World Monuments Watch List 2012 Released

There may be debate in our industry on whether to preserve a landmark or to rebuild or redevelop it. For me personally, it's a gray area where some structures and sites are worth saving and some are not. But I'd have to applaud the World Monuments Fund on their preservation efforts through their biennial endangered-site list (the 2012 list was released just this month). While the organization was founded in the 1960's, it didn't launch the World Monuments Watch list until 1996, so the public was largely unaware of these culturally significant sites that were, in some cases quite literally, crumbling to the ground.

What particularly draws me to the organization is that oftentimes the endangered sites aren't limited to, say, the Saarinen masterpiece in a major metropolis or a Wright house in the Midwest. Rather, it might be a temple sinking into waters off of Southeast Asia, the ruins of an ancient Mesopotamian court, a district of historic houses in the U.S. hit by hurricane, or a once grand European cathedral that's now seeing its end of days. More often, the WMF has kept its eye on international sites that aren't in danger of being pushed out by a new shopping center or condominium, but by the elements, economic hardship, or even civil or governmental change. Moreover, to the WMF, it's not just about saving a site from decay or destruction--it's about restoring heritage and reconnecting people to place. Indeed, some of these places are the very fabric or identity of a culture.

If you're like me, you're no Bill Gates or Martha Stewart when it comes to funds. But, we can still do our part to help preserve these sites whether it's through getting the word out to increase public awareness, or making a small donation to the fund. (85 percent of the WMF's revenue goes to preservation projects, fieldwork, advocacy, and educational programs.) To view the 67 sites listed for 2012, a slideshow of the sites, or more information on the organization and donating, visit www.wmf.org.

Images, from top: Wangduechhoeling Palace in Bhutan; Cour Royale de Tiebele in Burkina Faso; painting the earthen walls of Cour Royale de Tiebele. Images courtesy of the World Monuments Fund.

Illuminating Questions for Specifying LED Lighting

 
By Ann Schiffers

LEDs (light-emitting diodes) have flipped the switch on a new approach to lighting design for the A&D community. The growth in the technology’s popularity is not surprising, particularly given the immense energy and cost savings this groundbreaking technology provides. However, the unlimited number of options available today makes it difficult for designers not yet well-versed in this illumination source to make educated decisions about who to work with and what to specify. 

To identify the right LED partner, particularly when utilizing recessed LED lighting, it is imperative to ask the right questions.

Why LEDs are lighting the way

LEDs are increasingly becoming the lighting solution of choice for numerous reasons, most notably the comparable lower wattage and subsequent cost savings that the technology offers over incandescent and fluorescent options. It’s important to remember, however, there are also other cost-saving lighting options available including low halogen and ceramic metal halide fixtures that can provide similar sustainable solutions and may work better with your space.  It is essential to ensure that the options specified are based on the greatest anticipated return on cost and energy savings.

To ease the specification process, make sure to ask:
• What’s the budget allocated for lighting?
• What tasks will be performed within this space? What are the required illumination levels?
• Is there energy driven state legislation to adhere to?
• Will there be a need to integrate with other light sources?

Shining the spotlight on manufacturers
 
The same preparation needed to map out a project’s lighting needs is also necessary to locate the right manufacturer. To guarantee the lights don’t go out on a project, it is critical that extensive research is completed and the right questions are asked, specifically in the following areas when considering various LED lighting vendors.

• Product offerings--
    • Is a full family of products available?
    • Do you have adjustable optics?
    • Are your products appropriate for wet and dry locations?
    • Is a dimming option available?

• Photometrics--
    • Are photometrics available for review?
    • What are the delivered lumens?
    • What is the spacing criteria?

• Lighting facts--
    • What is the product’s output, wattage, and lumens per watt?
    • What is the product’s color accuracy?
    • What is the Lighting Facts registration number?

• Light engine--
    • Who is the manufacturer?
    • What is the delivered lumens?
    • What is the color temperature?
    • Is it field replaceable?

• Warranty 
    • How many years does it cover?
    • Can it be provided in writing?

