Living Green

For over a year now, I have had the pleasure to live in the first LEED Platinum Multi-Use Building. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is a rating system, basically a scorecard of green features. It’s a voluntary system, but definitely THE benchmark for sustainable buildings in North America. LEED focuses on high performance building design, where long term performances in the entire life cycle of the building, such as energy and water consumption are taken into consideration. Other categories include sustainable site development, responsible resource management and indoor air quality, that promotes human health and well being.

View to the East – Into the Courtyard. The Siding is Cedar, which smells wonderful after a rainy day!

The Vento is definitely a show case of current best practices in Canada. Located in the center of Calgary in Bridgeland, just north of downtown across the Bow River, it is a mixed-use multi residential building featuring stores and a coffee house downstairs and townhouses upstairs.

View to the West – across Bridgeland towards downtown.

Its water performance is more than 50% better than a base building. Rainwater instead of potable water is collected on the roof and used to flush the toilet. That’s pretty rad!

A heat recovery ventilator, Low E, Argon Filled Windows and a good building envelope including the wall system by my former employer NASCOR (small world!) make it a building that uses a lot less energy than standard construction. Good thermal insulation also means good acoustical insulation: I have not heard my neighbours once through the walls – and they still seem to like me too, even though I enjoy listening to music!

Here is what the Canadian Green Building Council says are the notable features for this project:

* Optimizing energy cost performance of 47% better than the Model National Energy Code for Buildings, and energy consumption savings of 45%, through: enhanced building envelop performance with improved building insulation levels and double-glazed, argon-filled, low-e windows; exhaust air heat recovery; and, lighting occupancy sensors in the residential units and in the storage area of the basement;
* Providing Best Practice Commissioning and Measurement & Verification to ensure continued, optimal energy performance;
* Reducing indoor potable water use by over 50% through dual-flush toilets, low-flow lavatories and showers, and the use of rainwater for toilet flushing;
* Achieving an Innovation in Design credit for Water Management Advocacy through demonstrating the substantial environmental impact from the design team�s advocacy efforts; and,
* Providing exceptional indoor environmental quality by achieving all credits under this category as well as providing a green housekeeping plan.

And here are a few photos and some comments from my personal experience of living in a high performance building:

The first picture shows a heat recovery ventilator. It’s basically a heat exchanger: the warm, but stale air that is being removed from the indoor air warms up the cold fresh air. A great way of making use of “waste energy”. Fresh air intake is a necessary feature in well insulated building, so using a heat exchanger in chilly Canada to warm up the outside air is a smart design feature and can save a substantial amount of energy.

The stair detail is not just beautiful, but makes sense from a cradle-to-cradle perspective. The railing is made from solid wood, metal and glass. The parts can easily be separated at the end of its useful life and put into the appropriate recycling streams or get reused.

The carpet is made from recycled wool. Regular carpet can off-gas chemicals that might be harmful to your health. For my dream house, I’d say: ditch the carpet altogether: I prefer wood or similar flooring that can easily be kept clean with a broom, warm water and soap. Area rugs can provide some softer flooring where needed.

Oh – one of my favourites: the heated floor! Sooo awesome, especially on a freezing winter evening, which are plentiful in Calgary: it makes Savasana at the end of my yoga practice a so much more soothing experience! The flooring is not a hardwood floor what it appears to be, but Bamboo, which is a grass. It grows like weed in Asia, and is quite hipp in the green building industry. I am not totally sold on it: is it really more environmentally friendly to ship bamboo across the ocean, which is glued together with adhesives that potentially contain toxins? That’s where life cycle assessments would come in handy. Is it really better than local hardwood floor from well managed forests? But that’s another blog post…

Another highlight that I haven’t seen before, but makes total sense: Rain water collected on the roof flushes the toilets. Great feature.  Isn’t it crazy that standard practice is to use drinking water to flush toilets? I think this feature makes a big impact, without reducing our quality of life standards. Dual Flush is also non-questionable: something every household should have.

The reminder next to the toilet bowl: “Do Not Drink” Thanks, but no worries – I usually don’t drink out of the toilet either :)!

No , this is not the full moon. It’s a light tube, like a skylight it provides daylight in the hallway upstairs. Using as much daylight as possible is a great way of lighting our homes: it’s free during the day. And the “good” thing about Calgary’s night lighting (which could be called wasteful by some or providing a feeling of safety by others). Even at night I get some light in the hallway.

The counter in the bathroom is made from Terrazzo, which contains recycled glass. Super easy to clean, durable and it looks beautiful. Those Italianos have style!

LOVE the rectangular ceramic tiles in the shower!

The washer and dryer are Energy Star rated and a clothes rack is provided. Clothes racks are not just good for the planet, air drying clothes is more gentle than machine drying .and keeps my clothes in good condition for longer.

For more info on the Vento check out the CaGBC website here.  My personal rating: I like it a lot. Areas of improvements would be use of renewable energy source, such as solar or geothermal instead of natural gas. I would prefer wood / metal clad windows instead of vinyl windows. Oh,  and a shading system on the big west facing windows to avoid overheating on the long summer days, when the sun is hot but low near the horizon. But altogether: definitely two thumbs up.