Urban Trees aren't new for us......

Incidentally, Berks County Community Foundation isn't new to the urban tree scene. We manage endowed funds to support trees in the Borough of Boyertown and to maintain trees in Mt. Penn Borough. We've done a lot of that work with the Berks County Conservancy. If you're interested in supporting tree planting and maintanence in your Berks County town, we'd be happy to talk with you.

For information about a great organization that works all across the United States, visit the Earthnxt website. Earthnxt is run by our friend Janet Milkman, who worked with the Community Foundation team when she was CEO of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania.

Seriously, we won't hug them......

Before we started this process, I wouldn't have thought of trees as "part of the building." Scott Kelly of Re:Vision taught me I was wrong about that on our first visit to the site. When Scott, Bill Vitale (of DesignWorks) and I first visited the site, I asked Scott if the site would be good for a green building. Scott pulled out a solar path finder (which is like a half-sphere reflecting globe) and began talking excitedly about how the sun would move across the site.

Almost immediately, he pointed to the length of Court Street on the site and said, "We'll plant trees along here"(remember, we hadn't even decided to buy the property yet). Scott explained to me that deciduous trees along the southern side of the building would provide shade during the summer months that would help reduce the cooling requirement of the building, the size of the air conditioner we would need, and our overall energy costs.

Then, in the winter months when the sun sits low in the sky, the leaves would be gone. That's when you want to grab as much of the sun's heat as you can to lower the amount of heat you need to generate to warm the building. And, you guessed it, smaller heat plant = lower energy costs.

So, as soon as the building is done, trees will be planted along the southern, eastern and western sides of the building.....all carefully positioned to help naturally manage sunlight. For an interesting set of facts about the environmental benefits of trees, click here.

Building Progress Photos

We have new photos of the building's progress. Click on the link below to view them!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30332040@N04/sets/72157621892336942/

What Style Is This?

Last week, I visited the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington. HUD is housed in the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, quite possibly one of the ugliest buildings on the planet (and I've visited Soviet-built government office buildings). My friend Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution calls it "ten floors of basement", which is pretty kind. In asking about it I learned it is built in what is called the "brutalist style".

Knowing that architects love to classify buildings by styles, I asked our team what style our building was built in. Bill Vitale of DesignWorks said that it could be thought of as "contemporary" or "modern" but that it really was of an emerging style that he thinks will be called "green" where the design reflects the effort to minimize the environmental impact and energy usage of the building while maximizing internal efficiency and comfort.

Jenn Rezelli of Re:Vision Architecture called our building "contextual" in that it is designed to complement the existing buildings around it both in materials, style and scale.

These two ideas: Green and Contextual really capture what we set out to do. We wanted to build a green building that captured the best building technology available and put it to use. We also wanted a building that added to the architectural heritage of downtown Reading and felt like it belonged in the city.

So, "Contextual Green" it is. Thank God it's not "brutalist".

New Photo of Front of Building

This is a photo of the building from the Chiarelli parking garage at 3rd and Court Streets. The webcam was in a great position during the first part of construction, but only gives you a view of the Washington Street side of the building. Frankly, that side was built with the assumption that Zion Baptist Church will build their site out and block the view of our building. (We made a grant to them to develop a master plan to do just that).

So, I took this picture which shows you the front entrance of the building.

Pittsburgh leading in green buildings.

Pittsburgh is taking a leadership role in encouraging green buildings by requiring buildings that the city supports meet green standards. Great article here. Would be great to see Berks County municipalities show this kind of leadership. If any of them are interested, we'd be happy to share what we've learned.

Eliminating (mostly) the yawns......

There are generally two reasons that people get groggy and start to yawn in meetings. Sometimes, it's just a boring meeting. But more often than not, the problem is that the carbon dioxide level in the room has gotten too high by having people in the room for too long. CO2 makes you sleepy. Most air exchange units kick on only when the temperature deviates from what's set on the thermostat.

Our first floor meeting rooms are equipped with CO2 detectors that will cause the air exchange system to kick in if the level becomes too high. That will pump fresh air into the room, eliminating the yawning.

Now, if we could only figure out a way to prevent boring meetings.

Philadelphia Inquirer Article on Green Jobs

One of the things we've tried to do with our building is to find ways to "add social benefit". That would be a great topic for the future. Others in the green building movement have as well, and today's Philadelphia Inquirer has an interesting article on using the green building movement to create jobs for former prisoners. Click here.

Imagine: Windows that work!

The windows in the building will actually open! In the process of designing the building, the architects noted that there was no compelling reason to seal the building up like a Tupperware container. In fact, allowing occupants to open the building can cut down on the amount of energy we use by not running the air conditioning on days when opening the windows would do.

But like everything in the building, it's not left to chance. An external sensor will measure the heat and humidity to determine whether it would be better to open the window or run the air conditioner. A redlight/greenlight system in each hallway will illuminate. Red lights mean windows closed (and air systems on), green lights mean you're free to open the window.

It's Pretty Safe Down Here.....

