The Long Awaited Third Countertop Posting......

Okay, maybe this isn't like the third secret of Fatima or anything, but more than one of you has asked what the "surprise" countertop is. After all, how much surprise can a countertop deliver.

Well, first of all, Vivi's desk (she's our extrarodinarily able Executive Assistant and any of you who call here know her voice) is made of an environmentally sustainable product. In fact, through using this product, we divert post-consumer waste from landfills.

And we think Vivi's countertop is also reflective of our mission. That was important. It needed to fit in.

The product is made by All Paper Recycling, Inc. in Le Center MN. They make countertops of shredded newspapers and shredded cardboard boxes. And they made Vivi's countertop out of......shredded money.

That's right, genuine U.S. currency. And on your tour of the building, if you look real closely, you'll see words like "Federal", "Ten" and "U.S." on some of the fragments.

ShetkaStone (the name of the product) is an environmentally friendly countertop like IceStone. But frankly, we just did it because it was way too cool to pass up.

Reading Eagle Story

Darrin Youker and Lauren Little of the Reading Eagle visited our building yesterday and did a feature story that appears in today's Reading Eagle. Click here.

IceStone Part II

Okay, even I didn't think I'd ever write two blog postings about countertops, but the IceStone story has some cool parts to it. And believe it or not, there will be a third (but that's another story and a whole lot of fun to look forward to.....you'll see). Most of the countertops were part of a very generous donation by Eric Jenkins, Julia Klein and their company, CHBriggs. They've been some of our biggest supporters during this building process with generous financial, technical and moral support. Their company is the region's leading distributor of interior building materials.

A few years ago, I got to know Bill McDonough through some work he did in educating foundations about green buildings, an area we were already involved in through our Metropolitan Edison Sustainable Energy Fund. We decided to bring Bill here to speak at our annual meeting and any of you who were there remember what a powerful, amazing speech he gave. Bill is clearly one of the leading thinkers in the field of environmentally sustainable design.

Bill arrived early for his speech, so Julia and Eric and I had a chance to chat with him for about an hour. At the time, CHBriggs was beginning to think about getting more heavily into the distribution of environmentally friendly products. Bill was beginning to think about creating a process to certify the environmental friendliness of products. And we were just beginning to think about what our new office space might look like. The ideas flew fast and furious at that brief meeting.

Today, one of Bill's companies, MBDC, has a process to certify products that meet the highest environmental standards. The process is known as "Cradle to Cradle" and IceStone is the first and only durable surface to meet MBDC's rigorous testing standards. Bill and his company have made it possible for end-users like Berks County Community Foundation to make informed judgments about what materials are actually environmentally (and people) friendly. And that helps make it easier to build green.

Likewise, the increased availability of these products through companies like CHBriggs makes it easier to acquire those materials. One of the reasons that green buildings actually did cost more in the past (though they don't now) is that it was hard to get environmentally sustainable products. With regional companies like CHBriggs getting heavily into the distribution of those products, that problem has gone away, along with the additional cost.

So, in many ways, our building was made possible by Bill McDonough and the folks at CHBriggs.

IceStone Part I

I'm not sure this picture does it justice, but this is one of the products you'll see heavily used in our building. It's a countertop (okay, the industry calls them "durable surfaces") called IceStone and it's another example of how everything can be more environmentally friendly, even countertops.

First, we get bonus points for the fact that it's produced nearby in Brooklyn (for green building purposes, "regional" usually means a 500-mile radius).

The product contains no VOCs so it doesn't degrade the air quality within the building. About 75% of the product (by weight) is recycled material, much of it broken glass that gives the countertops a really interesting appearance. In fact, one of our donors was excited that she could get IceStone for her house with glass from her favorite blue Vodka bottles (Skyy Vodka). At the Community Foundation, we stuck to more neutral colors. I'm not sure our team could agree on a favorite liquor!

My wife and I have survived one kitchen renovation together, and have sworn never to do another (though I'm sure we will). But if I did another, I think I might use Icestone for the countertops. It's a really beautiful, and environmentally friendly, product. There's a whole lot of information about IceStone available here on the web.

More on IceStone in the next post.

Someday they'll wonder what this is............

This is the concrete floor in the multipurpose room in the community conference center. While it will be covered with carpet, we're all amused by the prospect that some day, some carpet installer is going to pull the carpet up, see this and say, "Hey, what's that all about?"

We used the floor of the multipurpose room to test concrete stain colors for the lobby and other high traffic areas. Early on in the process of designing the building we decided that some of those areas would not get carpet.

Because of the volume of people we expect to come through the building (mostly to use the community conference center), we'd have to replace the carpet in those areas every two to three years. Not only is that expensive, it's not very environmentally responsible. I'll do a post on carpet later, but even fully recycled and fully recyclable carpet requires a lot of energy to produce, recycle and replace. And it's expensive.

So, after some arm twisting by the design team (I was a skeptic about the aesthetics) we decided to go with stained concrete. To be honest, I remained skeptical, but figured we could always cover it with carpet.

After looking at the samples above, the team picked a color (hard to see on this photo, but it's the darkest one). The lobby floor is stained and then a sealer is applied. The process is friendly to the building's air quality as there are no VOCs in the liquids. I'm told that about every decade or so, we might want to put another coat of the sealer (very inexpensive) down. I've seen the lobby and when you see it, I think you'll agree it's quite beautiful. I'm no longer a skeptic.

This is just one more example of how thoughtful design and materials selection is not only environmentally, but also economically, friendly.

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Green Roofs

This is the view from one of the third floor windows of the building. Yesterday, the folks from David Brothers Landscape Services finished putting the plants on the roof. Yep, those are plants on the roof.

