Culture,Sustainability

Death by Plastic

FRIDAY , October 22, 2010 | BY  

by Jessica Pleasants

Green October, a month-long campaign to increase awareness of waste among FXFOWLE staff, kicked–off early this month with a special lecture by Dr. Caleb McClennen, Director of Marine Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Dr. McClennen shed light on the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a high concentration of debris, estimated to be twice the size of Texas, floating at the center of the North Pacific Ocean. The term “patch” is misleading, since the debris consists mostly of small pieces of plastic not readily visible by the human eye or satellite technology. However, Dr. McClennen has seen the occasional floating refrigerator while at sea. Small bits of partially degraded plastics, discarded fishing line, and organic material congregate in convergence zones away from the coastline, pushed together by the ocean’s fluid dynamics.

Dr. Caleb McClennen illustrates how plastics converge in the mid-Pacific ocean.

Although the Marpol 73/78 prohibits international marine dumping from ships, garbage continues to find its way into oceans, killing marine life that either ingest the plastics or become entangled in it. Several organizations sponsor clean-up efforts, but many initiatives remain uncoordinated and are mostly symbolic. That’s why prevention of plastic waste is the first step in protecting our oceans.

An albatross chick confused plastic garbage for food. Photo by Chris Jordan.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) works to safeguard seascapes that are the home of ocean giants, coral reefs, and great colonies of seabirds. The WCS’s efforts focus on land-based pollution and runoff, as well as on maintaining coastal livelihoods, the effects of overfishing, and climate change on coral reefs. An interdisciplinary conservationist, Dr. McClennen oversees the WCS’s marine conservation efforts in 13 focus areas worldwide, from Belize to Indonesia.

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Culture,Sustainability

BYOB

WEDNESDAY , October 20, 2010 | BY  

FXFOWLE's Reusable canvas bag

While purchasing groceries a few weekends ago at my local neighborhood market, I was asked a question that puzzled me more than usual, “Paper or Plastic?” Had I been more environmentally responsible at that moment (sorry, fellow FXFOWLE colleagues), I would have replied, “Neither, I brought my own bag.”  So, with a choice to make, I said paper and went on my way. It occurred to me later that perhaps my quick answer was based on some opinion I had that paper is the lesser-of-the-two-evils. If you think about it, checkout cashiers ask this simple question each time we go to the grocery or drug store—a simple choice, but a complicated question for environmentally conscious shoppers.

Paper and plastic bags are roughly equal in pros and cons. While convenient addictions, they both guzzle natural resources and energy and cause significant pollution. To make all the bags we use each year, it takes 14 million trees for paper and 12 million barrels of oil for plastic. The production of paper bags creates 70 percent more air pollution than plastic, but plastic bags create four times the solid waste—enough to fill the Empire State Building two and a half times. In fact, we consume 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags worldwide every year – about 1 million per minute, and they can last up to a thousand years. Plastic, because it’s cheaper to produce, is the overwhelming bag of choice for grocery stores across the nation—the average family of four uses almost 1,500 a year.

Both paper and plastic bags require proper recycling due diligence from both consumer and municipal waste collectors or private recycling companies, so there are a lot of variables that can lead to low recycling rates. Ultimately, neither paper nor plastic bags are the best choice. For both types, the environmentalist mantra is the same—reuse and recycle. But the best choice, experts say, is to reduce or eliminate by using cloth or canvas bags.

Each October, FXFOWLE holds a month-long series of educational events and informational programs, along with film presentations and lectures, all focusing on green architecture, sustainability, and social responsibility (and an occasional wine/beer/cheese reception). We started calling the month, “Green October,” and this year’s theme is Waste (plastic in particular), and its effect on our environment.

As a firm, each of us has made a commitment to stop using paper and plastic bags, and start using canvas bags. To talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk, we even printed stylish FXFOWLE canvas bags (black of course) for every staff person. Just think, from an energy standpoint, canvas bags are 14 times better than plastic bags and 39 times better than paper bags if you use them at least 500 times. So, I encourage those reading my post to join our cause – the next time you go to the grocery store, or out for lunch, BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag)!

 Sources
MSNBC
Reuseit
The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices
Treehugger

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Sustainability

Innovation Conference, Day 1

THURSDAY , October 14, 2010 | BY  

Last week I attended the first four hours that comprised Day 1 of the 2010 Architectural Record / Green Source Innovation Conference held at the McGraw-Hill Headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Starting off Day 1 was the conference welcoming address which included an announcement that keynote speaker David Owen would be rescheduled to the start of Day 2. As this marked the second time in the last year that I missed hearing David discuss his 2009 book, Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability, I sense that it might be time to actually read his book. With the other scheduled speakers in the audience, the program quickly proceeded with a presentation titled “Decarbonization of Central Cities: Chicago, Illinois” by Robert Forest of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture and Roger Frechette of Positive Energy Practice. The presentation aptly addressed the conference themes:  innovation, big, super-green, buildings, and cityscapes. The main premise of their talk is that improvements to the energy performance of cities are best achieved through an urban-scale analysis. Their premise is built upon achievements in the design of individual high-performance new buildings (example, Masdar HQ), greening of existing large buildings (example, Willis Tower), and the symbiotic relationship between buildings of different uses (example, Willis Tower and adjacent new hotel).