Members of the Berks County Community Foundation team sometimes get asked, "Aren't you afraid to work downtown"? I think I can speak for all of them in saying: "No." In fifteen years of working in downtown Reading, none of us have either been bothered by anybody, nor do we know any office workers who have. We move around downtown, often at odd hours, without much concern for our personal safety. In short, we don't see any particular reason to be any more or less vigilant here than we would be in mall parking lot for instance.

But when we selected the site, we gave some thought to safety, particularly because we knew we'd be inviting people to use the community conference center. Actually, if you take a minute to consider our site, you'd realize it might be about as safe a place to work as there is in Berks County.

The most significant key to safety in a city setting is to be near activity. Think about it....is there anyplace where you would feel safer than Times Square? The sheer number of people there make it a really bad place for bad guys.

Our site has some very similar built in protections. There are a lot of eyes on our property at any given time.

First, the bus terminal that is a constant buzz of activity of people riding to Harrisburg, Philadelphia and New York. As a frequent Bieber Bus rider, I know how many people come in and go out of that building--right next to ours--each day.

Catty corner from our building is a Reading Fire Department station which is staffed 24/7 and a constant buzz of activity.

We're also directly across the street from the Chiarelli Parking Garage attendant booth. And of course, there's "The Hot Dog Guy" Percy Price. Percy's been watching out after our corner for six years and I assure you nothing goes on in that neighberhood that he doesn't know about. So, from a "people watching out" perspective, this is a surprisingly visible and safe corner.

We also have a great resource available to us through the Downtown Improvement District. Not only do their ambassadors roam the area to provide additional security, they will, on request escort guests to or from the building from the Chiarelli garage. So even with evening meetings, we want our guests to feel secure.

Our corner is a busy part of the City of Reading, and that brings some assurance of safety. Now, if we only had a naked cowboy....it'd be just like Times Square.

Air Quality Part II: Shocking Proof of Added Expense of Building Green!

In an earlier post, we talked about the importance of paint in preserving air quality. Here's another example of how green building construction improves air quality in a building--and yes---shockingly adds expense. As you can see in the photo above, the ends of our air duct are wrapped in plastic wrap.

In typical building construction, air ducts are roughed in, then all the walls are put in. This involves cutting drywall, sanding it, and is one of the dustiest phases of the whole construction process. Well, as those ducts sit there, all that dust settles into them. On move-in day, the owner turns on the air exchange units and all that dust blows out, right into the lungs of the employees.

Our ducts are sealed and will be until the building is ready for occupancy. Thus, no construction dust exposure during the early weeks of occupancy.

This is one of the added expenses of building green, because in addition to all of the other things that go into the building, we'll get charged for a couple of rolls of Saran Wrap. Finally......proof of the added expense of green buildings. I knew we'd find it somewhere!

June Waste Report

The Berks County Community Foundation project is implementing a job-site recycling program with a goal of diverting 75% of the project’s waste from landfills. To date 238.18 tons of material or 95.04% of the project’s waste has been diverted from landfills.

As we enter the final phases of construction, it appears very possible that we could finish this project at or above the 95% mark since this is done by weight and the removal of the sidewalks (which will be diverted) and the drywall waste (which is all recycled) hasn't hit the report yet.

I'm told that while this kind of diversion isn't unprecedented, it's very rare and reflects an amazing job by the team from Butz/Burkey. And remember, it saved us money!

Using The Building: Sign Up Now.

When we set out to find a permanent home for Berks County Community Foundation, we identified the need to create meeting space that would support our mission. We also wanted to share that space with the community both to maximize its utility and to encourage local groups to meet downtown in space that would be comfortable and supportive of their work.

The first floor of the building is dedicated as a "Community Conference Center" with great space for meetings. There is a multi purpose room that can be divided into two parts. The room can be configured in many ways, but to give you an idea, it will seat about 75 in a classroom configuration. The room will be equipped with powerpoint technology and has ample white board and push-pin space. The room divides with a movable divider, so it's very flexible.

There is also a small meeting room, that will be configured like a living room. This would be the perfect location for an interview (maybe a search committee would use it), or a small breakout from the larger room.

The centerpiece of the floor is a board room with all the technology you'd find in a Fortune 500 facility. There is built in projection technology, as well as advanced communications technology (though not two-way video for the moment). If a board is meeting and people need to join by phone, fixed microphones and speakers will provide a huge improvement over traditional (squawk box in the middle of the table) technology.

The lobby of the building provides room for gathering and /or a post-meeting reception. And there's a kitchen to support food service during the meetings.

And the best part is the price: For local public benefit organizations who want to use the space during the day, there is no charge for using the space during business hours. A modest charge will apply after hours to cover our cost of keeping the building open (unless a community foundation staff member is part of the group). The space is also available to for-profit groups at a fee.

To schedule a meeting in the building, contact Sally Ott at The Community Foundation at sallyo@bccf.org or 610-685-2223. We are accepting events beginning in mid-September.

