Thom Mayne's high-tech Emerson College LA campus opens in Hollywood

Thom Mayne's high-tech Emerson College LA campus opens in Hollywood

Located on Sunset Boulevard, in the heart of LA's entertainment and communications industry, the $85 million, 10-story, 107,000-sf multipurpose vertical campus takes the shape of a massive, shimmering aircraft hangar, housing a sculptural, glass-and-aluminum base building. The building’s exterior features a dynamic sun shading system that adapts to changing weather conditions to maintain optimal indoor temperature and natural light levels. Heating and cooling of the building is further optimized through an innovative passive valence system developed by Buro Happold. Additional green design initiatives include: the use of recycled and rapidly renewable building materials; installation of efficient water-saving fixtures; a high-performance glass curtain-wall to minimize heat gain; landscaping and a living green wall; and a central management infrastructure to monitor overall building efficiency. 

Anticipated to achieve a LEED Gold rating, the new center champions Emerson’s commitment to both sustainable design and community responsibility. Wrapping the building’s northwest corner, a green wall underscores the towers’ actively changing exterior skin. Connected to weather stations that track the local climate, temperature, and sun angle, the automated sunshade system opens and closes horizontal fins outside the high-performance glass curtain-wall to minimize heat gain while maximizing daylight and views.

Further green initiatives include the use of recycled and rapidly renewable building materials, installation of efficient fixtures to reduce water use by 40%, energy savings in heating and cooling through a passive valence system, and a building management and commissioning infrastructure to monitor and optimize efficiency of all systems.

For more information, read Emerson's article on the Emerson LA grand opening and the LA Times report.

Category: Project Highlight

Source: Building Design + Construction, http://www.bdcnetwork.com/thom-maynes-high-tech-emerson-college-la-campus-opens-hollywood-slideshow

Author: BD+C staff

Date of Publication: March 07, 2014

USGBC CC | Edison High School Partnership

Edison High School Students Partner Up With USGBC to Learn About Green Buildings 

USGBC-CC started 2014 off by partnering up with students from Edison High School’s Green Energy Academy to learn about green buildings.  The program, “Measuring Green Buildings”, had Architects, Engineers and Contractors actually go into the classrooms at Edison High School to provide the students with real-world learning experiences.  The experts engaged students with such diverse topics as:  construction management, commissioning energy systems, acoustical performance, “green” building materials, and architectural design strategies.  As part of the program, students had the rare opportunity to actually test the acoustical performance of one of their classrooms.  After the experience, one of the Edison students commented, “It was something new and new things are always great.  I didn’t really know much about buildings, but after this experience, I now look at buildings with different eyes.”

Green Energy Academy’s Teacher, Taylor Vizthum, expressed his excitement about the students’ keen interest in learning, "In a class of High School Seniors, during the last class of the day you typically expect the students to become ever vigilant "clock monitors", however, during this project, the guest speakers and content was so engaging, they persuaded students to remain after class because they still had questions they wanted answered."

After the educational hands-on learning experience students prepared posters that they presented at the “Green Schools Tour”, which took place at Edison High School’s new award winning building.  The tour provided another rare element of learning – networking opportunities.  This collaboration with Professionals actually working in the field is crucial for the seniors as they graduate from High School and plan their future.

“Industry partnerships are one of the key elements as we aim to prepare our students for the challenges of the 21st century, and meet the needs for better Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) education.  Opportunities as such bring context and relevance and help students connect to their learning.  We are grateful for having organizations like USGBC in our community, who are willing to help us connect with the industry and help better the educational experience of our students, and inspire them to pursue STEM fields”, reported Ellie Honardoost, Program Manager of the Office of College and Career Readiness at Fresno Unified.  Members of the USGBC and general public were invited to attend the event and learn about the High School’s program and building.  The event was a great success!

USGBC – Central CA Chapter would like to thank all of the volunteers from Edison High School, Architects, Engineers, and Contractors involved in the project.  A special thank you goes out to the Project Leader, Kjirsten Harpain from Darden Architects, who did an awesome job bringing experts together and working with the teacher to design the curriculum!

These programs are put on through the generous support of our Sponsors.  As a non-profit, USGBC- Central CA Chapter needs your support to educate and connect people in the Central Valley.  Sign up for sponsorship today!

New Software Calculates Environmental Impact

Tally provides AEC professionals with insight into how materials-related decisions made during design influence a building’s overall ecological footprint.