• Driver
    • Is it field replaceable?
    • What is the voltage?

Additionally, manufacturers should be certified by a third-party organization to verify their environmental and performance claims. Also closely review the products’ lumen packages or total lumen outputs, as some manufacturers may report the products’ raw lumen instead of delivered lumen output.

A final lesson on LEDs

An ever-advancing technology, new LED discoveries continue each day. Several lighting experts predict LEDs will be the preferred choice within a few years, making it crucial to establish best practices and arm those in the field with the education necessary to make smart and informed illumination choices. Learning the background information early on is beneficial to the project and will save extra legwork in the end.

Ann Schiffers is vice president of specification sales for USAI Lighting. Schiffers focuses on expanding market opportunities for the company and serves as a resource for customers throughout the specification process. With a more than 20-year career in the lighting industry, Schiffers has worked with many of the top lighting design and architectural firms in the country including Fisher Marantz Stone Partnership, Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design, and Cline Bettridge Bernstein Lighting Design, and has served as principal of her own design firm, Ann Schiffers Lighting Design, LLC, for eight years prior to joining USAI.

Jeans Transform into Retail Display Sculpture

I love purging--clothes, housewares, home décor, that bright pink, checkered scarf I was sure I would wear, but never did. Sometimes though, even a trip to Goodwill isn’t the best home for the hideous items I’m getting rid of. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could take stuff I’ll never wear again (like that size 2 jean skirt) and make it into art? For the masses? Well, it looks like someone else already beat me to the punch!

Ian McChesney, architect, designed a Levi’s jeans sculpture as part of the Regent Street Windows Project in London, further proving that my artistic idea isn’t half bad. While I’m sure these jeans aren’t from a collection that Ian can no longer wear, it’s still an impressive feat. A total of 120 pairs of jeans were joined together using more than 1,000 copper rivets. The display is designed to look like a tornado or a whirlpool.

I’m now picturing my pink checkered scarf and jean skirt along with my old microwave as my next sculpture project. What do you think? Have you seen anything like this before? What items would you repurpose for your next design project? Leave your comments here.

--Heather Strang, DDI

Scoring with Sustainability

There’s no denying that sustainability offers not only a winning strategy for environmental protection but for the reduction of operation costs as well. As such, many sports organizations like the NFL and MLB have put their own colors aside in recent years to jump on board with the “green team” and renovate America’s stadiums to feature a variety of technologies for clean energy.

 
Most recently, plans were announced this week for a solar installation at FedExField, home of the Washington Redskins. Design firm DLR Group and NRG Energy will collaborate to install 8,000 panels across 850 spaces in the stadium’s Platinum A1 Parking Lot—which will generate up to two megawatts (MW) of electricity—and about 200 translucent solar panels will be placed on the exterior of the NRG entry plaza at Gate A pedestrian entry ramp. The plaza entrance also will house two sculptures of football players created with thin film solar technology to produce even more energy for the stadium.

Additionally, 10 electric vehicle charging stations from NRG’s eVgo^sm charging network will be added to the grounds and kiosks in parking lot A1 and the NRG entry plaza on the west corner of FedExField will provide fans with information about renewable energy and NRG clean energy solutions. The project will be complete this September in time for the 2011 NFL football season.

 
Also set for a September completion is an energy-saving endeavor which will allow Lincoln Financial Field, home to the Philadelphia Eagles, to become the world’s first sports stadium to fully convert to self-generated renewable energy. Solar Blue will cover the stadium’s façade with 2,500 solar panels, set 80 20-foot wind turbines atop the stadium rim, and operate a 7.6 megawatt onsite dual-fuel cogeneration plant to save an estimated $60 million in energy costs. All of the technologies will be controlled via an executed monitoring and switching technology.

 
The Seattle Seahawks announced in May that they are striving to decrease their carbon footprint, too. Solyndra solar panels will be installed by McKinstry to the roof of Qwest Field. The thin-film, tube-shaped CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar cells will cover 2½ acres (80 percent) of the stadium. Light reflecting off the stadium’s existing “cool roof”—which serves to reduce heat absorption—should add to the production of electricity as it is captured by the new panels. Qwest Field’s utility costs are expected to shrink by 21 percent. The project expects completion sometime this summer.

