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The mission of the Historic Resources Committee (HRC) is to identify, understand, and preserve architectural heritage, both nationally and internationally. HRC is engaged in promoting the role of the historic architect within the profession through the development of information and knowledge among members, allied professional organizations, and the public.

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Passive Design/2030 Goals and Preservation Policy Conflicts: The Greenest Building is?

  • 1.  Passive Design/2030 Goals and Preservation Policy Conflicts: The Greenest Building is?

    Posted 02-06-2021 02:57 PM
    To my AIA colleagues at the National HRC and Pittsburgh COTE:

    Pittsburgh, being the Paris of Appalachia, has recently committed itself to a laudable Net Zero Energy Ordinance for its city owned buildings. As with many older cities in the rust belt they have very limited resources and large deferred maintenance backlogs. Often a capital project is born out of necessity to replace a roof or outright neglect of systems and envelope.  As an architect with experienced with ZEB/LEED and historic preservation,  I am pushing back on the City of Pittsburgh to rethink and tune its policies on retrofit of existing historic buildings and consider embodied energy and carbon as part of its building evaluations. A "perfect" passive design or net zero solution may not exist in tough urban condition. 

    This is a classic case of unintended consequences, where the Mayor who has a high national leadership position on Sustainability charged his public works architects to get him a "win" in his portfolio and set an example. Fortunately our Art Commission rejected the proposal to clad it. 

    It seems this could be a learning moment to align city climate policy with preservation policy. A deep retrofit (but not certified passive) combined with renewables like solar and geothermal should be enough for buildings like this. Collectively the city has dozens of other obsolete fire stations and police stations that can be reclad or frankly built new to meet 2030 goals. The question of embodied energy and carbon rarely is mentioned or understood as part of goal setting for existing buildings. 

    It seems to a number of us who have feet in both camps of good design practices for preservation AND sustainability will need some help persuading public officials that this can be a win win. To that end, we are looking for the following benchmarking leads:

    1. Policies/Programs that make exemptions (or alternative compliance) for Historic and/or culturally important buildings. one idea is to implement a peer review process during design, that helps the city and its consultants make the right choices.

    2. Benchmark Examples of large scale Commerical "almost passive" existing construction (we have one in our area) as well as cities that are well managing this issue (See below)

    3. Facilities Management and Procurement: A third issue is the administration and procurement process of public projects that inhibit integrative design (this project has two architects, two energy consultants and a design/build roofer hired under the city's new design build or term IDQ preferences. There is a misguided belief that procurement of architectural services should be broken into "specialists" one for energy, one for preservation, one for police station design and so forth. The generalist architect that is capable in a broad areas of practice (with specialists as consultants to the architect not the city) is part of the problem. Add to the mix city facilities staff that are very inexperienced overworked and placed between a rock and hard place.  

    Look forward to your thoughts, ideas and examples out there!
     
    Robert S. Pfaffmann, FAIA, AICP
    PFAFFMANN + ASSOCIATES
    223 Fourth Ave
    Pittsburgh, PA 15222
    412.471.2470 (office)
    412.398.7546 (cell)
    www.pfaffmann.com
    rob@pfaffmann.com

    "The artist sees what others only catch a glimpse of." Leonardo Da Vinci

    2024 HRC Taliesin West


  • 2.  RE: Passive Design/2030 Goals and Preservation Policy Conflicts: The Greenest Building is?

    Posted 02-08-2021 10:12 AM
      |   view attached
    Thanks Carl this is great information! 

    Now we will need to preach to the congregation :) 

    I reached out to SeanDenniston at the suggestion of Mike Jackson, who I remember did a great presentation last year at Taliesin. 

    Rob

    On Feb 8, 2021, at 9:56 AM, Carl Elefante <celefante@QUINNEVANS.com> wrote:

    Hello Rob,
     
    Thanks for reaching out from the Paris of Appalachia, a moniker for Pittsburgh that I hadn't heard before. I expect that the Net Zero Energy Ordinance is a harbinger of things to come. Its unintended consequences are as well. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, so I will certainly be repeating things you are well aware of.
     
