AIA Utah Confers Special Green Design Awards/Boise State CM Students Earn Top Honors/AED Sees Major Equipment Slump

Four projects designed by AIA Utah member firms were recognized by jury members from outside Utah. Three of the four projects have already achieved LEED-Platinum certification; the fourth is also slated to earn that designation from the USGBC.

An independent jury of architects from outside Utah selected four projects for awards in the third annual Sustainable Design Excellence Awards held by the American Institute of Architects Utah chapter.

The Swaner EcoCenter just outside Park City earned LEED-Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council earlier this year. (Photo courtesy of CRSA)

The top winner, which received the only Honor Award, is the Swaner EcoCenter near Park City. The jury selected three projects for Merit Awards: the Utah Botanical Center Wetland Discovery Point in Kaysville; the Daybreak Corporate Center in South Jordan; and AIA Utah’s new office in downtown Salt Lake City.

Jury chair Thomas Hootman, director of sustainability, RNL of Denver, noted that all four projects meet the highest standards of green design. In addition to achieving high marks in AIA’s 10 measures of sustainable design, three of the four projects have been certified LEED Platinum – the highest possible rating by the U.S. Green Building Council, and the fourth is on track to do so.

To be selected, however, the project had to exemplify excellent design for building aesthetics, in addition to meeting green standards. “Green design can, and should, be beautiful design,” says Hootman.

In additoon to Hootman, members of the jury were: Fred Andreas, assistant professor, Dept. of Architecture at the University of Colorado and a practicing architect with Unit Design Studio; and John Norquist, president/CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism in Chicago. All entries were submitted without architectural firm identification.

AIA Utah holds the design competition to underscore the importance of sustainable design in reducing global warming and improving quality of life, to celebrate excellent work by Utah architects, uncover examples that can inform the architectural profession and the public, and to highlight that green design is beautiful design.

“We have many outstanding firms in our chapter who have been practicing sustainable design for many years,” says Elizabeth Mitchell, executive director of AIA Utah. “It’s nice to see these great projects recognized for their sustainability.”

The Utah chapter of the American Institute of Architects was founded in 1921 and includes over 600 architects, architects-in-training, and allied members.

The Swaner EcoCenter, completed last September, is an interpretive center and gateway for the 1,200 acres of the Swaner Preserve. The 10,000-sq-ft building, which was recently awarded LEED-Platinum certification, provides office and meeting

space, exhibit areas, a heater and an observation tower. Its primary design goal was to offer something of value to every visitor, from the “most ardent environmental advocate to the child’s birthday party guest.” The architects kept the plan simple; the forms low key to allow the visitor to focus first on the preserve. Its primary building orientation, to the south and east, responds to the views, solar aspect and site constraints.

The Utah Botanical Center Wetland Discovery Point project is visited by more than 4,000 school-age children annually. (Photo courtesy of ajc architects)

The EcoCenter exemplifies its name, producing 12% of its own energy and harvesting rainwater for use on-site for all landscape irrigation and toilet flushing. 79% of the spaces are lit by natural daylight and nearly all have views to the outside. Nearly half the materials were either from recycled content, derived locally, or from rapidly renewable resources, with three-quarters of the construction diverted from the landfill.

The interior spaces offer significant flexibility for changes in use such as the exhibit hall with portable exhibits so that a large event may be hosted and a film theater that can turn into exhibit space.

The EcoCenter is an escape. It allows people to get close to the meadow from the ground or watch sandhill cranes from the observation tower. The jury noted that it serves as a frame for experience that gets out of the way. The exterior building materials have an intimate scale that helps people connect with the building and with the nature preserve beyond.

Onsite renewable energy generated from the PV and solar hot water arrays provide 12.51% of the building’s overall energy cost load. With seasonal temperature swings of as much as 120 degrees, the design team used a VAV IDEC mechanical system and a number of other strategies to optimize comfort and save about 53% of annual energy use.

The architects had a tall order: designing a multi-functional nature interpretive center to the highest levels of sustainability and design quality. The jury clearly believed they succeeded.

The Wetland Discovery Point is first of all a place for kids, offering an indoor-outdoor learning experience for the 4,000-plus school-age children visiting the Botanical Center each year. It also is intended to be an example of sustainability for the community and the region. The butterfly roof functions as a rain collection device and regulates sun into the building – maximizing it in the winter, and shading the interior in the summer. The building also has a solar array that provides about 16% of energy consumed by the building, and solar hot water collectors.