View of Chicago Loop parametric model

 To assist in their urban analysis for the City of Chicago, a parametric model was developed that covered an approximately one square mile portion of the Chicago Loop. They described their parametric model as “BIM for cities” where each building contains data on its carbon use, energy use, electrical use, parking, age, gross square feet, and use. The parametric model is then used as a tool to both increase density while creating mix-use neighborhoods and reduce carbon use to meet Chicago’s Climate Action Plan and 2030 Challenge goals. The impact of proposed changes to an existing building or the addition of a new building within the study area can be easily compared to the base-line figures of the entire study area. As the existing buildings in the Loop study area account for 10% of Chicago’s carbon use but only 1% of the city land area there are significant potential reductions to be achieved. By increasing the density of the study area through the addition of mixed-use development, the analysis demonstrated an overall reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 3.90 metric tons to 0.78 metric tons within the study area, an 80% reduction.

Chart of step-by-step Chicago Loop carbon reduction

Not to be lost in the statistics is the goal to transform a large area of Chicago into several seamless live-work neighborhoods with all supporting services within short walking distances. With further development of the parametric model, it is believed that it will be used in the future to analyze other cities and help guide successful efforts to reduce carbon use in urban areas. With the plan for decarbonization of the Chicago Loop complete, it will be interesting to see if the use of urban-scale analysis is a factor in the realization of the City of Chicago’s carbon reduction goals.

2010 Architectural Record / Green Source Innovation Conference
Big and Super-Green:  From Buildings to Cityscapes
October 6 – 7, 2010
McGraw-Hill Auditorium
The McGraw-Hill Companies Corporate Headquarters
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY

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Sustainability,Technology

LEED Daylight and Views, Part 2

TUESDAY , October 5, 2010 | BY  

  

Since it wasn’t clear how to resolve the daylighting issues with the prescriptive method, we decided to build a computer simulation model.  The computer simulation method is more precise, but also more stringent. Since it is a simulation and not just a calculation based on coefficients and areas, it gives a more precise idea of what the light levels would be at particular times. It is also more stringent because it requires measurements at two different times of day. Based on an actual model of the spaces, it also accounts for borrowed light, material reflectivity (the project has white walls and dark flooring), and window orientation. 

Computer model plan showing the area that falls with the 25-foot-candle to 500-foot-candle range.

However, the simulation must be performed for both the morning and afternoon on September 21, and only the spaces that fall inside the required range of minimum 25 foot-candles and maximum 500 foot-candles for both times of day can count toward credit compliance.  Now, imagine a southwest-facing window. At 9am it doesn’t get any direct light; however, at 3pm it’s hard to find a “shady” spot.  So, in the morning it’s difficult to achieve the minimum 25 foot-candles, and in the afternoon it’s difficult to stay below the maximum 500 foot-candles. 

Rendering modeled in Ecotect, analyzed in Radiance, and reimported to Ecotect for visuliazation at 9am (left) and 3pm (right).

One important point—each window in our project has manual (and some motorized) solar shades that occupants could lower if glare became problematic. Keeping this in mind, the afternoon sun should not be a problem and the whole area of the office should be able to fall below the 500 foot-candles. Unfortunately, LEED 2009 does not consider manual shades a sufficient form of glare control; it specifically requires automatic shades in order to disregard the top boundary for the simulation. It’s not clear to me why manual shades would not be considered sufficient, especially in single occupant spaces where one has full control over his or her environment.  It seems a bit contradictory to the controllability of systems credits (IEQc6.1 and IEQc6.2), where providing individual controls over temperature and lighting is required. How is turning on lights when a space seems dark any different than lowering the shades when there is too much light? 

Even though the simulation method seemed to resolve the issues that the prescriptive method could not address, the added requirement of meeting the light levels for two different times of day proved impossible for this building. The only spaces that fulfill the requirement are shallow offices on the building’s north side where the light levels stay fairly constant throughout the day.  Something important to remember about this credit is whichever path one chooses for documenting compliance, budget extra time. Both paths that we attempted, though not complicated to document, were laborious and required almost double the amount of time we had allotted. 

The team has not lost all hope of achieving this credit. Once we complete the project, we plan on using the measurement method to verify whether the project meets the credit requirements. However, as the light level measurements can only performed in-place after completing the renovation, we will not have a definite answer for quite some time.

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