On to San Antonio!
After meeting at the Hotel Havana for coffee in the morning we went to our first appointment, Jerry Lammers at Alamo Architects. This firm of 40 people specializes in sustainable design for both residential and commercial properties. We went to their new office space, which has a great story behind it.
The building started out its life as a custom truck trailer manufacturer, and then was sold to a kitchen equipment dealer and storage warehouse. This office was the second LEED Gold certified building in all of San Antonio. The firm bought the lot and proceeded to invest 1.3 million dollars in a top to bottom renovation, which stared the reuse of most of the existing building and grounds. They decided to make the most of what was on site. They tore up the existing concrete driveway as most new tenants would; but unlike most new tenants they decided to cut the concrete driveway into large pieces so that they could reuse the slabs as landscape material (stepping stones) as well as in the creation of a decorative garden wall.
This idea of on-site reuse continues throughout the entire space. The interior of the firm was left in its original configuration as a large warehouse/garage space, which worked out great for the office space with high ceilings and open space. They seemed to save as much of the old factory/warehouse as possible. The truck sized roll-up doors were replaced with insulated, low-E glass to flood the interior space with natural light. Much of the metal fixtures and interior structure was also maintained and reused to suit the new function of the space. They also used much of the lumber that was in the original building as accent wood for the interior. Long leaf pine was harvested before 1928 and is only available in reclaimed sections. If you were to buy this wood from a lumber dealer you would pay $5.00/board Ft (if you can find it). This added a fantastic look to much of the interior. They also used metal garage doors, as outdoor columns, trailer testing ballast as landscape stones, and even wooden roll-up doors were converted into cubical walls with built in windows.
The next stop of the day was a local TRANE dealer, where we attended a USGS C.E. lecture/webinar. This started with a presentation of the Green Communities program. This is the first all green affordable housing project. It is focused on the idea that we can deliver health, economic, and environmental benefits from changing the way that we construct multi-family dwellings that are not priced out of reach of “regular” people who might not know about the advantage of these advances. The USGBC worked with water/power utilities and property owners to collect a great deal of accurate date concerning consumption of resources at developments like the ones they were ready to build. The design they discussed worked out to be a $1900.00 investment that would return $2900.00 over the life of the building. This might not seem like a great savings; but when compounded by several dozen/hundred units that savings can quickly add up to a substantial amount of money for the entire development.
The next stop of the day was a local TRANE dealer, where we attended a USGS C.E. lecture/webinar. This started with a presentation of the Green Communities program. This is the first all green affordable housing project. It is focused on the idea that we can deliver health, economic, and environmental benefits from changing the way that we construct multi-family dwellings that are not priced out of reach of “regular” people who might not know about the advantage of these advances. The USGBC worked with water/power utilities and property owners to collect a great deal of accurate date concerning consumption of resources at developments like the ones they were ready to build. The design they discussed worked out to be a $1900.00 investment that would return $2900.00 over the life of the building. This might not seem like a great savings; but when compounded by several dozen/hundred units that savings can quickly add up to a substantial amount of money for the entire development.
I was interested to see that they mentioned water collection systems in this presentation. They pointed out that this system is one of the few green innovations that was low-tech. They also stressed that if a collection system like this is installed and properly maintained it can offer potentially very large savings in water utility bills in throughout the entire life span of the building. They highlighted the fact that water saving and reduction systems have some of the quickest payback times (ROI) of any resource saving systems. The example that sited was a $350.00-$900.00 savings per year, per unit. This would lead to a 2-3 ROI.
I liked the next part very much; they talked about the importance of knowing the difference between Modeling –vs- Reality. Where Modeling is important to design, you still have to walk the site to make sure that these designs will work with the real world results of the subcontractors constructed building. Also, you can use combine bill tracing with energy modeling over time to determine if the building is actually green or not.
Their closing point was the new Building Performance Partnership (BPP). This partnership engages commercial and residential LEED building owners and managers in an effort to optimize the performance of buildings through data collection, analysis and action. The currently they are collecting information about water and power usage from as many LEED buildings as they can. Having a database like this will be invaluable in enabling standardization of reporting metrics and analytics, and establish new performance benchmarks. They spoke about 2012, where BPP will be a LEED certification requirement and the trend of each individual building having energy/water monitoring systems to feed the BPP database.
The third visit of the day was Solar San Antonio. They described themselves as a “One stop shop for solar in S.A” or “Kind of a BBB for solar.” They had helped with 150 solar installations in the S.A. area, with 150 clients currently wait-listed. With so many clients in need of assistance you would think that is most of what they do here, but in addition to helping people get solar on their homes and businesses, they are also helping to pass three Bills through the state legislature helping limit the strength of Home Owners Associations to restrict and deny the installation and use of solar energy in housing developments, and to help them accept the inevitable need to reduce ever rising utility bills.
