There are certain things one usually expects to see at a trade show. Samples and gimmicks. Eye-catching graphics and gee-whiz computer displays. A life-size replica of an office building, however, can be somewhat surprising. The recent National Marketplace for the Environment (NMFE) Conference and Trade Show had just such an attraction in the form of “Green-Tech,” a 2,000-square-foot simulation of an environmentally sensitive office space developed by green building consultants ekoloji ltd. and designed by Sandra Ford Mendler, AIA, of the architecture firm Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum (HOK). Featuring everything from building-integrated photovoltaics to personal environment workstations, the model office’s purpose was to demonstrate how green building products can be integrated into a complete building design, all in a hands-on environment.

“Green-Tech is a model office building that people can touch, feel, and experience,” said Harvey Russack, president of ekoloji ltd. “And when they leave it, they can say ‘I now understand what a green building is. I can tell my architect, my designer, my employees, or my company what I want.’”

An Integrated Design

Besides educating the end-user, the office served as a place where architects could see products and systems from over 40 manufacturers integrated and functioning as a unit. This live, working demonstration, explained Mendler, helped convince architects of the feasibility and benefits of green buildings. “When they can look at a wall and see how the pieces go together and touch it and feel it, see the quality of light reflectivity on photovoltaic glass and see what it looks like in a curtainwall, they can understand much better and feel more comfortable with it,” she said. The goal of Green-Tech, however, was not only to show a finished project but to educate visitors about the design process behind it. “We’re providing information about the energy modeling and advanced lighting studies for this space,” Mendler explained.

The modeling process for the office, in fact, consisted of a series of computer simulations with RADIANCE and new PowerDOE software with the help of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In a real-life setting the demonstration building would have a connected load of less than 1 watt per square foot during evening hours (sunlight redirected by lightshelves during the day would reduce that number even farther). The building would have an estimated yearly energy use of 30,000 to 50,000 BTUs per square foot, compared to 100,000 BTUs for a typical office building.

Parametric analysis was used to examine one-by-one the affect design options had on energy performance. To reflect these options, Green-Tech demonstrates different products that an architect might consider using when designing a similar structure. The glass curtainwall, for instance, had both a single-skinned and double-skinned section to demonstrate differences in performance between the two. The wall also featured lightshelves and custom shading by Construction Specialties, Solarscreen 2000 low-e coating by Viracon, and building-integrated photovoltaic glass by Solarex, as well as other products.

Inside, visitors could see numerous products in context and compare products in the same category. Carpets, for example, were supplied by Interface Flooring, Milliken Carpet and PacifiCrest Mills. Bamboo, cork, linoleum and rubber flooring products were also installed in large swaths to give visitors a sense of the their true look and feel. Furniture by a number of manufacturers, such as Herman Miller, Haworth Architectural Forest Enterprises, Studio eg, and Gridcore were placed around the office for inspection. Lighting, insulation, landscape, wall systems, and other areas of the office were all represented with environmentally preferable products. Most of the products were selected by Mendler using HOK’s “Healthy and Sustainable Building Materials Database”, a large database of materials developed over five years by HOK that evaluates building products according to their environmental impact and performance. HOK’s database can be viewed on their website at www.HOK.com/sustainabledesign/

Of particular interest was a raised floor supplied by Tec-Crete, which was integrated with another product on display, the Personal Environments workstation by Johnson Controls. Raised floor systems can be used as a plenum for HVAC systems and a distribution system for electrical, data, and voice wiring. They are continuing to gain popularity among green architects as a way to reduce building costs while increasing energy efficiency and office flexibility. At Green-Tech, the floor system was used to demonstrate how air-conditioning or heating could be routed directly to a worker’s desk, where it could be controlled by the user for optimum comfort.

Carol Lomonaco, program manager for Johnson Controls, was on hand to answer questions about her company’s product: “In a typical office one person likes it warm and another cooler. With this system, occupants won’t continually be calling the facility manager to change the temperature.” Not only does this make the HVAC system more efficient, but it also makes re-configurations easy as well. Because of this, explained Lomonaco, personal environmental controls coupled with raised floors are perfect for modern, team-based offices that are experiencing increased “churn rates,” or the amount of times an office is reorganized.

Many of the features in the building, incidentally, were the same as designs called for by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building rating system – a system that helps to guide building design towards environmental sensitivity and provide rankings for successful projects. Mendler was part of the team that put LEED together and found it natural to incorporate much of the system’s methodology into Green-Tech.

Marketing Vehicle

As Mendler highlighted the importance of the design process behind Green-Tech, Russack in turn emphasized the importance of the project as a marketing tool. “Without marketing, we only have a group of diehards involved with green buildings — maybe 5% of the population,” he said. “The only way we’re going to leave this planet in any sort of acceptable condition for our children is to get 80% of the population to say ‘I want green buildings.’”

Exposing end-users and architects alike to Green-Tech and its green products and systems will generate knowledge of the products as well as a more solid idea of what an office of the future might look like, said Russack. Once end-users know what to ask for and architects are more familiar with methods of green product application, “that changes how whole industries spend billions of dollars and what products they produce,” he said.

Manufacturers who entered Green-Tech as a way to reach these markets are also benefiting from extensive contact with other manufacturers in an integrated setting. “There’s a camaraderie involved here,” said Lomonaco, as she pointed to the Herman Miller furniture that had been outfitted with her company’s controls. “We’re working together to show a concept, which is what people who are building these buildings want to see. As a team, we can present solutions.”

NMFE Conference

The setting for the first Green-Tech installation, the NMFE conference and trade show, was filled with vendors from all sides of the environmental industry. Over 357 booths exhibited everything from composting equipment to high-tech bio-based chemicals to a cornucopia of recycled products. A large contingent of manufacturers of products for the building industry were present, including companies like Agriboard Industries, Armstrong Industries, and Philips Lighting.

Keynote speakers at the conference included the chair of the President’s Council on Environment Quality, Katie McGinty, and Dan Glickman, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. One of the conference’s seven tracks was dedicated to energy-efficient buildings, with an impressive collection of speakers focusing on green building topics. A session entitled “Greening Your Facility,” for example, featured representatives from Global Environmental Options, the U.S. EPA, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Yellowstone National Park, and Burt Hill Kosar Rittleman Architects.

In the coming year, Green-Tech will appear at NMFE shows in Los Angeles (May 5-8) and Orlando, FL (tentative date late 1998). The Green-Tech organizers plan to involve more aspects of telecommunications to demonstrate future technology and to reach consumers outside the trade show floor: video-conference discussions, interviews, educational sessions, and other activities are all planned for future shows. “We want to add more of those things so people are using the showcase as an actual office,” said Mendler.

There are still some kinks to be ironed out as well, as some parts of the office looked unfinished and signage marking different displays was at times confusing — problems partly due to the short timespan allowed for the building’s construction. Putting together such a diverse range of products for the first time, added Mendler, also meant dealing with steep learning curves. “The first compressed straw panel took six hours to learn how to install, but the rest took 20 minutes each,” she said. “Now the builder who put the panels in is eager to use them again.”

For more information, contact: ekoloji ltd., 885 Third Avenue, Suite 2900, New York, NY 10022; 212-829-5642; fax: 212-829-5643; e-mail: ekolojiltd1@compuserve.com