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Greening the Corporate Scene
Companies begin to explore ‘sustainable' design for environmental friendliness — and long-term benefits
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Business New Haven
3/19/2001
By: Mimi Houston
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In the 1970s, those concerned for the environment were often derided by cynics as “tree huggers.” They wore odd clothes and lived in yurts situated miles from civilization. They grew their hair long, ate nuts and berries and took pleasure in being arrested at protest gatherings.
In the 21st century, concern for the environment is mainstream. Evidence is everywhere, from the can and bottle collection room at your local supermarket, to the bright recycling bin in front of your house on trash-collection day. As the dire reports about the greenhouse effect keep making news headlines, we all come a little closer to feeling the urgency to do our part in order to preserve the land.
Once thought to be the domain of school children harping on their parents to recycle cans and bottles, now even big business is stepping in to the act of saving the world.
In the built environment, architects everywhere are incorporating sustainable design - also known as “green architecture” - into building plans. This can may encompass anything from using recycled materials and sustainable forest wood products in a new building, doing the proper work necessary to ensure savings in energy, water and other building resources, proper indoor ventilation and using indigenous plants to landscape a sensitively sited structure.
Green architecture is being built all around us, though we are a state trailing behind much of the rest of the country, in part due to the initial higher building costs of a green structure.
“But that margin of cost is disappearing very quickly,” says Rainer Mulhbauer, AIA (which designates a member of the American Institute of Architects), an architect for the BL Co. of Meriden, who has a special interest in sustainable design. He and fellow architect John Rountree, AIA of John Rountree Architects in Westport founded the AIA's Committee on the Environment, a New Haven-based organization providing information and support for designers in the area who want to incorporate sustainable principals in their work.
“Green building materials are becoming cheaper,” Mulhbauer. “And that, coupled with the high cost of today's oil and gas bills, are really opening the doors to green architecture in our area.”
“We do much of our work outside Connecticut,” explains Steven Winter AIA , of Steven Winter Associates of Norwalk. Winter's firm specializes in green architecture.
Steven Winter Associates serves as a consulting architectural firm on projects up and down the East Coast.
“We've recently done the Audubon Society in Boston, the Department of Environmental Conservation in Albany, N.Y., and Four Times Square, a green 48-story office tower in Manhattan [and home to publishing powerhouse Condé Nast]. And, we're currently working on the first green high-rise apartment building in New York City,” he adds.
Winter says lack of a strong voice in Connecticut legislation on environmental issues, compared to other states such as New York and Massachusetts, and greater building costs help to explain our lagging position.
“A green building can cost anywhere from $1 to $5 more per square foot,” he explains. “That's significant.” But he adds that taking the low-ball route can be penny-wise and pound-foolish, as costs in maintaining a standard building - heating, cooling, water supply, etc. - will be higher over time.
Even so, businesses large and small are warming up to the color green when it comes time to build new offices and headquarters.
“I have a client in Hamden who is building a new space for his upholstery business,” says Jay Bright, AIA, of Jay Warren Bright AIA Architect in West Haven. “He's asking that the building be as green as possible.”
Bright admits, though, that the notion of sustainable design is not always as clear-cut as clients would like it to be.
“Right now we're struggling with whether or not to use skylights,” he notes. “On the one hand, they're great for letting in natural light and saving energy costs that way, on the other hand they allow a lot of heat to escape and may cause the energy bill to be higher.”
While sustainable design is surely more challenging in a part of the country where temperature fluctuations can be extreme, area architects point to one building in particular in as a shining example of modern green architecture: Duracell's corporate headquarters in Bethel, designed by the New Haven architectural firm of Herbert S. Newman & Partners, PC.
Newman's firm was hired to design a new building amid 44 acres of woodlands. Site-sensitivity, building design and chosen materials, landscaping, energy conservation, sewage and waste systems and water conservation all played key roles in bringing about the final product.
“We wanted to ensure that we didn't end up with the standard corporate headquarters of a grey monolith with tinted glass set in immaculately manicured lawns with no sensitivity or relationship to the surrounding environment,” explains Wade Lewis, former senior vice president and chief financial officer for Duracell.
“It was particularly important that as the building matures, it should grow old gracefully, integrating with the environment in which it resides,” he continues.
The building, completed in the late '90s, exemplifies Duracell's commitment to be the environmental leader in the worldwide consumer battery industry. Twenty-five percent of the structure's steel was recycled from automobiles and destroyed buildings, and the roofing shingles are fabricated from 95-percent recycled aluminum. Less flashy details incorporated ensure - among other things - maximum energy efficiency and better-than-average air filtration to prevent the onset of “sick building syndrome”.
Joseph Schiffer, AIA, managing partner of Herbert S. Newman & Partners, was project manager for Duracell, a project that after completion was chosen as one of the country's five model projects in sustainable design.
“The most telling lesson to be drawn from the Duracell headquarters experience,” Schiffer says, “is the value of developing a broad-based approach to the innumerable opportunities to incrementally improve the design, energy use, conservation and operations in projects of this scale.”
Schiffer acknowledges that projects like the Duracell headquarters still do not reflect the mainstream of new construction, but he is hopeful about future projects.
“Green architecture is slowly being osmosed into the general culture,” he states, referring to the dearth of examples of it in the New Haven area. “There are all kinds of different supporting structures of program funding. Building codes are inching ahead slowly. People are starting to realize this is an obligation - slowly.”
While Schiffer says it's easy for people to get excited about the “unique models of green architecture - the flashy and exciting examples” such as the Duracell project, he says it's concerns like designing the perimeter of a building - its roof, insulation of walls, siting of windows - for maximum sustainable design that are most important. He looks to changes in basic design fundamentals and responsible building materials to lead the way toward a greener corporate world.
Still, if it's flashy and exciting you like, a possible new neighbor to Westville residents may provide just that.
George Messier, a retired Marine major and naval-science teacher at Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk, is also the owner of Native Sun Energy, LLC of Wallingford. He is working on securing funding for a project that will cover the top tier of south-facing seats at the Connecticut Tennis Center (about 900 seats) with photo-voltaic panels.
The panels would collect sunlight and provide sufficient energy to power the tennis center's year-round offices, or to sell to one of the two “green” electric companies in the state: the Connecticut Energy Co-op or Green Mountain, both in Hartford.
“Right now the whole idea is just in a gestation period,” Messier says. “It exists in my head. I'm a tennis fanatic, and I've volunteered at and attended the tournament for years, baking in the sun. I'm also interested in renewable energy sources.”
Messier must still meet with the board of directors of the tennis center to sell his idea, but feels optimistic they will be receptive, and sees the end result as a win-win situation for all concerned.
“I'm a teacher,” he explains, “and part of my interest is teaching future generations about renewable energy sources. The tennis center could become a destination for thousands of students in the state to come as a class trip and see the panels. It's a way to promote awareness of this form of energy.”
If approved, Messier would contract with a firm to install the panels, changing the look of the tennis center forever, making it a shining example of architecture of the future.
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