Green Building Ottawa
Conference

SESSION FOUR: 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Session Code: 4PRA

Green Building Showcase: Case studies of built projects that are changing the way we view design. This session explores the relationship between design and redesign for sustainability.

Building Design for Disassembly and Adaptability

Presented by: Vince Catalli and Christopher Simmonds

To achieve the goal of sustainability we must move to a cyclical development model in which building components and indeed entire buildings are designed to be adaptable, demountable, reusable and recyclable. This presenters will review the CSA Z782 Guideline for Design for Disassembly and Adaptability (DfD/A) in Buildings complimented by a detailed case study of the Mountain Equipment Coop that uses DfD/A. The presentation will also discuss various life cycle issues related to materials, environmental benefits / impacts, and extending building utilization / functions. Different architectural aesthetics / vernacular that celebrate material connections and require different building materials will also be reviewed.

B.I.M. Powered Energy Audits for Existing Buildings; Sketching the Present to Map the Future

Presented by: Alberto Palomino

An existing building, being a single entity, surrounded by a particular habitat, withstanding time and decay and designed for a set of uses, has a unique profile and potential.

3D Building Information Models provide a single digital repository of all building data — a virtual simulation of the building - and allow comprehensive studies of this unique profile. Studies include comprehensive, holistic energy audits that can determine optimal retrofit alternatives ensuring that the building has an indoor environment that will increase productivity of its occupants, create greater wealth for its owner and assure a brighter future for our environment.

Session Code: 4MAT

Materials Showcase: Research, projects, and practice which elaborate on innovative material solutions to sustainable design. This session explores the importance of changing the values we hold towards making and materials through case studies

Copper: The Friendly Metal

Presented by: Sue Clark

Copper, known colloquially as “the friendly metal”, has a history of use in architecture dating back thousands of years, from ornament and cladding to the complex mechanical and electrical systems that are part of modern buildings. Fast-forward to the present and the emergence of the green building movement: how does copper perform in terms of sustainability? How are the ill-effects of copper mining weighed against its high recyclability and durability? Why pick copper over other materials? This presentation will search for environmentally-responsible uses of copper, showing how the selection of the metal contributes to the environmental performance of the building.

Food for Thought

Presented by: Lucie Fontein

The key to a sustainable future is in the education of the next generation of leaders. Reversing consumerist trends is going to involve more than tinkering with current lifestyles. A fundamental change in values and attitudes is necessary and it is crucial that students of architecture learn to make sustainable design an essential component of every building project that they do. This paper reports on a recent change in the focus of an iconic design/build studio project at Carleton’s Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism towards more environmentally responsible design solutions.

The Case for Drywall Recycling

Presented by: Renée Gratton

Drywall waste from construction and demolition (C&D) sites contribute to our regional landfills at a rate of 33,000 metric tons a year. In May 2009, an Ottawa Construction Recycling Initiatives (CRI) task group was formed from a broad range of industry and government stakeholders, with the objective of reducing C&D waste and contributing to better built environment.   The results of their first report looks at the issues of drywall waste, examines how other municipalities and provinces tackle this ubiquitous building material, and makes a case for drywall recycling in Eastern Ontario.

SESSION FIVE: 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Session Code: 5PRA

Urban Design and Sustainable Practices: Leading edge systems and techniques for rethinking urban design. This session opens the dialogue on sustainability between individual buildings and their environment, looking at Ottawa's Chaudiere Falls area and various other Canadian projects.

Raising the Sustainability Bar on our Existing Building Stock - Tools and Programs to Help Get You There

Presented by: Erika Mayer

The assessment of our existing building stock through the lens of sustainability illuminates several strategic areas where improvements can be made to create a healthier building and a better environment for building occupants. These strategies may include changing current practices in building owner activities, building maintenance, major retrofits or simply changing the habits of the building occupants. This session will explore some of the tools and programs available in Canada to help focus, measure and track sustainability initiatives in our existing buildings including GREEN UP, LEED Canada EB: Operations and Maintenance, and Energy Star.

A National Eco-Treasure: Sustainable Development Opportunities for the Chaudière Industrial Heritage District

Presented by: Mark Brandt

The “Chaudière Heritage District” is a 44-acre brownfield in an archipelago of remarkable natural elements below Parliament Hill. A comprehensive Master Plan for its redevelopment contains 29 historic structures and sites recommended for conservation and adaptive reuse. The Plan is conceived in support of this area’s significant heritage values, while emphasizing public space and natural assets within its urban setting. Learn both the original Plans inter-relationship between cultural and environmental conservation and proposed updates to more integrally embrace leading environmental sustainability fundamentals, by the Plan’s original author. To illustrate this integration, tenets of LEED ND will be applied.

