On zero-energy cities: The idea of a zero-energy city is a subject I’ve been interested in most of my career, working in indigenous areas like Guatemala and the Middle East, looking for clues about the design of buildings in their cultural and historical fabric. For the last four years, we’ve been looking at how to relate buildings to the natural forces that are available to us—geothermal, wind, solar, building orientation, and so on.
Sears Tower as guidepost: In 2005, while Gordon Gill and I were still at SOM, we started to look at the need to not only reduce buildings’ reliance on energy, but also to absorb the energy and use the latent environment to its greatest advantage. The Sears Tower [now Willis Tower] has 10,000 panes of single-glaze glass, and each creates as much carbon as one SUV. So we looked into completely replacing the exterior wall, redoing the insulation panels, updating the mechanical systems, reducing the amount of artificial light in the inner space, using dimmer systems, greening the nine roofs, using solar provide hot water, and so on. The potential savings would be 68 million kWh a year, which translates to five million fewer miles of driving, or electricity for 2,500 homes. We concluded that we could save 80% of the base energy of the building and 50% of the tenant energy use for the building.
Decarbonizing Chicago: The Sears Tower got us thinking about the 2030 Challenge, the BOMA 7-Point Challenge, and the Chicago Climate Action Plan: What would happen if we analyzed Chicago’s Loop to meet those goals? Over the last year, our firm has conducted an extensive study, a Chicago Central Area Decarbonization Plan, to see what it would take to get a carbon-free environment by 2030. We looked at a 460-acre section of the Loop that represents 9% of the city’s emissions, 3.9 million tons of CO2e a year, to see how to get an 80% reduction by 2020 and eliminate 3.2 million tons of CO2e a year.
By taking every building in the study area, all 550, and applying what we did in the Sears Tower, you get about one-third of the way toward the 2030 Challenge. Then, if you change the “urban matrix” of the buildings in the Loop from essentially 100% office use to 50% office and 50% residential, that gets you two-thirds of the way there. And through means like smart infrastructure, increased pedestrian traffic, district cooling, reducing energy in water and waste, and community education—when you do all that, you still have about 20% of the way to go, and that 20% has to come from renewable power sources to achieve a total reduction of carbon.
New technology, new philosophy: The old technology, old philosophy is having a central power plant and transmitting the power from the central plant to each building in the city. The problem is that you’re only 40-50% efficient at the source, and you’re losing 30% more in transmission, so you’re throwing away 70-80% of the power. Using new technology with wind and solar farms still relies on transmitting energy to the city. The new technology, new philosophy is to make as much power on the site as possible. Then you can shave the peak period for all users and reduce the total number of power plants. And you don’t need the grid: every building becomes a power source.
QUESTIONS FROM THE IIT AUDIENCE
Does your plan use projections of future improvements in technology?
ADS: The Chicago decarbonization plan uses existing technology; we don’t rely on technology that doesn’t exist. As people hear about what we’re doing, new technology will become part of our daily lives. We don’t know if some of those things will work, so you can’t rely on unknown technology in the future.
What about the embodied energy of materials?
ADS: The best way you can save energy is to take something old and renew it. You have to tackle it building by building, district by district. The study showed that for $65 a square foot you could bring these buildings up to state of the art, vs. $250 a square foot to replace them.
How will you store energy for when it’s actually needed?
ADS: You have to have storage facilities to store that power, whether that’s a battery or limestone caves. This is a key area of investigation, and it’s going to take a clever solution to do this on an economical basis.
How likely is it that your plan could be implemented?
ADS: That’s a big question mark. In New York City, building owners have to do some of the things we’re talking about. This is a seed. You throw it out there.
Would the residential units be too expensive for low-income groups?
ADS: In the Loop, retrofitting the pre-1950s buildings could give you opportunity to do that, where units would be cost accessible. In the ’80s, we took a lot of abandoned manufacturing buildings and converted them into residential lofts that were quite affordable.
How do you counteract the public’s reaction to high density?
