Anyone else notice this whole environmental friendly trend happening these days?

With many proposed towers these days you're always hearing about some sort of "green" feature, whether it's solar panels, sky gardens, wind farms, special facades/windows, etc.

Do you think this whole environmental friendly concept works in making more profits and in selling? Is it really about the environment we're building for here? Does it impact the design of a tower (aesthetics included) in a more positive or negative way?

Just something to think about.

In the western world, green tech is becoming very popular and in many ways is becomming almost as common as mainstream tech.

Sadly, the third world countries are not embracing some of the eco friendly stuff that would be extremely benificial to them. This is partially because of the cost of eco friendly technology.

If you examine some of the simple things like personal solar panels and windmills like you can find here (http://www.alt-energy.com/catalog/catalog-frames.htm), the potential to help sporatic communities in the third world power things ranging from Satellite Phone Boths to portable water purifiers.

It certainly has an aesthetic effect. The aesthetics will require creativity on the designer's part. It can work, but it is difficult.

There is a huge ecomical advantage though, for putting in more capital cost in exchange for your own power generation.

There is one problem with that though. One, it is not feasable to plant a wind power generating unit on top of a building - too heavy. Solar panels would work, and are excellent for powering a single large building or a couple of smaller buildings, but certain conditions must be in place, mainly the condition that the building not fall into shade from other surroundings.

The long-term savings from this kind of investment are fantastic, and if you generate enough for sharing, profitable in its own right. This still hasn't really caught on though, I find. It's best application is actually on individual homes, in a neighborhood where all buildings are of similar heights. It can work for commercial as well, it is just that more power generation is required for commercial application. The investment for a single home is around 10K USD, not sure what it would be for a commercial structure, but a worth-while investment for never having to pay an electricity bill.

If you are out to save energy in a large building though, be smart and pay SPECIAL attention to windows. This includes how many you use, what type of glass, and on facade do you put more windows on than others. There have been extremely stupid designs in the past where the sky scraper is built entirely of glass. These are the most expensive buildings to heat and cool you could possibly design, because glass doesn't insulate.

Both of the above have economical advantages, and I'd say in a fairly big way too. This is proof that it is profitable to be environmentally friendly.

^I was talking strictly about delivering power to remote rural communities which is a costly expence.

Aesthetics are all good, but the tech behind it must be green and economical for it to remain sustainable.

(edit; oops)

The profits will be enormous inthe long run. Health issues will pop up all over huge cities, and people will be willing to move the the environmental cities. This is very much like a real estate investment!

Calling your tower "green" is an excuse to not make bold, or interesting architecture. Few towers that trumpet their green status are architecturally unique. There are exceptions, Commerzbank for example, but when real statements are made, the low enviromental impact is an added bonus. It is the exclaimation point at the end of a masterpiece. It should not be the subject of the body.

I'm not against enviromentalism, not at all, my point is against those who dump crap on our cities, and try to make up for their eyesores by calling them "eco-friendly." Give me a bold, original, beautiful, and power guzzling supertall over a ugly, green, stumpy shard of glass.

I'll also trade two supertalls for a windmill.
*COUGH*Freedom Tower bites*COUGH*

Calling your tower "green" is an excuse to not make bold, or interesting architecture. Few towers that trumpet their green status are architecturally unique. There are exceptions, Commerzbank for example, but when real statements are made, the low enviromental impact is an added bonus. It is the exclaimation point at the end of a masterpiece. It should not be the subject of the body.

I'm not against enviromentalism, not at all, my point is against those who dump crap on our cities, and try to make up for their eyesores by calling them "eco-friendly." Give me a bold, original, beautiful, and power guzzling supertall over a ugly, green, stumpy shard of glass.

I'll also trade two supertalls for a windmill.
*COUGH*Freedom Tower bites*COUGH*

I agree, except I'm not a big Commerzbank tower friend either.

Also, doesn't including "green" features in towers raise the price of construction and the cost of the tower? So, what's the deal?

I don't believe greedy developers looking to make a quick profit care for the enviromnment, so I guess this actually is an effective marketing method?

They may lable a skyscraper a "green building" but the fact remains that alot of very big equipment that was need for construction are terrible polluters.

The factories that churn out concrete and steel are also heavy polluters.

