Going Green: Three Recent Projects Designed with Sustainability in Mind
BY NORA BURBA TRULSSON
Lost Dog Wash Trailhead, Scottsdale, Arizona
Philip A. Weddle, AIA | Weddle Gilmore Architects | Tempe, Arizona
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BILL TIMMERMAN
 The Lost Dog Wash Trailhead, designed by Philip Weddle, Weddle Gilmore Architects, mimics the angles of the surrounding mountains. The structure, a gateway to Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve, generates electrical power via roof-mounted photovoltaic panels.
On an early morning at the Lost Dog Wash Trailhead, the desert's stillness is broken only by the sound of birds, the crunch of hikers' boots as they hit the trail and, in the shade of the recently completed trailhead building, the pleasant whoosh of a breeze and the low rattle of the corrugated metal roof as it expands under the sun's rays.
"This trailhead was designed as a gateway into the desert, a threshold," explains Tempe, Arizona architect Philip Weddle, who designed the trailhead's main building and several outlying structures as part of a developed access point into the City of Scottsdale's 36,400-acre McDowell Sonoran Preserve, which encompasses portions of the McDowell Mountains as well as numerous hiking, biking and equestrian trails. "We were trying to slow people down, to leave behind busy streets and developments, and to let them experience the desert."
Completed in May 2006, the trailhead structures do more than allow visitors to experience the desert—the buildings have, in essence, become part of the desert experience, treading lightly on the 16-acre trailhead site and employing an all-green building philosophy.
 A sheltered seating area is sunk into the desert floor, allowing users to view the desert almost at eye level when seated.
"When we master-planned the site," says Weddle, "we nestled the structures and the parking between wide swaths of vegetation and the natural drainage pattern so that there would be as little site disturbance as possible. The site is planned for 300 parking spaces, which we broke down into several areas so that the impact is minimized."
The trailhead's main building, the "gateway," was placed at the top of the parking area, and includes restrooms, as well as a shaded breezeway and large seating area. In elevation, the building's sloping roofline mimics the angles of the adjacent mountains, opening to the east ("It's a great place to watch the sun rise," says Weddle) then seemingly disappearing into the desert floor on the west. A smaller version of the gateway, sans restrooms but with a picnic table, serves as a shade structure for the equestrian parking area. As hikers head into the preserve, they also pass a circular amphitheater along the trail, sunk into the site and used for education purposes and conservation gatherings. Another small structure at the edge of the parking area houses storage space and a refuse station.
Weddle's choice of building materials reflect his firm's commitment to green design as well as a desire to blend the structures into the pristine desert. Walls were made of rammed earth, excavated from the site, thereby linking the building color-wise into the surrounding desert floor. Sandblasted, cast-in-place concrete, with a high fly ash content, was used for the seating in the main building, as well as for the amphitheater and the equestrian area's picnic table. The weathered CorTen steel used for the roof, doorways and fencing also has a high recycled content.
 Building materials include rammed earth, excavated from the site, and weathered steel with a high recycled content.
The buildings' systems also reflect an eco-friendly approach. The site is off the electrical grid, generating its own power for restroom and the parking area's LED lighting via photovoltaic panels on the roof of the gateway structure. Restrooms are equipped with waterless composting toilets. Graywater from sinks and the drinking fountains, as well as roof runoff, is collected in a cistern and used to irrigate plant materials on the developed site. The "mechanical" consists of restrooms equipped with plenty of louvered windows that provide steady cross-ventilation. Even the stylish, rust-patinaed trash receptacles are clearly labeled "trash" and "recycle."
The landscape, done in conjunction with Floor Associates, also utilized a conservation approach. While the buildings and parking areas were sited to disturb the least amount of vegetation, any trees, cactus and even smaller shrubs were salvaged by a combination of professionals and volunteer help, then replanted after construction. The natural desert cobble—larger rocks and gravel on the undisturbed surface of the desert—was scraped off and painstakingly replaced when the trailhead was completed, as was "dead fall," organic materials such as cactus ribs that land on the desert surface. Parking areas were dressed in stabilized decomposed granite, which blends into the desert and allows drainage. The landscape's crown jewel is a rare, crested saguaro replanted near the trailhead after it was found by Arizona's agriculture department to have been illegally harvested elsewhere.
