Athena in the News
OHSU takes green building higher
December 1, 2005Author: Dylan Rivera
Publisher: OregonLive
Reference URL: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1133497511295080.xml&coll=7
A new tower in Portland will be the largest to earn the world's top rating for environmental friendliness
F lush a toilet in the new OHSU Center for Health and Healing after the building opens next year, and the water won't go into the city's sewer. Instead, it will be used to nourish the landscaping and fill a water tower that provides air conditioning.
And there's more to the building than its unique plumbing. Rejecting the traditional flat, glass-walled high-rise look, the OHSU Center will have rows of solar panels protruding from its southern wall, generating electricity to help power the building and shade to keep it cool against summer heat. Ventilating stairwells with natural breezes and using the natural rising of hot air and falling of cool air are among the conservation methods that will save the building's owners an estimated $400,000 a year in electric bills.
Combined, the elements appear to make the new OHSU building among the most environmentally friendly buildings in the nation, and probably the most eco-friendly biotech building in the world. Upon completion in 2006, it will be the largest building in the nation built to meet the top rating under the premier program for green construction: the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
For all those bells and whistles, most building owners would expect to pay a premium, at least in the short term. But to add financial audacity to ecological idealism, the building's engineers claim they saved money. The building's engineering bill for mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems pencils out to 25 percent less -- $7.5 million -- than the $30 million budget of a conventional office building, said Jerry Yudelson with Portland's Interface Engineering Inc. "We're getting a high-performance building on a conventional budget, which puts to rest the notion that green costs more," Yudelson said. "It can be done by local design teams that really work closely together and pay attention to the details."
Interface Engineering published a 48-page book detailing the environmental features it plugged into the OHSU tower. It has been distributing the glossy volume for free, including at the U.S. Green Building Council's annual conference last month in Atlanta. Interface views the book as a challenge to its peers. "When everybody hears LEED, they think it's going to add cost to the project, and that's not the case," said Andy Frichtl, an engineer who led Interface's team on the OHSU building. "Nobody realizes you can do this."
Only 13 buildings worldwide have received the platinum level certification, and none is in Oregon, according to the council's Web site. Most of the platinum LEED certified buildings are small-scale offices for environmental groups, and none has energy-intensive uses such as the biotech research labs included in the OHSU building, said Paul T. Schwer, president of PAE Consulting Engineers Inc., one of four companies that bid for the engineering work on the OHSU project and lost to Interface. In the new building, the "membrane bioreactor" that cleans toilet waste into nearly drinkable water will be a unique system for the Portland area, at least in an urban building, Schwer said. Much of the drinkable water buildings use is wasted in toilets and other facilities that don't really need water so clean, he said.
"You save the drinking water for drinking," Schwer said. "Then you don't have to build the next reservoir on Mount Hood. It's thinking about the problems differently." The system will flush some solids to the city's sewer system, Interface officials said, but only equivalent to about 1 percent of what a conventional building would send.
Patients waiting to see a doctor in the new building will be surrounded by air bouncing gently up and down. Radiators near the floor will heat the air. When it rises, as hot air does, the air will be cooled by chilled beams -- metal fixtures set to a low temperature. Then, the air goes down to the hot radiators, and the process starts over again. The result will be a room that's designed to be more comfortable than those of conventional buildings where people are doused in a draft of hot or cold air, Frichtl said.
The chilled beams -- common in Europe -- will mean that section of the building won't have to have fans and other elaborate energy-sucking devices that tend use more electricity. The upshot? The building will use about 62 percent less electricity than the state building code's requirements. "That's off the charts," said Bill Nesmith, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy.
Dylan Rivera: 503-221-8532; dylanrivera@news.oregonian.com ©2005 The Oregonian
F lush a toilet in the new OHSU Center for Health and Healing after the building opens next year, and the water won't go into the city's sewer. Instead, it will be used to nourish the landscaping and fill a water tower that provides air conditioning.
And there's more to the building than its unique plumbing. Rejecting the traditional flat, glass-walled high-rise look, the OHSU Center will have rows of solar panels protruding from its southern wall, generating electricity to help power the building and shade to keep it cool against summer heat. Ventilating stairwells with natural breezes and using the natural rising of hot air and falling of cool air are among the conservation methods that will save the building's owners an estimated $400,000 a year in electric bills.
Combined, the elements appear to make the new OHSU building among the most environmentally friendly buildings in the nation, and probably the most eco-friendly biotech building in the world. Upon completion in 2006, it will be the largest building in the nation built to meet the top rating under the premier program for green construction: the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
For all those bells and whistles, most building owners would expect to pay a premium, at least in the short term. But to add financial audacity to ecological idealism, the building's engineers claim they saved money. The building's engineering bill for mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems pencils out to 25 percent less -- $7.5 million -- than the $30 million budget of a conventional office building, said Jerry Yudelson with Portland's Interface Engineering Inc. "We're getting a high-performance building on a conventional budget, which puts to rest the notion that green costs more," Yudelson said. "It can be done by local design teams that really work closely together and pay attention to the details."
Interface Engineering published a 48-page book detailing the environmental features it plugged into the OHSU tower. It has been distributing the glossy volume for free, including at the U.S. Green Building Council's annual conference last month in Atlanta. Interface views the book as a challenge to its peers. "When everybody hears LEED, they think it's going to add cost to the project, and that's not the case," said Andy Frichtl, an engineer who led Interface's team on the OHSU building. "Nobody realizes you can do this."
Only 13 buildings worldwide have received the platinum level certification, and none is in Oregon, according to the council's Web site. Most of the platinum LEED certified buildings are small-scale offices for environmental groups, and none has energy-intensive uses such as the biotech research labs included in the OHSU building, said Paul T. Schwer, president of PAE Consulting Engineers Inc., one of four companies that bid for the engineering work on the OHSU project and lost to Interface. In the new building, the "membrane bioreactor" that cleans toilet waste into nearly drinkable water will be a unique system for the Portland area, at least in an urban building, Schwer said. Much of the drinkable water buildings use is wasted in toilets and other facilities that don't really need water so clean, he said.
"You save the drinking water for drinking," Schwer said. "Then you don't have to build the next reservoir on Mount Hood. It's thinking about the problems differently." The system will flush some solids to the city's sewer system, Interface officials said, but only equivalent to about 1 percent of what a conventional building would send.
Patients waiting to see a doctor in the new building will be surrounded by air bouncing gently up and down. Radiators near the floor will heat the air. When it rises, as hot air does, the air will be cooled by chilled beams -- metal fixtures set to a low temperature. Then, the air goes down to the hot radiators, and the process starts over again. The result will be a room that's designed to be more comfortable than those of conventional buildings where people are doused in a draft of hot or cold air, Frichtl said.
The chilled beams -- common in Europe -- will mean that section of the building won't have to have fans and other elaborate energy-sucking devices that tend use more electricity. The upshot? The building will use about 62 percent less electricity than the state building code's requirements. "That's off the charts," said Bill Nesmith, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy.
Dylan Rivera: 503-221-8532; dylanrivera@news.oregonian.com ©2005 The Oregonian