How Retrofitting Existing Buildings can Contribute to Urban Infrastructure                                                                

Presented by:  Wojtek Kujawski

Existing buildings can be retrofitted to support municipal infrastructure by either directly contributing to its requirements or by reducing their own demands. This presentation highlights how buildings' impact on community infrastructure can be reduced and how buildings can also act as elements of infrastructure. The related benefits and drawbacks are considered for easier understanding of the design implications of buildings as strategic components of community infrastructure. Design features of mainly residential buildings and communities from Canada and around the world are used to demonstrate various concepts that help define buildings as contributors to infrastructure.

Session code: 5MAT

Material Amnesia: This session will explore materials and construction methods in traditional buildings not found in contemporary construction that could have a role in the future of sustainability and durability. This session explores the material and qualitative concepts of replacement and reuse of concrete and wood and an overall discussion of adapting our modern heritage.

Conservation and Upgrading of Traditional Wood Windows

Presented by: Jan Kubanek

This session will present and explore the issue of wood window rehabilitation vs. replacement with respect to heritage conservation and energy efficiency. The impact on building character, best practices, cost and performance analyses will form part of the discussion. A variety of retrofit options exist, including glazing replacement with sealed units or the addition of storms, which can yield comparable performance ratings to modern replacement windows. This session makes the case for “low-tech” and more versatile building components that can continue to be repaired in the future, a more sustainable option than entire component replacement.

An Investigation Into The Effects of Fire Exposure & Dynamic Loading on Retrofitted Concrete

Presented by: Justin Kurosky, Brett Hughes & Ehab Zalok

As retrofitting techniques are seeing widespread implementation in modern concrete infrastructure, a major concern in the construction industry is the residual material properties after exposure to fire. This project presents the performance of these residual properties for a variety of retrofitting methods subjected to dynamic loading conditions after fire exposure. Retrofitted and standard control specimens with dimensions of 600 x 600 x 100 mm, were exposed to a standard ISO 834 fire until failure. The specimens were then subjected to a dynamic loading and observations were documented. Deflection – time graphs were established and the residual impact energy absorption was calculated. Based on the performance of the specimens during the testing and a correlation analysis between control and retrofitted specimens a preferred retrofit technique has been proven superior.

Assessing the Sustainability of Modern Heritage

Presented by: Susan Ross

Modern buildings and sites present challenges for reconciling the goals of sustainability and heritage conservation. Less durable or experimental materials and assemblies and automobile-based planning models are some of the issues. Still, many ideas of current sustainable design have their roots in old ideas that were reinvented in the modern era. What are the lessons to be learned from modernist experiments in environmental design? And what can be learned from recent projects involving modern buildings and sites that respond to the evolving goals and technologies of sustainability?

Session Code: 5INN

Open Session on innovations in institutional and commercial buildings. This session will reveal how new digital technologies can assist in solving the often opposing requirements of sustainability and conservation.

Technological Mediations: Heritage Preservation vs. Building Performance

Presented by: Venk Prabhu

The ability granted by newly developed technologies to quantify the ecological performance of a building sets the stage for a confrontation between the ideals of energy efficiency and our ‘museological’ methods of architectural heritage preservation. Using a case study, the question of whether we can increase the performance of a heritage building while simultaneously re‐enforcing its heritage potential is explored through the use of building information modeling, 3D laser scanning, and computational fluid dynamics. A retrofit design is suggested which addresses the key issues of building performance vs. heritage preservation.

Cultural Diversity and Material Imagination in Saskatchewan’s Architecture

Presented by: Stephen Fai (CDMISA)

We will discuss current research at the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) to archive methods of construction brought to Canada by immigrant communities. We begin with the hypothesis that the materials and methods of construction used by immigrant communities make visible the rich cultural diversities that characterize Canada and therefore constitute an invaluable heritage resource. For current and future generations, a nuanced documentation and dissemination of these traditional methods of construction (and local variations) are essential for a sustained, inclusive cultural memory. More practically, and equally pressing, a comprehensive understanding of these technologies is essential for the conservation of our built heritage.

