Last week, the city of San Francisco announced the grand opening of the Greenest Urban Office Building in North America. The new San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Building (SFPUC) boasts new Living Machine technology, as well as LEED Platinum standards.
The 13-floor building can hold around 900 people, but consumes 60% less water and 32% less energy than most buildings of its kind. The building can achieve these high levels of conservation due it its on-site grey and black water treatment.
The technology for this treatment, The Living Machine, reclaims and treats all of the building’s wastewater– meeting the demand for all of the buildings toilets. The Living Machine can treat 5,000 gallons of water daily, reducing per-person water use from 12 to five gallons. The building also has a rainwater harvesting system that can store up to 250,000 gallons of water annually for use in the building’s irrigation systems.
As far as power goes, the building uses a greenhouse gas-free power from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, but also has an integrated hybrid solar array as well as a wind turbine that can generation about seven percent of the building’s annual energy needs.
The building was designed with a raised flooring system to house its data and ventilation infrastructure that also reduces heating, cooling and ventilation costs by over half. They also plan to do the more simple things, like automatically shut off workstation power after business hours, use more sustainable building materials, and limit parking to encourage alternative transportation among employees.
“The unique hybrid wind-solar installation combined with the use of onsite, recycled wastewater makes 525 Golden Gate one of the most self-sustaining buildings anywhere in the world,” said SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington as part of the announcement. “We did not spare any detail to demonstrate the water-saving and energy efficiency revolution that all of us must start to embrace.”
However, the building cost the city a whopping $146.5 million– which brings back the argument between building new energy efficient buildings, or spending the money to make the ones we already have perform better. There isn’t a right answer, what’s probably best is for there to be a combination of the two– a new building should be built to high energy standards, but some time and resources should be taken to reboot the clunky power-wasters that remain in every city.
Employees are set to move in to their new space in July and August, and the building is set to be on track for its Platinum LEED ranking within a year of operation. The SFPUC estimates that building and owning its new headquarters will allow the department to save residents around $3.7 billion over the expected 100 year life of the building. +
--
Beth Carter is a contributing editor for SmartPlanet.
Related Stories
| Dec 19, 2011
Summit Design+Build selected as GC for Chicago recon project
The 130,000 square foot building is being completely renovated.
| Dec 19, 2011
USGBC welcomes new board directors?
Board responsible for articulating and upholding the vision, values, mission of organization.
| Dec 19, 2011
Davis Construction breaks ground on new NIAID property
The new offices will total 490,998 square feet in a 10-story building with two wings of 25,000 square feet each.
| Dec 19, 2011
Survey: Job growth driving demand for office and industrial real estate in Southern California
Annual USC Lusk Center for Real Estate forecast reveals signs of slow market recovery.
| Dec 16, 2011
Goody Clancy-designed Informatics Building dedicated at Northern Kentucky University
The sustainable building solution, built for approximately $255-sf, features innovative materials and intelligent building systems that align with the mission of integration and collaboration.
| Dec 16, 2011
Stalco Construction converts Babylon, N.Y. Town Hall into history museum
The project converted the landmark structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places into the Town of Babylon History Museum at Old Town Hall.
| Dec 14, 2011
Belfer Research Building tops out in New York
Hundreds of construction trades people celebrate reaching the top of concrete structure for facility that will accelerate treatments and cures at world-renowned institution.
| Dec 14, 2011
Tyler Junior College and Sika Sarnafil team up to save energy
Tyler Junior College wanted a roofing system that wouldn’t need any attention for a long time.
| Dec 13, 2011
Lutron’s Commercial Experience Center awarded LEED Gold
LEED certification of the Lutron facility was based on a number of green design and construction features that positively impact the project itself and the broader community. These features include: optimization of energy performance through the use of lighting power, lighting controls and HVAC, plus the use of daylight.