How does an International Living Future Institute (ILFI)-certified1 office building perform in real life, with the added challenge of COVID? Amber Richane, the Principal Design and Planning Manager for the City of Santa Monica, answered many of these questions when she hosted a tour for USGBC-Cal’s Living Futures Committee. The Santa Monica City Hall East Building was officially opened on Earth Day 2020, to an empty audience. COVID had sent all but a few essential employees home. The building was occupied by 8 persons for almost two years, before employees began to return to work. This site has now been operating for over 2 years in a hybrid work environment. How is it doing?
City Hall East is both net-positive electricity and net-positive water. It consumes no natural gas, as heat pumps provide both water and space heating. I was very impressed with the work environment, including:
- · Sit-stand workstations. Human beings were not meant to sit for long periods of time.
- · Natural lighting.
- · Operable windows for individual control of temperature and fresh air.
- · No waste baskets. What?? This encourages the occupants to leave their workstations and walk. At central locations, they are educated on proper disposal of recyclable and compostable materials.
- · The courtyard not only provides a calming place for a break, it is the source of cooking herbs, citrus fruit, and echinacea tea leaves. I can personally confess to having to buy too many fresh herbs in the market, only to throw away most of these herbs when they rot. In this courtyard, you can harvest just the right amount for your dinner.
- · Fresh air flush – The building’s HVAC system was programmed to perform a complete outside air flush at 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM every work day during COVID, to improve indoor air quality.
One of the building’s great successes is its handling of sewage. No sewage is discharged into the sewer! And, the hands-free toilets use only 3 tablespoons of water per flush!! How is this even possible? Well, the waste is collected in composters located in the basement. Far from being foul-smelling like those jobsite porta-potties, the composters emit no odors outside of the bins. If the building was fully occupied, it is estimated that the composters would have to be emptied once every 18-24 months after turning this organic waste into a natural fertilizer that can be used as regular compost is used. Under current occupancy, it’s estimated that the composters will need to be emptied every 5 years. The system is almost maintenance-free; once quarterly the pile is racked to mix the material well and then either wood chips or water are put in the composters, to adjust the moisture level. That’s it!
One of the building’s challenges has been thermal comfort. The HVAC system consists of floor radiant cooling/heating. As a HVAC engineer, I can attest that room air temperature doesn’t always correlate with occupant comfort in these systems. The human body radiates heat to cold surfaces, like when one stands next to a cold concrete wall. So, the room thermostat can read 80F and occupants may feel comfortably cool. In the case of this building, the team from the City is still working on dialing in the controls of this system.
1- Final Living Futures certification is expected next year, after building has been occupied for defined amount of time.