ADS: People don’t want their views blocked, and that’s where a master plan comes in, and zoning densities. Wacker’s “Manual of the Plan of Chicago” was used for 15 years after the Burnham Plan of 1909, to teach every public school student what the plan meant. We’re proposing a similar manual that creates strategies for a carbon-free environment.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Florida mixed-use complex includes retail, residential
The $325 million Atlantic Plaza II lifestyle center will be built on 8.5 acres in Delray Beach, Fla. Designed by Vander Ploeg & Associates, Boca Raton, the complex will include six buildings ranging from three to five stories and have 182,000 sf of restaurant and retail space. An additional 106,000 sf of Class A office space and a residential component including 197 apartments, townhouses, ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Restoration gives new life to New Formalism icon
The $30 million upgrade, restoration, and expansion of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles was completed by the team of Rios Clementi Hale Studios (architect), Harley Ellis Devereaux (executive architect/MEP), KPFF (structural engineer), and Taisei Construction (GC). Work on the Welton Becket-designed 1967 complex included an overhaul of the auditorium, lighting, and acoustics.
| Aug 11, 2010
Best AEC Firms to Work For
2006 FreemanWhite Hnedak Bobo Group McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. Shawmut Design and Construction Walter P Moore 2007 Anshen+Allen Arup Bovis Lend Lease Cannon Design Jones Lang LaSalle Perkins+Will SmithGroup SSOE, Inc. Timothy Haahs & Associates, Inc. 2008 Gilbane Building Co. HDR KJWW Engineering Consultants Lord, Aeck & Sargent Mark G.
| Aug 11, 2010
High-Performance Workplaces
Building Teams around the world are finding that the workplace is changing radically, leading owners and tenants to reinvent corporate office buildings to compete more effectively on a global scale. The good news is that this means more renovation and reconstruction work at a time when new construction has stalled to a dribble.
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Business Management
22. Commercial Properties Repositioned for University USE Tocci Building Companies is finding success in repositioning commercial properties for university use, and it expects the trend to continue. The firm's Capital Cove project in Providence, R.I., for instance, was originally designed by Elkus Manfredi (with design continued by HDS Architects) to be a mixed-use complex with private, market-...
| Aug 11, 2010
Nurturing the Community
The best seat in the house at the new Seahawks Stadium in Seattle isn't on the 50-yard line. It's in the southeast corner, at the very top of the upper bowl. "From there you have a corner-to-corner view of the field and an inspiring grasp of the surrounding city," says Kelly Kerns, project leader with architect/engineer Ellerbe Becket, Kansas City, Mo.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA Course: Historic Masonry — Restoration and Renovation
Historic restoration and preservation efforts are accelerating throughout the U.S., thanks in part to available tax credits, awards programs, and green building trends. While these projects entail many different building components and systems, façade restoration—as the public face of these older structures—is a key focus. Earn 1.0 AIA learning unit by taking this free course from Building Design+Construction.
| Aug 11, 2010
BIM adoption tops 80% among the nation's largest AEC firms, according to BD+C's Giants 300 survey
The nation's largest architecture, engineering, and construction companies are on the BIM bandwagon in a big way, according to Building Design+Construction's premier Top 50 BIM Adopters ranking, published as part of the 2009 Giants 300 survey. Of the 320 AEC firms that participated in Giants survey, 83% report having at least one BIM seat license in house, half have more than 30 seats, and near...
| Aug 11, 2010
World's tallest all-wood residential structure opens in London
At nine stories, the Stadthaus apartment complex in East London is the world’s tallest residential structure constructed entirely in timber and one of the tallest all-wood buildings on the planet. The tower’s structural system consists of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels pieced together to form load-bearing walls and floors. Even the elevator and stair shafts are constructed of prefabricated CLT.
| Aug 11, 2010
Integrated Project Delivery builds a brave, new BIM world
Three-dimensional information, such as that provided by building information modeling, allows all members of the Building Team to visualize the many components of a project and how they work together. BIM and other 3D tools convey the idea and intent of the designer to the entire Building Team and lay the groundwork for integrated project delivery.