Supermarket buildings and green design_Minnestoa Cub Foods Store Receives LEED Gold

Today I was overjoyed to read about a Cub Foods Store in Minnesota to recieve LEED for New Commercial Construction - Gold level certification. This means this could be a model supermarket building of energy efficiency, effective daylighting and hopefully a great place to shop. Apparently there are only two others like this in the country. There are roughly 47,000 supermarkets including smaller independant ones around the country(from 2006 federal data). Given the high number and visibility of supermarkets around the country there is a great business oppourtunity I feel to convert existing market buildings or designing and building new ones to higher standards. Based on data from the USGBC and other sources where other building types have shown positive performance in regards to higher employee productivity, reduced energy costs, worker satisfaction, reduced absenteeism and similar factors, there is a strong case for going "green".

Here's why: I think most significantly, grocery stores and their owners have a longer time-horizon, often remaining on the same site for generations. Focusing on ways to reduce costs and ensure greater predictability in energy costs should be a priority for smart, forward looking financial and facility executives where they have more than a few stores in a region to operate. As well, it's likely, the largest cost for them is staff costs such as salaries, benefits etc. With the longer time horizon and need to control staff and facility costs, going green is extremely beneficial. Last summer's spike in food prices driven by high rises of energy costs should be a wake up call. For stores to be competitive in a unpredictable energy future, steady stating their energy costs as much as possible will only help them be more successuful than their competition.

Given there's only three stores like this in the nation, it's a fairly small number to study the effects. However, it's a great oppourtunity to make a difference and positively change the world for generations to come. In a couple of years hopefully Cub Foods or others can study the impact of this green store on their bottom line as well as their corporate brand. I wish them the best in their efforts to change their behavior. And perhaps others may follow in their footsteps...

(image from the web)

Daylighting design and structural integration tip

Good daylighting design and daylight harvesting requires coordination with an unlikely discipline or two.  Above vision windows able to helpful for building occupants to look throught, often an upper band of windows are used to bounce daylight deeper into a space.  (note this requires often a taller floor to floor height and reflective ceiling surfaces to reflect light) To best utilize this daylight harvesting building element it's important to control the ceiling layout.  That way less electric lighting can be specified and overall building energy intensity can be lowered.  This also results in less cooling to treat the extra lighting heat output and mechanical systems can be down-sized. (But more on that later, integrated design can be spider-like in it's interconnectivity.)

For daylight to be effective in a room it needs to penetrate as far into it as possible from the window face.  To help this daylight reflection / penetration along it's really important not to block the daylight with some kind of obstruction such as a structural beam or low-hanging duct in front of a window.  It may seem obvious but it's not.

Be careful to work with your structural engineer when planning for daylighting and pay attention to the direction structural framing such as beams and joists run.  Don't orient them to perpindicular to the window face where the daylight is coming from.  For the daylight to penetrate deep, orient structure parallel to the light and the same goes for HVAC duct work.  

Early on, it's crucial to talk with your lighting designer, mechancial engineer, structural engineer and acoustical consultants; practically anyone whom is interested in using the ceiling plane for services or equipment.  Establish an understanding early on for daylighting success and coordination and you will be sure to enjoy successuful results later rather than crushing disappointment or a loss of much needed LEED point and most importantly client satisfaction.

This integrated design necessity is an example early on a subject everyone on the design team can rally around and hold valuable through the life of the project.   Having more of these kinds of conversations earlier rather than later is a step along the high-performance building design path.

This image shows an example of structure, the ceiling plane. lighting, light guiding reflective blinds and other elements working together in a typical office space.  The lighting is on a low-level in a stepped lighting mode.  

Any feedback or other ideas?

Lighting Guiding Daylight Blinds and Skylights

This post is about Light guiding daylight venetian blinds made by Warema from Germany.  Notice the upper window band is covered with venetian blinds and there is light reflected upwards on the ceiling.  The lower vision windows allow clear views to the outside landscape.

Highly reflective blades oriented upside down take sunlight and re-direct it upwards onto the ceiling in the room.  This reduces the need for electric lighting in spaces with relatively low ceilings.

Notice the bright daylighting in the background.  Those are from skylights punctuating deep into the space to bring natural light in normally dark areas.