No mechanical ventilation is provided. Instead, natural ventilation, thermal massing, solar orientation, and de-stratification fans are utilized in the design to ventilate and cool the building. This also reduces energy used to control the building during peak hours.

All of the regularly occupied rooms have extensive views to the exterior—primarily of the wetlands and the mountain range beyond.

Daylight illuminates these spaces, creating a friendly, calm, yet well-lit interior for children, teachers and Discovery Point staff.

The jury found the materials list impressive, with the architects achieving a 44% recycled content overall.

The landscape design ties in with its wetland context and will not need irrigation once the plants are established. The building’s simple, open design makes it flexible in the present and adaptable over the long term.

The jury praised the architects for creating an educational center that is appealingly straightforward in its design, and thorough in its mastery of sustainable design strategies. The project is certified LEED Platinum.

The Daybreak Corporate Center is the first commercial development in the master-planned community of Daybreak.

The Daybreak Corporate Center was the first commercial project to be built at the Daybreak residential community. It is also the first project in Utah to earn LEED-Platinum certification. (Photo by Dana Sohm)

The owner’s goal was to set a high standard for future development and demonstrate that incorporating sustainable building practices into a business model can lead to profitable development.

Among other things, this meant providing a healthy and productive work environment for all future tenants. This project became the first LEED-Platinum certified building in Utah

The architects met the challenge of bringing a large building down to a pedestrian scale through massing, changes in materials, and detailing at the sidewalk level. The jury appreciated that the plan preserved significant open space, including a man-made lake that is easily accessible by employees. One of the jurors who had visited the building in the past saw someone fishing there.

Ninety percent of indoor occupants have access to light and views. The tenant improvement guidelines prohibit constructing rooms with walls on exterior walls and the preservation of views to the outside. The building uses an indirect/direct evaporative cooling system to condition the facility, and a chilled water system provides mechanical cooling only during extreme conditions.

The building, located adjacent to bike and hiking trails, is bike friendly, providing changing rooms and showers for employees that commute to work. The architects chose materials for durability and its possible future re-use if the building is remodeled.

The jury was impressed that the design team was able to achieve energy efficiency goals while including a significant amount of glass around all four sides.

They noted that the architects succeeded in designing a stand-out building that is a friendly part of its surroundings in spite of its scale, demonstrates commitment to sustainability, and serves as a model for meeting today’s triple bottom line.

The quality of this build-out began with a well-chosen location – a ground-floor, corner location office with plenty of windows to bring in natural light. The office serves as a primary meeting and administrative space for the chapter. It also is intended as a demonstration of the AIA’s commitment to sustainability both through its design and the interactive display wall near the office entrance.

The architects deftly handled the wedge-shaped space by dividing it with a single curve that mold millwork, soffits and lights. Objects such as the education wall, the re-used plywood cabinet for documents and the “trestlewood” millwork express functionality and sustainability. The north-facing exterior glass not only provides significant natural light, it connects staff and visitors with the outside urban environment. 80% of the regularly occupied space is sufficiently daylit, with highly efficient LED lights filling in where needed. Electrical use meets the 2030 Challenge of 50% better than ASHRAE 90.1.

A tenant improvement project means that materials choice for finishes, carpet and furniture are critical in achieving sustainability goals. The extensive reuse of materials cut project resource consumption by 20%, and a majority of the office’s carpet, seating, and lighting is C2C certified.

The jury felt that the design quality of this office combined with its impressive success at meeting sustainability goals within tight constraints merited recognition.

The project is on track for achieving LEED-Platinum certification.

Boise State CM Students Earn Top Ranking from AGC of America

Boise State, Kansas State and Cal State Chico Universities are home to the nation’s top collegiate construction associations this year, according to an analysis of award applications conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America. As a result, the three student groups will each receive the association’s Outstanding Student Chapter award.

“The mix of construction skills, management expertise and project savvy these groups possess is on a par with some of the nation’s top construction firms,” says J. Doug Pruitt, the association’s president and the chairman and CEO of Tempe, Ariz.-based Sundt Construction. “Looking at these students’ work, it’s easy to feel optimistic about the industry’s future.”

Pruitt noted that Boise State University was again selected as the top student group, largely for their work overseeing a complex project to relocate one of the oldest Abraham Lincoln statues west of the Mississippi. Boise State was also named the best chapter last year. Thanks to the group’s accomplishments, the school’s Construction Management Association will receive $1,500 to help finance their operations.

Kansas State University’s student AGC chapter was selected as the second-best student group, thanks to its work building a memorial in Chapman, Kan., dedicated to the local victims of a tornado that struck the town in June 2008. The group brought together moe than 40 volunteers to invest over 750 man-hours building the memorial park. As a result, they will receive $750 from the association.

