Suppose you wanted to put up a building that could serve for decades as a model for environmentally sound design and construction in Chicago. Wouldn’t you make it a point to install the very best energy-conserving windows?
Seven years ago 445 N. Sacramento was an environmental mess. The previous owner, Sacramento Crushing, had a city permit to recycle construction and road-building debris. But according to Department of Environment officials, the company began taking in more material than it could process, including lower-quality material that’s difficult to recycle profitably. By the mid-90s, according to court documents, the 17 acres behind the building contained mountains of construction and road debris that rose as high as 70 feet.
By the middle of 1999 the property had been cleaned up enough that it was appraised at $800,000. But anyone who wanted to buy it at a sheriff’s sale would have had to pay back the city for the cost of the cleanup. There were no takers. So, having aggressively enforced its own environmental laws, the city now owned a vacant lot and a derelict building nobody wanted.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The site was only one item on a list of headache-inducing problems piling up on the desk of Bill Abolt, then the city’s environment commissioner. Greencorps Chicago, a Department of Environment program in which landscaping trainees assist community gardeners, had outgrown its leased space in a dilapidated industrial building. Spire Solar Chicago, a private firm that assembles and installs photovoltaic systems, wanted to locate in a reclaimed brownfield. The members of the environment committee of AIA Chicago, the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, wanted to learn how to build greener buildings by actually building one, but nobody wanted to hire them to do that.
The building at 445 N. Sacramento doesn’t look like the kind of place that would further that claim. But Department of Environment officials are confident that, after a year of operation determines how well it works, the Chicago Center for Green Technology will become the second building in the country to receive a “platinum” rating from the U.S. Green Building Council, a nationwide nonprofit coalition of manufacturers, retailers, financiers, environmental groups, and design professionals. If all goes as planned, says the department’s deputy commissioner for energy, Steve Walter, the building “should get its platinum rating on its golden anniversary.”
LEED ratings haven’t exactly taken the country by storm. According to its Web site (usgbc.org), as of April 29 the Green Building Council had registered 371 projects and rated only 20. The city of Chicago wants to join this club at the top. Here are some of the ideas the Chicago Center’s designers used–and the trade-offs they made–to get the building its projected 38 LEED points.
Despite the floor plate, the building’s stairwell gets little natural light. It’s one of the darkest spots in the building, and it seems even darker because it opens off the glassed-in, west-facing lobby. Farr knew better than to overilluminate the stairwell with conventional lighting. He wanted to use natural light, which heats up a building less than artificial light and has been found to enhance productivity. But that would require skylights–holes in the painstakingly insulated roof. He chose to give up some energy efficiency to get some natural light, then worked to get the most light from the smallest possible opening. He put two 24-inch-square skylights over the stairs; one directs its light through a narrow shaft that flares out at ceiling level, the other uses a wider shaft containing blades that reflect the daylight and illuminate a bigger area. Score: None, though later versions of the LEED system will give points for natural lighting.