Since its opening, the trailhead has seen a steady stream of desert lovers pass through its threshold. The response has been overwhelmingly positive; visitors seem to know that this is how one should build on the desert.
 The angled roofline frames views of the surrounding desert and creates a threshold to the site.
"This was all designed to serve as an unmanned entry point into the preserve," explains Weddle. "There is no ranger station or information center here." This is the second developed trailhead to be built for the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, with a total of nine planned. Weddle is currently working on the preserve's largest gateway, on the preserve's west side, which will include office space for rangers and preserve volunteers, as well as an interpretive center. And, Weddle promises, that gateway, too, will tread lightly on the desert.
Architecture: Weddle Gilmore Architects, Tempe, AZ; (480) 517-5055 or www.weddlegilmore.com.
Landscape architecture: Floor Associates, Phoenix, AZ; (602) 462-1425 or www.floorassociates.com.
Builder: Valley Rain Construction, Tempe, AZ; (480) 894-2835 or www.valleyrain.com.
Rammed earth: Rammed Earth Solar Homes, Inc., Oracle, AZ; (520) 896-3393 or www.rammedearthhomes.com.
Civil engineering: DMJM Harris, Phoenix, AZ; (602) 337-2777 or www.dmjmharris.com.
Jefferson Green, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Christopher R. Gunning, AIA | Julie Walleisa, AIA, LEED AP | Dekker/Perich/Sabatini | Albuquerque, New Mexico
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRICK COULIE
During the design phase of their new LEED-certified office building, the architectural team from Dekker/Perich/Sabatini spent a great deal of time pondering the pros and cons of the operable windows planned for the building's perimeter.
"There are about 150 manually operable windows in the building," explains Dekker/Perich/Sabatini architect Julie Walleisa, who guided the team through the building's LEED certification process. Relishing the irony of how something as simple as an operable window had become mysterious in modern-day commercial buildings, Walleisa recalls, "We talked a lot about how big the windows should be, how they worked with security and mechanical issues, and who would be responsible for closing them at the end of the day."
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The building's simple rectangular form is broken with angles and a low wall that reaches into the landscape. Glass walls bring in daylighting on the north and east sides, while thicker, stuccoed walls shelter southern and western sides of the building. |
In the end, it was decided that the screened windows should be six to eight inches wide for security purposes, that open windows were small in comparison to the building's mechanical system and, as Walleisa puts it, "If people are smart enough to open and close windows in their own homes, they'll be smart enough to open and close them at their work areas."
Such attention to detail has marked the success of the architectural firm's new office building, called Jefferson Green, which was completed last year. It's not only a bright, comfortable place in which to work, it has also earned a LEED Gold Certification for its core and shell, the first in New Mexico for a commercial building. Additionally, the building is anticipated to earn another Gold Certification for its commercial interior.
Led by Dekker/Perich/Sabatini principal Christopher R. Gunning, the office-building project had its start several years ago, when the firm began to feel a space squeeze at its previous Albuquerque locale. With some 160 employees, the firm's engineering department had been annexed to a storefront, says Walleisa, in between a cat clinic and a sandwich shop. At the same time discussions started for a bigger, better office space, it was also decided that the new space would be as green as possible, and would follow LEED guidelines. "The thought was, if we are advising our clients to go green, we should do it and live through it ourselves," says Walleisa.
 Choosing a six-acre site in a suburban commercial development, the firm's design team plotted a three-story, 85,000-square-foot market-rate commercial building, allotting themselves about 45 percent of the building's occupancy. "The site backs up to an arroyo," says Walleisa, who serves as the spokesperson for the project's design team, "and there were a lot of old cottonwoods and pines on the property. We opted to position the building so that we could save the trees and get shade on the south and west sides, and get light and mountain views on the north."
