Anyone considering building a green hotel over the next five to 10 years should pay attention to the progress of the Oregon Sustainability Center. Even though this office building planned for downtown Portland, Ore., will not house a hotel, it will provide many lessons for our industry. The Oregon Sustainability Center is a collaborative effort of the Oregon University System in partnership with the City of Portland, the Portland Development Commission, Portland Sustainability Institute, and a group of leading environmental organizations led by the Oregon Environmental Council and Earth Advantage Institute. SERA Architects (The Nines Hotel, The Courtyard by Marriott—Portland City Center, etc.), GBD Architects, Gerding Edlen Development, Hoffman Construction and a local team of expert consultants is working on the project.
The Oregon Sustainability Center is designed to meet the world’s most stringent green building criteria—the Cascadia Green Building Council’s Living Building Challenge. What that means is that the building will have net-zero energy use, net-zero water use, and all wastewater will be managed on-site. The Center is currently the largest project in terms of square footage and height to attempt the Living Building Challenge. Envisioned first as a 13-story, 200,000-square-foot building, it is now projected to be nine or 10 stories and about 150,000 square feet.
I spoke with Clark Brockman, associate principal, director of sustainability resources for SERA Architects and he told me the funding for the $70 million project is coming along well and construction should begin next year. The building should be completed by sometime in 2012 or 2013. Brockman is on the boards of the Cascadia Green Building Council and the International Living Building Institute.
Getting to net-zero impact will be “incredibly hard,” Brockman says. “[The Living Building Challenge] is not intended to be impossible though,” he says. “We can get the building to be about 63 percent better than the Oregon Energy Code using all of the best practices available in both active and passive green building design, but we need to get to 75 percent better than code to achieve net-zero energy performance on site. We will achieve the remaining 12 percent efficiency through occupant engagement measures.” Engaging the occupants will be key to achieving both net-zero energy and water performance.
Photovoltaic Systems Included
Proposed energy reduction strategies include highest performance envelope, highest efficiency active systems, maximized use of passive systems including night ventilation of mass and daylighting, maximized use of natural energy, and occupant engagement in management of energy from equipment. The project will incorporate radiant heating and cooling with an outside air system and energy recovery ventilation through a hydronic heat exchange system. Four types of photovoltaics may be used on the building.
The roofs and canopies of the Center will funnel rain water into a 200,000-gallon storage tank in the basement, enough to provide for the building throughout the dry season. Treated graywater will replace potable water in most systems in the building and will be used for flushing toilets, irrigation, or cooling mechanical equipment.
Wastewater coming from toilets, known as blackwater, will not be as easily treated or reused. The Center will use an intense biological wastewater treatment system (living machine) to clean the blackwater’s higher level of contamination, a system that mimics the cleaning and filtering processes found in nature. The Center’s biological wastewater treatment system will look like a garden. Once treated, the water will be reused as graywater or returned to the ground.
I asked SERA’s Brockman if one could replicate what is being done with the Oregon Sustainability Center in a hotel building. For the most part one could, he says. The difficult challenge would be getting to net-zero water. Guests do not like to sacrifice when they shower. An on-site laundry and restaurant could, of course, pose challenges as well. If a hotel developer were to pursue the Living Building Challenge, Brockman says, the hotel would have to be the type of property that would attract the type of guest that would be eager to participate in the pursuit of the Challenge. “Present it as the brand proposition,” Brockman says. “Start with the right size building. It may be better suited for a destination type of property.”
Who will be the first to attempt to build a “living” building in our industry? Until that happens, be sure to follow the progress of the Oregon Sustainability Center.
Green Lodging News Adds Bulbs.com as Founding Sponsor
Green Lodging News welcomes Bulbs.com as a Founding Sponsor. The company offers a wide selection of energy-efficient replacement bulbs, ballasts, fixtures and can consult on almost any lighting project. With its prepaid recycling containers, Bulbs.com also can help with bulb recycling programs. The company has certificates of proper recycling and disposal available and its prepaid containers follow EPA guidelines and keep businesses compliant. Bulbs.com first entered the lighting market in 1999. The company is now one of the largest Philips Lighting distributors, servicing more than 91,000 businesses operating 250,000 business locations. Bulbs.com’s website is easy to search and navigate and includes a feature called BulbTrack that enables the purchaser to record where each light bulb is used in their facility. The company offers more than 3,400 different products. For more information, e-mail customerservice@bulbs.com, call (888) 455-2800, or go to www.bulbs.com.
Green Lodging News Welcomes NaturCert as Directory Partner
Green Lodging News welcomes NaturCert as a Green Product & Service Directory partner. NaturCert Certification brings strong sustainability and CSR standards and practices plus valued international recognition. The organization’s advanced and impartial third-party certification system allows one to reduce operating costs and achieve international recognition in short time at economical rates. NaturCert Certification is designed for hotels and other travel and tourism companies seeking to improve their environmental performance while elevating overall credibility and corporate social responsibility leadership to customers, partners, suppliers and stakeholders. For additional information, e-mail info@naturcert.com, call +44 20 8144 0925, or go to www.naturcert.com.
Advertising Opportunities
There are many excellent Green Lodging News advertising opportunities available for the second half of 2010, including ad spots on the website and in the weekly e-newsletter. There are also many Green Supplier Spotlight dates available. If your company has a product or products it would like to feature in Green Lodging News in 2010, be sure to contact me. The 2010 media kit is available by request or by clicking here. Thank you to all of those companies that consistently support Green Lodging News.
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