 
Solar Blue has also held a relationship with the Boston Red Sox. GroSolar installed a solar thermal system manufactured by Heliodyne Incorporated on the roof of Fenway Park’s fifth floor media level in 2008. Thirty-seven percent of the gas used for heating is offset by the system, avoiding 18 tons of CO2 emissions. (The amount of emissions conserved can be compared to not driving a car for 43,611 miles!) Solar Blue is now considered the official energy conservation partner of the baseball team and Fenway Park.

 
Across the country from the Red Sox lies the first existing ballpark to attain LEED Silver status, San Francisco’s AT&T Park. In 2007, Solar Design Associates was commissioned by the Giants baseball team to install 590 Sharp solar panels to supply energy to Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) customers in the San Francisco area. The stadium’s Diamond Vision scoreboard also is sustainable—it uses 78 percent less energy than the ballpark's original scoreboard.

It’s great to see that sporting venues are picking up the pace on sustainable design, especially since they hold such a prominent spot in the public eye. But it seems that these types of projects still have a long way to go when it comes to transitioning to the greener side of the fence. Why do you think stadiums have been so slow to renovate to decrease their carbon footprint? What can designers do to encourage facility managers and team owners to invest in green design?

--Raysha Armbrustmacher

Belly Up to the Container Bar

Once a dull neighborhood, Austin’s Rainey Street was in need of an invigorating transformation—and there’s nothing like an iconic bar with a unique design to do the trick. Scheduled to open December 31, Container Bar will be constructed of stacked recycled metal shipping containers assembled to form a central courtyard. Bridget Dunlap, a local nightlife owner with three other bungalow-style venues in the area, is the first to take on such a concept in Austin.

 
New flooring, windows, and artistic accents will enhance the containers, giving each box its own identity via the interior decor. The bar will be fit with classy bathrooms, air-conditioning, and eco-friendly LED lighting. For fun, a movie screen and stage will be included among other amenities. The exterior will remain weathered. Container Bar will be a LEED compliant space.

Contrary to popular belief, Dunlap is not an interior designer but rather a businesswoman; despite the lack of a design background, she has pulled together authentic spaces with a few objects as inspiration, allowing for the rest to fall in place.

 
"Anyone who knows me will tell you that I get easily bored, so I worked out my creative juices and restlessness through developing my ideas for Rainey Street. I love the rough look of the old shipping containers,” says Dunlap. “Container Bar will be a stunner.”

Dunlop's endeavor is just another instance of shipping container architecture to hit the news in recent years. What do you think about the salvaged container trend? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
 
--Raysha Armbrustmacher

What is a Summer Vacation Without Some Good A&D Reads?

Whether you’re jet-setting or simply looking for a good read while at the park, these five recently released A&D books are ideal for brushing up on what’s new in the industry.

 

Understanding Green Building Materials

By Traci Rose, Stacy Glass, and Jessica McNaughton

 
 

Policies, procedures, and guidelines for sustainability constantly are re-iterated, but what about the building materials themselves? As countless new products and manufacturers are introduced, professionals want and need to know which ones rise to the top. This book summarizes the materials available, compares their pros and cons, explains how to use them properly, and outlines what to consider when making final selections. Green building products range from eco-friendly sheetrock to sustainable paint finishes, all outlined in a designer-friendly guide for those submerged in the green-build movement.

                                                      

 

How to Write a Historic Structure Report

By David Arbogast

 
 

The compiling of a historic structure report (HSR), the document critical to preservation professionals, can be daunting. The book assists architects in gathering historical and archival data about the property, analyzing the structural, mechanical, and electrical components, and assessing the condition of its interior finishes to expertly evaluate a historic building prior to restoration. A precise outline of what information should be included in each report section and an explanation of how investigators can work together to produce an effective HSR is provided, making this guide a must-have.

