Performance
The Dogrun
a place to share ideas
Lake|Flato's Tenna Florian and Corey Squire will be presenting Josey Pavilion in a session titled " The Living Building Challenge -- Texas Case Studies " at the Texas Society of Architects' annual convention this November in Houston. You can pre-register now for the event on TxA's convention website. We hope to see you there!
One of the biggest challenges in architectural design today is to predict energy consumption in the final project. From a design perspective, Lake Flato strives to create projects that are as energy efficient as possible with the greatest amount of attention being given to orientation, sun shading, insulation, thermal breaks, performance glazing, energy efficient lighting, and efficient HVAC systems. We have also created a Lifestyle Survey that is completed by each owner to answer specific questions on preferred temperature settings on a seasonal basis, how many appliances and electronics are...
After several years of testing, the Sustainable Sites Initiative 's SITES rating system for landscape design is now available for widespread use. The voluntary rating system is modeled after LEED, and rates the sustainable design, construction, and maintenance of sites and landscapes. We are working on our first project under (an earlier version of) this program at the University of Texas at El Paso, pictured in a rendering above. The SITES rating system has proven to be a great fit for our projects that have a greater focus on the sustainability and performance of the site and landscape.
Resilience has become a popular topic in green building over the past few years, especially in the wake of recent natural disasters such as Superstorm Sandy. The Resilient Design Institute (RDI) was recently formed by a group of dedicated professionals with long experience and expertise in the fields of sustainability, green building, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture to advance resilience in the built environment, and energy, food, infrastructure, and economic systems. Last year, RDI published a set of 10 resilient design principles that have proven to be a valuable resource to...
You may recall that a group of Lake|Flatonians have been working with 4th and 5th graders at Hawthorne Academy make their school campus more sustainable as part of the Green Schools Challenge competition hosted by the local USGBC chapter. The students worked with us to conduct an audit of their school campus and were most interested in the biodiversity index they calculated. They decided to build a garden to attract birds, bees, and butterflies, increasing both plant and wildlife diversity at their school. We learned yesterday morning that our team took 1st place in San Antonio for this...
Jennifer Young wrote a post on transparency in the built environment just over a year ago, and we've seen the enthusiasm and resources available around this topic really emerge since then. One of the most exciting resources to hit the street is the highly anticipated Bullitt Center Product List , which catalogs the products used in the core/shell portion of the project. The Bullitt Center is pursuing Living Building Challenge certification, a rigorous green building program that among other requirements, challenges project teams to design and construct buildings with products that are free of...
Arizona State University's Student Health Services Renovation, a joint project between Lake|Flato Architects and orcutt | winslow, officially earned LEED Platinum certification earlier this month. This is the highest certification level available from the U.S. Green Building Council. The project entailed the demolition of approximately 15,000 sq. ft. of inefficient single-story facility, the renovation of 14,000 sq. ft. of existing two-story structure containing administrative support, labs, wellness programs, and the addition of a new 20,000 sq. ft. two-story wing containing campus health...
Last week a few of us traveled to Philadelphia for Greenbuild to learn about the latest trends in sustainable design. The week was full of seminars and product demonstrations and culminated with a keynote by Hillary Clinton and a performance by Bon Jovi. Here are the major takeaways from the week. We should know what our buildings are made of. The one overarching theme of Greenbuild this year was material transparency. A building may be beautiful, but is it giving its occupants asthma, or allergies, or cancer? The first step to ensuring healthy materials is material transparency and...
"A growing number of architecture firms are requesting Health Product Declarations from building product manufacturers, and the industry's response will affect what they specify going forward." Lake|Flato is proud to be included in this EcoBuilding Pulse article by Katie Weeks .
In an industry where increased [and necessary] attention is being given to materials - what they are made of and where they come from - Lance Hosey reminds us that there is a third dimension we must not forget about. Read this recent post to consider how the selection of building materials can also be used to promote social equity...and check out the Living Building Challenge's new program --- JUST
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