Green

Sustainability Round-Up: Cool Projects Around the Globe Edition

Posted on: March 1st, 2012 by National Trust for Historic Preservation

Written by Rachel Bowdon

There are so many great stories of how individuals, organizations, and cities in the U.S. have been preserving, reusing, and retrofitting older buildings to better the economy, the community, and the environment. From Seattle to Buffalo, the examples are endless. This week, we want to go international and share how cities as diverse as Toronto, Sydney, Buenos Aires, and London are transforming older and historic buildings into sustainable community assets, and how individuals are envisioning the historic buildings of the future. Check out the stories below - you are sure to be inspired!

A view of the Evergreen Brickworks in Toronto. (Photo: SeanHoward on Flickr)

The Centre for Green Cities at Evergreen Brickworks Demonstrates How to Work With Industrial Relics, Graffiti and All - Treehugger

"Much of the City of Toronto is built from bricks made from the clay dug out of the Don Valley, and the brickworks continued in operation until 1980. After it ran out of clay, it sat empty for years until Evergreen, ‘a national charity that makes cities more livable,’ took it over. Many of the existing buildings have been restored and repurposed for public uses, ‘a community environmental centre that inspires and equips visitors to live, work and play more sustainably.’ It also has an incredibly popular farmers market."... Read More →

National Trust for Historic Preservation

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a privately funded non-profit organization, works to save America's historic places.

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Long Beach’s Palace Hotel Reopens as Affordable Housing

Posted on: February 27th, 2012 by David Garber 1 Comment

Everyone loves a good preservation before and after. But for the community of Long Beach, California, the Palace Hotel (now just called The Palace) restoration and reuse was about much more than the building. Last Wednesday, the community gathered to celebrate the grand opening of the renovated two-story building that now includes 13 apartments for young adults who have aged out of the foster care system.

The Palace as it looks today. (Photo: LINC Housing)

The renovation of the historic 1929 hotel was spearheaded by LINC Housing, a California statewide organization formed to preserve and create affordable housing. In addition to the 13 studio apartments, the building includes a manager's unit, common areas (like a great roof deck), and offices for program services. The ground floor retail space will be occupied by iCracked, a mobile phone and tablet repair service that will hire residents from The Palace.

The Palace Hotel, pre-renovation: old murals, boarded windows... (Photos: LINC Housing)

"It's been incredibly rewarding to watch the transformation of this historic building, and it will be even more rewarding to see these young adults successfully transition from foster care to independence," said Hunter L. Johnson, LINC's president and CEO.

The community gathered last Wednesday for the building's grand opening. (Photo: LINC Housing)

Like many adaptive reuse project across the country, this renovation includes a variety of green design features that up the building's efficiency and long-term sustainability. For example, the appliances are all Energy Star certified, there's a high efficiency HVAC system that services the building, and each apartment is fitted out with dual-flush toilets. Solar panels and fuel cell technology were also incorporated to help reduce utility costs. Although it's still going through the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED process, The Palace is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification.

David Garber is the blog editor at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

David Garber

David Garber is the Coordinator of Blog Content & Outreach at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He is a native of Washington, DC, and loves the intersection of preservation, innovation, and sustainability.

Preservation Round-Up: Taliesin West Goes Greener Edition

Posted on: February 27th, 2012 by David Garber

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo: lumierefl on Flickr)

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West Goes Greener - ABC News

"Starting next month, construction will start at the National Historic Landmark, located in Scottsdale, Ariz., in an effort to bring down - and possibly eliminate - the sprawling compound's energy costs. A handful of Arizona companies are donating 4,000 solar panels, replacing 5,000 light bulbs and making the roofs and windows more energy efficient."

How Houston is Getting its Groovy Back - Houston Chronicle

"Los Angeles, Miami and Phoenix brag about their collections of fashionable mid-century modern buildings: goofy Googie coffee shops, sleek International Style high-rises, revived ranch-house neighborhoods and groovy office buildings. But as renewed love for the genre spreads in Houston, and buildings from that era receive the TLC and recognition they deserve, it's becoming clear that our stock of mid-century modern architecture rivals and, in many cases, beats that of other cities."

Faneuil Hall Marketplace Makeover Planned - The Boston Globe

"After acquiring the 63-year ground lease for Boston’s famed marketplace, Ashkenazy said it expected to make improvements to the property, bring in new retail concepts, and uphold the center’s longstanding commitment to showcasing local artisan talent. The last major renovation took place in the late 1990s when the original developer, The Rouse Co., added four restaurants to anchor Quincy Market, built bathrooms on the second floor, and enhanced signage."

Ernest Hemingway's Boyhood Home is For Sale - Chicago Tribune

"The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park has placed the legendary author’s boyhood home in Oak Park up for sale for $525,000. Built in 1906, the house was designed by architect Henry G. Fiddelke with help from from Hemingway’s mother, Grace Hall Hemingway."

All Steamed Up - Hidden City Philadelphia

"The phrase “hulking building” is often used when describing Philadelphia’s former industrial structures, grand abandoned hotels, and so on. Yet perhaps there is one huge/forsaken/troubled building that best exemplifies what a hulking building is in Philly: the Willow Street Steam Generation Plant."

David Garber is the blog editor at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

David Garber

Sustainability Round-Up: The Greenest Building Edition

Posted on: February 10th, 2012 by National Trust for Historic Preservation

Brightleaf square in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo: reallyboring on Flickr)

A couple of weeks ago, the National Trust’s Preservation Green Lab released a groundbreaking report, The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse. We’re pleased that the report was met with a good bit of media interest. Check it out:

The Green Dividend from Reusing Older Buildings - NRDC Switchboard

"The study shows that, for most building types, adaptive reuse of older buildings produces measureable - and sometimes impressive - green benefits. The findings with respect to energy impacts for most buildings and adaptations are overwhelmingly positive, and effectively remove one of the arguments that is sometimes made against preservation and adaptation."