    I recommended caution on seeking exceptions first. It helps paint the picture of "those bad old historic buildings". While there are historic sites where exceptions make sense, the project you are addressing probably does not need any.
     
    Every building, including those achieving Passive House certification, balances load reduction against renewable energy generation. Every project must seek an appropriate balance point. Protecting the character of an historic building, especially one symbolizing the community's heritage of ambition and excellence, simply sets the balance point short of over-cladding. Over-cladding of commercial storefronts in the 50s and 60s is a good source for material on the consequences of over-cladding. As you know, over-cladding has been removed in many downtown revitalizations. (Over-cladding projects are also now being restored. Work by Main Street Georgia comes to mind.)
     
    For a case study, the Wayne Aspinall Federal Building comes to mind, a Zero Net Energy (ZNE) GSA design excellence rehab by then-Westlake Reed Leskowsky (now HDR). The scale and character of Aspinall is very similar to the Pittsburgh building here. That project succeeded by: 1. Carefully minimizing energy demand. 2. Improving envelope performance focusing on windows, roofs, and vestibules followed by wall insulation. 3. Providing a PV array and ground-coupled heat pump system. I see no reason why this approach couldn't work for your building.
     
    I've attached the beta for a very quick and easy carbon calculator that addresses embodied carbon as well as operational. It is the brainchild of Larry Strain from Seigel and Strain in the Bay area. Larry's working title is To Build of Not to Build. With a very limited number of inputs, the spreadsheet develops carbon output data on three scenario: 1. No action 2. Retrofit meeting 2030 zero code targets (80% reduction) 3. Building replacement also meeting zero code targets. The second scenario shows the carbon saving over time from reduced operational energy. The third shows the embodied carbon cost of replacing a building instead of retrofitting. Larry developed this calculator because, as an energy-focused green architect, he came to realize that embodied carbon is really the key for 2020-2050. Near-term carbon reductions matter most in the race to zero. There is lots to talk about on the embedded data in the calculator for another time. Larry is working with a grant and expanded team to convert this to a web-based tool and upgrades to the embedded data and ability to modify it for different projects. I have found 2B/N2B really useful for developing simple case studies that address embodied carbon and give it comparative scale with operational. It opens a lot of eyes.
     
    Lastly, I think the HP community is at an important inflection point. We need to raise the conversation above individual buildings and address policies and programs that make the most sense and focus on the most important factors community-wide, building sector-wide. What does the building stock in Pittsburgh need? Should the focus be on mid-century buildings? How much renewable energy can be generated in the building sector? I am working with the DC Preservation League this year to develop material for the HP community's pro-active recommendations for the DC Climate Action Plan. When you start to look sector-wide, it puts battles like the one you have in perspective. I hope our work will become a model. I'd be happy to talk with you more about our work in DC.
     
    Thanks for working to make sense out of well-intentioned climate action initiatives made by people with too little understanding of what it takes to act appropriately as stewards of buildings, including heritage buildings.
     
    Best regards, Carl
     
    Carl Elefante
    m 301-325-3266
    Quinn Evans
     

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    2024 HRC Taliesin West


  • 3.  RE: Passive Design/2030 Goals and Preservation Policy Conflicts: The Greenest Building is?

    Posted 02-08-2021 05:28 PM

    Embodied energy is a fine concept and has been around since the National Trust campaigns of the first oil crisis.

     

    The problem is that no economist or accountant buy into the idea – they say that all prior costs (including embodied energy) are to be written off in any development plan. Yes, account for demolition and repair vs new build. But they don't accept embodied energy.

     

    Resolve this problem and all will be well.

     

    John F

     

    John A. Fidler DipArch, MAarch, MAconservation, AAGradDiplconservation

                               RIBA, IHBC, Intl Assoc AIA, FRICS, FSA, FIIC, FAPT

     

    John Fidler Preservation Technology Inc

    Marina Towers North

    4640 Admiralty Way, Suite 500

    Marina Del Rey

    California 90292-6636

    USA

     

    Tel: 310-496-5730

    Cell: 310-498-4973

    Email: johnfidler@jf-pt.com

    www.linkedin.com/pub/john-fidler/13/921/794

     

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    2024 HRC Taliesin West