Bank of America's new headquarters, located in the middle of Manhattan, will be the first LEED Platinum skyscraper in the country, and it's been called the world's "most sustainable skyscraper." The project's architects, Cook+Fox, have incorporated the most cutting-edge green technologies in the building, from waterless urinals to on-site power generation. Greener Buildings News sat down with Bob Fox, a partner at Cook+Fox and the principal architect on the project, to discuss what it takes to make a Platinum skyscraper.
Matthew Wheeland: There are no shortage of aspects of this project that are unique and interesting, and we obviously don't have time to go into all of them, so could you give us a thumbnail sketch of why this project is so groundbreaking?
Bob Fox: Well this is the first time that any major office building -- any high-rise office building -- is going to get a LEED Platinum score. By itself that is pretty terrific and our design team started in the beginning not looking at LEED points and saying, "How do we get points?"
But the charge from our client, the Durst family and the Bank of America, was to create the most high performance building that we could, period. They didn't say anything about LEED and they didn't say anything about anything. They said the most high performance building that we could.
And after we had gotten pretty far along in the design exercise we said, "Well, why don't we just see how we're doing?" Now, had you asked me at the onset, "Could someone create a LEED platinum office building in New York City?" My answer would have been, "I doubt it," and the answer would have been, "No."
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But when we went through the points, there we were, at Platinum, and some of the things that we accomplished are really terrific. We are using half the energy of a typical office building. We're using half the potable water of a typical office building.
I think we get all of the interior environmental quality points because we set out to create the absolute highest quality interior environment that we could for the people at the Bank of America. And that in itself, their saving 50 percent of the potable water, was such an achievement that the city Department of Environmental Protection in New York City, who regulates the cost of water, gave our clients a 25 percent reduction of the cost of water.
MW: Is that a standard incentive for green buildings there?
BF: Not at all -- we didn't even ask. They said, "Wow, this is terrific. We'd like others to do this as well, therefore, we're going to incentivize other people and, by the way, we should do that with you too and so here it is." And the cost of water has gone up 40 percent since we started the project, and we all know that neither the cost of water nor the cost of energy is going to go down.
MW: That really is remarkable and I think that's one of the most interesting aspects of these kinds of projects: the ability to realize these major financial gains at that the same time that you're also saving resources.
You mentioned that the Durst family wanted you to come up with the highest performing building possible. Was there a price limit? Was there a target? Were there things that you would have included if they weren't too expensive or, to put it another way, are there design aspects that will be within closer reach economically within a couple of years that you would have added to this project?
BF: There was no restriction on cost and I will cite as an example the cogeneration system. We are producing two-thirds of the buildings annual energy on site.
With our 5.1 megawatt cogen plant, it will run 24/7, and if you think about it a little bit you realize that at 3:00 in the morning we're not gonna need five megawatts of power. So in order to have the system run as efficiently as possible, which means at full speed all the time, we will use that energy to make ice at night. We have 44 very large ice storage tanks in the lowest cellar, because they're very heavy and we will make ice at night, melt it during the day to supplement the air conditioning system.
And what I think was very important is that the Dursts didn't say no to anything. They absolutely never said, "No, we don't want to do that." But anytime we got on the margins of practicality they said, "Well, why don't we take a look at it. Let's look at the cost benefit. Let's also look at it as a model for others. Would others, if they wanted to build a high performance building, would others copy us?" And they made their goal to set a standard that others would copy.
MW: And are there technologies that are going to come into play in the next couple of years that you think would have fit into this project had they been more practical?
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BF: I'm not sure. There are new fuel cells being looked at right now, solid oxide fuel cells that haven't been commercially available and I don't know if and when they will be.
And I know there's a lot of lighting research being done on LED lights that we are not using to the degree that I expect we'll be able to use them in the future. In terms of the plumbing, we're pretty out there with waterless urinals and dual flush toilets and things like that. I'm not sure what new is coming. Air quality materials, recycled content, all of that is just getting better all the time and what we're putting in is what we think the state of the art is right now.
MW: Okay. I'm really interested in the ice aspect of this. I've heard a lot about this as part of the IT and the computing infrastructure of buildings, as ways to time-shift the most energy-intensive aspects of a building. Will you tell me a little more about the ice project within this building?
BF: Now, the idea is this does not save energy, it just shifts when energy is being used, so at 3:00 in the morning the grid in the Northeast is producing electricity that's not being used. There are power plants that cannot be turned off. Turning plants on and off is not a very easy process especially at these large ones that we're relying on to create our energy, so a lot of it's just being wasted.
If we could find a way to use or store that energy that's created at night in a very efficient way -- maybe the best way might be in a giant system of batteries -- that would be very good for the grid because they could run their equipment at its most efficient range, and run them 24/7, store the energy that wasn't being used and then use it during the day. We are essentially doing that.
We are storing the energy as ice and then we are releasing that energy as cooling during the day and it supplements the air conditioning system. It's similar to the way a hybrid car works that when you're on the brakes you are creating energy, which is then stored, and it's recharging the battery and you then use it to drive the car.
