GreenBuildIndiana

Nature Conservancy Building in Indianapolis on Track for LEED Gold Certification

Video Credit, Cory Schouten, IBJ

The Indiana Business Journal has a tour of the new Nature Conservancy building in Indianapolis that's on track to achieve LEED Gold status. 

The Nature Conservancy will live its principles by employing the following green features:

• A basement cistern that collects storm water from roof; recycled water will be used to flush toilets and irrigate landscaping
• Trees and shrubs native to Indiana
• Permeable paving to avoid runoff into the city's problematic storm water system
• Geothermal heat is the principal heat source, w/electric heat only as backup
• Green roof featuring 10 varieties of cedum plants (this may conflict with cistern rain water collection; green roofs are notable for not allowing runoff; they also help keep the building cooler in summer and warmer in winter)
• Live wall in the basement, contributing to air quality and allowing natural light to conference rooms
• Abundant windows and lighting that only kicks on when daylighting is insufficient
• 8,000 square feet of brick were recycled from the original structure on this site; that building was ruled unsafe to inhabit
• Indiana Limestone was donated by Rich and Alice Johnson through the Indiana Limestone Company
• Wind turbines will be added later

The building will be completed in February 2010.  Can't wait to tour its grand opening; this is a splendid example of green building for the city and for the state to follow.

Building with Whole Trees: Whole Trees Architecture and Construction

Image Credit: Whole Trees Architecture

I like to post inspirational examples of green architecture.  Sometimes what is "inspirational" is not really practical or affordable.  That's why this article in the NYT about whole tree building was so satisfying. 

"In this quiet farming community, where people may not have a lot of money to spend, but do have plenty of wood and straw, word of the beauty and practicality of Mr. Gundersen’s structures has spread. Solar greenhouses made of local materials can extend the growing season through winter, even in a place where temperatures can drop to 30 or 40 below. In the last 18 years, Whole Trees Architecture has built 25 of them here."

Building with whole trees has some advantages:

• It  uses smaller trees that loggers pass over.
• Smaller trees are bendable and curves are stronger than straight lines, so bent trees can support a lot of weight.
• In fact, a whole unmilled tree can support 50% more weight than a piece of milled lumber from the same tree.
• Harvesting smaller trees can pull in more light to a dense forest, a part of forest stewardship.
• Whole trees have the lowest embodied energy of any building material.
• Whole trees are the only structural material that sequester CO2.

Whole Trees Architecture's houses are also designed using passive solar techniques, so they are huge energy savers.  But their most outstanding quality may be their stunning beauty, as you'll see in this slide show from the New York Times article. 

Solar-Powered Library Shows that Nothing is Impossible

Was inspired by a Bloomington Herald-Times article last week. Faced with no budget for a library, the 540 citizens of Chrisney, IN just went ahead anyway.  See fuller coverage in the Evansville Courier-Press.

"They had no money to build a library, no viable existing buildings or partnerships for a shared storefront library, and their public library district adamantly refused to support capital or operating costs for a new branch." --Bill Brown, project architect on the Chrisney library building, and now Director of the IU Office of Sustainability

The building got land and maintenance commitment donated from the town, a grant from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, and $66,000 in matching funds from the citizens of the town. (Remember, there are only 540 citizens in the town.) The result:

• A 9.6-kilowatt grid-tied photovoltaic system provides all the electricity needed
• A geothermal heating and cooling system heats and cools without combustion
• A passive solar design uses free sunlight to light the building and provide supplemental heat
• Transparent solar panels roof the Learning Power Pavilion and provide a classroom for the elementary school’s outdoor learning lab. 

Congratulations to the town of Chrisney, Indiana for their foresight, initiative and innovation.

Image Credit: Denny Simmons, Evansville Courier-Press

Muncie Indiana's Ball Memorial Hospital Creating Largest Green Roof in Indiana

Though Minnetrista has the honor of building the first green roof in Muncie, Ball Memorial Hospital (BMH) plans to up the ante by building the largest green roof in Indiana.  Having lived in the Chicago area during the previous decade, we watched with interest as Mayor Daley began his green roof initiative and spurred the adoption of green roofs all over the city. Studies have shown that green roofs can result in the following benefits:

• 25% reduction in summer cooling needs
• 95% reduction in summer heat gains
• 26% reduction in heat loss during winter
• Significant reduction in sound levels inside the building
• Moderation of heat island effect

Not to mention that they offset tons of carbon dioxide.

BMH's roof will be 23,000 square feet, and I'm sure their heating and cooling bills will soon start to make the investment pay off.  BMH has estimated that they will save about $50,000 annually by reducing energy usage and by slowing roof repairs. (Green Roofs help roofs last longer.) 

Chicago Green Roof Image via Inhabitat

Lopez Island Washington Green Affordable Workforce Homes

Jetson Green has the story on low-cost Net Zero Energy homes on Lopez Island, whose high land prices make housing out of reach for teachers, government and other workers.  Note the natural circulation provided by the clerestory windows.  Quoting from the Jetson Green article, the community's other green features include:

• "Small footprints designed to reduce energy and resource use;
• Overhangs for heat gain in the winter and shade in summer;
• Vegetated trellises designed to shade lower windows;
• Super insulated walls and roofing;
• Straw bales at north, east, and west walls;
• High efficiency, operable windows;
• Solar shades on window interiors;
• Insulated night and light shades at windows;
• Concrete floor as thermal mass;
• Energy Star appliances and CFLs;
• Low flow plumbing fixtures;
• Solar hot water heating and power from a 33.8 kW photovoltaic system;
• Rainwater catchment for toilet flushing, washing machines, and stormwater control. "

The community is called Common Ground and is the latest project of the Lopez Island Community Land Trust, whose mission, among other things, is to create sustainable and permanently affordable housing.

