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Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. |
| Architectural Firm Cuts Power Use Almost In Half With Sustainability |
| Sustainability |
| Sunday, February 22, 2009 |
|
From the recycled tire and carpet flooring to the skylights in the ceiling to the sedum on the roof, everything at the Ann Arbor Architects Collaborative whispers sustainability. But imagine what a roar it would be if more offices ran that way. To put it bluntly (and OK, I'll admit, jingoistically), if more offices were run like A3C, the Ann Arbor architectural firm, we could go tell a lot of our foreign oil "friends" to go pound sand. And we'd get to work in exceptionally cool spaces to boot. I toured A3C Friday, a sunny but frigid midwinter's day, and came away impressed -- and wishing my office was more like it. Incorporated in 1983, A3C is an architecture and interior design firm with a focus on sustainable practices. And its headquarters, home now to 21 architects, is the ultimate example of eating one's own dog food. The building at 210 E. Huron has had several incarnations over the past 155 years, including barbershop, bakery and auto parts store. It's been an architectural office since 1964. But A3C changed the building dramatically after moving in in 1997, and undertook a full-scale greening in 2007. The fun begins in the second-floor reception area, where an A3C-installed floor-to-ceiling-and-then-some window lets in northern light. Underfoot are floor coverings made of bamboo, recycled water bottles, recycled tires, and the spool ends of carpets. On the walls are paper-backed wall coverings and the paints are VOC-free. No detail is too small -- the battery in the sensor-activated faucet in the bathroom sink is recharged by a small paddlewheel within the water line itself. Left exposed is much of the reinforcement that allowed the company to install a green roof. Also up in the ceiling are rows of skylights that all but eliminate the need for interior lighting on days like Friday. All light fixtures are high-efficiency. Daniel Jacobs, founding principal and director of sustainable design at A3C, said his office is now much brighter than it was using far less wattage -- the maximum he uses now, turning on every single switch, is 112 watts. The company overall spends 40 to 50 percent less on lighting than it used to, Jacobs said. Heat for 11,000 square feet of space is provided by a series of heat pumps with wells 400 feet deep beneath a four-by-44-foot strip of asphalt behind the building that's leased from the city. There are whiteboards made of recycled chalkboards, and a 450-gallon rainwater runoff collection system that irrigaes the green roof. But it's up on the roof where the building's really different. A3C built a comfortable, 600-square-foot conference room up on the third floor that can host board meetings for 15 or 20 or so. A neat touch: its beautiful wood floors are made from ash trees killed by the emerald ash borer. Full windows facing north show the green roof, where A3C is testing different forms of green roof covering. Included are perennial grasses, food crops like strawberry , tough sedum grasses and more. The grasses are watered by a 450-gallon runoff collection system. The skylights end in phone-booth-sized enclosures containing big fans, where hot air is drawn out on cool days to be replaced by air drawn in through a second-floor window. Jacobs said the conference room is available free to community and nonprofit groups. And it's also frequently used to show sometimes skeptical clients just what a green roof looks like and how it works. And it pays huge benefits in terms of keeping cool in summer and warm in winter. ,Jacobs showed me tests from last summer showing that on a day that went from 60 in the morning to 76 in the afternoon, the sedum roof started out at 60 degrees and never quite got to 70. The surface temperature of a plain black plsatic roof got up to 95, and even a while plastic roof got up to 80. The sedum roof, Jacobs said, means "a big savings on cooling." And in winter, the grass and growing medium on top of it becomes a block of ice, staying at 32 degrees -- which is a heck of a lot warmer than many days we've had this winter. The building is the first in downtown Ann Arbor to be registered with the United States Green Building Council LEED Gold certification standard. The company's overall effors have reduced outputs of CO2 and oxides of nitrogen below 50 percent of a comparable commercial building. Stormwater runoff is 34 percent lower than it would be. The building saves money too -- there's a 48 percent energy savings from the industry baseline for a space that size, and a 30 percent water use savings. The next step for the building will be a small solar photovoltaic array on the roof of the third floor meeting room -- which will be enough to power the room's needs. The company is also exploring installing solar tubes to provide natural light to offices on the first floor, which it currently rents to other businesses. More at www.a3c.com. FROM: WWJ Newsradio 950 is Detroit's only all-news radio station AT: http://www.wwj.com/Architectural-Firm-Cuts-Power-Use-Almost-In-Half-W/3895995 |