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Green
Milestone
California's Department of
Education Building.
Open Window
Photo: Erhard Pfeifer |
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The
Organic Nature of Sustainable Buildings
Theresa Townsend, Senior Architect for the
Department of General Services, took the lead in achieving Platinum
certification for the Department of Education building. Photo: Ken Hunt,
DGS
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Attaining LEED certification for a new building involves factors including
design, construction and materials. Getting the certification for an
existing building is a matter of process and performance. Credits are
given for all aspects of a building’s performance, from energy efficiency
to the products being used for maintenance and the general effectiveness
of its equipment.
To Theresa Townsend, Senior Architect for the California Department of
General Services (DGS), enhancing a building’s performance means viewing
it as an organic form, with its own personality, quirks and challenges.
The Department of Education Building, in the new Capitol Area East End
Complex, was completed and certified LEED-NC (New Construction) Gold in 2003. After that, DGS,
which runs the building, decided to go for certification as LEED-EB
(Existing Building) Platinum, the highest rating possible. Townsend was
lead architect on the year-long project, which involved a team of about 40
people from many DGS branches.
The certification project got started in May, 2005, when an evaluation of
the LEED-EB scorecard showed that it could be possible for the Education
Building to reach Platinum. By October the effort was under way. “We started figuring out the team and what the credits meant,” recalled
Townsend. Collecting performance data and tweaking the systems and
equipment took until May, 2006.
“The people who really know about the building are those who run it every
day,” Townsend says. “They are the most important people to work with. The
Building and Property Management Branch (at DGS) has tuned their group so
well that they were able to respond to the program and the LEED-EB rating
system."
Among the branches participating in the project were the Professional
Services branch, which provided mechanical, electrical and civil engineers,
space planners
and a landscape architect. From the Building and Property Management branch came a
regional manager, the building engineer, and an industrial hygienist
familiar with waste characterizations. Then there was the support staff
which, in addition to the multitude of administrative tasks involved in
coordinating and tracking performance data, also put together a manual.
“That was our great ‘aha’ idea,” said Townsend, “to create a manual that
we could use for future buildings. About 22 management policies were put
in place that address aspects of LEED-EB credits. "The big story is that we ‘re willing to share the manual with
anyone after January 2007, when we’ll have a draft," Townsend added. "People will be able
to take it and piece it together to fit their own needs. Then anytime it’s
used, more ideas and policies can get added.”
The manual takes into lessons learned from other green building projects.
“There’s documentation that we borrowed from other people, too, ” Townsend
explained. “We used information from the
Massachusetts Department of Food
and Agriculture on integrated pest
management, for example. The result is that we now have a master
template, so we have information in our hands that is correct and is
industry tested. We can pick and choose and add to it. ”
On July 27, the building received the coveted Platinum certification for
energy and resource efficient building operations and maintenance from the
U.S. Green Building Council. California became the first state in the
nation to have a government-owned and operated facility honored with the LEED-EB certification.
Note:
To download a diagram highlighting the range of building
features designed to protect the health and well being of occupants and
minimize environmental impact,
click here
(pdf format).
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