Lunch and Learn: 12:00 - 1:00 pm

LEED Professional Credentials and the Transition to GBCI

Presented by Beth Holst and Steve Dulmage

This lunch-and-learn will be of interest to LEED APs in Canada who want to know more about the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) credentialing program and how to upgrade and maintain their LEED AP credentials. This presentation will introduce and outline the LEED professional credentials, including the LEED Green Associate and the LEED AP with Specialty.  Representatives from the GBCI will discuss the importance of these credentials in the marketplace, for employers, and for the industry.  GBCI and representatives from the Canada Green Building council will also outline the transition of credentialing from CaGBC to GBCI for current and prospective LEED APs.  Topics covered include benefits, enrollment windows, credential status for current LEED APs, and more.

SESSION SIX: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM

Session Code: 6PRA

Techniques for Adaptive Reuse: This session will look at theoretical approaches as well as case studies for the adaptive reuse of buildings. This session will focus on two adaptive reuse case studies in Australia and Spain and the vital concept of 'character' in their new iterations.

From Laboratory to Outdoor Room

Presented by: Bud Brannigan

This presentation is about the conversion of an existing freestanding laboratory building to an outdoor room, through a process which included partial demolition, alteration and addition, and the employment of strategies which allowed both past history and new fabric to be appreciated. Over a twelve-month period, the single storey laboratory, built in 1956, and located within Alumni Court at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, was converted into a garden pavilion, or outdoor room. Through major changes to vegetation, seating and pathways, the surrounds were also transformed, creating a new landscape setting.

Restoration of the building “Siglo Valenciano” as a Cultural Centre, Valencia, Spain

Presented by: Mariana Esponda

Originally constructed in 1879, this building is an example of a combination and stratification of periods, materials, technology and different restoration methods within one unique architecture. Conserving the original construction and materials was the prime objective for the restoration work carried out during the 21st Century. Traditional stucco and original colour was recovered in the facades and the roof tiles were replaced with solar panels — the first step in the sustainable and economic development of the building. The project, based on the concept that conservation is the sustainable management of change, transformed the once abandoned department store into a modern cultural centre.

Session Code: 6INN

Open Session on innovations in institutional and commercial buildings. This session will discuss innovative research and testing on federal buildings looking ahead to energy savings and climate change.

Assessing the Vulnerability of Buildings to Climate Change

Presented by: Vince Catalli & Brian Kyle

Climate change is without a doubt a defining issue of our times that will pose interesting challenges and create opportunities for existing buildings. Engineers Canada have undertaken a significant research project to review the vulnerabilities that climate change will pose on Canada’s infrastructure with an objective to produce a National Climate Change Vulnerability Protocol. This protocol was tested by PWGSC at their Tunney’s Pasture Campus on three existing buildings. The session will outline issues that climate change will have on existing buildings and the importance of assessing vulnerability for effective future planning and investment.

PWGSC Intelligent Building Proof of Concept

Presented by: Paul Hession & Michael Oster

Canada’s Federal Minister of Public Works and Government Services announced on 11/26/2009 the launch of the Intelligent Buildings project, a prototype business model that will monitor and control mechanical, heating and lighting systems in Federal buildings. Involving several members of CABA (Continental Automated Buildings Association), this initiative will incorporate new technology into the existing automated systems of two Government of Canada facilities. If successful, the new technology could reduce the annual energy costs of certain Federal buildings by up to 20 percent. This presentation will provide an update on this project and highlight the benefits to stakeholders.

Session Code: 6POL

Policy Showcase: Government, institutional, and industry leaders showcase new initiatives in sustainable policy. This session opens the dialogue on metrics broadly from the Trade-and-Cap systems to energy performance management systems and their impact on the building industry.

Moving to Measure: Sustainability in a Knowledge-Based Economy for Existing Commercial Buildings

Presented by: Jens Burgen

This session presents key opportunities available to Canadian commercial building owners, operators, investors and tenants seeking to track the environmental performance metrics of commercial buildings. These opportunities include realizing operational cost savings, achieving LEED® certifications, increasing financial accountability, and participating in the evolving Canadian national market for carbon offsets related to building efficiency. This session outlines the path forward to initiate an environmental performance management information system within your organization by defining what is needed to take action, critical milestones, basic system components, and the overarching reporting standards such as ISO 14064 for GHG Accounting.

Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Cap and Trade Systems on Building Industry

Presented by: Roxy Graystone

The presentation will focus on how measures to address climate change in Canada will impact the building industry. The implementation of federal and provincial measures to address climate change will likely establish a price on greenhouse gas emissions. This price will likely be passed on to consumers to incent a change towards low/zero-carbon goods and services. The building industry can benefit from an understanding of how these costs will impact both the construction and operation of new and existing buildings. A solid understanding of policies and cost implications will allow builders to respond to this change and remain competitive