NEEA’s BetterBricks asked Mike Hatten of SOLARAC and Jeff Cole of Konstrukt to present a performance modeling approach that aligned with the integrated design approach promoted by BetterBricks and deliverables regularly associated with design phases in a new booklet, “Integrating Energy Engineering and Performance Modeling into the Design Process.”  Aimed at architects to use with their engineers, this booklet, provides a recommended scope of energy engineering and performance modeling services to support the development of very energy efficient, high performance buildings. The energy engineer/modeler will enhance the design team’s understanding of project opportunities and constraints, challenge the design team to examine key questions, act as an advocate and serve as a design team resource to improve a building’s energy performance throughout each design step.

We would love to hear your success stories with energy modeling!  And any feedback on this first edition booklet.

BetterBricks Awards Calls for Nominations.

Each year, a handful of standout individuals throughout the Northwest are honored with a BetterBricks Award for their commitment to high performance buildings and contributions to a sustainable built environment.  These awards honor the people behind some of the best commercial building projects throughout the Northwest. It’s time once again to call on the best and brightest in the industry to submit a nomination.  You can find more information about the BetterBricks Awards and fill out an online nomination form at www.BetterBricks.com/Awards.   The deadline to submit is December 17, so don’t procrastinate!

Oregon/SW Washington BetterBricks Awards
Friday, February 11, 2011
7:30 – 9 a.m.
Hilton Downtown Portland
Keynote TBD

Puget Sound BetterBricks Awards
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Hyatt Olive 8
5:15 – 7:30 p.m.
Keynote Dana Schneider, VP, Sustainability Services Market Lead, Jones Lang LaSalle

Awards are being sought in the following categories:

Architect
Those who design buildings and lead the design team on projects that consistently target and achieve high levels of energy efficiency in new construction, tenant improvements or major building renovations. Body of recent work champions energy efficiency as the foundation of sustainability efforts. Open to an individual or a team within a firm.

Design Engineer
Those who have contributed significant solutions to the energy efficient design of mechanical and/or electrical systems for new buildings, tenant improvements or major building renovations. Body of recent work champions designing for high performance, especially in the area of energy with techniques such as innovative energy modeling and integrating controls and systems. Open to an individual or a team within a firm.

Advocate
Those who advocate that energy efficiency is the foundation of sustainability in commercial buildings. These champions work both within their professions and throughout the commercial building market to champion and support the design and operation of high performance buildings. This award is open to professionals in any of the other categories but also, consultants, government, non-profit, educators and others.

Owner/Developer
Those who make decisions about strategic direction regarding investments in high performance energy efficient buildings. These executives, developers, owners and institutional leaders champion the building and operation of high performance buildings.

Facility Manager/Operator
Open to a team or an individual who champions the energy efficient operation of existing buildings. Ideal for those who operate the facilities of a building, including facility directors and building operators.

Service Provider
Those who provide services to the efficient operations of commercial buildings including mechanical contractors, control companies, equipment manufacturers and commissioning agents.

Property Manager
Open to a team or an individual who champions energy efficient property management to building owners and tenants. Ideal for those who manage the facilities of a building with energy at the forefront of their work.

Nominate a Leader Today!

NEEA’s BetterBricks was happy to be a major sponsor this program. This year the focus was on energy performance and water performance. For the first time, all projects were required to provide an energy consumption measure, the energy Use Index or EUI, which seems small but, in fact, is a huge step to getting all entrants to think about energy performance. In addition, the only other mandatory requirement was to describe the project team’s integrated design approach, a key process to achieve high performance buildings.

I’ll get to the award winners in a minute. First I want to share what I find stimulating about the awards process itself. To start, the jury consisted of leading sustainability experts, and not just architects. People like Bob Berkebile FAIA, Founding Principal, BNIM Architects and co-founder of COTE nationally, Don Horn AIA, Assistant Director, GSA Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings, Claire Johnson, Associate Director, Atelier Ten, San Francisco, and ALEX STEFFEN, Executive Editor, Worldchanging.  The jury was moderated by Nadav Malin, President, BuildingGreen, Executive Editor, GreenSource.

