#cagbc

Canada Green Building Council certifies Bentall Kennedy office building as Canada’s first Zero Carbon Building – Performance certification

Class A building in the Byward Market also becomes Ottawa’s first Zero Carbon certified building

Ottawa, ON – June 13, 2018 – The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) announced that 100 Murray Street in Ottawa, ON has been awarded Canada’s first Zero Carbon Building (ZCB) – Performance certification. The Bentall Kennedy managed, Class A commercial office building achieved LEED Gold for Existing…

evolv1 sets a new benchmark for Green Building Innovation with Canada’s first Zero Carbon Building – Design certification

This multi-tenant commercial office building is the first of its kind to meet the Canada Green Building Council’s rigorous new zero carbon standard.

The Cora Group announced last week that it has been awarded Zero Carbon Building – Design certification by the Canada Green Building Council® (CaGBC) for evolv1. A new commercial multi-tenant office building now in construction, evolv1 is one of 16…

U.S. building owners will help drive the construction industry to create healthier buildings

Building owners, developers, managers and investors in the U.S. are increasingly interested in creating healthier buildings, a new SmartMarket Report by Dodge Data & Analytics, in partnership with Delos, reveals. The report, “The Drive Toward Healthier Buildings 2016,” shows that the design and construction industry in the U.S. is poised for wider adoption of building practices that prioritize…

A former student of mine, Albert Lam, recently started a discussion after reading about Lufa Farms and their rooftop greenhouses, and I thought it worth sharing here. My goal with The Architecture of Engagement is to create a dialogue that will shape the course of the project and further illuminate the way forward, and I'm delighted to hear back from my readers. Below is Albert's response to the post "Food for Thought." Though less about buildings, I recently went on a tour with my Office at the "Sole Food Street Farms" site at False Creek, with the Chief Operating Agrarian Seann J. Dory as our guide (you are likely familiar with Sole Foods already). The placement of their farms in vacant lots is well known, but Dory had informed us that they have been developing a system of movable "pods" for crops that would be like a "traveling circus", utilizing opportunities or changes in the city for local food production, and could presumably include roof tops. However, what struck me about Dory's tour and Hage's experience from your article is that they both had to have the cooperation of individuals, organizations and of course, mother nature. More importantly, I see the benefits and opportunities as shared as well, with the city and buildings acting as a link for this "system of systems", a term I used on my own project which went on to win the CaGBC award.  I have always been fascinated by the concept of the "living, breathing city", and when I explored the idea in my graduation project, I began to think of the city and architecture as nothing more then a part of a greater community or network, going so far as relating human constructs (such as societal class divisions, the economy and meta-geopolitics) to physical and natural consequences. In essence, the human "system" is not exclusive to the environmental system. Ken Wilber's "Integral Theory", which you described in a earlier post is especially fascinating. I interpret the 4 quadrants as variables that directly impact each other, and believe identifying the integrated opportunities, key relationships and mutual obstacles and benefits as the key to true social, economic and environmental sustainability.

Results of a recent Governance Review indicate a return to the bottom up approach to Canada’s green building advocacy. The CaGBC (the organization that operates LEED certifications) is recently undergoing changes to reduce the size of the National Board and introducing working committees that promise to have a regional focus.

In comparison to the UK Canada seems to rely on a bottom up approach to introducing advanced legislation in the field of green building. The USGBC’s LEED Certification was initially a group of architects who desired a higher and consistent standard for what were/are obvious shortfalls in the delivery of building projects. Over the course of the last few years the LEED system has been widely used and requires governance at a National level.

BREEAM, as I understand it, was started within a governmental organisation and has since been run as a private enterprise.

The difference between these approaches to implementing sustainable standards is indicative of the differences between the two cultures. The critical issue with understanding these cultural approaches is, in some part, rooted in the history of place. The traditions of place making and institutions created to serve the society are products of their respective environments.  Canada learned experience is to infuse a government into what is naturally occurring in specific regions. Many large cities in Canada are dealing with developers who wish to build and zone in new agricultural or essentially vacant pieces of land.

Land use planning in Canada is more of a reactionary response to legitimise where people are looking to build. This type of development has created some wonderful expressive and progressive buildings. It has also allowed developers to determine the types of neighbourhoods and buildings that dominate the landscape of North America. This type of developer instituted planning has creating much of the inefficiency and waste in our built environment.

The Governance Review at the CaGBC recommended that a smaller National Board with more direct input from regional chapters would be able to better respond to the timely changes occurring in the industry. These chapters (11 generally representing a provincial region) are, mostly, volunteer led organisations of industry design professionals. This engaged design community creates leadership both within the industry but also in terms of public advocacy and education.

In many was enabling the design community within specific regions creates a more responsive approach to green building standards and practices.  The access to localised municipal and provincial authorities allows for a collaborative approach to building codes and standards. The interaction with the private sector (in North America business operations are private and governmental are public) enables a realistic assessment of the viability of sustainable capabilities.

In addition to the regional and vocational benefits mentioned above, a key element in allowing a bottom up approach to sustainable design, planning and building is the freedom to experiment with creative ideas to overcome our current unsustainable industry models. With an appropriate amount of oversight and regulatory supervision a designer can realistically develop solutions to building problems and have a level of confidence that those ideas will be enacted.

A key role for governmental organisations is to constantly measure and verify the products created. The accuracy of new technologies and practices must be measured. The current system of analysing neighbourhoods and buildings as they approach the end of their useful life is simply too long of a feedback loop. Too much energy and resources will be wasted if there is no way of verifying and measuring experimental design solutions.

The world of academia has an important role to play in this mêlée.  As humans are resigned to processes relying on feedback to succeed, we will need to look at past successes and failures to critically examine our communities and environments to facilitate and provide responsible and specific solutions. Universities, technical schools, colleges and all schools concerned with the built environment will need to explore ideas with vision that can become part of our environment.