the supply passages. Exhaust air from the offices enters high level bulkheads parallel to the core and then moves horizontally to vertical exhaust shafts. Forty-eight industrial-looking brick chimneys eventually discharge the slow moving mass of waste air at roof level. For daytime ventilation, Ove Arup expects to achieve optimum performance by supplying about two air changes per hour from small fans. To accelerate cooling of the mass at night, larger fans deliver seven changes per hour. – The Architectural Review, September 1996, p. 36, by Catherine Slessor. DESIGNER CHAIR FROM NEW MADERON MATERIAL Alberto Lievore has designed a chair made of Maderon, a new substitute material derived from inert woods including almond, walnut, and hazelnut shells. Lievore's new chair is pressure molded from pulverized almond shells mixed with natural and synthetic resins. The material has characteristics of wood with plastic's fabrication qualities. Now used for commercial and special furniture pieces, Maderon also has potential for other applications. For more information, fax the Maderon Promotion Agency in Barcelona,3.268.35.69. - Loose Leaves, August/September 1996, p. 4, by Deanne Koelmeyer, and Green Design, Summer 1996, p.1. VISIONARY SCIENCE PARK AIMS TO REVIVE GERMAN HEARTLAND The Rheinelbe Science Park in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, is an effort to revivethe former industrial heartland by incubating future-oriented research and development institutions and companies there. IBA Emscher Park, a developer financed by the Land of North-Rhine Westphalia, conceived this 27,200 sqm project and over 90 similar visionary projects in the Ruhr region since 1989.It envisioned all of them as recycled and ecologically balanced environments for new relationships among home, work, and leisure, and between industry and nature, production and waste. And it built them using the most innovative ideas and products available. The European Commission sponsored the Rheinelbe Science Park's roof-mounted solar energy plant, perhaps the largest in the world. Over its 30-year life expectancy, the plant avoids emitting the 4,500 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that a conventional energy plant would release. A building management computer operates external blinds and natural ventilation through rainproof flaps and turns heating radiators along the facade off when windows or flaps are open. Completed in 1995, 60 percent of the park's nine research pavilions are now leased. - The Architectural Review, September 1996, p. 32, by Layla Dawson. MINNESOTA POWER COs MUST ACCOUNT FOR POLLUTION COSTS Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission (PUC) decided this month that power companies wanting to build new electric plants there must include economic values for pollutants in figuring their costs. If a coal-burning power plant costs $100, for example, and the hidden cost of pollutants it would emit is $30, the PUC would consider the cost of the plant $130. And it would consider a nonpolluting wind-powered plant costing $120 less expensive and a better alternative. The debate over the new rules, which began last year, hinged on two questions - whether to accept evidence that the world's climate is changing and, if so, whether states like Minnesota should begin individually to do anything about it. Yes to both, the PUC answered, 3 to 1. Northern States Power (NSP) officials objected saying the rules could make it less competitive in the future. NSP is also concerned about the piecemeal effect of states adopting different standards and methods for calculating environmental costs. State Senator Janet Johnson and others who favor the changes agree that national action is needed but don't anticipate it without pressure from states. - Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 1, 1996, p. B3, by Tom Meersman.