The Awards process began with the submittals but led to a public jury panel discussion that was videotaped for later posting on the AIA website, followed by a public jury interview of the finalist teams. Then the 11 finalist projects were printed on panels for public display and eventual shipment for display around the region, further extending the impact of the lessons generated by these projects. The Awards ceremony allowed a public discussion with the winning project teams and in the near future there will be a set of case studies and a small booklet and an issue of Seattle AIA Forum magazine describing the projects. So if you missed the other public opportunities you still have many options for viewing the projects. Web images and descriptions of these and all submitted projects can be found at http://wmig.aiaseattle.org/2010_gallery.

Finalists and Winners

Now for what you’ve been waiting for. The jury selected two Gold-level projects, one Silver, and two Honorable Mentions — one for Rural Housing and one for Cultural Sensitivity.

GOLD
King Street Station Rehabilitation, Seattle WA
ZGF Architects
Collaborators:  SMEP Engineer: ARUP; LEED Certification: Green Building Services, Inc.; Commissioning Agent: Keithly Barber Associates

Photo Credit: Seattle Department of Transportation; Museum of   History & Industry
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GOLD
Vancouver Convention Centre West, Vancouver Canada
Design Architect: LMN Architects. (Prime Architects: Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership & DA Architects & Planners)
Collaborators: Mechanical Engineer: Stantec Consulting; Commissioning Authority and Mechanical Commissioning Agent: KD Engineering Co.

Photo Credit:  LMN/Studio 216
_________________________________________________________________________

SILVER
Twelve | West
ZGF Architects
Collborators:  Gerding Edlen Development Company LLC ; Total Mechanical – M/E/P Engineers, Lighting Design

Photo Credit:  Timothy Hursley,  ZGF Architects LLP
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Honorable Mention for Rural Affordable Housing
Common Ground, A Co-op Neighborhood
Mithun
Collaborators: Lopez Community Land Trust.

Photo Credit:  Mithun, Juan Hernandez
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Honorable Mention for Cultural Sustainability
Northwest Maritime Center
The Miller|Hull Partnership
Collaborators:  Mechanical Engineering: Ecotope, Inc; Sustainability: O’Brien and Company

Photo Credit:  Nic Lehoux
_________________________________________________________________________

During the awards ceremony, there was an open Q&A session with project team members and the audience. Below are some of the interesting ideas from NEEA’s BetterBricks’ point of view:

- Integrated design proved to be a key process to attain high performance.

- Thermal comfort expectations can and should vary by seasons, by use and by zone.

- Green BIM tool advances are really helping.

- District-level awareness and connections are key to advanced sustainability.

- It is important to explore all the energy options early and seeing where they might work or even influence the design scheme.

- Some new products were developed or introduced into the US via some of the projects thus making it easier for future projects to take advantage of.

- It was essential to either have a client that was interested and even aggressively pushing the energy and sustainability goals or have the architect effectively convince the client of the importance.
So go check out the detailed project information at the Seattle AIA website, and look for the video trailer http://wmig.aiaseattle.org/2010_gallery.

A groundbreaking new research effort reveals how hospitals, which account for four percent of all energy consumed in the U.S., can achieve a 60 percent reduction in energy utility use by redesigning the way they use energy. A newly constructed, code-compliant hospital in the Northwest following the process and employing strategies identified in the research can expect to save around $730,000 a year.  Savings in other areas can be higher where utility prices are higher. All sectors of the medical industry are tackling issues of sustainability as providers continue to be asked to do more with less and lighten their impact on the environment.  This work represents one of the latest contributions to the ongoing push to green America’s hospitals and build healthier communities. The most salient outcome of this work is the definition of a process that brings together architectural, mechanical and central plant systems to deliver significant efficiencies. These strategies include heat recovery, daylighting, and thermal energy storage, which when integrated at the very beginning, can reduce up to 60 percent of a new hospital’s energy use. This approach resulted in a full hospital prototype that has been modeled for energy use as well as cost of construction and can be implemented for less than three percent of the total project’s cost, an incremental cost that is expected to be recouped through energy savings and utility incentives within the first five-to-eight years of a building’s life depending on local utility costs.

