Photovoltaic Systems

The visitor center at the Bernheim Arboretum in Clairmont, Kentucky, which was completed in 2005, continues to garner attention.  In 2007, it was awarded LEED Platinum certification.  Most recently, the visitor center has received the EPA’s prestigious Lifecycle Building Challenge Award.  This is the third year that the EPA has held the challenge where entrants are judged on their building’s ability to minimize waste, reduce energy consumption, and be disassembled for material reuse.  The visitor center took an award in the Building–Professional Built category and an Outstanding Achievement Award for Best Greenhouse Gas Reduction. 

While the LEED Platinum visitor center is primarily constructed of wood, very few trees were cut down for building materials or site clearing.  Only eight trees greater than four inches in diameter were removed for
site construction.  To offset them, 256 cypress trees were planted to
make a new cypress-tupelo swamp along a lake. 

Speaking of trees, deciduous trees on the south-facing side provide shade in the summer to
lower cooling costs and allow for passive solar heating in the winter
when the leaves have fallen.  In addition, the building’s columns and beams were created with cypress wood sourced from old pickle vats and bourbon rack house lumber.  Some other environmental aspects of the project include:

• A green roof that reduces runoff, provides additional insulation;
• An 8,000 gallon underwater cistern that provides water for flush toilets;
• A rain garden with plants and trees that hold and purify water;
• A sloped parking lot that carries polluted runoff water to oyster mushroom beds, which transform the pollutants into compounds that don’t harm the environment;
• Bathroom partitions made from high recycled content high density polyethylene (HDPE);
• Concrete with a mixture of 50% fly ash and 50% sourced from a local stockpile of recycled aggregate; and
• Polished concrete floor that eliminates the need for carpet.

In a press release, William McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle™, said, “The Bernheim Visitor Center represented a magical opportunity; a chance to design a building like a tree. Made up of biological and technical ‘nutrients’ the building exemplifies the Cradle to Cradle approach to design. Imagine a building like a tree; it makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, purifies water, builds soil, provides habitat for hundreds of species, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates micro climates and changes colors with the seasons. The Bernheim Visitor Center can do all this and more. If a building could be alive it would be this building.“

Photo credits:  William McDonough + Partners and Bernheim.

Hocking College — a two-year technical college in Nelsonville, Ohio — has trained its students for jobs in Ohio’s manufacturing sector since 1968.  As these jobs began leaving the state, Hocking College saw the potential for growth in alternative energy jobs.  The school launched the Energy Institute in 2002, with just three students to offer training in advanced energy and fuel cells.  Enrollment has since increased to 125 students and the curriculum has also expanded to include hybrid and plug-in vehicle courses, as well as courses about wind and solar power. 

The school’s newly completed building, located in Hocking County, reflects Hocking College’s commitment to participating in the new green economy.  The 12,200 square-foot building is on track to become the first higher education building in Ohio to receive LEED Platinum certification.  

Some of the building’s green features include the following:

• 26 geothermal wells for heating and cooling;
• A 21 kW roof-integrated photovoltaic system;
• An expansive vegetated roof;
• North-South orientation to maximize natural light;
• CNG filling station and plug-in hybrid charging stations;
• A solar hot water heater; and
• Durable, low-maintenance concrete floors. 

Building and designing this structure to LEED Platinum specs involved the collaborative efforts of several parties, including the Energy Institute, Robertson Construction, and architectural firm Design Group of Columbus, Ohio.  Once up and running, HCEI will use half
as much energy as a similar building.  It’s estimated to save the
college about $10,000 a year. 

As anyone familiar with the LEED projects knows, it’s important to have a collaborative and flexible environment and that’s how this project team worked.  Changes were made (i.e., the addition of a wind turbine and electric car plug-in stations using grant money), and the construction team was willing to accommodate.  Dean of HCEI, Jerry Hutton, recalls, “If the (general contractor) Robertson had given me heartburn over these changes, it would have been very difficult to get this completed.  But they took it in stride and stayed focused on getting the job done on time and on budget.”

This past fall, then-senator Barack Obama made a campaign stop at Hocking College and had this to say: “This college is just outstanding in preparing young people to work in green-collar jobs, which are the jobs of the future.“  This new facility could become a lighthouse project for the new green economy.

Photo credits: Feinknopf Photography.

