reimagine Summer 2014

reimagineSUMMER 2014

A Chancery Hall study reconsiders the future of a 50-year-old Edmonton landmark

Re-skinning the 72-storey First Canadian Place in Toronto was no simple task

AT YOUR SERVUS Manasc Isaac helped breathe new life into an Alberta credit union’s head office

How retrofitted spaces are winning the design fight

Old vs. NEW

• Ask an architect • Mid-century style• Toronto towers• Urban design• By the numbers

THE BEAUTY OF RETROFIT

PREMIERE ISSUE

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reimagineCONTENTS

Introducing GlasCurtain, an innovative curtain wall framing system offering increased comfort and energy savings.

glascurtain.ca

cAnAdiAn innoVATion compETiTionWinnER!

Presented by the Canadian

Trade Commissioner at

the High Commission of

Canada to the UK.

Aluminum is obsolete. The future is fibreglass.

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ISSUE #1SUMMER 2014reimagine

Why retrofit, renovate, and remodel? Property owners are realizing the long-term benefits to their wallets, tenants, and the planet

6 Samsung makes use of seacans in Sochi during the Winter Olympics

10 Five Manhattan West will change the NYC skyline

22 A conversation with Gary Whitelaw

14 Buildings of the 1970s are getting a makeover in a big way

26 Servus Corporate Centre gets a new look from Manasc Isaac

32 Appraising reimagined buildings based on their merits

40 How the EPCOR 1931 Heritage Building was updated and still kept its vintage charm

43 A look at Toronto’s Tower Renewal Strategy

46 Should Edmonton’s Chancery Hall be reimagined?

50 The last word36 How the tallest

office building in Canada was re-skinned

+

Cover photo courtesy REX

Contents photos courtesy Manasc Isaac, blogs.paris.fr, REX, Bentall Kennedy

CONTENTS

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Introducing GlasCurtain, an innovative curtain wall framing system offering increased comfort and energy savings.

glascurtain.ca

cAnAdiAn innoVATion compETiTionWinnER!

Presented by the Canadian

Trade Commissioner at

the High Commission of

Canada to the UK.

Aluminum is obsolete. The future is fibreglass.

000RE-GlasCurtain-FP.indd 1 2014-06-04 11:34 AM

Slave Lake Government Centre

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Reimagine Interiors specializes in custom designs that optimize your space for the people who use it. Using reclaimed materials we create beautiful, vibrant and sustainable workspaces.

reimagineinteriors.ca

calgaRy 403.614.9909 edmonton 780.429.3977

FSC LOGOPLACED BY PRINTERS

MANASC ISAAC ARCHITECTSEditor-In-Chief Vivian ManascAssociate EditorKent McKayGraphic Design ConsultantLisa Mentz

VENTURE PUBLISHING INC.PublisherRuth KellyDirector of Custom ContentMifi PurvisManaging EditorShelley WilliamsonArt DirectorRyan GirardAssociate Art DirectorAndrea deBoerProduction ManagerBetty Feniak SmithProduction TechniciansBrent Felzien, Brandon HooverDirector of CirculationSharlene ClarkeCirculationKaren Reilly

CONTRIBUTING WRITERSPeter Dushenski, Matt Hirji, Jen Janzen, Shafraaz Kaba, Brynna Leslie, Omar Mouallem

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ILLUSTRATORSGarth Crump, Joey Podlubny

Reimagine is a biannual publication produced by Venture Publishing for architectural firm Manasc Isaac. Manasc Isaac is a Canadian leader in integrated sustainable building with deep expertise in the reimagining of existing buildings, primarily those built between 1950 and 2000.

Reimagine showcases the best of reimagined spaces and promotes sustainable building practices in the community, and strives to be the authoritative business voice on the value of reimagined building practices.

Contents © 2014 by Manasc Isaac. No part of this publication should be reproduced in print or on websites without written permission.

Non-deliverable mail should be directed to: 10225 100 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 0A1

ISSUE #1 SUMMER 2014

reimagine

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elcome to Reimagine magazine! We are excited to launch this publica-tion, which we hope will inspire you to rethink the future of ex-

isting buildings. You may be wondering “What’s the big deal about existing buildings? And why now?”

The short answer is this: we are at a critical point. New office towers are under construction in every major urban centre. These towers, designed to achieve LEED® Gold or Platinum ratings, are attracting some of the largest and best tenants. The remaining building stock that filled our urban cores in the 1970s is reaching the 50-year mid-life point, and is becoming relatively less attractive to both owners and tenants.

So there is a choice – do we just patch up these older buildings until it’s time to tear them down and replace them with new ones? Or is there an-other way to frame this question?

Ours has been a culture of disposability. Across North America, the typical approach to old buildings has been to tear them down and build something new. With land values increasing and innovative technologies enabling taller and more complex buildings with larger floor plates, we’ve long been able to argue for the economics of re-placing buildings with newer, greener ones. Unlike the European approach that values preservation, we tend to value the new and improved version of all aspects of our environment. So what’s the new and improved version of existing buildings?

Simple analysis might suggest that old buildings can’t function as well as new ones, or be as sustain-able. While many existing buildings are well-man-aged and fully occupied, some of them, especially those of the 1970s and 1980s, are perceived as ugly. Others are simply experiencing a mid-life crisis, being abandoned for newer alternatives – and the question of what to do next is top of mind, for the owners, the investors and the tenants.

As environmental sustainability rises to the fore-front of virtually every corporation, we are remind-ed of the 40 per cent contribution of buildings, both in terms of operational energy use, carbon generation and embodied energy in the materials. The opportunity to enhance the performance of existing buildings represents “low-hanging fruit.”