 

 

Greening Modernism

By Carl Stein

 
 

A serious shortage of building resources is the result of the unfortunate belief that there is an unlimited amount available. And the assumption that technology can act as a savior for any such self-created problem has proven itself to be false. In “Greening Modernism,” Carl Stein connects the impact of individual building design decisions to the global energy and environmental crises. Essential beliefs for contemporary ecological thinking are outlined, as well as basic information, to assist practitioners and students of architecture, engineering, planning, and environmentalism in building-upgrade projects. The book is not a how-to guide but does offer data and describes the environmental benefits to reducing the demand for energy and other limited resources. Post-petroleum opportunities for architecture are also suggested.

 

 

The Architecture of Harry Weese

By Robert Bruegmann

 
 

Take a look at one of America’s most talented postwar architects, Harry Weese. With a career that covered half a century, from the 1930s to the 1980s, his significant designs included small but very creative houses, as well as large urban-scale commissions. Although European modernist Mies van der Rohe was an inspiration to Weese, most of his work resembles that of Nordic architects, such as Gunnar Asplund and Alvar Aalto. He favored natural materials, human scale, and comfort, reflecting his respect for older buildings and unexpected design decisions. Weese applied his problem-solving abilities to pieces ranging from a single piece of furniture to an entire city such as his own, Chicago.

 

 

A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present

By Ann Ferebee and Jeff Byles

 
 

A brief overview of the modern milestones of architecture, interior design, graphic design, product design, and photography from the Crystal Palace of 1851 to the iPhone are surveyed in this book. Ann Ferebee and Jeff Byles trace modern design across continents and cultures, emphasizing key movements and design traditions. Design’s evolution through a century and a half includes Art Nouveau’s ornamentation, the “new visions” of the Bauhaus, the rise of the International Style, and postmodernism and contemporary currents in the graphic arts and landscape architecture. The impact of technical advances of industrial design, typography, and photographic portraiture also are accounted for.  

 

What new must-read suggestions do you have for your A&D peers? Share them in the comments below.

 

--Raysha Armbrustmacher

Rethinking Details: How to Stretch Your Hospital Design Budget

 
By Doug Bazuin, senior healthcare researcher for Herman Miller Healthcare

When we design hospital patient rooms, we know that fast-paced medical advances and unpredictable shifts in government policy mean the facilities we design today must survive many changes.  But we need to keep smaller changes in mind too. Over time, these small details can add up to either big savings or big costs for the facility, depending upon the level of consideration we give them in the design process. 

Discussions with more than 550 healthcare professionals reveal that a positive patient experience and good infection prevention are two of the most important patient room design goals and the areas where details most matter. 

Preparing for changes

In designing a comforting patient room, a detail often overlooked is soiled linen. Oftentimes, a beautiful patient room design must utilize a less-than-attractive solution for dirty laundry disposal. One option for such situations is to hide the receptacle behind a door in a cabinet, but this requires extra steps for the caregiver.

The same can happen with exposed gloves and sharps receptacles. For gloves, organizing them by size and or type can help and concealing them in a cabinet also can be a good option. A solution for the institutional sharps container may be to mount it to a tool rail so its location can be changed with minimal disruption to the room.

Hand sanitizer brands and vendors can change frequently, which means new dispensers also tend to be frequently replaced. The cost of repairing the drywall and touching up the paint every time a dispenser is changed typically is not considered in the initial purchasing decision. Similarly, research uncovers that many automatic/touchless paper towel dispensers in patient rooms needed to be removed, due to the surplus noise they generated. Any initial cost savings were eliminated by the cost of needing to change dispensers. 

Asking these questions early on can solve some of these problems before they occur:
• What is the preferred process for handling soiled linen?
• Who empties the hamper and how often?
• Are there any good options for disguising the hamper?
• Can paper towel dispensers be hidden?
• How frequently will towel and soap dispensers be changed?
• How often do the locations or sizes of glove boxes and sharps receptacles have to be changed?
• Would the initial cost of a tool rail mounted on the wall to make changes nondestructive be less than ongoing wall repairs?