The fact that a building is "green' is all good, but let's keep in mind how polluting making a skyscraper is.

Lowering economic costs, environmental impact and creating healty and vibrant communities seems to be gaining momentum in urban planning, in Europe at least. It provides good addition to the good old systems approach in urban planning.The same focus has been increasing on the sustainability of individual buildings as well ... but perhaps not only for practical purposes but sometimes also as a marketing scheme and to gain public approval.

There isn't propably the same level of interest in NA in eco-friendly design, but it may well grow in the future, at least if the trend follows the European path.

^I'm not so sure that you can lump North America into one giant category when it comes to the environement.

Canada has been in the process of pushing many projects and laws to use renewable sources of energy instead of fossil fuels to power the country.

(PS, I don't mean to Troll)

There's quite a lot of these so-called environmentally friendly buildings beginning to pop up over much of Australia. The ways in which some of these buildings have been given the "green" status are as follows:

Recycling of water within building
Having own electricity supply (usually through solar energy)
Open areas (sky gardens, very light-filled areas, etc.)

Anyone else notice this whole environmental friendly trend happening these days?
It's sad that the green building trend didn't really start until the last 10 years or so, considering the environmental movement (http://www.ecotopia.org/ehof/timeline.html) started in the 1800's. Anyways, below is a link to some info, which includes a video, from the EPA about the environmental and economic benefits of green building.

EPA Sets Model for Sustainable Building in RTP

http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/epafiles_logo_epaseal.gif

From the very start, protecting the environment has been a top priority for EPA's RTP Campus. Today, the project is widely recognized as a model of sustainable building.

EPA's Green Campus (Research Triangle Park) - A Model for the Future (http://www.epa.gov/rtp/new-bldg/environmental/environmental.htm)

Interesting.

Green Technology Can Reduce Building Costs (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=530&ncid=530&e=20&u=/ap/20041112/ap_on_bi_ge/green_buildings)
http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/nws/p/ap120.gif
Fri Nov 12, 6:00 AM ET

By WILLIAM McCALL, Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. - If workers feel a little chilly at their desks in one of the newest skyscrapers under construction in New York City, they'll be able to adjust the temperature with switches tailored to individuals, not entire floors or buildings.

The individual controls, expected to save millions of dollars in operational costs, are among the many new designs being incorporated into so-called "green" buildings, including the One Bryant Park building in the center of Manhattan that will be the new Bank of America headquarters.

The building will be a showcase for the U.S. Green Building Council, which is holding its national conference this week in Portland — considered the "greenest" U.S. city by the council.

The council, established in 1993, promotes its "leadership in energy and environmental design" — or LEED — rating system as a voluntary national standard. Requests for LEED certification have rapidly expanded in the past few years, said council chairman Rick Fedrizzi.

Green technology can reduce costs by millions of dollars over the life of the building but "it doesn't cost a penny more than conventional construction," Fedrizzi said.

The One Bryant Park building, designed by Cook+Fox Architects of New York, will include floor-to-ceiling windows made of translucent insulating glass, a system to capture and reuse rain and wastewater, and roof gardens to reduce heat pollution.

Bob Fox, one of the chief architects, said the biggest savings could be in health care.

Sunlight for every level and office provides a psychological benefit while filtered ventilation built into floors instead of ceilings will provide individual temperature control and greatly reduce interior air pollution to improve overall health.

Construction and interior materials such as carpeting and plastic components will not contain high levels of volatile organic compounds — the trace amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals that help create the "new car smell" — typically found in such materials in the past, Fox said.

The building's operational costs are estimated at $375 per square foot.

But if each worker increases productivity by just 1 percent — about five minutes a day — because of improved health and mood, it results in huge savings over time, Fox said.

The actual savings likely will approach 5 percent to 10 percent, he said, "because it will dramatically decrease sick days and increase productivity."

___

On the Net:

U.S. Green Building Council: http://www.usgbc.org

Posted by JMGarcia in a thread at the world forums...