Architecture firm KieranTimberlake, in conjunction with PE International and Autodesk Sustainability Solutions, announce the commercial availability of Tally, a software application for Revit that calculates the environmental impact of building materials. Fully integrated into Revit, Tally is expected to provie architects, engineers, and building professionals with insight into how materials-related decisions made during design influence a building’s overall ecological footprint.

Backed by the rigor and credibility of GaBi data from PE International, the application enables life cycle assessment (LCA) on demand, documenting information across eight life cycle impact categories that align with LEED v4 and other rating systems.  While working in a Revit model, Tally users correlate modeled elements to a custom LCA database built on GaBi, the largest environmental dataset for LCA used by leading corporations worldwide for both internal and critically-reviewed published studies. The database combines material attributes, assembly details, engineering and architectural specifications with environmental impact data, including branded information from manufacturer environmental product declarations (EPDs).

The commercial release follows a three-month public beta, in which nearly 500 users tested Tally and provided feedback on a broad range of design scenarios.

Full article here

Category: Technology Highlight

Source: Building Design + Construction, http://www.bdcnetwork.com/meet-tally-%E2%80%93-revit-app-calculates-environmental-impact-building-materials

Author: Kieran Timberlake

Date of Publication: March 10, 2014

LEED V4

The Story of LEED: Part 3*

The latest version of LEED, LEED v4, launched in November 2013, continues the momentum in green building by increasing LEED’s technical rigor and facilitating its expansion into new market sectors, including data centers, warehouses and distribution centers, hospitality, and midrise residential structures. LEED v4 also brings an additional focus on user experience, with significant efforts put toward streamlining the LEED documentation process and developing helpful tools for project teams in LEED Online.

LEED v4 includes an entirely new section that awards points to project teams that use products and materials for which life-cycle information is available and that have environmentally, economically and socially preferable life-cycle impacts. The new credit also rewards LEED project teams for selecting products that are verified to minimize the use and generation of harmful substances. The LEED v4 approach paints a more complete picture of materials and products, enabling more informed decisions that have a greater overall benefit to the environment, human health and communities.

LEED v4’s renewed focus on material ingredient reporting and the use of sustainably harvested wood has also made USGBC and LEED the subject of new attacks from the chemical industry as well as the timber industry, which had previously come to a head in 2010 when USGBC members voted against including Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) standards in the LEED rating system (USGBC did not deem SFI rigorous enough for sustainable wood). In both cases, these entities are intent on preserving the status quo and are threatened by LEED’s recognition of environmentally friendly, healthy green building products. These groups have utilized a variety of tactics to undermine LEED, such as developing their own rating system, creating front groups and working to eliminate the use of LEED by federal and state entities.

*Full article here...and you you can also read Part 1: From a Simple Idea to a Several-Hundred-Billion-Dollar Industry and Part 2: A Green Building Explosion (2003-2009).

Category: LEED v4

Source: USGBC, http://www.usgbc.org/articles/part-3-challenges-and-opportunities-2010-present

Author: Jacob Kriss

Date of Publication: March 6, 2014

Ten Cities Get Funds to Assist Energy Efficiency Goals!

$9 Million to Help Ten Mayors Jumpstart Energy Programs

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) launched a new initiative to invest $9 million in energy-efficiency programs for large buildings in ten major U.S. cities. The effort is projected to cut a combined total of 5 to 7 million tons of carbon emissions annually and lower energy bills $1 billion per year.

The City Energy Project, which is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation, will award a $9 million grant over the next three years to encourage energy-efficiency upgrades for existing large buildings in the following cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Salt Lake City.

The program targets large cities that have set ambitious efficiency goals and have the capacity to make significant change but are currently strained for resources, according to Laurie Kerr, director of the City Energy Project. Each city will work with NRDC and IMT to develop and implement its own locally tailored program. While the goals of the program include promoting more efficient operations, encouraging private investment, modeling high performance in municipal buildings, and promoting transparency, each city may have its own focus. In a press conference, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti spoke strongly about directly spurring private enterprise to finance energy retrofits, arguing, 

In these ten cities, where buildings can account for up to 75% of carbon emissions, targeting the biggest energy hogs—large existing buildings—could go a long way toward cutting climate pollution. The amount of energy the program is expected to save is projected to be more than the electricity used by 700,000 American homes each year.

Read full article here! 

Category: Energy Efficiency Initiatives

Source: Environmental Building News, http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2014/3/3/9-Million-to-Help-Ten-Mayors-Jumpstart-Energy-Programs/

Author: Paula Melton

Date of Publication: March 3, 2014

USGBC CC | Green School Tour | Register Today!

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USGBC CC | Green Workshop - LEED V4 Overview | Nov. 5th at 5pm

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