The UW’s Paccar Hall: creating places people love
Last week, I toured the University of Washington's Paccar Hall at the Foster School of Business. I'm not an architectural critic so I won't pass judgement on the space itself (Lawrence Cheek was on the tour, so you might look forward to his take sometime). I will say the space itself almost tempted me to go back to school.
I wrote about the building in the DJC here. But what I didn't write about was the way it made me feel.
Often, I tour a space and listen to the words of the architect. They speak about aesthetics, connections and a building's grand goals. In Paccar Hall, I didn't so much need to hear Mark Reddington of LMN speak about what the building was meant to do --- as I needed to look around and see everything he was talking about playing out in person.
Creating space that fostered random conversations between people? Check. Creating space with lots of nooks and comfortable areas for people to rest and do their own thing both indoors and out? Check. Creating space that felt like a broader piece of the UW's campus, rather than a segmented section of learning? Check. This is a building that was crawling with students interacting at all different levels, I'm guessing not all from the business school.
The sustainability features were also interesting, the most obvious one being daylit space. I've been in a lot of buildings that are "daylit" and sure, you see the outside and notice that you're getting natural light. But in Paccar Hall, the daylighting wasn't just a feature. It was the building and screamed for your attention. Having said that, I do wonder about the efficiency of a building that is over 45 percent glass. Architects on the tour assured me that numerous strategies had been put in place to take care of the solar load - very visible interior sunshades, exterior sunshades and glazing. I'd like to see the concrete operational numbers for the first few years to see how much energy it saves (it is LEED gold, after all).
The building has a number of other green features - it saved trees on the property, has automatic lighting controls and displacement ventilation. A planned green roof was value engineered out, though a decorative green space lines the outdoor terrace.
I've been thinking about the building and it raises a question for me: is it more sustainable to create a building that people love and will use thoroughly, or should teams concentrate on the green credentials?
In a perfect world, all green/sustainable/LEED certified buildings would also make you want to stay inside them. But the thing is, they don't. Often, a LEED building feels just like any other building with the addition of that familiar plaque by the door. Personally, I wanted to spend more time in Paccar Hall. The more I digest this space, the more impressed I am. People end up loving buildings like this. And in 30 years, they won't let it get torn down - a stark contrast to the original 1960s business school building just visible in the right corner of the first picture below that people can't wait to demolish.
Can we say that for all the "green" buildings out there?
Here are a number of pictures I took from the tour. For more check out my Facebook fan page.
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October 12th, 2010 - 09:25
Even with good solar design, a large problem with that much glass in our climate is heating. There’s a Canadian mechanical engineer who claims that Seattle is well within the climate zone where triple pane glass is recommended – but even triple pane glass has an insulation value of about R2 (same as <1/2″ of insulating blanket over a sheet of aluminum). Low-E will help, but you’re going to radiate and convect quite a bit of heat from this place.
In addition to lost energy, there’s a real comfort issue with that much glass in a heating climate – losing heat radiantly will cause the percieved temperature in a space to drop. Only half of the temperature we percieve can be read off a thermometer. The other half has to do with the temperature of our surroundings – and if a significant portion of our radiant sphere is taken up by 40 degree glass, that will drop our sensation of warmth (for the same reason you can stand near a fire and feel warm, even when the air temperature around you is cold).
That said, high glass ratio buildings sure are pretty.
October 12th, 2010 - 14:40
From the consumer/user perspective, and with the idea that it’d be great if the general public (non-architectural/design types) started demanding/expecting more green buildings. Given that, focusing on creating lovely/well-used spaces, first, would seem most sustainable . The green cred can take a close second – creating the “wow” factor. When people hear/find out that they are in a very sustainably built space, they’ll love the bonus -and likely spread the word to their friends that green does come in pretty packages. That makes the broader concept of green building more likely to be something EVERYONE invests in and engages with. Great post, Katie.
October 12th, 2010 - 15:11
Matt,
There are a number of triple pane units w/ Uc.o.g.(SI) = 0,6 (imperial U=0.10, R-10) – and no, most aren’t mfr’d in the US…
Cardinal has a few around U=0.14 (imperial). Serious has glass w/ an Rc.o.g.=9.1.
You can have buildings with a high percentage of glazing that still can be extremely energy efficient (e.g. the work of ingenhoven architekten, transsolar, sauerbruch & hutton, pfeifer kuhn, etc)
LEED is not and never has been a prediction of how energy efficient a building is. This is, in my opinion, a huge problem with LEED. Design by checklist doesn’t guarantee efficiency, especially when developers, building owners, etc. want to maximize LEED points w/ a minimum of funds. LEED ratings should be based on performance (e.g. LEED platinum = 90% reduction or better, LEED gold = 75-89% reduction, and so on).
The answer to your question, Katie, is both. It is rather pointless to build a sustainable project (LEED or better yet, passivhaus or LBC) that isn’t designed to be durable and around for a very long time.
October 14th, 2010 - 23:48
[mike] It’s great that there are R-10 triple pane windows. And compared to standard performance windows, they’ll save energy. But comparing at 20% glass building to an identical building with 45% glass in our climate – the 45% glass building will absolutely perform worse. This is almost exactly like cutting holes in 25% of the building surface and replacing it with R-10 construction. What’s worse is that heat transfer flows in parallel. Meaning that it’s the weakest link that becomes most important.
On top of this, I really doubt that this building is triple paned. I’m sorry for being critical about a single component of what looks like an innovative design. But in the form v. function for green buildings debate, I’m strongly in the function camp.
October 15th, 2010 - 10:19
true, in identical buildings, the 45% glazed version might not perform as well as the 25% glazed building. but it isn’t the equivalent of replacing w/ R-10 construction for a number of reasons, and if the glazing is well shaded and spec’d, the building can still perform extremely well, almost to net zero heating in the right conditions. it won’t ‘absolutely’ perform worse.
the main thing your post seems to ignore is solar gain. high SHGC triple pane glazing (as used by minergie/passivhaus/etc) that are shaded correctly in summer can push buildings to 85%+ reduced space heating over baseline, including highly glazed projects. an R-10 wall wouldn’t have this solar gain (or views).
i don’t believe paccar uses triple pane, either. and i’m strongly in the ‘form + high performance’ category.
October 15th, 2010 - 14:35
Matt and Mike -
Thank you so much for the comments! This isn’t my specialty (reporting background, not engineering) so I look to people like you to help flesh these issues out for me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Andrea, thank you too for your input!
October 17th, 2010 - 21:17
[mike] What I meant to say is that it will perform almost identically from a thermal perspective, at least when direct solar radiation is low. But the short hand for that is: our climate. Yes, you can shave some heating on sunny days with well designed glass, and save some of that heat with thermal mass. But most heating days in our climate have no direct radiation. That means for days, weeks, or months at a time you’re leaking far more heat and taking none in (keep in mind that same high SHGC glass is radiating heat from inside your building any time the temperature outside is less than the temperature inside, and you have no direct solar). I find it hard to believe that the heat energy you can contain in thermal mass when you do harvest sunlight can come close to making up for this.
That said I’d love to be proven wrong.