Cal State Chico University’s Student Chapter was named the nation’s third-best student construction group for its work supporting fire-ravaged Concow, Calif. Students oversaw the construction of climate-controlled storage buildings for residents’ belongings while repairs were made to fire-damaged houses. The students were able to support the construction of 12 storage buildings. The association will provide the chapter with $400.

A panel of seven judges representing a cross-section of the construction industry evaluated the applications for this year’s Student Chapter Awards contest. School groups were rated based on their accomplishments during the 2008-2009 school year. There are approximately 200 university-level student construction groups nationwide.

AED Says Construction Equipment Industry Mired in Major Slump

While recession abates for some sectors of the U.S. economy, the construction equipment industry remains stalled in a deep depression caused in part by a scarcity of new federal investment in needed transportationimprovements that would benefit the public and strengthen the nation’s competitiveness. In fact, 8% of all jobs lost during the recession – or two out of every 25 – can be traced to this ailing industry, according to a new study released in October.

The research – conducted by IHS Global Insight, a respected economic and financial analysis firm – comes one day before the expiration of federal transportation funding. Congress has yet to pass a new multi-year reauthorization bill, and many experts consider that legislation to be the best opportunity for lawmakers to help stimulate the slumping construction sector this year and improve traffic. To highlight the report’s dire findings and rally support for swift government action, construction equipment workers and business leaders today launched the ‘Start Us Up USA!’ campaign. Led by the Associated Equipment Distributors and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, ‘Start Us Up USA!’ aims to secure passage of adequately funded transportation legislation before the spring construction season begins in early 2010.

“The current recession has placed a severe drag on the construction equipment industry, which is consequently holding back the broader economy from recovery,” says Scott Hazelton, director of construction services for IHS Global Insight and principal author of the study. Other key findings include:

•The construction equipment industry – which includes manufacturing, distribution and equipment service facilities – has shed 37% of its workforce. By comparison, auto manufacturing and dealership jobs are down by 16 percent, while job losses in the finance and insurance industry amount to 6% of its workforce.

•Spending on construction equipment has fallen by more than 50% compared to its peak in 2006.

•The economic output of this industry has contracted by nearly 40% and resulted in the loss of approximately 550,000 jobs. That’s eight percent of all jobs lost since the start of the recession.

•In 2008, the construction equipment industry contributed $243.3 billion in U.S. economic output and supported nearly 1.25 million jobs. The jobs supported by this industry were roughly equal to the number of men and women employed in manufacturing computer and electronic equipment.

IHS Global Insight also analyzed the impact of the construction equipment depression on individual states. From “peak-to-trough” – roughly 2006 to 2009 – the states suffering the greatest losses are California, North Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.

Jack B. Parson Companies’ Drivers Win Truck ‘Roadeo’

Two of Jack B. Parson Companies’ mixer drivers walked away with cash prizes and top honors at the seventh annual Northern Utah Ready Mix Truck “Roadeo.”

Darren Rawson of JBP’s Ogden plant won first place in the seventh annual Northern Utah Ready Mix Truck Roadeo, sponsored by the Ready Mix Council of the UAGCA. He will represent JBP at the National Ready Mix Concrete Association Roadeo at the Indianapolis Speed Way.

The Roadeo, sponsored by the Ready Mix Council of the Associated General Contractors of Utah, was held at H & E Equipment Co. on September 19. JBP drivers placed first and third at the event. This is the sixth out of seven years that JBP has won the competition.

Three different tests were administered during the Roadeo, including a written test, a pre-trip inspection conducted by the Utah Highway Patrol, and a driving test that measured the driver’s skill in maneuvering, backing, turning, and stopping the mixer. Also tested during the event were concrete placement and chute handling skills.

Darren Rawson of JBP’s Ogden plant was awarded a first place plaque and $1,000 cash prize. Rawson has been employed by JBP for 19 years. He will represent JBP at the National Ready Mix Concrete Association Roadeo held in October at the Indianapolis Speed Way. Chuck Rasband of JBP’s Beck Street plant was awarded a third place plaque and $500 cash prize. Rasband has been a JBP employee for 13 years.

“It is great to be part of an organization where every employee strives for excellence, not only in their driving skills, but also in safety and their desire to make JBP The Preferred Source,” says Bob Rowberry, JBP General Manager. “I am proud of this year’s winners and our excellent drivers who participated in the event. They represent our company well.”