nneewwss briefs commentary off-the-shelf technology ...leed-based sustainable construction program...

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Volume 110, Number 172 Friday, May 9, 2008

SMPS Colorado to Host AnnualExcellence Awards Luncheon

The Society for Marketing Professional ServicesColorado will host its annual “Marketing ExcellenceAwards” luncheon on Wednesday at Kevin Taylor’s at theEllie Caulkins Opera House, 1355 Curtis St., in Denver.

SMPS Colorado received 36 award entries represented byColorado-based companies within the architecture, engi-neering and construction industry as well as advertising andpublic relations firms. With judging complete, entry cate-gories included advertising, book/monograph, brochure, cor-porate identity, direct mail, feature writing, holiday piece,internal communications, newsletter, special event, specialproject marketing, target marketing and Web site.

Event doors open at 11:00, with the awards presentationat 12:30. Winning entries will be available for viewing afterthe luncheon.

“This highly anticipated annual event is represented bysome of the most notable and prestigious firms in Colorado,showcasing the best in marketing communications,” saidMarta Baker, president of the SMPS Colorado Chapter. "Welook forward to an exciting event and wish all of the partic-ipants the best of luck."

Event chapter and vendor sponsors include McGraw-HillConstruction, Capstone, Colorado Real Estate Journal,Monroe & Newell Engineers Inc., Creative Juice, TerryShapiro Photography and Colorado Printing Co.

For information on purchasing event tickets or SMPSColorado membership, visit www.smpscolorado.org.

Downtown Castle Rock Parking Garage Receives ACI Award of Excellence

The American Concrete Institute’s Rocky MountainChapter has awarded the Parking Structure Award ofExcellence to the Downtown Castle Rock Parking Garage.

Denver-based Pahl Architecture worked closely withDouglas County and its representatives to design the parkinggarage. Consultants included Rocky Mountain Prestress,Monroe & Newell Engineers, Martin/Martin, eng3 Group,Norris Design and Carl Walker. The general contractor wasDenver's Swinerton Builders.

The Downtown Castle Rock Parking Garage features 374spaces for county vehicles, county staff and Castle Rockpublic parking. Unique to the project is the building façadealong Third Street. Its purpose is to fit in with the characterof historic Castle Rock and allow the parking garage not tolook like a parking garage.

This awards program is intended to recognize unique andcreative ways of using concrete. One of the creative uses ofconcrete throughout the structure was the reproduction ofnative rhyolite stone; a prominent building material through-out historic Castle Rock.

NNeewwss Briefs

FFiirrmmss Breaking New Ground

COMMENTARY

Off-the-Shelf Technology Creates Zero-Carbon Impact HomeBy Nancy Partridge

If it weren’t for a concrete blockretaining wall, a zero-carbon impact res-idence in Boulder could not have beenbuilt at all.

The Next West House was con-structed on an infill site, scraped cleanby the property’s previous owner. Thenarrow, triangular lot is backed by aworking irrigation ditch, which runsdeep and strong in the spring. Generalcontractor Bob Hughes said that if theyhad not started their project by reinforc-ing the walls of the ditch, it would havecollapsed and forced the property own-ers to pay the ditch water rights ownersto purchase their water from anothersource—a very expensive and compli-cated process in Colorado.

“The first thing Olde EnglishMasonry did was to build a block wallto hold the ditch back so they couldbuild the house,” said Hughes.

The solution was a combination ofinstalling 25 shoring blocks and about44 yds of shotcrete concrete along theditch bank, and constructing a CMUretaining wall between the ditch and thehouse. LaFarge made the 2-by-2-by-4shoring blocks from leftover concretereturned to its plant. The CMU retainingwall was a standard task for OldeEnglish Masonry owner Gary Holt, whohas growing specialties in historic andsustainable masonry, but it was whatwas necessary to get the environmen-tally responsible house started.

From there, the real work began.Next West House, at 429 Spruce St.

in Boulder, is one of three projects con-structed by Bruce and Cody Oreck fortheir Zero-Carbon Initiative. Designedby Jim Logan Architects, the Next Westproject began in March 2007 and isslated for completion in June.