Small solutions for greater infection prevention

Despite the uncertainty and frustration associated with infection prevention issues, hospitals demand infection control measures. How a hospital applies infection prevention measures to its patient rooms can have a big impact on design choices.

In our research on hand washing, we focused on the sink and faucet design of the caregiver hand-washing station.

If the primary purpose of the hand-washing station is just that, then temperature control might not be required.  A touchless faucet that automatically mixes hot and cold water to achieve a selected temperature may be a good choice. But surprisingly, concerns about overly sensitive sensors have trumped the infection control advantages of not having dirty hands touch the handle. New technologies to improve sensor performance continue to deliver better results.

If the care process requires hot water drawn from this faucet for giving bed baths rather than the bathroom sink, the water temperature needs to be controlled with foot pedals or wrist blade handles. Foot pedals allow for independent operation of hot and cold water and are touchless, but they can be difficult to clean.

Here are some infection control questions to be asked when designing a patient room:
• Have you sufficiently engaged your infection prevention professional in the design of details?
• Does your infection prevention professional require the soiled linen hamper to have a lid?
• Which works best for how you need the faucet to operate—wrist blade handles, foot pedals, or sensors?
• Will the automatic sensing faucet operate on batteries, power, or emergency power? And if you choose a battery-operated faucet, has a preventive maintenance plan been put in place?
• Do the size, shape, location, and operation of the sink and faucet help prevent the spread of infection?

In the end, it always pays to sweat the small stuff. What other small details in healthcare design do you feel can help hospitals and other medical facilities keep up with changes?

Doug Bazuin is a senior healthcare researcher for Herman Miller Healthcare. He possesses 10 years of new product development experience and has been involved with several new product launches.

Smart Growth and New Urbanism Emphasized at a Green Drinks Networking Event

The Illinois Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) partnered with the Foresight Sustainable Business Alliance to promote sustainable communities at a Green Drinks networking event, hosted last week at the Haworth showroom during NeoCon® 2011. Doug Farr, author of “Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature” (John Wiley & Sons) and Chicago architect Jim Loewenberg urged attendees at the event to consider approaches to deploying scalable sustainability strategies, including district infrastructural systems, for urban environments.

By focusing on sustainable strategies with reasonable paybacks, they argued that green advocates and developers alike might work together to push past the policy and monopolistic utility practices that form barriers for business-minded developers to creating sustainable communities.

Farr chaired the LEED Neighborhood Development Core Committee that wrote the LEED-ND Standard, which was launched last year. The effort involved collaboration between the USGBC, the National Resources Defense Council and the Chicago-based Congress for New Urbanism. “It was their fist collaboration and brought together a very broad base of expertise on smart growth and new urbanism,” says Doug Widener, executive director of the USGBC Illinois Chapter.

-- Jean Nayar

‘Heart of the Garden’ Blooms in New York

By Todd Forrest, Vice President for Horticulture and Living Collections, The New York Botanical Garden

 
Known around the world as a museum of plants with far-reaching botanical science and educational programs, The New York Botanical Garden also is the steward of a 250-acre National Historic Landmark landscape in New York City. The Botanical Garden’s historic landscape features 50 gardens, plant collections, and displays developed over the past 120 years to serve our research and education programs and to delight the public with the beauty and diversity of plants.

Over the past decade, we have been restoring the Garden’s historic landscape, with an emphasis on the 85-acre “Heart of the Garden,” a unique mosaic of old-growth native forest that pre-dates the Garden and naturalistic gardens created during the implementation of a 1920’s master plan, developed by the Olmsted Brothers firm. Working with renowned landscape architect Laurie Olin of Olin Partnership, we created a plan to restore and enhance the Heart of the Garden with the goal of celebrating the unique qualities of the natural landscape while providing exciting new horticultural spectacles to inspire and delight our visitors.

