Esther Underwood Johnson Nature Center: LEED Platinum Certified

 The Esther Underwood Johnson Nature Center at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary received the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) highest designation for high-performing green buildings. Only three other buildings in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have been awarded the prestigious Platinum-certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) designation, including Hickory's Artists for Humanity Epicenter in Boston. 

LEED is a third-party certification process developed by the USGBC in cooperation with industry experts. Projects earn points for satisfying green building criteria in each of six categories, including Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Innovation in Design. The number of points a project earns determines its level of progressive LEED certification, which includes Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

The most advanced roof, window, and ventilation designs were used to minimize energy consumption at the Nature Center. To lessen the building's impact on land and to conserve water, a rainwater re-use system, composting toilets, and a graywater garden were installed. Additionally, a 21 kW solar ground array reduces the electricity drawn from the public electric provider, allowing the sanctuary to take a dramatic step toward energy self-reliance.

The award recognizes the dedicated pioneering work done by the entire project team, and taught Mass Audubon some "important lessons" about green building, according to Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary Director Bob Prescott. The director noted, "our experience was that building green did not take longer and had a comparable cost with using conventional construction methods and materials. What's more, we now have a superior earth-friendly facility that is less expensive to run, has surfaces that are easy to maintain, and should last longer than a traditional structure. It is a wonderful model for future public building."

Photo Credit: Richard Johnson. Read Mass Audubon's full article here.

Hickory Process and Projects

Artists For Humanity EpiCenter

LEED Platinum on a Tight Budget

Artists for Humanity, is a nonprofit educational group founded in 1991 “to bridge economic, racial, and social divisions by providing at-risk youth with the keys to self-sufficiency through paid employment in arts”.  Their new headquarters, called the Epicenter, embodies the dreams as well as the mission of the organization.  Part of the project goals were to produce an iconic building a reflection of the Artists for Humanity’s mentoring mission, to engage the students fully in every step of the design and construction process.

The EpiCenter is a 23,000 ft2 art gallery, studio and office building of 3 ½ stories, with steel-frame construction and metal siding, 2” extruded polystyrene and R-15 fiberglass.  The building models 102% better than ASHRAE 90.1 99 requirements using the LEED Energy Cost Budget method.  It was recently awarded LEED Platinum certification.  Building produces more energy value than it costs to provide heat and electricity. Urban site restrictions meant east and west walls have no glazing; south and north heavily glazed with Low-e curtain wall.  It is the first naturally cooled commercial building in Boston in decades, a key milestone for sustainable construction.  A 42kW photovoltaic system generates 1/3 of necessary electricity; glass walls maximize daylighting, and a tight envelope plus high-efficiency lighting all promote efficiency.

Once in place, sustainably designed buildings apply a continuous impetus for improvement in society that persists into the future. This building demonstrates that energy efficiency, environmental performance, and quality can be successfully integrated into a development and construction process that actually reduces cost substantially.

Process/Design Strategies:

A sophisticated sustainable design approach was employed to guide the entire planning, design and construction process.  Hickory’s Integrated Whole Building Design approach looks at all parts of the process to reveal opportunities for improvement at the lowest possible cost.  The demonstration of a naturally cooled commercial building in an urban setting is very important milestone for sustainable construction.  The whole building design process begins with site design, followed by optimized envelope design, then selection of finishes and materials, distribution, and finally equipment selection. The entire building was thus designed to minimize energy demand, then Photovoltaic electricity generation was applied to an optimized building envelope.

Hickory’s 10 Steps for Sustainable Design

Achieve high level consensus on sustainability economics, indicators, values and goals.

Establish & prioritize sustainability vectors and metrics.

Develop a base case for comparing choices.

Identify highest priority opportunities.

Incorporate sustainability goals in the design process.

Maintain goals through value engineering.

Incorporate sustainability goals in the building process: articulate & discuss the goals.

Plan the process for communication, feedback, tracking, training, and flow

Measure the results, commission and test.

Follow through during occupancy.

Approaching the project from a systems engineering point of view, we know that true systems engineering engages the highest and all subsidiary levels of the system it intends to affect.  To achieve this, The Hickory Consortium conducted two initial participatory sustainability-scoping workshops.  The purpose of these workshops was to involve key team participants to increase understanding of the issues and define the priorities for this project.

Information and Tools

Energy 10 was used as soon as site and general program parameters were known to identify where the energy will be used in this type of building – the targets for conservation and renewables.  The following tools and approaches were vital to the integrated process:

Hickory Integrated Design Process; Energy 10for schematic design; Sustainable Building Design Manual SBIC; Visual Doe 2  Used for Energy Modeling, Daylight and component testing, LEED compliance;  CHPS: High Performance Schools Best Practices Manual;   California Design Methods and Guidelines for Natural Ventilation; FSEC Natural Cooling Manual; RETSCREEN International Photovoltaic Analysis

Products and Systems

Innovative structural and wall systems are part of the design for sustainability and durability.  The steel structure is isolated from the wall sheathing and framing to avoid thermal bridging, with the roof predominantly pitched to optimize the collection of photovoltaic energy.  The 42 KWp grid connected PV system produces more energy than needed during sunny weather, and can provide emergency electricity.  Glazing on south and north facades maximizes daylighting.  Durability is enhanced with exposed concrete floors throughout and considerable application of exposed structure as finish.  Steel framing and stainless corrugated cladding is used for its heat reflectivity, durability, high recycled content, and visual appeal in its unpainted finish.