They are funded by the local utility (CPS) and by Bexar county. Currently, their largest exposure to the public is during their yearly solar expo. This event is a chance for them to showcase what they have to offer in the way of assistance and informational gathering that is available to the public. The highlight of the
Expo is the Solar Home Tour. Each year they tour around a ten private homes to an estimated 500-600 people. This is a fantastic way for them show as many people as they can that they have been successful in helping people see their dream of personal solar ownership become a reality.
Expo is the Solar Home Tour. Each year they tour around a ten private homes to an estimated 500-600 people. This is a fantastic way for them show as many people as they can that they have been successful in helping people see their dream of personal solar ownership become a reality.
They are also involved in the construction of several large solar generation farms. These farms are a big part of the future of solar. They will use undesirable land and turn it into areas of worth and redevelopment. Each of these farms will also create hundreds of construction jobs that will translate into the private sector once the farms construction has been completed. The largest of these projects, The Blue Wing is the largest solar photovoltaic (PV) facility in Texas and the third largest PV farm in the U.S. The amount of generation from the facility is approximately 25,000 megawatt-hours. The constructions of farms like Blue Wing, when combined with aggressive pricing and technological advances will help Solar S.A to see their ideal price point of $1/Kw/Hr become a reality by 2020.
Our next meeting a short visit with the directors of the Sustainable Business Program at The University of San Antonio. They had a lot of great things to say about the changing face of today’s business. They talked about the triple bottom line of “People, Profit and Planet” where business can still make a profit without destroying part of the planet in the process. It isn’t business as usual anymore. That old model just won’t work today. The modern business model has to take environmental impacts into consideration. They concentrate on Four main aspects of sustainability in business; Sustainable Manufacturing, Business Practices that are forward looking into the distant future and not concentrated solely on a short payback time, Disaster Preparedness, and the Commercialism of sustainability itself. They are able to do so through funding provided after Hurricane Dolly in 2008. A combination of Federal Reserve funds, FEMA and EDA allocated money allowed the university to research a business school model that would be sustainable into the future.
One of their current undertakings is study of urban sprawl and suburb-ism and its link to high/rising energy prices and unwanted overstress on existing power infrastructure. They were excited to see students that are currently taking an interest in the sustainable energy model that they have been building. One of their hardest obstacles to overcome is expanding the kind of business that they want to practice in areas where people don’t already have a green mindset. One of the ways they hoped to overcome this barrier was implementing an alternative idea to LEED-Type scoring where a client can benefit from their sustainable ideas without regard to size or buying power. Also, where they are able to customize a plan to fit the customer and not have to adhere to a rigid system of points and benchmarks so that a client can see positive change in themselves and their business.
The last stop of the day was Poteet Architects, where Jim Poteet met with us to talk about himself and his firm. He started the firm 13 years ago, when he moved to S.A from Philly. He had decided to concentrate his work in sustainable remodeling and refurbishment of old/historic buildings while also overseeing new responsible construction that kept the same commitment to quality and design that he stressed.
He talked about the idea he shares with a few select real-estate people, where there is continued responsible development of the S.A. urban corridor and a commitment to rehabilitate many of the derelict downtown buildings. This plan focuses on the repurposing of space to keep the spirit of the area while ushering as new future where once empty space is converted to useful, commercial and residential space that benefits the renter/owner as much as the city the rent/own in. In the immediate neighborhood there was an old gas service station that had been converted into a high end eatery, a uniform construction/cleaning warehouse that used to spew lint and unpleasant smells into the air was changed into a successful restraint supply gallery that has the space to store, ship and show their products. The addition of more space allows them to consolidate their operation and save on fuel cost and equate this lower cost into savings to their customers. Finally, there is a food products corporation in the shell of the old car dealership. The ample space of the dealer garage was converted into a production floor, while the showroom was changed into an office and small, naturally lighted exhibit area.
The big project that they were concentrating on was the conversion of the old Hemisphere Park. This multi-decade undertaking is the conversion of an old fairground-display area from an underused part of town with poor infrastructure and underused potential to 60 acres of new homes. The master plan calls for three parks, museums, and plans for several markets for local products. This all will be interspersed with multifamily dwellings. They are going to try and get away from the single family on a single lot idea that has caused such a high price per foot in city real estate in the past. They believe with a more vertical oriented development plan they will able to spread this and other expenses amongst more people and lessen the financial burden all around.
The foundation structure is made from recycled telephone poles. Floor to ceiling glass doors and windows provide better natural lighting through the container. In addition they installed bamboo flooring, air conditioner and heater, an electric composting toilet, and bamboo wall-covering for the container. Grey water processing system is available and the water is used for watering the garden. Spray foam insulation is also provided to protect the housing from heat and cool conditions. Although this was a “down-time” project for the firm they definitely learned a lot from it, and will continue to implement successes discovered during this retrofit in homes in the future.
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