New York Architects Plan Green Building Revolution

NEW YORK—A day after the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 144th annual meeting, I learned that a dozen architects in downtown New York founded the AIA in equally trying times.

Who knew in 1857 that the architecture-engineering-construction industry would suffer a recession similar to the one that hit New York and the rest of the United States in the fall of 2008?

So it was refreshing to sit down with Rick Bell, the AIA New York Chapter’s executive director, and learn that the outlook for the rest of this year and into 2012 is looking up in New York City.

In a storefront-style office, which both optimizes and enhances the building footprint and natural light, AIANY is located in a neighborhood associated with NYU. Taking on the renovation of the space eight years ago, Mr. Bell, a registered architect and previously assistant commissioner at the NYC Department of Design and Construction, got involved in the upgrade of the three-story, 12,000-square-foot AIA space, part of an eight-story building.

On the threshold of the green building practices revolution back then, Mr. Bell and his colleagues at AIANY saw an opportunity to both modernize the facility and make its energy use sustainable. The challenge would be to practice what they preached. But how could he transform the building to avoid the use of petroleum based cooling systems?

Install a geothermal well system.

The first of its kind for a Manhattan office building, the two geothermal wells became the design centerpiece to achieve the sustainability goal.

At 1,260 feet deep, the height of the Empire State Building without its antenna, each well is an eight-inch bored hole, with a 45-foot liner sleeve at the top section. The geothermal wells harness the embodied energy of the constant 52 degree Fahrenheit water contained in the closed-loop system to meet the AIANY’s cooling needs.

With a grant from NYSERDA, the well paid for itself and has since provided all the air-conditioning requirements for the office that has a staff of 17 employees, and hosts many public events, workshops for children, and lectures each year.

With sustainability at its core in the era of green building design, the AIA New York Chapter has benefited from an environmentally conscious board of directors and Rick Bell as its executive director.

“We interface with 100 organizations and host a thousand public programs each year,” he said, then added, “It’s important to show the next generation how buildings are designed, engineered, and constructed, and that occupations, such as architecture contribute to society.”

New York has an ambitious goal to retrofit, upgrade, and renovate hundreds of thousands of existing buildings across the five boroughs into sustainable, energy conserving structures. This has become a focal point of Mayor Bloomberg’s third term—to transform the city into a greener, more energy-efficient urban environment.

With new construction of private buildings not taking place in Manhattan to the same degree that they were during the height of last decade’s building boom, the goal is to modernize existing structures.

How does an architect make an old building, which leaks air and heat, energy efficient?

“Take the Empire State Building green upgrade for example. The new triple-pane, energy efficient windows were fabricated right onsite. The building had space for that—so there was no need to transport new windows from a factory, helping with the carbon footprint,” Mr. Bell said.

In April, the New York City Council approved three new green building code local laws that make roofs on existing buildings more energy-efficient. That is to go with the new energy audits of buildings that exceed 50,000 square feet, which will include mandatory benchmarking of water and energy use performance, and changes to lighting upgrades and sub-metering, among other items.

The challenge will be to transform static structures into dynamic ones that contribute to a greener city and improve the quality of life, such as controlling the amount of storm water runoff and carbon sequestering through the green roofs initiatives, as well as reducing the overall “heat tab” effect that hot buildings have in aggregate across the city.

“But how does one go about doing that for low-income housing and apartment buildings that can be found throughout the city, in places like Queens, the South Bronx, and Brooklyn?” Mr. Bell asked. “It starts with changing the characteristics of a building—to focus on restoring buildings and neighborhoods for those who live there and to prevent a repeat of the gentrification that impacted the city in the 1970s.”

“Not only does that include expanding the public sector work and participation, but it includes social service issues, such as having necessary facilities in the right place and providing access to those institutions through appropriate transportation infrastructure,” he said.

On benchmarking, he said, “It’s easy to change something small and specific, but it is a lot tougher to retool for a broad and ongoing systemic change.”

“How do we retrofit low-income housing and do it in a cost-effective way?” Mr. Bell asked. “It starts with design and sharing knowledge from other projects around the world. A new skin, for instance has been used in Europe. It can be placed over an existing building shell to provide a green upgrade to meet changing regulations.”

“It’s initial cost versus long-term benefit. In the end, it is a zero-sum game,” he said, referring to setting the right motivation for an environmental upgrade that would have lasting benefits.

Mr. Bell also discussed the large number of American architects that now work internationally in the global economy. Not only is choosing the right local partner critical—someone who knows the laws, codes, and culture of the foreign country—but utilizing the Web and new collaborative software ensures that projects can get done more easily anywhere in the world.

Finally, Mr. Bell is optimistic about the near-term in the architecture industry. “Yes, there are more requests for proposals going to architectural firms. And environmental upgrades create green jobs."

A new environmental consciousness and code requirements may keep New York City architects busy for years to come, and address ways to produce a greener city for all New Yorkers.

James Ottar Grundvig is a writer based in New York City.