Steven Semes, architecture scholar and professor at University of Notre Dame and Michael Mehaffy, Portland-based sustainability consultant offered this March 17, 2012 editorial in the Oregonian.
White Stag Block is the cover story in the Winter 2010 edition of Oregon Facilities: Solutions for Building Owners and Managers.
The article by Kelly Lux is titled “Adaptive Reuse in Portland’s White Stag Block: Building Managers Find Little Difference in Operating, Managing a Rehabilitated Building.”
Interface Engineering overcame design challenge of incorporating new systems into old buildingsBy Sam Bennett
For Interface Engineering, the White Stag Block was no run-of-the-mill renovation. Interface, which won an ACEC Grand Award for the White Stag Block project, faced the challenge of designing modern, energy-efficient systems into 117,000 square feet of space of buildings a century old.
The buildings were being redesigned to accommodate the University of Oregon’s schools of architecture and journalism.
The firm was responsible for the mechanical, electrical and plumbing design for the shell and core of the Old Town project, as well as for tenant improvements.
Interface began the project with three neglected buildings adjacent to each other, with varied floor-to-ceiling heights. Aiming for Leadership and Energy and Environmental Design gold certification, Interface had to design a way to provide a rainwater retention tank as well as a storm water retention tank. Interface proposed that the storm water retention tank double as rainwater harvesting storage–rather than having two tanks in the shared basement that would need to also accommodate mechanical, electrical and plumbing equipment.
Interface also had limited access to put mechanical equipment on the roof of the historic structures. The building lacked cooling equipment prior to the renovation. The roof was not designed to hold the extra weight and adding an equipment room to the roof would have been prohibitively expensive. So Interface designed the basement space to accommodate them, where the storm water and rainwater storage tanks were stored.
To avoid making costly seismic upgrades, the air handling systems and new transformers (required because of an overloaded, outdated power grid) had to be placed in the basement.
Within the buildings, the mechanical systems were designed to be exposed and work around historic pillars in the building. Ductwork had to detour around such obstacles and varying heights of ceilings, and also needed to have a symmetrical look that fit with the era of the buildings. Some of the ceilings were just 8 feet high.
By making all these adjustments, the system achieved 30 percent greater efficiency than industry standards.
Adding to the complexity is that the building had to accommodate a variety of users, including classrooms, a computer lab, offices and a cafe–each with different HVAC and lighting needs. Interface managed to meet the tenants’ needs while keeping the historic integrity of the building.
Interface also served as a consultant to the building’s property managers when structuring tenant leases, and the firm assisted with creating the building management budget.
The project’s initial budget was $35 million and the final cost was $37 million. The mechanical, electrical and plumbing budget began at $5 million, and the final cost was $5.6 million.
Other issues that made design more challenging included fire damage in one of the buildings, leaking windows and low clearance in the basement.
Overall, Interface’s designers and engineers contributed 18 of the project’s 44 LEED points toward gold certification.
By Art DeMuro
Guest Column
Portland has begun to embrace sustainability as a near moral imperative that mandates respect for our environment and the human continuum. Sustainability is an aspiration surfacing in our urban planning goals and our economic development policies.
This ethic of sustainability is a remarkably high-minded reflection of our social evolution. Greed, self-interest, shortsightedness and wastefulness are giving way to social contracts, interconnectedness, selflessness and accountability.
Will Allen, Coordinator of LandCare Research at New Zealand’s Massey University, points out that sustainable development “stresses the need to change from old sector-centered ways of doing business to new approaches that involve cross-sectored coordination and the integration of environmental and social concerns into all development processes.” In short, we are accepting the responsibilities and the benefits of pursuit of the common good.
What does that mean for how we grow, protect and maintain our built environment?
Environmental sustainability is a key component of sustainable development as we conserve our precious natural resources so we use them at a rate at which they can be naturally replenished. Efforts directed toward increased energy efficiencies, recycling of construction debris, utilization of materials, day lighting, support of mass transit, etc., are all worthy goals that are enthusiastically being implemented in new projects.
Quickly, and to our credit, these efforts are becoming standard practices in our community. Architects and engineers by the dozens are becoming certified in order to learn how to incorporate such measures into building plans. Certifications of sustainability are now surfacing as marketing banners to attract tenants and buyers.
Ironically, historic preservation is overlooked as a tenet of sustainability. People easily think of recycling construction materials such as wood, metal and glass but they rarely consider the preservation of an entire building environmentally efficient when it is in fact a maximization of resource conservation.
People tend to define sustainable development in terms of new construction: How can we build something that uses durable materials, operates efficiently and provides attractive, healthful quarters? The challenge has a time line that egocentrically begins with “today” and extends to future generations. The oversight is not seeing our “present” as the future generation of our predecessors. We go to great lengths to protect old-growth forests and pristine countryside but often overlook the neighborhoods and specific buildings that we inherit as a community.
Our current thinking emphasizes the importance of conserving material resources and de-emphasizes historic preservation of entire buildings. A developer will demolish a five-story, century-old structure but go to great lengths to salvage historic wood windows for the Rebuilding Center and attain a goal of 95 percent recycling of the demolition debris.
However, the concept of embodied energy has shed new light on this relatively elementary attempt at conservation. Embodied energy consists of the energy consumed by all of the processes associated with the production of a building, including raw material extraction, transport and fabrication as well as construction. The demolition process, of course, adds another layer of energy consumption.
What of the argument that historic buildings were designed and built before energy efficiencies became a priority and are therefore inherently inefficient and inadequate as sustainable design. The fact is that often historic buildings have incorporated a plethora sustainable features–large operable windows, deep day lighting, awnings and deep overhangs, high ceilings for air circulation and thick masonry walls which offer significant thermal mass.
While it is true that sustainable development is a contemporary concept that may well direct the efforts of the next generations, the concepts of conservation, durability and energy efficiency are amply evident in many historic buildings.
Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, stated in Portland this year, “Unlike their more recent counterparts that celebrate the concept of planned obsolescence, most historic and many other older buildings were built to last. Their durability gives them almost unlimited ‘renewability’ — a fact that underscores the folly of wasting them instead of recognizing them as valuable, sustainable assets.”
How can we strive to maximize resources and seek to build structures of permanence and yet turn our backs on historic structures and districts that have survived for more than 100 years?
Portland has so many significant historic structures and districts which tell our stories–stories of great civic leaders, impactful architects and builders, critical events, social or economic trends and beautiful architectural styles. We dare not demolish or desecrate these irreplaceable treasures or we risk erasing time and historic resources that can never be replenished.
The resources that the sustainable ethic strives to protect include not only natural resources but cultural resources as well. Additionally, these pieces of the cultural past are not only treasures for our time but they are assets that appreciate in value for future generations.
If sustainability is to become Portland’s mantra for decades to come, then historic preservation must become an integral spoke of that wheel. Respect for the natural resources invested in our ancestors and the cultural resources that represent our community heritage is also a mandate. The preservation ethic supports the sustainability ethic in all ways as the gifts we, as a community, ahve been given and they must be protected rather than squandered for our generation’s heirs.
Art DeMuro is the president of Venerable Group, Inc., which redevelopments, markets and manages historic commercial properties in Oregon. He is also chairman of the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission. He can be reached at 503-224-2446 and at art@venerableproperties.com.