The zero-impact house uses “off-the-shelf” technologies that anyone canimplement in a residential project—new, upscale, affordable or remodel.When completed in June, it will be thefirst LEED for Homes platinum-certi-fied house in Colorado, and it will begiving back to the power grid. TheLEED-based sustainable constructionprogram for housing was released by theU.S. Green Building Council inJanuary.

Architect Intern Sarah Marvez, whoserved as the project architect under JimLogan, said they did not start out todesign the house to LEED for Homesstandards, but eventually picked up theLEED-H Pilot Program guidelines andadded incorporated them.

“Masonry buildings are truly sustain-able because they are beautiful, haveincredibly longer life, require almostzero maintenance and eliminate theneed for paint,” said Shahnaz Jaffari,technical assistant for the Rocky

Mountain Masonry Institute, who sitson the West Region Council of USGBCand has chaired the Colorado task forceon regional credits for LEED. “Masonryis obtained from the most abundantresources, saves energy through thermalmass, and can be recycled, as in the caseof this project.”

There are 136 possible LEED-Hpoints, with anywhere from 90 to 136required for platinum certification—thisproject currently has 110.

While the architecture team special-izes in green building projects, itrequired an additional bit of flexibilityto make the design work with reclaimedbrick that had come from several differ-ent demolished 1900s buildings.

Holt said the architects had originallywanted the structure to match the load-bearing double-wythe rowlock brickbuilding next door, which B. Oreck alsopurchased and is remodeling. However,with the recycled bricks coming fromdifferent buildings and being differentcolors, types and sizes, with soft, oldrounded edges and many chips, itrapidly became apparent with the firsttest panel that it could not match a struc-ture that was made from one matchingbatch of bricks.

The design originally called for tight,gray mortar joints like those in thehouse next door, but the test panelsrevealed a need to use red mortar thatcould fill the chips in the brick and voidsbetween the different-sized brick.

“We had the neighboring brick build-ing with the historic 1/8th-in. joints andwanted to replicate that,” Marvez said.“We couldn’t replicate it. The masonswould have had a helluva time.”

Stainless steel ties were used to attachthe brick veneer to the wood studs.Hughes said the stainless was selectedto give the structure additional durabil-ity, although Holt said the 1/8th-in. tieswere a bit much in the 1/8th-in. jointsand occasionally required the bricks tobe ground to get the tie flat.

The tight joints were required to keepthe air exchange to a minimum. A fantest showed the house has .06 airexchanges per hour, Hughes said. Inaddition to preserving the heating andcooling in the home, the tight joints alsosupport the LEED-required indoor airquality. The house also sports an air-to-air heat exchange system operatedthrough the bathroom exhaust fans thatrecovers 85% of the heat from theexhausted air.

Ironically, the environmentallyresponsible structure has a band of cedarshingles above the brick.

“Certain things we did were inresponse to the local Landmark Board,”Hughes said. “This house is in an his-toric district. We had to use the cedarshingles to match other houses in thearea, and we had to set the photovoltaicsystem into the roof rather than on top.You wouldn’t use cedar shingles ingreen houses unless they were madefrom the lumber mill scraps of othercedar products.”

The copper flashing used throughoutthe structure is both sustainable and inkeeping with the standards of the his-toric district.

Inside the home, there’s nothing his-toric about the LED lighting, ground-source heat pump, battery storage andbackup system for the photovoltaics,gray water recycling system used toflush the toilets or the crosslinked poly-ethylene tubing hot water system.

“The house works with its neighbor-hood really well. The brick is a key partof that,” Marvez said. “The house is his-toric looking but is not a copy of a his-toric building...It’s a really green build-ing, but it does not look like one. We didthe best we could to minimize the greenappearance.”

Nancy Partridge is the communica-tions manager for the Rocky MountainMasonry Institute in Denver. She can bereached at info@rmmi.org.

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Photo courtesy of Pahl ArchitectureThe facade of the parking structure was designed tofit with the character of historic Castle Rock and allowthe parking garage not to look like a parking garage.

Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Masonry Institute