Scottsdale, Arizona is one of a growing number of American cities that have inserted LEED into their building code.  Scottsdale set the bar quite high with a LEED Gold requirement, but that wasn’t going to limit these architects.  When father-and-son architects Lawrence and Lance Enyart of LEA Architects were chosen in 2005 to design the 14,350 square-foot firehouse, they decided to shoot for LEED Platinum.  Lance Enyart said, “Gold was the mandate, but for us it wasn’t about points that we could achieve, it was about implementing strategies that were project appropriate.“  

You’ll be interested to know that LEA Architects met its LEED Platinum goal, and the building, according to Fire Chief, is the first LEED Platinum fire station in the world.  Some of its green features include the following:

• 5 kW photovoltaic array on the roof that provides 9% of total energy;
• Solar hot water that meets 95% of the domestic hot water demand; 
• Operable windows for added indoor environmental quality;
• Majority of occupiable space located along the perimeter of the building to take advantage of natural lighting;
• Arizona sandstone brick sourced only one hundred and fifty miles from the site;
• Interior block masonry only fifteen miles from the site   
• Interior block masonry used as thermal mass to capture cooling and heating loads;
• 100% of the irrigation sourced from shower and sink graywater; 
• Low flow fixtures, waterless urinals, and dual flush toilets throughout;
• Water harvesting pipes that double as shading devices as part of exterior trellis; and
• A design intended to use 40% less energy than a code-compliant firehouse.

When I spoke with architects Lawrence and Lance, they described the unique nature of designing a LEED Platinum firehouse.  Lawrence Enyart said, “a fire station is different than other building, it’s not an eight-hour-a-day office.  A fire station is used 24 hours a day, which is almost double what a normal building would use in energy.“ 

Block masonry is favored over drywall because firefighters carry metal equipment while running which would destroy a conventional gypsum wall assembly.  The block interior walls also lower heating and cooling loads by absorbing energy and radiating it out when the air handlers are off.  The air conditioning system has a “governor” on it because firefighters have to wear layers of hot, protective gear, even in the summer and can be tempted to turn the air conditioning to the highest possible setting.  Hot air is allowed to escape through a cooling tower, which also doubles as a climbing tower for firefighter training.

Lawrence Enyart has a long history of working in solar design.  The energy crunch of the 1970′s left a big impression on him.  He is one of the first degree holders out of Arizona State University in Solar Architecture and graduated the same day that his son, Lance, was born.  While Lance received his training from the University of Arizona, the two have been able to collaborate despite school rivalries. 

Photo credits: LEA Architects.

The new science and library building at Crossroads College Preparatory School, located in the city of St. Louis, is seeking LEED Platinum certification.  If obtained, it will be the first K-12 school in St. Louis to earn certification.  Head of School Billy Handmaker* was committed to achieving the highest level of certification possible, while still spending within the budget and ending up with a good looking building.  He said, “from the beginning, we said ‘we want Platinum, but won’t compromise.”

The renovated sections are great examples of building reuse.  The site was a skating rink during the 1904 World’s Fair and a grocery store after that.  Reusable elements, such as the original Terrazzo floor from the grocery store, were kept in place.  Some of the other green features include:

• Dimmable skylights that run low when there’s abundant natural light;
• 94% of construction waste was recycled;
• Light tubes with diffusers that provide natural light in hallways;
• “Borrow Lights” that cast natural light into the hallways;
• Adjustable thermostats that vary only 2 degrees up or down;
• CO2 sensors in each classroom;
• No-VOC paints and FSC certified woods;
• Solar hot water heaters on the roof to supply hot water to labs;
• Landscaping with indigenous Missouri plants;
• High performance windows and exterior shading;
• Low-flow faucets and urinals and a rain garden;
• Organic produce grown by AP earth science students that is served in school’s cafeteria; and
• Classroom white boards made of recycled glass on white painted walls.

Students were encouraged to contribute to the design process.  Hanna Norwood, now a freshman at the University of Chicago, was brought in as a design liaison her junior year of high school: “They showed us things like furniture and said ‘what is going to work for you?’”  And the students contributed feedback to influence the final design. 

As one might expect, integrating LEED into a school can bring unforeseen surprises.  Most notably, the new chemistry lab has a wall of tall, south-facing windows that shower natural light into the classroom.  As it goes, the emergency eye-wash station, which is standard in any chemistry lab, has a bright orange shower-head that birds see through the windows and mistake for a giant flower.  Billy Handmaker said they’re going to install bird feeders to help with the problem. 

Below is a photo of the chemistry lab under construction with the orange shower-head on the left.

*Full disclosure: Billy Handmaker was a teacher at this author’s high school before taking the position at Crossroads.

Photos Courtesy of Crossroads College Preparatory School.