 
The new Azalea Garden, which opened on May 7, is the first major project completed within the Heart of the Garden. This 11-acre garden features encyclopedic collections of azaleas, rhododendrons, and extensive sweeps of woodland perennials, planted amidst some of the Garden’s most dramatic topography and venerable native trees. From 2009 to 2011, horticulturists planted more than 2,500 new azaleas and rhododendrons, 1,000 other trees and shrubs, 40,000 bulbs, and 30,000 perennials in the shade of ancient oaks, tulip trees, and sweet gums. A dazzling diversity of azaleas and rhododendrons now provides flowers from March through July (with a peak in late April and Early May), while the companion plants extend the flowering season and provide touches of subtle beauty throughout the year.

The new plantings are massed so they can be enjoyed from along nearly a mile of new pathways that wind through the stands of centenarian trees and traverse slopes that rise 55 feet from valley to peak. New gathering circles, overlooks, and benches provide opportunities to rest and enjoy long views of the landscape. Interpretive signs and plant labels teach visitors about the plants, the natural features of the site, and the design of the new garden.

The completed Azalea Garden is the first step in ongoing efforts to restore the historic heart of The New York Botanical Garden. Future projects include the creation of a new Native Plant Garden and the ecological restoration of the 50-acre Native Forest, the largest remnant of natural forest in New York City. Together these projects will create an 85-acre oasis of natural beauty, great “plantsmanship,” and informed stewardship that is unique to New York City.

(Photography by Ivo M. Vermuelen)

Eco-Pursuits: A&D Celebrates Earth Day

Everyone has nature on the brain this time of year. Whether it’s because the “April showers bring May flowers” adage is ringing in our ears or just because people have finally had enough of winter’s doldrum weather, Earth Day always seems to crop up in the nick of time (right before we all go crazy from cabin fever!).

As usual, the A&D industry has hopped on board with the Earth Day celebrations, and many manufacturers have stepped above and beyond to showcase their eco-pursuits. Here are some of the nature-focused initiative highlights crossing Contract editors’ news desks on April 22:

 
* Bulbrite introduced its "Bulbs Out, Bulbs In" environmental campaign, turning all light bulbs out for an hour inside and getting outside to plant flower bulbs around the perimeter of the company's headquarters in Moonachie, NJ.  This program serves as a reminder of Bulbrite's commitment to sustainability and preserving the environment for generations to come.

* Centiva offered throughout the month of April a new suite of dynamic Green Week events in its headquarters hometown of Florence, AL. Events included: a Green Week kick-off day with guest speaker Ben Maharrey from Florence Utilities presenting a discussion on the ability of purchasing green power credits, solar power opportunities, and power conservation with employees; a Clean and Green day where Centiva employees volunteered their time to the city, and also to the Centiva-adopted street of Mars Hill Road, by picking up litter; and a “brown bag contest,” where local community elementary school students were given a lesson the meaning of Earth Day asked to draw a picture on a brown grocery bag (donated by a local grocery store) to win a Nintendo DS. (The overall winning design also will be Centiva’s 2012 Earth Day T-shirt design. All brown bags were returned to the local grocery store to be re-used by their clients on Earth Day.) Additionally, Centiva sponsored Shoals Earth Day Fest, which is a community education program and festival to promote environmental awareness and advocacy in the Florence area; planted of over 100 trees; and donated $3,000 to the city to purchase recycle bins, which will be given away to local residents who make a pledge to recycle.

 
* InterfaceFLOR Canada prides itself on being passionate about sustainability and leading by example. (It’s current gutsy corporate mission is to be off oil by 2020!) The manufacturer is commemorating Earth Month by having its employees team with its architect and designer clients for the first-time “Legacy Projects.” Together they will take a half-day off work and use that time to work for a worthy community endeavor. “Legacy Projects” will be taking place throughout Canada in April. (Photo above: Marcel Parent, Marcel Parent designer Manon Morency, InterfaceFLOR Canada, and Andrée-Anne Babeux, Conceptum International)

What other Earth Day celebrations took place? What did your firm/company do to raise eco-awareness this month?

--Stacy Straczynski