The study was presented at the CleanMed Conference in Baltimore on May 11, 2010. To read an executive summary of Targeting 100! click HERE. To request a copy of the full report, click HERE. For Energy in Healthcare Fact Sheet, click HERE.

The study, titled, “Targeting 100! Envisioning the high performance hospital: implications for a new, low energy, high performance prototype,” is the result of the close collaboration of the University of Washington’s Integrated Design Lab and NBBJ, one of the nation’s leading healthcare architectural firms. The study was primarily funded by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) through its BetterBricks initiative, with significant in-kind time commitment by NBBJ and others on the research team including engineers, general contractors, utilities, hospital CEOs and facilities managers.

Previous research conducted by the UW’s IDL of Scandinavian hospitals showed that a hospital can achieve an Energy Use Index (EUI) of 100 and still provide patients and staff with an exceptional work and healing environment. An Energy Use Index, or EUI, is the total amount of energy used by a building (electricity and natural gas) per square foot of floor area, measured on an annual basis to establish baseline energy use.  The EUI value for a building is used in a similar manner as MPG is used to describe the efficiency of an automobile.

This study shows that hospitals in the U.S. can also aim for an EUI of 100 and achieve similar successful outcomes while fully complying with codes. To put this in perspective, the EUI of an average Northwest hospital is 270 KBtu/sq.ft.yr.

David Cook of Behnisch Architekten, and currently the Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Visiting Professor in Architecture at the University of Oregon School of Architecture, will be speaking at the U of O White Stag Building on Thursday evening May 20th.

David Cook, Dipl. Architekt RIBA, ARB studied architecture at the Polytechnic in Manchester and obtained his Diploma at the University of East London in 1992. Together with Stefan Behnisch and Martin Haas, he has been heading the practice Behnisch Architekten since 2006. He has held teaching positions in Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and New York and has given lectures in Manchester, London, Aarhus, Cagliari, Miami, and Beijing, among other places.

Behnisch Architekten is a leader in creating distinctive architectural solutions that are environmentally sustainable. The Stuttgart, Germany-based architecture and planning firm maintains U.S. offices in Venice, CA, and Boston, MA. Notable projects include platinum-LEED-rated Genzyme Center in Cambridge, MA; Norddeutsche Landesbank in Hannover, Germany; Cultural District Riverfront Development Plan in Pittsburgh, PA; Unilever Headquarters in Hamburg, Germany; Institute for Forestry and Nature Research in Wageningen, The Netherlands; and the Harvard Science Complex in Allston, MA.

David Cook will be speaking in conjunction with the very interesting and informative exhibit  ”Design, Ecology, Synergy”  which  redefines the term sustainability by examining how people inhabit their built environments. This exhibition which toured Europe, showcases the innovative design approach of Behnisch Architekten and Transsolar Climate  Engineering, as illustrated by several international projects and ongoing collaborations.  It is a cleverly designed exhibition that demonstrates the human senses to the built environment. Human scale diagrams show our intake of the environment and our reactions to light, material, temperature, air, and sound as conditions determined or often dictated by the enclosure system of the building. The exhibition appropriately features audio, visual, and tactile displays including large light boxes where information on each category (light, material, etc.) is printed on the surface; videos of interviews and projects; project models, and large colorful dome luminaries.

Presented by: U. of Oregon Department of Architecture

Date: Thursday  5/20/2010
Time: 6 :00 pm–Lecture,  7:15 pm–Reception
Free and open to the public

Location :
Event Room

White Stag Building
70 N.W. Couch St.
Portland, OR, 97209