The rise of the green building

Dec 2nd 2004
From The Economist print edition

Architecture: New buildings use design and technology to reduce environmental impact, cut costs and provide better places to work

http://www.economist.com/images/20041204/4904TQG5b.jpg

IT IS officially known as the Swiss Re Tower, or 30 St Mary Axe. But Londoners universally refer to the newest addition to their skyline as “the Gherkin”, thanks to the 41-storey building's distinctive, curved profile, which actually looks more like a pine cone (see right). What is most remarkable about the building is not its name or its shape, however, but its energy-efficiency. Thanks to its artful design and some fancy technology, it is expected to consume up to 50% less energy than a comparable conventional office building.

Most people are not used to thinking of large buildings as vast, energy-guzzling machines. But that is what they are. In America, buildings account for 65% of electricity consumption, 36% of total energy use and 30% of greenhouse-gas emissions. So making buildings more energy-efficient could have a significant impact on energy policy, notes Rebecca Flora of the Green Building Alliance, a group that promotes sustainable architecture. That is a key goal of the “green architecture” movement, which is changing the way buildings are designed, built and run.

Proponents of green architecture argue that the approach has many benefits. In the case of a large office, for example, the combination of green design techniques and clever technology can not only reduce energy consumption and environmental impact, but also reduce running costs, create a more pleasant working environment, improve employees' health and productivity, reduce legal liability, and boost property values and rental returns.

The term “green architecture” only came into use in the 1990s, but the movement's roots can be traced back a long way. Crystal Palace in London and Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, for example, built in 1851 and 1877 respectively, used roof ventilators and underground air-cooling chambers to regulate the indoor temperature. Today's enthusiasm for green architecture has its origins in the energy crisis of the 1970s, when architects began to question the wisdom of building enclosed glass-and-steel boxes that required massive heating and cooling systems. Early proponents of more energy-efficient architecture included William McDonough, Bruce Fowle and Robert Fox in America, Thomas Herzog in Germany, and Norman Foster and Richard Rogers in Britain.

These forward-thinking architects began to explore designs that focused on the long-term environmental impact of maintaining and operating a building, looking beyond the so-called “first costs” of getting it built in the first place. This approach has since been formalised in a number of assessment and rating systems, such as the BREEAM standard introduced in Britain in 1990, and the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) starting in 2000.

The LEED standards are intended to produce “the world's greenest and best buildings” by giving developers a straightforward checklist of criteria by which the greenness of a building can be judged. Points are awarded in various categories, from energy use (up to 17 points) to water-efficiency (up to five points) to indoor environment quality (up to 15 points); the total then determines the building's LEED rating. Extra points can be earned by installing particular features, such as renewable-energy generators or carbon-dioxide monitoring systems. A building that achieves a score of 39 points earns a “gold” rating; 52 points earns a “platinum” rating. A gold-rated building is estimated to have reduced its environmental impact by 50% compared with an equivalent conventional building, and a platinum-rated building by over 70%.

Rating buildings in this way reveals how inefficient traditional buildings and building processes are. “We can sometimes waste up to 30 cents on the dollar,” says Phillip Bernstein, an architect and professor at Yale University. “It's not just the consumption of energy, it's the use of materials, the waste of water, the incredibly inefficient strategies we use for choosing the subsystems of our buildings. It's a scary thing.” In part, he says, this is because the construction industry is so fragmented. Designers, architects, engineers, developers and builders each make decisions that serve their own interests, but create huge inefficiencies overall.

Green is good

http://www.economist.com/images/20041204/4904TQG1.jpg

But things are now changing, as green architecture moves into the mainstream. In the spring of 2003, Toyota completed a 624,000-square-foot office complex in Torrance, California, that received a LEED gold rating, thanks to the inclusion of features such as solar cells to provide up to 20% of the building's energy needs. Also last year, Pittsburgh opened the doors on its 1.5m-square-foot convention centre, the largest building to be awarded a gold LEED rating so far. The USGBC says nearly 1,700 buildings in 50 states are now seeking LEED certification and 137 have been constructed and certified so far. And America's General Services Administration, which oversees all non-military government construction, recently decreed that all new projects and renovations must meet the minimum LEED standards.

In Britain, meanwhile, 70 office buildings constructed during 2003, representing 25% of the total by floor area, met the BREEAM standard. Similar standards have been adopted in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. In China, the Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games aims to host the first zero-net-emissions games, which will include constructing all buildings and sports venues using green-architecture principles.

