Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Beyond Green Buildings: An Integrated Holistic Design Approach
EPA Grant Number: SU831879Title: Beyond Green Buildings: An Integrated Holistic Design Approach
Investigators: Ramaswami, Anu , Andreas, Fred , Zhai, John , Pitterle, Mark , Rouise, Steven , Hillman, Tim
Institution: University of Colorado at Denver , University of Colorado at Boulder
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: October 1, 2004 through May 30, 2005
Project Amount: $10,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2004) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Challenge Area - Sustainable and Healthy Communities , Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
The Civil Engineering and Architecture
departments at the University of Colorado at Denver (CU Denver) and the University
of Colorado at Boulder (CU Boulder) are designing a Sustainable Youth Center
(SYC) building in a disadvantaged community in Commerce City, CO. The SYC is
going to be a multi-use facility used by the city, the National Audubon Society,
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. These groups have requested assistance
from the University of Colorado to help design the SYC so that it will provide
environmental and sustainability education to youth and the community while
achieving the highest standard of green building design. Goals for this project
are to design a facility that enhances all educational functions of the building while
incorporating zero net-energy consumption, maximal water conservation, minimal
pollution and waste discharge (the goal is zero), and maximum recyclability.
In addition, the clients wanted to attempt to achieve a LEED Platinum rating.
The Engineering and Architecture departments on the CU Denver and CU Boulder campus have used this project as a spring board to the development of a new, interdisciplinary curriculum geared at providing students with a hands-on experience to holistic building design. The holistic design process encompasses systems knowledge and interactions between many disciplines during all phases of the project to achieve a building design that: 1) increases the health and productivity of its occupants; 2) has lower life cycle costs; and 3) drastically reduces the life cycle environmental impacts of material, water and energy use. There are few programs across the country that offer such an integrated, holistic design approach to the built environment. The SYC project offers a real-life experience with which to apply these skills as well as to enhance further collaboration between these departments to create a Center for Holistic Sustainable Building Design.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
To achieve the green building design goals of building functionality and appeal for the occupants while reducing the environmental footprint, a highly organized framework that emphasizes the integration of — or at least understanding of — all building components is required. The framework developed (and used) consists of four primary categories that must be addressed sequentially, yet requiring that an overall comprehension of their integrated nature be applied during each step. The four categories, listed in the order that they should be addressed are:
- Building Use and Occupant Needs — Assess the occupants needs and expected building use to determine the functional design priorities of the building;
- Climate Analysis — Conduct a local climate analysis to determine climactic needs and to assess the potential for passive design strategies;
- Site Plan Development — Perform the preliminary site plan development and landscape design, while considering strategies that can improve occupant comfort, reduce building loads, and further enable passive design strategies;
- Building Design — Proceed with the building design working to meet the occupants’ needs and functional requirements of the facility, while incorporating passive design strategies, and being cognizant of the life cycle costs and impacts of material selection and energy use.
It is important to stress that although these are listed in order, the holistic design approach is more like an interconnected web, with each of the categories being addressed continually throughout the design process. Intimate knowledge of the design strategies and interrelated impacts of each category on one another is critical to effectively achieve green building design and beyond.
Utilizing this approach, student teams produced building designs that achieved many of the original goals of the project. The designs meet the functional requirements of the facility as well as the occupants’ needs of comfort, health, productivity and safety, while producing significant water and energy savings and utilizing environmentally preferred building materials. Many of the design options were cost effective, while others need additional cost data to determine. It appears as though a LEED Platinum rating is possible, although it may not be the most cost effective option. A summary of estimated savings are briefly summarized below.
Water Conservation:
Water consumption was greatly reduced in our design by incorporating waterless and low-flow toilets, waterless urinals, water efficient water fixtures, and a landscape design that eliminated all potable water needs. Overall, our water conservation measures resulted in a reduction of indoor potable water needs by 37 percent, or 1070 gallons per day.
Wastewater Treatment:
The preliminary design of the on-site wastewater treatment uses source separation into greywater/blackwater and incorporation of a combination of anaerobic and aerobic digesters along with final solar purification to achieve reliable and pathogen-free effluent. It is estimated that the wastewater treatment design will process all of the wastewater generated on site. In addition to the treatment of wastewater, energy will be produced in the form of methane that can be utilized on-site. It is estimated that approximately 1700 kWh of energy (raw chemical energy) will be produced. A test prototype of this system has not been completed at this time, and it is proposed that in Phase II further analysis and experimental testing be conducted to demonstrate the operation and effectiveness of the system.
Material Utilization:
Building materials should be selected that reduce life cycle environmental impacts, have a lower life cycle cost and that don’t degrade the indoor environmental quality for the occupants. For Phase I we used BEES 3.0 to determine cost effective and environmentally preferred building materials. This software, however has a limited database on new and innovative building materials. In addition to BEES we used the LEED criterion of high recycled content and locally available materials to inform our material selection. At this point we determined that although some building materials have obvious economic and environmental advantages, we need greater information of the full life cycle impacts to determine environmentally superior products for buildings. For Phase II we are proposing to use ATHENA Environmental Impact Estimator to perform a whole building embodied energy and life cycle environmental analysis.