Image Credit: Mithun

Energy Star Challenges Schools, Congregations, Businesses to Save Energy

Schools, churches, corporations, local governments and seemingly any group that owns a non-residential building can sign up to take the Energy Star Challenge which calls on them to reduce their energy use by 10%. This is a terrific program that also provides the information and tools with which to accomplish the goal, including communication materials to share information and success stories.

The Energy Star Toolkit offers energy monitoring programs and other materials tailored to each type of group;for example the Guide for Congregations provides materials to:

• get started and achieve "quick wins" with easy, proven energy savers
• analyze larger opportunities
• track energy usage and calculate resulting savings
• materials and resources to "green your congregation"

Similarly appropriate materials and resources are provided for schools k-12 and higher education institutions -- from teaching tools, info on how to finance improvements, and guidelines for energy management.  Bringing green building techniques to school settings is particularly gratifying because multiple tests have shown that better air quality and daylighting improve student test scores.

See the Energy Star Challenge Case History for Council Rock School District in Newtown, PA and other case histories on the site.

USGBC to Require 5 Years of Energy and Water Bills for Buildings to Keep LEED Status

The New York TImes reports that many LEED-certified buildings are not living up to the energy-saving potential promised by their design.  The USGBC is going to change certification to require 5 years of energy and water bills in order to keep a building's LEED status.   I am feeling pretty confident that our house, built using PassiveHaus principles, will perform outstandingly in terms of energy savings.  We'll keep the records to prove it so that, if we do get LEED certification, in five years we won't have to give it back.  The Farmer's Almanac predicts numbing cold this winter.  I say, "bring it on".

Historic Preservationists and Green Builders and Renovators Beginning to Unite

The Bloomington (IN) Herald-Times featured an article yesterday about greening older homes.  It's great to see that the same historic preservationists that have kept so many of our treasured older buildings from being destroyed are now incorporating energy efficient practices into their work.

Since its inception in 1993 publicity around the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has largely focused on new construction, in an attempt to stop shoddy and energy-wasting building practices before they begin.  But the USGBC hasn't totally ignored the greening of existing homes.

The USGBC recently joined forces with the American Society of Interior Designers’ (ASID) Foundation to create REGREEN, which provides best practice guidelines and targeted educational resources for sustainable residential improvement projects. On the REGREEN website you'll find terrific resources and case studies to help guide renovation efforts, including a Deep Energy Retrofit Case Study.

Many older homes can be made energy-efficient and, if the house is not completely ruined, this is always preferable to tearing down an existing home and replacing it with a new one.  Preservationists might want to have a look at the deep green renovation of a 1915 Craftsman bungalow recently completed by the founder of USGBC, David Gottfried, whose home is rated LEED Platinum.

In the same spirit, LEED for Homes awards additional rating points for building a new house where another house once stood, and building it near essential services to minimize driving. 

The building of our own green home was greatly enhanced because we chose to work with a seasoned contractor with a long history of restoring older homes, the Golden Hands Construction company, owned by Chris Sturbaum. In short, preservationists and green builders/renovators are on the same team, and are beginning to work together. That's good news for all of us.

Cool Roofs Lower AC Bills by 20% or More

An article in the New York Times today reports that cool roofs (white roofs) cost only 15% more than their dark counterparts, while substantially lowering electricity bills on an ongoing basis.

"From Dubai to New Delhi to Osaka, Japan, reflective roofs have been embraced by local officials seeking to rein in energy costs. In the United States, they have been standard equipment for a decade at new Wal-Mart stores. More than 75 percent of the chain’s 4,268 outlets in the United States have them."

The Cool Roof Rating Council can help homeowners and contractors find materials that provide the radiative properties necessary to lower their energy bills and combat global warming.

100 Abandoned Houses in Detroit

What could we do with all of the materials sitting here, abandoned in the once-great houses of the city of Detroit? The empty houses, like Alzheimers sufferers, sit there, unable to speak, yet communicating volumes. 

The embedded energy alone represents a vast energy sink. Would it be worth it, in terms of energy expended, to recover these materials? Or, is it more efficient to just let them go to ruin?  Like an illustration in The World without Us, they are both troubling and fascinating.

On the website 100 Abandoned Houses, the photographer and web developer Kevin Bauman offers the photographs for purchase, with 30% of the profits going to Habitat for Humanity.

In its coverage of the New York Times story, TreeHugger quotes Bloomberg's Paul Kedrosky:

"According to the latest data, the number of vacant U.S. homes touched 18.7-million in the second quarter. That is a daunting figure, of course, but it is more fun to put it in context. Assuming four people per household, the U.S. currently has enough surplus housing to put the entire population of the U.K., with room left over for Israel."

Gulp.