There are many ways to reduce a building's environmental impact. Consider the 48-storey Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square in New York, for example, which was designed by Fox & Fowle Architects. It was one of the first examples in which green-architecture principles were applied to a large urban office building, and informed the drawing up of the LEED points system, since it uses almost every energy-saving technique imaginable.

Special glass allows daylight in to reduce the need for interior lighting, keeps heat and ultraviolet rays out, and minimises heat loss in winter. Two natural-gas-powered fuel cells provide 400 kilowatts of power, enough to provide all the electricity needed at night, and 5% of the building's needs during the day. The hot-water exhaust produced by the fuel cells is used to help heat the building and provide hot water. The heating and cooling systems, located on the roof, are gas-powered rather than electric, which reduces energy losses associated with electrical power transmission. Photovoltaic panels on the building's exterior provide up to an additional 15 kilowatts of power. Inside the building, motion sensors control fans and switch off lights in seldom-occupied areas such as stairwells. Exit signs are illuminated by low-power light-emitting diodes. The result is that the building's energy consumption is 35-40% lower than that of a comparable conventional building.

30 St Mary Axe, designed by Foster and Partners, is also packed with energy-saving features. In particular, it uses natural lighting and ventilation wherever possible. The façade consists of two layers of glass (the outer one double-glazed) enclosing a ventilated cavity with computer-controlled blinds. A system of weather sensors on the outside of the building monitors the temperature, wind speed and level of sunlight, closing blinds and opening window panels as necessary. The building's shape maximises the use of natural daylight, reducing the need for artificial lighting and providing impressive long-distance views even from deep inside the building.

The highest-profile green building currently on the drawing board is the Freedom Tower, which will be built on the site of the World Trade Centre in New York. The architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Studio Daniel Libeskind, have incorporated environmental design features throughout the huge complex. The main tower, which will rise 1,776 feet, will include solar panels and a wind farm, the turbines of which are expected to deliver around one megawatt of power, enough to provide up to 20% of the building's expected demand. Like other green buildings, it will rely on natural light and ventilation, and energy-efficient lighting.

High energy costs, environmental concerns and anxiety about the “sick building syndrome” associated with the sealed-box structures of the 1970s all helped to jump-start the green-architecture movement. But now economics is driving the shift towards greener design, as new materials and techniques fall in price, argues Michael Crosbie, an architect at Steven Winter Associates, a consultancy based in Norwalk, Connecticut. He says his clients “are much more demanding because they see the incredible amount of money it takes to get something constructed, and they want a return on that investment.”

Why it pays to be green

Going green saves money by reducing long-term energy costs: a survey of 99 green buildings in America found that on average, they use 30% less energy than comparable conventional buildings. So any additional building costs can be recovered quickly: according to the USGBC, the 2% increase in construction costs required to achieve a LEED gold rating typically pays for itself in lower running costs within two years. The traditional approach of trying to minimise construction costs, by contrast, can lead to higher energy bills and wasted materials.

Energy-saving techniques need not all be as exotic as installing coated glass, computer-controlled blinds or photovoltaic cells. Mr Crosbie says builders are now insulating buildings more effectively, in some cases using materials such as recycled paper and fabrics, including old, shredded jeans. It is more effective than traditional insulation, he says, saves money and is easier on the environment.

Green buildings can also have less obvious economic benefits. The use of natural daylight in office buildings, for example, as well as reducing energy costs, also seems to make workers more productive. Studies conducted by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, environmental psychologists at the University of Michigan, found that employees with views of a natural landscape report greater job satisfaction, less stress and fewer illnesses. Lockheed Martin, an aerospace firm, found that absenteeism fell by 15% after it moved 2,500 employees into a new green building in Sunnyvale, California. The increase in productivity paid for the building's higher construction costs within a year.

Similarly, the use of daylight in shopping complexes appears to increase sales. The Heschong Mahone Group, a California-based consultancy that specialises in energy-efficient building technologies, found that sales were as much as 40% higher in stores lit with skylights. It also found that students in naturally lit classrooms performed up to 20% better. Green buildings can also reduce legal liabilities for their owners, since they are less likely to give rise to “sick building” lawsuits. But more studies are needed, says Caren Glotfelty, director of the environmental programme at the Heinz Endowments, a non-profit foundation run by Teresa Heinz Kerry that funds sustainable initiatives.