Paint Part II and Air Quality Part I

The paint doesn't smell. There's just no "new paint smell" in the building. And apparently, that's a good thing.

The smell of new paint is actually the paint giving off (or "off-gassing") substances known as Volatile Organic Chemicals or "VOCs". While that smell might be nice, it's sure not good for you. VOCs are known cancer-causing agents. To improve the air quality of the building, we specified no-VOC paints (or in some cases very low VOC paints).

These no VOC paints are on their way to becoming the standard in construction. They're also part of why green buildings used to have a construction cost premium, but don't anymore. Because of their health and environmental benefits, they're becoming widely adopted and the price of no VOC paints has fallen to essentially be equivalent to the old, standard paint.

Going into this project, I couldn't imagine writing two blog posts on "paint", but it....like everything else in the building.....has been carefully considered for economic, environmental and energy impact.

Interior paint part I (seriously)

The painters have begun painting the interior walls. The folks on the construction team have been joking about this paint all along. In traditional construction, interior paint colors are usually selected ....oh, about now in the process. We selected our interior paint colors at one of the first meetings as they need to have a certain reflectiveness and play a role in the daylight modeling and energy modeling.

By picking paint that reflects rather than absorbs light, we are able to use more of the sunlight in our workspaces. In fact, through careful design, the team has created a situation where on a cloudless day, about 80% of the light in our workspaces will be natural daylight. That means that we'll need to use fewer interior lights on those days, which saves electricity.

But wait...(as the infomercials say).....there's more. The days with the brightest sunlight--particularly in the summer--tend to be those that would require the most air conditioning. The use of fewer electric lights on those days means less heat generated by the lights themselves and therefore, a lower demand on the air conditioning units saving.....you guessed it.....more electricity.

If I'm learning this all right from the experts, this is what's known as "integrated design" and why interior paint colors can actually play a role in saving money.

Where’s The Solar (Part III): This Is Where It Gets Interactive….

In the past, we’ve talked about passive solar and solar hot water technologies as ways to capture the sun’s rays and put them to good use. We’re very aggressively using passive solar, but opted against using solar hot water as we won’t use enough hot water to justify the system.

But the type of solar technology that’s causing the most excitement in the media today is called “Photovoltaics,” panels that convert solar energy into electric power that can be used on the site, or sold back to the power company. In planning our building, we installed conduits to run wiring from the roof to the garden level if we ever added solar panels, but we didn’t add the solar panels themselves.

Today, we’ll look at “why” a building that is so aggressively designed to be energy efficient and environmentally friendly doesn’t have photovoltaic panels installed on its roof---and what you can do to change that.

But first, two bits of background:

1. If there is one overriding principle that I have learned through the process of designing and building this building, it is that smart building starts with the premise that no two buildings are alike. Every site is different, every use is different, every neighborhood is different—and these factors interact in a myriad of ways. Figuring out the smartest use of technology is a case-by-case effort. But that’s where the efficiencies come in.
   
   
2. We wanted to build a building that would cause other people to re-think the way we build buildings in the community and adopt green building technologies. To do that, the building had to make not only environmental and energy sense—it had to make economic sense as well. We declared early on in the process that the building had to be economically defensible both as a reflection of our commitment to financial stewardship, and as a way to encourage others to follow our lead.

Given these two principles, our threshold for installing new technology in the building was that it had to demonstrate a payback of ten years or less as opposed to the alternative. So far, for our building, at our site, photovoltaic energy generation hasn’t demonstrated that payback.

Since photovoltaic energy is so environmentally friendly, this has been a deep source of frustration to the design team, but it’s a point on which we won’t waiver. Our analysis of the economics of using solar panels suggests that it would take about 60 years to recoup the investment. Again, that’s for our building and our use. Unlike private homeowners who are installing solar panels, for instance, The Community Foundation can’t avail itself of tax credits to offset the cost (we don’t pay income taxes).

Still, we know there are a lot of passionate solar advocates out there. So here’s our offer: Prove us wrong.

Franki and I will happily sit down and discuss any serious proposal regarding solar cells. Here’s what you’d need to know to calculate the potential:

We’re using in our assumptions a rate of $0992/kWh for the energy we purchase from Met Ed. In addition, we’re paying $.00378/ kWh for the Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) for wind power. Both of these numbers can be used in calculating our cost. You should assume that building occupancy will commence (for these purposes) on September 1, 2009.

We acknowledge that the lifting of rate caps will have an effect on electric prices. For our assumptions, we assume that the cost/kWh will increase by 35% to $.13392 effective January 1, 2011. We do not presume that the RECs will increase in price.

For a complete copy of our energy modeling, which would provide you with additional information about the building’s energy requirements, click here.

A complete roof plan is available here which would allow someone to calculate the number of panels. Again, conduit is available through the building to connect the roof panels to the utility rooms.

So, if there’s someone out there who’s got a real plan that would allow us to install photovoltaic and recoup their cost in under ten years with these assumptions, we’d love to hear from you. You can email me directly at kevinm@bccf.org