The Greenway Self-Park in Chicago’s River North neighborhood shines like a beacon of enlightened green design on a block crowded with office and residential towers. The 285,000-sf parking structure’s green-tinted glass exterior doubles as a ventilation and daylighting system. Its signage gives parkers tips on how to live greener. River North developer Friedman Properties is planning a residential tower next door so that the parking garage’s green roof can serve as a garden for future condo owners.
What sets the 800-car parking structure apart, however, is its 12-paired array of wind turbines. The vertical axis turbines, manufactured by Helix Wind, Poway, Calif., are positioned on the southwest corner of the building near the relatively wide corridor of Clark Street, a busy thoroughfare. Todd Halamka, director of design at the Chicago office of HOK and lead designer on the project, calls the turbines “a kinetic and functional sculpture piece.”
Weather data from collection stations at O’Hare and Midway airports and weather buoys off of Chicago’s lakefront, coupled with wind tunnel tests taken from nearby buildings, were used to evaluate the amount of wind that could be harvested from the site. Estimates by the Building Team put the average wind at that corner at 10 mph at grade level over a year, which, according to the manufacturer, should be sufficient to generate electricity for the structure. The turbines, which extend from the second story to the very top of the structure on the southwest corner of the building, should generate enough power to light the building’s exterior and still send some energy back to the grid through the structure’s reversible electricity meter, Halamka said.
The first day I visited the site there was a strong breeze blowing in from the southwest and the long helical blades of the turbines, shaped from corrugated metal, appeared to be rotating quite actively. On another less windy day, however, they did not appear to be moving at all. Because the parking facility has only been open since September, not enough reliable data has been collected on how much power the turbines have generated.
The Building Team of designers HOK/Cubellis and general contractor Bovis Lend Lease took extra steps to green the parking structure. Greenway Self-Park’s signage gives garage users tips on living more sustainably. Each floor has a different nature theme, such as water, air, and earth conservation. The garage has electric-car charging stations and priority parking for hybrid gas/electric vehicles and for Zipcar and I-Go car-sharing vehicles. Its planned green roof has rainwater cisterns for water collection. Almost all of the building materials were locally sourced. Light sensors control the building’s interior lights and shut them off if enough daylight is coming through the translucent glass-walled exterior.
HOK says the building is registered with LEED and is currently in the commissioning process. “Rather than design a traditional closed garage which has an MEP system and has to run 24/7, working with the city of Chicago we were successful in creating a naturally ventilated garage,” Halamka said. Each floor maintains at least 20% open exterior wall area that provides natural ventilation. “We varied the openings (on the channel glassed walls) so that the glass panels have different spacing that creates a subtle visual tapestry, so that each façade takes advantage of the natural light and air,” he said.
As Chicago’s River North neighborhood continues to develop, Halamka says he believes a more sustainable urban strategy would be to build out the surrounding surface parking lots with ground-floor retail capped with office and residential space and then condense the parking into a more vertical arrangement that promotes local live-work opportunities. “Cars are an inevitable means of transportation,” said Halamka. “It is how we choose to live and use our vehicles in a more sustainable lifestyle that is important.”
For now, building-mounted wind harvesting like that at Greenway Self-Park is still in its infancy. HOK says both its Chicago office and building owner Friedman Properties are committed to monitoring exactly how much energy the wind turbines at the Greenway Self-Park are generating two years from now, when there will be enough data to gauge actual production. BD+C
Related Stories
| Mar 14, 2011
Renowned sustainable architect Charles D. Knight to lead Cannon Design’s Phoenix office
Cannon Design is pleased to announce that Charles D. Knight, AIA, CID, LEED AP, has joined the firm as principal. Knight will serve as the leader of the Phoenix office with a focus on advancing the firm’s healthcare practice. Knight brings over 25 years of experience and is an internationally recognized architect who has won numerous awards for his unique contributions to the sustainable and humanistic design of healthcare facilities.
| Mar 11, 2011
University of Oregon scores with new $227 million basketball arena
The University of Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena opened January 13 with a men’s basketball game against USC where the Ducks beat the Trojans, 68-62. The $227 million arena, which replaces the school’s 84-year-old McArthur Court, has a seating bowl pitched at 36 degrees to replicate the close-to-the-action feel of the smaller arena it replaced, although this new one accommodates 12,364 fans.
| Mar 11, 2011
Temporary modular building at Harvard targets sustainability
Anderson Anderson Architecture of San Francisco designed the Harvard Yard childcare facility, a modular building manufactured by Triumph Modular of Littleton, Mass., that was installed at Harvard University. The 5,700-sf facility will remain on the university’s Cambridge, Mass., campus for 18 months while the Harvard Yard Child Care Center and the Oxford Street Daycare Coop are being renovated.
| Mar 11, 2011
Holiday Inn reworked for Downtown Disney Resort
The Orlando, Fla., office of VOA Associates completed a comprehensive interior and exterior renovation of the 14-story Holiday Inn in the Downtown Disney Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The $25 million project involved rehabbing the hotel’s 332 guest rooms, atrium, swimming pool, restaurant, fitness center, and administrative spaces.
| Mar 11, 2011
Renovation energizes retirement community in Massachusetts
The 12-year-old Edgewood Retirement Community in Andover, Mass., underwent a major 40,000-sf expansion and renovation that added 60 patient care beds in the long-term care unit, a new 17,000-sf, 40-bed cognitive impairment unit, and an 80-seat informal dining bistro.
| Mar 11, 2011
Research facility added to Texas Medical Center
Situated on the Texas Medical Center’s North Campus in Houston, the new Methodist Hospital Research Institute is a 12-story, 440,000-sf facility dedicated to translational research. Designed by New York City-based Kohn Pedersen Fox, with healthcare, science, and technology firm WHR Architects, Houston, the building has open, flexible labs, offices, and amenities for use by 90 principal investigators and 800 post-doc trainees and staff.
| Mar 11, 2011
Blockbuster remodel transforms Omaha video store into a bank
A former Hollywood Video store in Omaha, Neb., was renovated and repurposed as the SAC Federal Credit Union, Ames Branch. Architects at Leo A Daly transformed the outdated 5,000-sf retail space into a modern facility by wrapping the exterior in poplar siding and adding a new glass storefront that floods the interior with natural light.
| Mar 11, 2011
Historic McKim Mead White facility restored at Columbia University
Faculty House, a 1923 McKim Mead White building on Columbia University’s East Campus, could no longer support the school’s needs, so the historic 38,000-sf building was transformed into a modern faculty dining room, graduate student meeting center, and event space for visiting lecturers, large banquets, and alumni organizations.
| Mar 11, 2011
Mixed-income retirement community in Maryland based on holistic care
The Green House Residences at Stadium Place in Waverly, Md., is a five-story, 40,600-sf, mixed-income retirement community based on a holistic continuum of care concept developed by Dr. Bill Thomas. Each of the four residential floors houses a self-contained home for 12 residents that includes 12 bedrooms/baths organized around a common living/social area called the “hearth,” which includes a kitchen, living room with fireplace, and dining area.
| Mar 11, 2011
Oregon childhood center designed at child-friendly scale
Design of the Early Childhood Center at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Ore., focused on a achieving a child-friendly scale and providing outdoor learning environments.