Bullitt Center infrastructure savings report

One more story to add to yesterday's link roundup: the Bullitt Center has published a report noting that the building may save over $18 million in infrastructure savings over the life of the building. Much of the savings, over $10 million, is based on energy efficiency.

Download the full report from http://www.bullittcenter.org/2014/09/15/report-finds-18-5-million-in-hidden-value-at-bullitt-center/

September news roundup

Time for a news roundup -- recent links from around the web. Have something you want shared with SEAW? Send it our way.

Wood

Lessons learned on recent mass timber buildings around the world

http://www.rethinkwood.com/tall-wood-survey

Hans-Erik wrote an article on tall wood buildings in Arcade magazine (note: article is embargoed for non-subscribers until November 11)

http://arcadenw.org/issues/empathy-fire-and-spades

FPInnovations is selling a handbook on Tall Wood buildings for Canada

https://fpinnovations.ca/ResearchProgram/advanced-building-systems/Pages/promo-tall-wood-buildings.aspx#.VBmdPBYZ7CU

The website for the ambitious USA Tall Wood Building competition is now active. The goal is to realize at least an 8 or 10 story commercially viable timber high rise in the USA. http://tallwoodbuildingcompetition.org/

Reuse and Preservation

Architectural Record discusses buildings that are not flexible or functional enough to last long.

http://archrecord.construction.com/features/critique/2014/1409-Obdurate-By-Design.asp                                     

Preservation Green Lab (a project of The National Trust for Historic Preservation) finds that a mix of older and smaller buildings hold more economic and social vitality than new construction.

http://www.preservationnation.org/information-center/sustainable-communities/green-lab/oldersmallerbetter/

Preservation Green Lab begins a research series on building demolition and reuse with an article that uses Los Angeles as a case study for issues surrounding building reuse.

http://www.preservationnation.org/information-center/sustainable-communities/green-lab/partnership-building-reuse/

Energy

AIA is giving a series of classes on net zero building design

http://www.aiaseattle.org/GettingToZero

Building codes could harmonize seamlessly with LEED certification as USGBC, ASHRAE, and ICC join forces
http://www.usgbc.org/articles/standard-1891-igcc-leed-phillips-head-hammer

http://www2.buildinggreen.com/article/one-standard-rule-them-all-leed-igcc-1891-be-parts-single-system

Resilience

A resilient city conference was held in San Francisco this September and discussed the Rebuild by Design competition sponsored by the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force

http://resilientcity.uli.org/           http://www.rebuildbydesign.org/

Oakland hires its first “Chief Resilience Officer”

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/oakland-hires-its-first-chief-resilience-officer

The Cost of Retrofitting Multifamily for Resilience (to floods)

http://urbanland.uli.org/sustainability/resilience-efforts-hurt-affordability-multifamily/

Kiewit General Manson issues their design-build team’s first annual report on the strategies they used to incorporate sustainability into the SR 520 design.

SR 520 Floating Bridge and Landings Project Annual Sustainability Data Report

 

Autosport Building Tour

The SEAW sustainability committee will tour the building formerly known as Autosport in South Lake Union on September 10 at 3pm, for about a one-hour tour. Thanks to Adam and Lund Ophsal for the opportunity to visit the building. We have room for up to 10 people on the tour, so RSVP for your spot soon. We’ll start a waiting list if things fill up.

Autosport building tour

September 10, 3-4pm

2121 Westlake Ave, Seattle

Description:

The Autosport building was originally built in the 1920’s and is a two story building with a basement. The basement and first floor consist of reinforced concrete construction, the first and second floor walls are comprised of unreinforced masonry (URM), and the second floor and roof are wood construction. The project will remove and replace the roof, retrofit the existing structure below, and add two additional floors. The building will be approximately 26,000 square feet. The new use will be the Maximus/Minimus restaurant, Sugar Mountain Bakery, and offices.
The new lateral system consists of four special steel concentric braced frames, one at each exterior wall. The new floors are heavy timber framed with T&G and plywood sheathing. Existing floors will be re-sheathed with plywood and tied into the new braced frames. The existing URM walls will remain but additional framing and support will be installed to brace the URM walls for out of plane loading.
Sustainable features are the retrofit and reuse of existing materials and the extensive use of wood in new construction, both of which have lower embodied energy and carbon footprint than new steel or concrete. The project is not pursuing LEED certification, but will meet current Seattle Energy Code.

ASCE International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2014

For those of you who do engineering for infrastructure, the International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure is in Long Beach, California, November 6-8, 2014. It is hosted by ASCE. www.asce.org/icsi2014
This is the first international conference of its kind. The call for papers has closed.

Buzzwords from the program include: climate change, extreme events, risk, resiliency, adaptation, envision rating system. More from the program

This conference is not about how to be sustainable. If it were, we would tell you not to
waste your time. Instead, and more appropriately, this conference is about how to deal
with the consequences of non-sustainability, that is, how to plan, design and construct
infrastructure for a new and increasingly harsh operating environment.
Today, engineers, academicians and other practitioners are facing difficult and
unprecedented challenges in addressing a new reality for infrastructure design.
Decade after decade of non-sustainable economic development is changing the
environmental conditions under which infrastructure is supposed to operate. It is also
changing the cost and availability of critical resources such as fresh water and energy.
How we as engineers and scientists deal effectively with these changes is the most
important challenge of the 21st century.
This international conference is the first of its kind. We have brought together people
from across the world; people who are building the knowledge base and developing
the requisite policies and practices to handle the challenge of a changing operating
environment. We designed the conference for practitioners, enabling them to engage
with others, exchange ideas, and see the full spectrum of activities in infrastructure
design for this new reality.

You can also meet members of the Sustainability Committee of the Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute (COPRI) of ASCE. Contact Angie Lander at ASCE for more information on the committee.

If you are a member of the SEAW Sustainability Committee and are interested in attending and sharing what you've learned, we want to hear from you.  We can help defer the cost of attending.

City of Seattle Building Desconstruction Intern

The City of Seattle is looking for a college intern (graduate or undergraduate) to study building deconstruction incentives in the permitting process. More information and a link to the application at: http://buildingconnections.seattle.gov/2014/08/11/sustainability-intern-building-deconstruction/

Should disaster resiliency become part of national design standards?

Here's an editorial in July 2013 Structure magazine about the potential impacts of increased storm intensity. 

Is a Storm Brewing and What Should We Do About It?

Should tornado resistant design have the same level of importance as seismic design?

2012 Seattle Energy Code vs ASHRAE 90.1

How does the 2012 Seattle Energy Code stack up to ASHRAE? That's the subject of a report commissioned by the city and available from DPD:
http://buildingconnections.seattle.gov/2014/06/30/seattle-energy-code-bests-national-standard/

Appendix B includes a line-item comparison of differences, including the continuous insulation provision that is an ongoing area of interest for our committee.