Project Results/Lessons learned

The project is a demonstration of a very high level of sustainability (LEED Platinum) on a low budget.  Innovative components include cooling avoidance with night-time flushing and ceiling fans for air movement and is notable for achieving comfort without refrigerant based cooling.  The PV array, mounted above and entirely covering the roof , doubles as a heat-reflective shield.  Optimized day-lighting and energy conservation, energy-efficient lighting system with daylight dimming controls and floor plan featuring open spaces with walls between interior studio spaces of clear acrylic to enable daylight to penetrate.  Rainwater is harvested and used for irrigation.  To date, the building has performed extremely well, saving approximately 75% of energy relative to the base case.  Energy cost savings may approach 100% due to the high value of solar electricity and associated Green Certificates (currently $.06 per kWH).  Notably, due to its sustainable features, the building has become a favorite Boston venue for meetings and receptions.

Erie Ellington Performance Report

Erie Ellington Homes

Erie Ellington: energy conscious design with healthy Indoor air quality

This is a summary of the resource conservation results because of the use of the Energy Conscious Option Dynamic Specifications adopted for design and construction documents for the multi unit developed by the Codman Square Community Development group for a building known as Erie Ellington in Boston, MA.  This was a subsidized development and the overall objective was to decrease the energy and water usage without sacrificing home quality or increasing construction cost.  Using a base case of a building conforming to the most restrictive adopted local building code, the performance of the typical Erie Ellington home used 42% less space heating energy, 27% less domestic hot water heating energy, and 59% less home electrical consumption.  (These numbers reflect conscious, intelligent construction decisions, without regard to the argument that electric heat and hot water are allowable by code, but result in artificially high energy impacts).  Another goal was the use of low water consumption devices (for water's sake, aside from the reduction of DHW demand and source pumping energy use), providing an 18% reduction in building water use.  Key in this process was the use of a "Performance Based Specification" for unit air leakage, and control of ventilation and air exchange.  Another benefit of this approach, was a healthier indoor air quality environment, which resulted in 8 out of 18 children with asthma type breathing problems having their symptoms markedly reduced.  Using a dollar cost comparison basis, if we look at the Energy Conscious Options implemented we had: a 62% savings on space heating, 42% on domestic water heating, 75% savings on electrical use, and 9% water savings.  The reason for the difference between the actual water usage versus base case design appears to be higher than design unit occupancy figures, because of the family demographics of the target market for these homes.  It can be seen in the comparison of gas, electric and water costs, the increase in dollar costs of each of these resources is increasing at a rate substantially higher than the average inflation rate over the passed 5 years, so that a projection of the future stream of savings would result in a very high net present value making this an extremely conservative analysis.  Finally, a side by side comparison of the dollar costs of each of the resource consumption area shows an overall cost reduction today of 49% or $2448, with a $750 contribution from decreased space heating demand, $216 from increased domestic hot water production efficiency, $714 from lighting and appliance conservation, and $74 from reduced water consumption.  Energy conscious options, applied with a total building systems analysis can to a large extent, reduce initial construction cost by allowing the use of lower equipment capacities, which produce cost savings, which allow use of more effective building components, which then result in lower operating costs. It is also important to note that in many communities, resource availability, particularly water supply, is a limiting factor for the development or redevelopment of residential infrastructure

Cambridge Park Place

• Cambridge Park Place, a 311-unit apartment building located next to the Red Line subway line in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• The advanced design and integration of building systems is expected to result in a reduction of 48% in building energy use.
• Improvements in the building envelope allowed a reduction in the size of chillers by 50%, resulting in savings of over $300,000 in initial system costs.
• A 40% reduction of storm water runoff is expected - through the use of an underground flood reservoir, pervious paving, and an extensively landscaped courtyard. In addition, an on-site well will provide irrigation for the restored landscape, reducing the consumption of treated water by over 400,000 gallons annually.
• This type of transit-oriented development yields other environmental benefits – reducing pollution, congestion, and energy use from commuter automobile use.

Cambridge Park Place has been designed to improve energy performance relative to standard buildings of the same type, and to achieve good performance in other areas of sustainability.  When completed, the building will have 312 units (including a permanent model unit), as well as a great deal of common space.  As part of the partnering process with the builder, early completion of several units made it possible for early testing to allow bugs to be worked out of the system and allow some new approaches to be tried in a low risk environment.  This testing has also been useful to learn how to do airsealing, ventilation installation, and other conservation related tasks in more efficient ways. The base case estimate of annual energy use for the building was 3,107,000 kWH and 73,272 Therms of natural gas.   The estimated cost for energy was $439,088 per year, with electricity making up 85% of the total.

Due to reductions in cooling load, equipment inefficiency, and lighting & appliance power density, the electric use estimated for the building was reduced from 3,107,515 kWH to 1,441,208 kWH, or 53%.  Gas use actually increased from 73,272 Therms to 75674 Therms (2.5%) due to reduced electric internal gains.   The overall energy savings is roughly 43% and the overall annual cost reduction is estimated at $209,444 per year in energy cost.  The energy savings based on energy costs would be 48%, and the life cycle cost savings were 4.9 million dollars over the assumed 50-year life of the building.

What is Green Building?

There are myriad reasons for embracing sustainable or “green” building. Quite often cost savings or environmental protection, health or durability are cited as compelling arguments for new buildings to follow the green building paradigm. These are all vital issues, yet, there is one feature of sustainable buildings that may be more important than all of these. Sustainability embodies our belief in the future and our care for those who come after us. A building that expresses these values offers the belief in a better future.

Read more: What is Green Building?

Cambridge CoHousing

41 units of market rate modular multi-family housing and common rooms. On a difficult urban site and with many innovative attributes including a ground source heat pump, the recipient of many awards

Erie Ellington

50 units of affordable housing plus community building in Dorchester, MA developed by the Codman Square NDC. Our flagship project shows 50% energy savings after 3 years occupancy and cost 20% less than comparable homes to build, yet is of substantially higher quality. Published widely and considered a model for sustainable urban renewal.