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Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
'Sustainability Has Taken the Moral High Ground From Preservation'
Boston — College planners and architects concerned about protecting older buildings on their campuses were cautioned Thursday that “sustainability has taken the moral high ground from preservation,” and that some preservation advocates spend too much time griping about their waning influence and not enough figuring out how to make historic structures practical in an era of higher energy costs and lower carbon footprints.
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The warning came from Henry Moss, an architect with Bruner/Cott, which was responsible for a high-profile Harvard University project that reclaimed an old generating station and made it a university office building with a LEED platinum rating (right). He spoke here at a conference for Boston-area colleges that was sponsored by the Boston Preservation Alliance.
Mr. Moss said the influential LEED standards for sustainability are “weak on historic structures,” in part because they don’t do a good job of accounting for what’s known as “embodied energy” — energy expended in the past to construct existing buildings. “In fact nobody knows anything about embodied energy,” said Mr. Moss, adding that it was amazing how little research had been done to figure out how much embodied energy is squandered when an existing building is demolished so a new one can be built in its place. LEED is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program of the United States Green Building Council.
It’s also difficult to weigh energy savings against the value of retaining a building’s historic appearance, he said. That’s one of the “second-generation questions” about sustainability that a college faces as it progresses from building a single “trophy” green building toward making its entire campus more sustainable.
He also warned that as buildings’ sustainable systems become more complex, they will present additional challenges. “The competence of the professionals that are now working on these projects is really being stretched — it’s being stretched right along with the competence and knowledge of the project managers,” Mr. Moss said. “Where we used to do one or two new things in a project, we’re now doing 10 or 15. With that level of innovation, the risk in these projects is definitely increasing.”
For instance, he said Harvard University now has at least a half-dozen buildings with geothermal heating and cooling systems, and “each one of those has generated new lessons — I’m avoiding the term ‘head-banging problems.’”
He also said that colleges would need to rely more on the commissioning process, in which engineers take a close look at a new building’s systems after they’re installed to make sure they’re running as efficiently as possible. And he said colleges would have to train their maintenance and cleaning staffs carefully so they know exactly how each new building functions. The questions colleges need to ask, he said, are: “Did you get the building you bought? And will people be able to operate it once it’s handed over?”
The good news, he said, is that LEED’s overseers are working to improve how the standards are applied to campuses and other multibuilding areas, and to neighborhoods. The changes, he said, will “force a comprehensive approach on the part of the commissioning institution,” rather than encouraging those one-time trophy projects. He said the changes would also “allow you not to have to repeat the paperwork every time you do a project.”
“I don’t care what anybody tells you — it costs $100,000 to get a major scheme certified,” said Mr. Moss. He added that after project managers have done several such projects, “they ask, Wouldn’t we rather spend that $100,000 on the building?” —Lawrence Biemiller
Lawrence Biemiller | Friday October 19, 2007 | Permalink | Contact usComments
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Harvard’s Blackstone Station project achieved a LEED Platinum rating, but the university rigorously avoided “point-chasing” as the project’s solutions were meant to be applicable to their existing campus of 200+ buildings and to the new Allston campus.
The preservation community will force new technical solutions for building skins and windows to extend the meaningful lives of old buildings, but any defensiveness will only slow our progress on this front.
— Henry Moss Oct 19, 01:11 PM #
The first paragraph seems a bit biased. While wagging the finger at the preservationists who aren’t involved in exploring sustainability within preservation it might be more effective to also look at the work that is being done by preservationists to advance an understanding of how the two work together. Several major preservation organizations are dedicating substantial man-hours to exploring this question and completing research projects that will move the preservation field forward with respect to sustainability. Here’s one of many documents currently emerging from the field: http://www.phlf.org/events/preservationconference/pdf/GHP_PHLF_Final_WP.pdf
— Maggie Oct 19, 02:05 PM #
I’ve often heard architects make the statement, somewhat tongue in cheek but mostly in earnest, that the ‘greenest’ building is the one you don’t build. This seems like a natural common ground for preservationists and sustainability mavens.
— Kyle Napoli Oct 19, 02:49 PM #
Mr. Moss — Thanks for the correction about Blackstone Station — I’ve fixed the post.
— Lawrence Biemiller Oct 19, 04:28 PM #
Mr. Moss makes the point well. The LEED system has been invaluable in getting owners to embrace sustainable design. Like any measuring tool, it tends to distort the thing being measured, and its flaws are magnified in the product.
— Tom Contos Oct 22, 09:28 AM #
The topic of embodied energy was studied as a preservation tool in the early 1980s and then largely dropped from discussion. It is now re-emerging as the interesection of preservation and sustainable design approaches advance. In many ways, the preservation community is the only organized group actually looking at building re-use as a green strategy. The fact that green and preservation are even viewed as ciompletely separate approaches rather than two versions of a larger agenda has been recognized and is being addressed. Both approaches share many stewardship values. Unfortunatley, anyone reading the title of this article would get the impression that this separation exists.
— Mike Jackson, FAIA Oct 22, 10:29 AM #