Is It Time to Stop Constructing New Green Buildings? - Fast Company

"Step into a new building in certain parts of U.S. and chances are pretty good that it has been built with the environment in mind (and that there is a plaque bragging about it). Maybe there’s natural lighting, a smart HVAC system, or incredible insulation. It doesn’t really matter. No matter what LEED-certified credentials the building can offer, retrofitting the teardown that came before would probably have made more environmental sense."

Why the Most Environmental Building is the Building We've Already Built - The Atlantic Cities

"We’re not coming out and saying ‘all buildings have to be reused,’ and ‘all new construction is bad,'" Frey says. "What we’re advocating for is a shift in thinking, where at a minimum, we’re considering the environmental impacts associated with demolishing places before we tear them down and build something new."

This Old House: Why Fixing Up Old Homes is Greener Than Building New Ones - Grist

"To get your head around the broader implications here, consider this: The Brookings Institution projects that the U.S. will demolish roughly a quarter of its existing building stock - 82 billion square feet - between 2005 and 2030, and replace it with new structures. That’s a mind boggling amount of new construction, and even if the new stuff is significantly more energy efficient than the existing stock, it will take decades to recover the initial environmental costs of building it all."

Proof That the Greenest Building IS the One Already Standing - Treehugger

"It is the wonderful thing about this report, that even when it doesn't have all of the answers, it anticipates the questions. As a writer about sustainable design it backs up the arguments I have been making for years, and as a preservation activist, it gives me and everyone in the movement the ammunition we need to demonstrate that old buildings are green."

Historic Buildings May Be Greener Than You Think - New York Times Green Blog

"In New York City, a conflict has long been perceived between historic preservation and urban sustainability goals. Older buildings are often seen as outdated energy hogs that can’t pull their weight, efficiency-wise, in a city that is expected to add a million new residents by 2030."

LEED From Behind: Why we should focus on greening existing buildings - TIME blog

"A study by the Preservation Green Lab of the National Trust for Historic Preservation shows building reuse almost always has fewer environmental impacts than new construction—which means we’d be smart to spend at least as much time renovating existing buildings as we do lionizing fancy new green construction."

Why Historic Buildings are Greener Than LEED-Certified New Ones - GOOD

"Though the conclusion may seem counterintuitive in an age of ambitious LEED standards in many new buildings, consider that it uses more energy and creates more impact to construct an entirely new building than to fix up one of the same size for the same purpose."

For more, see articles featured in Environmental Leader, Jetson Green, Building Design and Construction, Greenbang, ArchDaily, BuildingGreen, American Public Media, and Daily Journal of Commerce (PDF).

National Trust for Historic Preservation

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a privately funded non-profit organization, works to save America's historic places.

More Posts (880)

Preservation Green Lab Releases New Report on the Environmental Value of Building Reuse

Posted on: January 24th, 2012 by National Trust for Historic Preservation

For a long time we’ve known that preservation helps create quality communities that are character-rich, vibrant, and dynamic places in which to live, work and play. And there’s also been lots of good news over the years about the economic value that preservation brings – especially in tough economic times. But today, with the Preservation Green Lab’s release of The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse, we have the most comprehensive research to date showing preservation is good for the environment too. The findings from this study offer additional compelling evidence that preservation makes sense for communities.

Each year, approximately 1 billion square feet of buildings are demolished. The Greenest Building explores the environmental impacts associated with the decision to demolish and replace existing buildings – and especially the carbon dioxide savings that might be offered by reusing and retrofitting these places instead of demolishing them. With generous funding from The Summit Foundation, this effort brought together a team of leading thinkers with unparalleled expertise in building and life cycle science. The study team included Cascadia Green Building Council, Green Building Services, Quantis, and Skanska.

Using life cycle assessment, an internationally recognized approach to evaluating the potential environmental and human health impacts associated with products and services throughout their respective life cycles, this study compares the reuse of existing buildings to demolition and new construction. Six different building types are examined: single family; multifamily; commercial office; mixed-use (main street style); elementary school, and warehouses converted to multifamily and commercial buildings.

Notable study findings include:

Building reuse typically yields fewer environmental impacts than new construction when comparing buildings of similar size, functionality and energy efficiency. This result was found to be true irrespective of climate – though differences in climate can affect the extent of savings

The absolute carbon-related impact reductions can be substantial when these results are scaled across the building stock of a city. Consider this example: In Portland, Oregon retrofitting just one percent of the city’s office buildings and single family homes that would otherwise be demolished and rebuilt over the next ten years would help to meet 15 percent of the entire county’s total CO2 reduction targets.

The study also explores how the reuse of an average performing existing building would stack up against a new, efficient building; it’s often assumed that a new, green building will rapidly compensate for any climate change impacts that occur during the construction process. The Greenest Building analysis finds that it can take 10 to 80 years for a new energy efficient building to compensate, through efficient operations, for the climate change impacts created by its construction. The study finds that the majority of building types in different climates will take between 20-30 years to overcome the initial carbon impacts from construction.

The design of buildings matters. Those buildings that tend to use the fewest materials will have the most significant environmental savings – and in fact renovation projects that require many new materials can reduce or even negate the benefits of reuse. It’s important to make sure buildings (whether new or existing) are designed to minimize material inputs -- and to make sure designers have the tools needed to select materials with the best environmental profile.

The bottom line: As preservationists, the work we do to save buildings makes sense for our communities, our pocket books and our environment! For more information on The Greenest Building, download the full report or see our report webpage.