February 13, 2012
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Seeing the sustainable forest for the trees

Construction Corner | Korky Koroluk

When William McDonough, one of the world’s pioneers in designing green buildings, gives a talk, he often asks his audience a rhetorical question: What if we could create a building that's like a tree?

We probably never will reach that goal, but that’s no reason to stop trying. McDonough always has that goal in mind and did so with his latest project, housing a sustainability lab for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

He comes surprisingly close.

The building, in California’s Silicon Valley, is of modest size — just two storeys enclosing 50,000 square feet — but it’s big in features.

McDonough and his design team incorporated just about every environmentally friendly idea you’ve ever heard of.

For example, the building has an exoskeleton that provides structural support for the building, but also supports jutting metal sheaths, or leaves, that provide shade.

It also contains a lot of recycled material. The floors are of white oak salvaged when a nearby building was taken down.

The steel is recycled and so is the concrete. The carpeting is recyclable. So is the window glass.

It all fits in with the Cradle-to-Cradle concept that McDonough introduced to the world in his 2002 book of that name.

Ideally, McDonough believes, when a building comes down, everything in it should be recyclable. And, when a material eventually reaches the absolute end of its life, it is ready to be returned to the earth, the cradle from which it originally arose.

He’s been promoting the concept ever since, and he strives to make each of his succeeding buildings better than the last. He has similar hopes for this new building which, he said, should be the benchmark for sustainable, green buildings.

This latest project is a long, narrow structure, designed to maximize daylight exposure.

Earth and sun provide the heating and cooling.

There are 106 geothermal wells under a nearby lawn that are used to cool or heat air that the system pumps through copper pipes in ceilings and raised floors.

Solar panels provide water heating and a solid oxide fuel cell provides electricity. All of this means the building will produce more electricity than the building needs.

It means the building goes beyond net-zero energy to net-positive energy.

Inside, displays show how much energy the building is using and where it’s coming from.

Each employee has a personal energy dashboard, which shows just how much energy he or she is using.

Each work station has its own vent so temperature and energy use can be individually adjusted.

Outside, the landscaping uses native plants and contoured swales that promote absorption of stormwater, minimizing runoff into nearby San Francisco Bay.

Plants are irrigated with recycled water from nearby buildings.

Water for toilets is purified water that’s already been used in sinks and showers using the same technology that NASA uses to purify water on its space station.

Water is heated by solar energy.

There is a sophisticated system that controls all this.

About 5,000 wireless sensors measure carbon dioxide levels, temperature, lighting and air flow.

They will also control the cooling/heating system.

Employees are still getting settled into their new quarters, but when they’re all in and the building is fully operational, it is expected to qualify for a LEED Platinum rating.

For the skeptics who always ask first about price, there is good news.

At about $25 million, the building cost just six-per-cent more than a conventional building would have.

Also, with the economies expected in utility and maintenance costs, that difference in price should be recouped in seven to nine years.

This is a public-sector building, but it will be a showpiece from which the private sector can take lessons about energy efficiency in large buildings. It will help disprove the lingering notion that energy efficiency is unaffordably expensive.

Korky Koroluk is a regular freelance contributor to the Journal of Commerce. Send comments or questions to editor@journalofcommerce.com.