Zero-Net Energy:
To maximize energy conservation, the building designs incorporated a number of passive design strategies including: daylighting, a highly insulated envelope, thermal mass, passive solar heating, and natural ventilation. The building’s energy performance was analyzed using computational fluid dynamics software to model the effects of natural ventilation strategies and eQUEST to model the remaining energy flows. Integration of the four holistic design categories resulted in building designs that could achieve an estimated energy savings of 75 percent relative to a building that is built to local energy code. Over a building life of 50 years, the life cycle energy cost savings were $720,000.
The original goal was to achieve a zero-net energy building. To meet the remaining energy requirements, we considered using photovoltaics (PV) and small wind power generation for the electrical loads, and methane produced from the wastewater treatment digesters for the natural gas loads. We found that it was not cost effective to produce the necessary power to meet the zero-net energy design goal with PV and wind power generated on site (cost of power produced on site compared to the grid power). We recommend that PV be used to meet the minimum LEED renewable energy credits and to add an educational component to the facility. For the remaining electrical power we propose that the facility purchase green tags of renewably generated electricity. Although this does not fulfill the general definition of a zero-net energy building, it does provide a much more cost effective option for supplementing any energy needs with energy that is produced from renewable sources, which is ultimately the goal of zero-net energy buildings. The very low natural gas loads, which resulted from efficient building design and the use of a solar water heating system, could be met by the output of the wastewater treatment digesters.
Conclusions:
The SYC building has the potential to become a national and/or international showcase for integrated sustainable urban infrastructure systems design, educating builders and urban planners worldwide to make design decisions that reduce the ecological footprint of buildings. This project worked to balance all P3 elements of people, prosperity, and the planet. The holistic design approach using life cycle assessment and life cycle costing criteria will better inform building designers and owners to alternatives that will lead to economic prosperity in their communities as well as lesson the long-term impacts to future generations on the planet.
The collaborative work between the architecture and engineering departments has resulted in innovative approaches to expanding the knowledge and application of these green design principles in practical applications. The greatest impediment to further success in this area, however, is the lack of academic programs supporting this level of cooperation and multi-disciplinary focus to education. For this to be more successful in the future, time and funding will be required to support the necessary curriculum development that integrates inter-departmental collaboration with real-world partners to provide students with the hands-on practical experience that is critical for assimilation of the holistic design process.
Proposed Phase II Objectives:
Phase I laid the groundwork for interdisciplinary collaboration between departments and the campuses of CU-Denver and CU-Boulder. Initial designs for the Sustainable Youth Center in Commerce City have been completed using the holistic design principles outlined by this collaboration. Phase II is looking to perform two primary functions: 1) continue the detailed design of the specific technologies selected in Phase I, which includes a whole building embodied energy and environmental analysis as well as the further development of an on-site wastewater treatment prototype; and 2) continued interdisciplinary collaboration in developing a holistic sustainable building design curriculum at the University of Colorado.
For the first of the two Phase II functions, we are proposing that further design analysis be completed on the SYC targeting: the natural ventilation schemes, a whole building material life cycle assessment, and the further development of the on-site wastewater treatment unit. To examine the impacts and benefits of the different natural ventilation schemes, we plan to conduct a more comprehensive analysis using advanced computational fluid dynamics software. This will provide a valuable case study opportunity for design techniques that are not well validated in practice. For the whole building embodied energy and life cycle environmental analysis we are proposing that we use the ATHENA Environmental Impact Estimator. This will provide an unprecedented level of information on the environmental impacts of a much more extensive list of building materials than are available in BEES. Finally, we plan to construct and test an on-site wastewater treatment prototype for demonstration purposes for the public and code enforcement officials.
The second objective of this Phase II proposal we feel is the most imperative in achieving the long-term goals of the P3 grant. This is to bring environmental sustainability, integrated systems design, community participation, life-cycle thinking and coupled environmental-economic analysis into the undergraduate and graduate learning experience in Architecture, Planning, Science and Engineering domains. This proposal focuses on utilizing the model of the current, cooperative, holistic approach and expanding that model as a foundation for a three department interdisciplinary Center for Holistic Sustainable Building Design. The Center will create a permanent infrastructure carrying the example of the SYC project forward into a broader interdisciplinary departmental approach to sustainable education. This concept focuses on cooperative, compatible, existing programs and courses in the Architecture and Engineering departments. Collective courses and projects provide the vehicle for cooperating on other, similar sustainable, green building design projects in the future. This formalized Center would allow students and researchers the opportunity to cross register and cross pollinate in providing cutting edge education and research in sustainable/green design.
Supplemental Keywords:
RFA, Scientific Discipline, Sustainable Industry/Business, Sustainable Environment, Technology for Sustainable Environment, Ecology and Ecosystems, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, green design, sustainable development, holistic design, ecological design, environmental conscious construction, green building design, alternative building technology, Urban Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering Program, life cycle assessment, environmentally conscious designRelevant Websites:
https://blackboard.cudenver.edu/ Exit
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.