Despite its benefits and its growing popularity, green architecture is still the exception, not the rule, however. The main problem is co-ordination, says Mr Bernstein, who is also vice-president of the building solutions division at Autodesk, a software company. Green buildings require much more planning by architects, engineers, builders and developers than traditional buildings. “The building industry is very disaggregated,” he says, “so adoption patterns are really, really slow.” But new software is now improving planning by simulating how a building will perform before it is built.

Autodesk's software can create a three-dimensional model of a building and then work out how much energy it will use, taking into account its shape, heating and cooling systems, orientation to the sun and geographic location. Other such tools abound: the designers of 4 Times Square calculated its energy consumption using a free package called DOE-2, developed by James J. Hirsch & Associates together with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with funding from America's Department of Energy.

Greener by design

http://www.economist.com/images/20041204/4904tqg1b.jpg

In the old days, says Mr Bernstein, assessing a building's environmental impact had to be done with spreadsheets, calculators and informed guessing, and three-dimensional modelling was primarily used to prepare presentations. But now the three-dimensional computer models are being used with sophisticated analytical tools. “We are getting to the next phase where you can analyse rather than simply represent,” he says. It is then possible to predict how much energy and water a building will consume, how much material will be needed, and other parameters that determine its LEED certification. All of this is old hat for the airline and automobile industries, where computer models have long been used to trim costs and streamline design before construction begins. Now the same technology is being applied by architects.

Computers also make possible entirely new designs. 30 St Mary Axe, for example, could not have been built without a computer model to specify the exact shape of every one of its 5,500 glass panels, or to model the airflow in and around it. Similarly, computer modelling made possible the Avax office building completed in Athens, Greece, in 1998. It has sheaves of glass which open and close automatically, depending on the intensity and angle of the sun, to provide sunlight while preventing the building from overheating. The ventilation system in Pittsburgh's convention centre uses the natural “chimney effect” created by its sweeping roof to draw air through vents by the river below, cooling the building without using a single fan.

This is more than a mere fad, or the use of technology for the sake of it, says Mr Bernstein. Green architecture will, he suggests, help to reshape the construction industry over the next five years, with ever more innovative, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly buildings. “No one is doing this for fun,” he says. “There's too much at stake.”

Also, doesn't including "green" features in towers raise the price of construction and the cost of the tower? So, what's the deal?

I don't believe greedy developers looking to make a quick profit care for the enviromnment, so I guess this actually is an effective marketing method?

The point is that as enviromently friendly buildings become more common greedy developers will sooner or later become green developers too as buyers simply wont buy non green buildings as they expect to save energy costs in long term

1 Peking Road in Hong Kong has solar panels on the roof that power the blinds throughout the building. Although it is one small step, it reflects the increasing awareness of environmentalism in society.

HSBC's Hong Kong headquarters building uses sea water from the harbour for its air-conditioning system.

I believe the rise of the green building started in the mid 70's with the Citigroup Center in New York. It was planned to have solar panels on the slant on top, but it never happened. Sure, it didn't work, but it was an important first step, taking the image of the skyscraper of "the evil corporate we don't give a fck about the environment" to at least an attempt at some benefit to the environment.

The Conde Nast building was I believe the first true green skyscraper, completed in 1999.

Now, every damn skyscraper being built in NYC is "green" from BofA to NYTT to Freedom Tower and the rest of the NewWTC to random condos in battery park city.
But this is a good thing, isn't it? :D Except for the developers $$$, that is!

Anyone else notice this whole environmental friendly trend happening these days?

With many proposed towers these days you're always hearing about some sort of "green" feature, whether it's solar panels, sky gardens, wind farms, special facades/windows, etc.

Do you think this whole environmental friendly concept works in making more profits and in selling? Is it really about the environment we're building for here? Does it impact the design of a tower (aesthetics included) in a more positive or negative way?

Just something to think about.
It impacts the investors who put the money into the project and into the developers' pockets. You know, you gotta convince those investors somehow, have an edge over other design companies, so you just pump the green crap. Also souped-up building gather higher rents, once again more money coming out of the building. And there are random hippies who really care about the nature. That's a good thing too.