In keeping a market-rate budget, the building was designed with a simple rectangular form, highlighted by a few angular balconies that pop from the vertical planes of the building. Glass envelops the building on its north and east sides, giving it a sleek, modern appearance, while to the west and south the building thickens up into a more New Mexican vernacular, with stucco walls and recessed openings. Indoors, a simple aesthetic prevailed, with stylishly finished concrete shear walls, steel beams and other exposed materials.
While at first glance the building doesn't look organic or particularly recycled, virtually every aspect, from materials to systems, was carefully plotted. "We used low-E glazing, of course," says Walleisa, "but as everyone knows, those aluminum frames are very energy intensive to manufacture. Instead, we asked that the frames be made with 40 to 70 percent recycled content, which the manufacturer did at no additional charge."
 An angled balcony lures occupants out into the fresh air. Smaller windows are operable, providing cooling breezes most of the year. Windows are framed in recycled-content aluminum.
Also on the exterior, the reflective, high-emissivity roof membrane was chosen because it helps reduce the cooling load. The concrete contains fly ash, and the structural steel has a high recycled content.
Indoors, recycled-content carpet tiles were used as flooring in the second-story work areas, while Marmoleum, the natural linoleum, was installed in the break room. A Marmoleum product and one made of recycled polyester fibers were used as wallcoverings in rooms where architects and designers needed to tack up drawings and samples. Low-VOC paints and finishes were used indoors, and formaldehyde-free composite wood was used to build counters, cabinetry and benches.
"We reused a lot of old furniture from our previous building," says Walleisa, "and then bought Herman Miller workstations that were made with recycled content."
 Natural daylight illuminates the lobby and reception area.
Low-flow plumbing fixtures were chosen for restrooms and break room sinks; appliances are Energy Star rated. The under-floor air system also saves energy and allows occupants to control temperature individually. Recycling bins dot the offices. And, Walleisa points out, while overhead and task lighting was installed throughout the first-floor lobby and second-floor work areas, more often than not lights are kept off. "There's a lot of daylighting in the building," she says.
Outdoors, low-water-use plants were chosen to flesh out the landscape between the mature trees, and the site was contoured to promote drainage into planter areas. The design team discovered that a municipal non-potable water line runs through the property, and they were able to tap into it for irrigation water. A first-floor deck and several balconies lure occupants outdoors for breaks and lunch.
Even the contractor got in on the green scene, recycling or reusing 80 percent of the construction waste and implementing a construction indoor-air-quality plan that protected ductwork and porous materials from contamination during the building process.
 Interior millwork was made with formaldehyde-free composite wood, and low-VOC paints and finishes were used throughout.
Once the Dekker/Perich/Sabatini staff moved into the new quarters last year, Walleisa says she had numerous comments about the air quality in the building. "Everyone kept saying that the building smelled really good," she recalls. "That's because of the materials we used and the good ventilation."
The operable windows, it seems, really did the trick.
Architecture, interior design and landscape architecture: Dekker/Perich/Sabatini, Albuquerque, NM; (505) 761-9700 or www.dpsdesign.org.
Builder: Enterprise Builders Corporation, Albuquerque, NM; (505) 857-0050 or www.ebnm.com.
Mechanical: Yearout Mechanical, Inc., Albuquerque, NM; (505) 884-0994 or www.yearout.com.
Electrical: Chaparral Electric, Albuquerque, NM; (505) 242-1783.
Army Aviation Support Facility, Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora, Colorado
Carol Coover-Clark, AIA | Brian Duggan | Coover-Clark & Associates, Inc. | Denver, Colorado
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RON JOHNSON
 Aircraft blades and aerodynamics inspired the curved roof of the helicopter hangar, which is adjacent to the facility's office space.
Green is a color long associated with the military—green uniforms, green tanks, green tents, green helmets, green walls, green desks. But at the new Army Aviation Support Facility at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado, green isn't that familiar shade of olive drab. Rather, it's a new hue—green as in sustainable, garnering the building a LEED Silver Certification, one of the first of its type in the nation.
