A Basis of Design in Time can Save Energy

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I have been vigilant about writing an Owner Project Requirements (OPR) document at the outset of every LEED NC project. Usually after the first design charette a draft OPR is produced. It represents the sustainable goals and the programming of the owners facility. It is a requirement of commissioning, but it serves as a reference that guides us through the project.

The Basis of Design (BoD) is the next document that should be written immediately after the OPR. According to Richard Farkas, President of DCSI (http://www.lv-dcsi.com/), "the BoD is developed by the engineers to reflect their understanding of the OPR." The BoD should be prepared before the commissioning agent (Cx) starts reviewing the 50% construction documents (drawings and specification - also known as CD's). It's a nice thought, but be honest...how often does this happen? Too often the Cx has no BoD at 50% CD's and is trying to puzzle pieces of the OPR to the drawing and specifications. This is not the best use of Cx time. I can compare it to having a tax advisor spending more time sorting through your shoe box of invoices than look for tax savings or advantages.

I am currently working on St Therese Mission, which has targeted LEED v3 Platinum. DCSI is our Cx. Farkas has been persistent about getting his Bod's prior to reviewing CD's. Now I see why. With his time being free from having to connect puzzle pieces between the OPR, specifications and drawings, he can now focus on how the systems can meet the energy goals of the project. We are counting on 19 points in optimizing energy. Sure we have a dream team with RAFI Architecture, Petty & Associates Engineering and PDA, but it's 19 points in the desert...not any easy feat! The Cx can be a valuable resource to see how we are tracking at our energy goal. They can only do this if we free them up by having detailed BoD's.

Ribbon-cutting Community Justice Center

The official ribbon-cutting and dedication of the Monterey College of Law Community Justice Center will be held at 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 20th at 100 Col. Durham Street, Seaside, CA.

The new Community Justice Center is registered as a LEED Platinum project that represents the highest standards of sustainable construction and planning. Included in the new building are two courtrooms, five indoor and three outdoor caucus areas for mediation, and the new offices of the law school’s Mandell-Gisnet Center for Conflict Management. The law school is also working with the Monterey County Bar Association and the Monterey County Superior Court to develop a community legal clinic that will use the new facilities to provide free or low-cost legal services to the community in the evening.

Progress on the world's first LEED registered floating building

From the shore, you can see the structural steel take shape for the Marina Services Building at Forever Resorts at Cottonwood Cove.

Rod Taylor, Regional Vice President for Forever Resorts, surveys the structural steel. The project is awaiting K-tect energy efficient building panels.
http://k-tect.com/

Here is the view looking down the new dock. The orientation on the building is not the final direction.

Nyloboard is shown here. This product is made of 100% recycled carpet fibers. Studies of the EPA have shown that 4 billion pounds of carpet is disposed of in landfills each year. Nyloboard is a low VOC product that takes the place of wood, and is durable to elements.

http://nyloboard.com/why-nyloboard/sustainability

Upgrading your building

ASHRAE's weekly eNewsletter "The HVAC&R Industry" quoted this interesting statistic:

"According to Research shows that over 50% of commercial buildings were built prior to 1980. For all commercial buildings, over 70% have not had an HVAC or lighting upgrade, or had their windows replaced; and, nearly 90% have not had an insulation upgrade."

This shows that there is plenty of opportunity to save energy costs for more than one out of every three buildings that we see.

Building Green in Salinas

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Sustainable Salinas - an Action Group of Citizens for a Sustainable Monterey County (CSMC) - and the City of Salinas present:
“Building Green in Salinas”

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
6:30 to 8:00 PM
Sherwood Community Center

Panel presentation on Salinas LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green buildings and guided tour of the new LEED-certified community pool.

Featuring:

Joe Piedimonte, Chairman of the Environmental Management and Sustainable Design Advisory Group for Hartnell College, and Green Building Consultant for Ausonio will discuss the LEED certification process and the benefits of green buildings.

Jeff Oberdorfer, Executive Director, First Community Housing (F.C.H.) will present FCH’s Salinas Gateway Development, 100% affordable rentals with a green, vegetated roof with all rainwater recycled back into irrigation.

Carl Niizawa, Deputy City Engineer for the City of Salinas, supervised the design and construction of the newly opened LEED Gold certified (pending) Salinas community pool. Mr. Niizawa will give a brief overview of the project, followed by a guided tour of the facilities.

CSMC is a local nonprofit organization whose mission is “to meet the challenges of Climate Change and Peak Oil by helping our communities to transition to sustainable uses of energy and resources.” Sustainable Salinas, along with the other Local Action Groups formed by CSMC, provides community education, promotes “green” building codes and ordinances to conserve water, reduce waste, create community gardens, offset carbon emissions, and many other projects. Join them for this informative free presentation. For more information about this presentation, Sustainable Salinas or CSMC, please contact Virginia Jameson at sustainablesalinas@gmail.com.
www.sustainablemontereycounty.org

KION 46 Coverage of the Ausonio LEED Registered Building

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PJ Javaheri of KION TV was looking for a story on green. At the time, Jeannie, Derek and I were knee-deep in a waste stream audit for our building. We had been collecting the waste generated in our building for the past week, and the morning PJ called we were busy going through bags of garbage to see how we could improve our recycling. We were in the process of determining that composting might be a viable option for our building. Alyson at the front desk explained to PJ that we were tied up, but he must have smelled a story. Not much later, he showed up to our building. We told him about some of the features of our LEED Existing Building project that we were working on for the Ausonio Building. For some reason, these features were more interesting to him than our waste stream audit. Derek and I left the garbage bags and our gloves, and before we knew it, we were on the roof with PJ! I have attached much of the segment that aired. The tape that I used was eaten by a rogue VCR at our office, so not all of the segment was captured, and it is a little rough at the beginning.

New Terms of Service for Twitter

Hi,

We'd like to let you know about our new Terms of Service. As Twitter
has evolved, we've gained a better understanding of how folks use the
service. As a result, we've updated the Terms and we're notifying
account holders.

We've posted a brief overview on our company blog and you can read the
Terms of Service online. If you haven't been by in a while, we invite
you to visit Twitter to see what else is new.

Overview: http://blog.twitter.com
Terms: http://www.twitter.com/tos
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com

These updates complement the spirit of Twitter. If the nature of our
service changes, we'll revisit the Terms as necessary. Comments are
welcome, please find the "feedback" link on the Terms of Service page.

Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder
Twitter, Inc.