On top of the roof surface, David Brothers put about 4-6 inches of soil and rock to create a bed for planting. Then they planted a variety of grasses and a low-growing plant called Sedum. The combination makes what is called a "green roof."

We included green roofs on a small part of the building primarily because we think they're so cool to look at and they give a great teaching opportunity. We made a decision to dedicate the bulk of the roof to capturing rainwater for the toilets and irrigation. But we thought a small nod to green roofs was really needed given the unique nature of the community. The benefits to us and the community we serve of a green roof are:

• An estimated 30 percent reduction in the amount of cooling needed to keep the space underneath comfortable in summer months. Our green roofs are too small for this to make a big difference, but every little bit helps.
• There will be almost no stormwater runoff from the green roofs. The soil and the vegetation should absorb virtually all of the rain that falls on them. Stormwater runoff is a major source of pollution in the Schuylkill River watershed (because of the "stuff" that the stormwater picks up on the way to the river).
• No one really knows how much this extends the life of the roof membranes. If you think about it, what causes the rubber roofs to deteriorate is mostly the exposure to sunlight. These roofs will never see any sunlight.
• The roofs lower the "heat island" effect that buildings cause in cities. That refers to the fact that the black roofs in cities get very hot. That hot air rises. It's a very inhospitable environment for birds. We won't be surprised to see a bird's nest (or two even) on our small roofs.

So, for a lot of good reasons, both environmental and economic, green roofs frequently are a better choice. And you have to admit....that's a nice view.

It's not any of the things you think it is........

Our new building is located in a surprisingly busy spot. It's not that lots of people hang out at Third and Court, although they should--we have great hot dogs.

While not a lot of people hang out, there is a lot of hustle and bustle. It's busy because savvy downtown drivers know that a turn on Third off of Penn Street and then a turn on Court is a lot easier than turning onto Fifth from Penn. So a lot of people go by.

Those folks have noticed that one of the large glass windows in front is shattered. There's a perfectly good explanation for that.

First, it's not a "green building feature."

Secondly, it's not a "design feature".....although it looks pretty cool.

Third, it's not the result of vandalism.

The far less prosaic explanation is that a construction ladder fell against the window just the right (or wrong) way and shattered the glass. It'll be fixed in the next couple of days by our friends at B&G glass who are doing all the glass work for the building.

But then again, we already knew this.......

Re:Vision Architecture was named "Best Green Architect" in this month's Philly Magazine "Best of Philly" issue. Congratulations to Scott, Jenn, Alex and the whole gang at Re:Vision.

The magazine cited their role in designing a green roof for the PECO building in Philadelphia, which you can now tour. We're all pretty sure that next year's Philly Magazine "Best of Philly" issue will recognize them again, but this time for an even more exciting project!

North, South, East and West – Which Window Will Fit the Best?

One of the most complex issues the design team dealt with was the selection of glass in the windows. This post is fairly technical (the original draft came from the energy modeling experts) but gives you an insight into the fact that some of the building decisions were more than "common sense," and in fact involved highly technical work.

Buildings respond to the climate and to their environment, so green building design is site-specific. Berks County’s climate, for example, has more overcast days than clear ones.

Daylight is free, so we designed our building to take advantage of all Berks County could offer. Designing to take advantage of sunlight reduces the number of lights that need to be on at any given time, thereby reducing the building’s electrical load. Since the lights won’t be on, we’re also eliminating any heat the lights would generate. This in turn lets us use a smaller air conditioning unit.

One of the ways architects ensure that daylight is put to good use is to use different types of glass depending on the direction a window faces and the climate. That’s because the sun’s intensity shifts as it moves across the building during the day and throughout the year.

Bear with me, I’m going to get a little technical here.

The basic properties of glass are visual light transmittance (VLT) and solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC).

VLT is the amount of light that can pass through the glass. Single-pane clear glass windows have about an 89% VLT. The foundation’s building has three different VLTs: 56, 60, and 70.

The solar heat gain coefficient (or SHGC,) indicates how much heat passes in and out. The SHGC of the foundation’s building ranges from 0.32 to 0.39. Any value below 0.35 is good.

VLT and SHGC can often be at odds with each other in the glass selection process. But, by selecting a window that balances both values with its position on the building, you end up with the proper amount of daylight filtering through without making the tenants feel like they’ve taken up residence in a greenhouse.

As the sun comes up in the east, it’s low in the sky which can cause glare. Solar radiation in these low rays can quickly heat up a building that is cool from being unoccupied during the night. To compensate for the sun’s position as it rises, the windows on the east side of the building have a VLT of 56 and a SHGC of .38.

As the sun moves higher as it approaches noon, its direct light and heat can be blocked with overhangs and shading devices.

The south side of the building is affected by both morning and evening sun so the VLT on the south side is 60% with an SHGC of .38. I

In the winter in Berks County, the heat from the sun helps warm the building. As the sun begins to set, it has the same low angles as the morning, but the building is already warm from being occupied all day. For this reason, the VLT of glass on the west side is 56 with a SHGC of 0.32.

The north side of the building is not impacted by the sun’s movement, so the windows there are larger with a higher VLT of 70 and SHGC of 0.39. These windows need to let as much light in and keep as much heat in as possible in the winter.

Yes, it all sounds very confusing. But the bottom line is this: by working with our environment and climate, we’ve created a window scheme on all four sides of the building that will provide more than 80% of the building’s light without ever flipping on a switch. We’re saving energy and money on our heating and cooling units by being smart about our windows. It just makes sense.