The 118,000-square-foot main hangar facility was designed for the Colorado Army National Guard by Coover-Clark & Associates, Inc. to house the guard's Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters, as well as provide space for maintenance, operations and training. The design team, led by firm principal Carol Coover-Clark and project designer Brian Duggan, was charged with creating a secure, comfortable, workable facility within a lean budget that also took in as many sustainable strategies as possible.
 Clerestory windows and skylights provide plenty of daylighting inside the hangar.
Partnering with CH2M Hill as production architects and engineers, the Coover-Clark design team visited several similar facilities in other states to learn what worked—and didn't work—at those sites.
The National Guard's Buckley Air Force Base site, says Duggan, sits on about 24 acres of rolling prairie land, with a distant view of mountains. "Their old facility was antiquated and inadequate," he says. "There were a lot of trailers. We decided to take a campus approach in designing the main hangar facility and a metal storage building."
 An exterior rendering shows the landscape plan that includes native plantings.
One of the first hurdles in designing for the site, located on the front range of the Rockies, was to do an environmental survey of the locals, which include prairie dogs and a ground owl that makes its nest in prairie dog burrows. The buildings were placed so as not to disturb those habitats.
Placement of the main hangar facility was keyed to the helicopter ramp, and placement of the office facilities was juxtaposed to the hangar itself. Duggan designed the elevation with a curved roof, inspired by the forms of aircraft blades and uplift aerodynamics. "I was looking to reflect the function of the building," he explains.
 The building's graceful form is brought into focus after a snowstorm.
Exterior materials include split-face CMU, anchoring the building into the prairiescape, and glazed CMU blocks in a terra cotta color to reflect existing buildings of the base. An aluminum composite material wraps the hangar portion of the building and the eaves, while the glazing was chosen to reflect the region's blue skies. Other areas of the exterior were decoratively clad in Trespa, a composite resin material commonly used as a weather barrier.
Split-face block, metal and glass were repeated as the interior materials. Highlighting the interior is stained concrete flooring, designed with inlaid patterns that celebrate the Colorado Army National Guard. "We used their logo, compass graphics and flight vectors," says Duggan. "We wanted the floor to tell a story, and for the users to notice it."
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The patterned concrete floor of the airy lobby celebrates the Colorado Army National Guard through inlaid logos, patterns and flight vectors, which continue into other rooms. |
One of the main challenges in designing the facility, explains Duggan, was to make it workable for a regular staff of about 75, yet able to handle the 350 guardsmen who come in for training one weekend a month. "We had to handle the capacity, but we didn't want the full-time employees to be swimming in empty space." The challenge was met with modular classrooms that can be sectioned off or opened up as necessary, conference rooms of different sizes and flexible locker rooms.
The facility's "green factor" comes from a variety of strategies. The CMU was manufactured locally, eliminating the need to transport the material from a long distance away. Other materials have a recycled content. Mechanical and electrical systems were chosen for their high efficiency as well as their ability to handle the extremes of the local climate. The interior-including the hangar-is flooded with daylighting via windows and skylights, eliminating the need for much interior lighting on bright days. The windows have a secondary benefit: great views for employees.
 The operations center has clear views of the helicopters.
Outdoors, Coover-Clark & Associates used native plant materials and established a series of cobblestone-lined dry creek beds that channel rainwater from the building's roof to various planting areas.
Completed in 2006, the facility is a far cry from the Quonset huts, trailers and block barracks of old National Guard locales. "Our new world-class [facility] at Buckley is recognized by people within and outside of the industry as a facility that exceeds the standards with its clean, contemporary and rich appearance," says Mark A. Schoenrock, chief of contracting for the United States Property and Fiscal Office in Colorado. "Every day, our soldiers benefit from the customized and well-thought-out design."
Architecture, interior design and landscape architecture: Coover-Clark & Associates, Inc., Denver, CO; (303) 783-0040 or www.coover-clark.com.
Production architecture and engineering: CH2M Hill, Englewood, CO; (303) 771-0900 or www.ch2m.com.
 The floorplan was designed to accommodate large groups for training as well as provide smaller spaces for the permanent staff.
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