MW: I was under the impression that this reduced the load on the grid, but it sounds like it's equally important to maximize the output of the power plants, so that you can use the energy that they're already generating.
BF: Well, the grid in the Northeast -- and I can speak with some authority because I live here -- the grid in the Northeast on a hot summer day is stressed right to the limit. And what happens is that there are a number of very inefficient, very polluting plants that in the middle of August get turned on to provide electricity because the main system can't handle the whole load.
And what these machines do is, by melting ice in the middle of the day, it allows us to use less energy to create the air conditioning, so we are reducing the stress on the grid. If we took, let's say, half of the major office buildings in New York where one could put this system in using an ice storage system, the stress would be greatly relived from the grid.
So this is not a one building strategy. This strategy has a citywide potential and the same has got to be true in California or anywhere in this country.
MW: One of the goals of the project was, at least from the Durst family's perspective, was to incorporate some ideas that other people can copy. Now obviously you've got more financial ground to work from by a long shot, but what are some of the ideas you incorporated, or some of the lessons that you and your team learned during the construction of this project that other architects can apply?
BF: Waterless urinals are a great example. In this building, because just of its size -- it's 2.2 million square feet -- waterless urinals will save three million gallons of potable water a year.
That's a lot of water.
MW: That is a lot of water.
BF: That's a lot of water and it's something that anybody can copy and enact. A waterless urinal costs more or less the same as a regular urinal, but there is no supply water piping that goes to it, so the actual cost is less. The maintenance costs are higher for sure, but when we all understand the water crisis that we're gonna face in our country it's a price we all should be willing to pay.
Making power on site, the cogeneration system, is something that we think others could easily copy and should copy. We have an under-floor air delivery system. This will be the first time that an entire office building in New York has used this system, although it's been done in Europe a lot.
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This allows for pretty much individual control and the number one complaint in every office building in the country is, "I'm too hot," or, "I'm too cold." That's a well-known statistic. "I'm too hot," or, "I'm too cold." The reason is that there's a system built into the ceiling that has a thermostat and the thermostat is in the corner office and whoever's occupying the corner office dictates the temperature for 15 or 20 people around them.
We all agree that not everybody operates efficiently at the same temperature, so having an under floor air delivery system allows everybody to have their own control of the air is huge. It's huge.
MW: And what other aspects come to mind?
BF: We are, for the first time in New York we are collecting rainwater in our building. We're collecting almost all of it to reuse in a productive way. We're using it for landscaping and washing the sidewalks, but we're really using it for flushing the toilets and for the cooling tower.
So we're going to collect it, and unless we have one of those once-in-500-years kind of storms where we get a foot of water in an hour, we'll be able to use it all.
MW: Is this something that is common in green buildings? I don't think I've ever heard of a building able to use that much of the water, at least not a building of this size.
BF: Well, the biggest use of water in these building frequently is the cooling towers. These big buildings are using air conditioning all the time, so the cooling towers are on a lot of the year and to work they evaporate millions of gallons of potable water. This is something that many projects can do, and we're doing this on other projects now.
MW: Which leads very nicely into my next question: as far as your firm's goals or other projects, do you generally work exclusively on green buildings, or do you have goals or targets for incorporating green features?
BF: Right now we're in a pretty fortunate position in that we are only accepting assignments that deal with green buildings. Each one is different in that some of the buildings we're working on are rehabs of older buildings in New York. Some are brand new, but we look at each project to see how we can make the greenest possible building that still makes sense for the client.
There's lots of things one can do with just throwing money at it, but we like that our projects have positive paybacks and that our clients are fully supportive of what we're doing, not just spending money to get LEED points.
That being said, we work very hard with our clients to make sure that all of our projects are filed for LEED certification. We don't start out by saying, "Every project has to be LEED Platinum." Our own office space that we did, that we finished about a year ago, is LEED Platinum. So we are walking our walk, but we are very supportive of what the U.S. Green Building Council is doing.
We think LEED is absolutely the standard that everyone should be following and we -- I'm trying to think if we have a project right now that is not getting a LEED certification and I can't think of one off hand. It's just part of what we do.
MW: Is there a difference that you've noticed in terms of those working on residential, commercial or institutional projects in terms of their willingness to use green principles or their interest level in green building?
BF: I don't think there's a difference, no. I think fortunately for our planet and finally this is the reality: people are calling us up and saying, "We want to do a green building." They don't always understand exactly what they're asking for and we help them with that, quickly, but we are getting calls from people who want to do green buildings and whether they're residential or commercial or institutional, they all want to do it.
MW: So it seems to you like this has finally reached some sort of momentum that people are really waking up to the necessity and benefits of incorporating green building practices in their new buildings as well as renovations, too?
BF: Yes, absolutely, and if you look at New York City and its buildings. There are 400 million square feet of existing office space in Manhattan and the mayor's new plan is to have all of those buildings that are over 100,000 square feet -- which is lots and lots and lots of buildings -- do a retrocommissioning to see if their mechanical systems are up to the right standards. And this is a tremendous step in the right direction, so redoing existing buildings is extremely important in New York City.
Matthew Wheeland is the Managing Editor of GreenerBuildings.com.