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Building Oregon 2007: Cover story
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Going greener
 The Burnside Rocket building at East Burnside and 11th in Portland plans geothermal heat pumps and a rooftop garden. Image courtesy of Kevin Cavenaugh |
“We’ve passed the tipping point in sustainable
design,” says Kip Richardson, marketing director for
Ankrom Moison Associated Architects in Portland.
“It’s no longer about how you’re going to do
it, but how far you’re going to push it.”
Richardson says almost all of Ankrom Moison’s projects
these days have some sustainable design elements in them. At
least two clients, developer Steve Ribeiro in Independence and
Vulcan Inc. in Seattle, have charged Ankrom designers with
taking sustainability to shades of green beyond Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications and other
industry measures.
“They’ve said, ‘We want you to explore how
far we can go,’” Richardson says.
LIKE CAVENAUGH’S “EDIBLE ROOF,” innovation
in sustainability is often about finding new and sometimes
site-specific ways to add some shades of green to a
building.
Take, for example, the new Siskiyou Community Health Center
designed by Ashland architect Ray Kistler. The clinic was built
on a unique seven-acre virgin forest site full of fir and oak
trees, madrones and ponderosa pines — “Kind of like
an arboretum,” Kistler says.
 The new Siskiyou Community Health Center designed by Ashland architect Ray Kistler is built on a seven-acre virgin forest site. Few trees were cut in clearing the site, and those that were became part of the building. Image courtesy of Kistler Architecture |
With preservation of the arboreal site in mind, very few trees
were cut to clear an area for the clinic, and those that were
became part of the building. Kistler says the building’s
Zincalume metal roof is not only made from a significant amount
of post-consumer product, but it also helps divert rainwater so
it can be used for irrigation.
The building also incorporates low-energy lighting and
mechanical fixtures, nontoxic paint and natural cork-based
flooring.
“The clients were interested in as many green choices as
were available,” Kistler says.
Another example can be found at 200 Market Place, a large LEED
gold office building in downtown Portland that sports its own
30-kilowatt, natural gas-fired microturbine. The generator
produces enough energy to run the 19-story building’s
nighttime and emergency lights while emitting 90% fewer
pollutants than average natural gas power plants. In addition,
the exhaust from the turbine is used to heat the boilers and
run the air conditioning unit.
Simply retrofitting 200 Market Place’s water fixtures
cut the building’s water use by more than 30% as
well.
At Stoller Vineyards Winery, a 370-acre vineyard and winery in
Dayton, solar panels atop the business’s new LEED gold
winery produce 43,300 kilowatts a year, which has led to a 75%
energy savings.
 The Siskiyou Community Health Center incorporates low-energy lighting, nontoxic paint and cork-based flooring. Image courtesy of Kistler Architecture  The Burnside Rocket building is shooting for a LEED platinum certification. Image courtesy of Kevin Cavenaugh. |
Pushing the green-building ethic farther these days can also go
beyond technical or material innovation.
James Meyer, a principal at Opsis Arch-itecture in Northwest
Portland, says that not only does his firm occupy a highly
sustainable building, but its green streak has proven
attractive to other businesses with similar worldviews.
Meyer says the sustainable features of Opsis’ Lovejoy
Building, which include radiant heating and automated nighttime
air flushing, were partly what drew Nau to the retail space
below Opsis. The outdoor clothing company has been ballyhooed
as much for its recycled materials and lower-impact,
Web-centered approach to retail as its apparel design.
Matching up a firm like Opsis and a company such as Nau in a
building like the Lovejoy underscores a core commitment to
sustainability, Meyer says.
“What I think we’re seeing,” he says,
“is a shift where people have to really start walking the
walk and reconciling what they say with what they’re
doing.”
WHILE SOME GREEN APPROACHES are pushing the bounds, Ralph
DiNola, a principal with the Portland sustainability consulting
firm Green Building Services, says the movement as a whole is
enjoying popular acceptance.
In addition to the more innovative features — such as an
under-the-floor air distribution system in the Royal Caribbean
Direct West call center in Eugene — offices and
businesses are also taking less-flashy steps to reduce their
environmental impact. Those include everything from green
housekeeping to commuter incentives and controlled
lighting.
“This is all becoming much more mainstream,”
DiNola says. “It’s not seen as out-of the-ordinary
or risky anymore.”
In fact, some say that sustainable building has become so
commonplace that all but the most innovative features are
considered standard fare.
“I have a LEED platinum spec office building and I
don’t care,” says Cavenaugh. “But
there’s good in that. I think that bodes well for the
city [of Portland] and for the whole green movement that
it’s just kind of gotten to be ho-hum.”
 The Siskiyou Community Health Center was constructed with green building materials. Image courtesy of Kistler Architecture |
A range of incentives, from the Oregon Department of
Energy’s Business Energy Tax Credit to cash incentives
from Energy Trust of Oregon, are helping to further mainstream
sustainable building. DiNola says sustainable features are also
being factored into projects much earlier than they used to be,
which helps cut additional design and consulting fees down the
road.
Big-picture initiatives are also under way to push sustainable
building and innovations. Tom Pene, president of the Oregon
chapter of the American Institute of Architects, says the
organization is behind a bill in the Legislature that would
require LEED gold certification for all public projects in the
state. Cities such as Portland already require certification
for public projects; the same standards may soon also be
applied to major state public projects.
There’s also the 2030 Challenge, issued by the nonprofit
Architecture 2030 and adopted by the AIA, which aims to
gradually reduce fossil fuel consumption for all new buildings.
The goal is to build carbon-neutral buildings by 2030.
While that may seem like a lofty goal, DiNola says that when
you’ve got a building like the Stoller winery already
cutting energy use by more than 70%, it’s not out of
reach.
“That’s already pretty far along that path,”
he says.
Have an opinion?
E-mail feedback@oregonbusiness.com
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