The alternative to replacing aging buildings is to reimagine them. Leveraging the expertise of architects, engineers and builders, we can renovate existing buildings to benefit tenants, owners and managers alike. We call this process reimagine, since the technique goes well beyond traditional renova-tion solutions.

There are three pillars to the reimagine strategy:Enhanced urban design. The appearance of existing buildings can be dramatically improved by making modifications to the building facade and glazing.Improved energy efficiency. Energy use can be reduced by improving the building envelope, as well as the passive and active building control sys-tems. This results in smaller mechanical and electri-cal systems, and improved occupant comfort.Re-energized office interiors. Office space in existing buildings can be made as attractive as space in new buildings by bringing in fresh air, increased natural light and healthier materials. And the reimag-ine process can, if well handled, be completed with minimal disruption to existing tenants.

As this conversation about renovation and recap-italization develops, Reimagine pulls in some of the brightest lights in the real estate, construction and architectural and green building worlds to illuminate the impending questions that an aging building stock raises, and explore ideas about how we can address these questions.

This beginning of this conversation is captured in the pages of this inaugural issue.

We hope that you find the case for the reimag-ine approach compelling and its strategies (some of which are incredibly simple) workable. I look for-ward to hearing your comments, which will inform upcoming issues.

Thank you for joining this conversation! reSincerely,

Vivian ManascEditor-In-Chief

WELCOME BACK TO THE FUTURE

reimagination

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[email protected]

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reframetrends, innovations and ideas

SUSTAINING SOCHI

Say what you will about the Sochi 2014 Winter Games and the free-for-all Russian spending to host them, but one display was certainly medal-worthy for its efforts to reuse and reimagine existing materials.

Made entirely of primary-coloured shipping containers from around Russia stacked like bricks, the Samsung-sponsored pavilion, Galaxy Studios, was a standout performer at Sochi. What’s more, the structures will continue their “upcycled” life post-Olympics, when they are moved to school sites in Russia.

Complete with full-size windows on the main floor to let in natural light,

the containers for the Samsung head base were staggered to create entry doors to the pavilion. Inside, some posed as information booths, while others made ideal stages to showcase Samsung presentations.

Samsung had previously reimagined a shipping container at a school in Phomolong, South Africa. Also solar-powered, the building nets as much as nine hours of electricity a day from a series of photovoltaic panels on its roof, to power the school’s Internet lab for 21 students. Of course, the lab is equipped with Samsung Galaxy tablets.

PHOTO BLOGS.PARIS.FR

Samsung’s display at the Sochi Winter Olympics was sea worthy

Reimagined shipping containers make a

temporary structure come together quickly

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TIMELINE OF SUSTAINABLE BUILDING

>

April 1970 First Earth Day is held

1973 OPEC oil embargo and energy crisis gives way to burgeoning environmental movement

1987 UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development defines Sustainable Development

1990s New building approaches start to emerge, including C-2000 and R-2000 construction

1992 Rio de Janeiro hosts the first Earth Summit, where parties agree on the Climate Change Convention (the predecessor to the Kyoto Protocol)

1992 When he takes power, U.S. President Bill Clinton floats the idea of “greening the White House”

1993 Union Internationale de Architects sign “Declaration of Independence for a Sustainable Future”

1993 Industry and other stakeholders form the U.S. Green Building Council

2010 The REALpac 2010 Energy Benchmarking Report: Performance of the Canadian Office Sector includes the results of the first annual REALpac Energy Benchmarking Survey

2011 Cumulative square-footage of LEED-certified existing buildings surpassed LEED-certified new construction for the first time. Since the U.S. is home to more than 60 billion square-feet of existing commercial buildings, this trend serves as a promising indicator of progress

2012 The Servus Credit Union’s reimagined building receives LEED Silver certification

2013 U.S. Green Building council celebrates 20 years of success with the launch of LEED V4

2014 CaGBC launches LEED V4 in Canada

1995 The iconic town in the Rockies builds The Banff Town Hall – the first C-2000 building in Alberta

1997 First Alberta Sustainable Building Symposium is held

2000 LEED arrives. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a ratings system for designing, constructing and certifying green buildings

2003 Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC) is formed and LEED Canada is created

2005 St. John Ambulance in Edmonton becomes the first LEED Silver project in Alberta

2000s LEED starts to go beyond new construction into retrofits

2000s Cities adopt LEED policy; market demand for accountability increases; people pay attention to climate change in increasing numbers

2009 LEED (U.S.) system updates to LEED v3. It encompasses nine rating systems for the design, construction and operation of buildings, homes and neighbourhoods

2009 CaGBC creates the LEED EB: O&M certification system for existing buildings


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REUSE IT OR LOSE IT

BUILDING NEW IS NOT ALWAYS THE BEST OPTION. A recent study, The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse, concludes that “Building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction.”

Using an internationally recognized life cycle analysis methodology over a 75-year lifespan, the study determined it can take between 10 and 80 years (dependent on building type) for a new, energy-efficient building to overcome the negative climate change impacts created during the new construction process.

The 2011 study, by National Trust for Historic Preservation, also indicates that building retrofits have considerable impact in areas where coal is the dominant energy source and extreme climate variation is experienced.

One can only speculate about the tremendous impact a well-planned and integrated, retrofit would have in a Canadian city such as Calgary, Edmonton or, to a lesser degree, Toronto (where energy use from existing commercial buildings accounts for approximately 40 per cent of consumption).

This study and others like it make strong data-based arguments to support the need to retrofit our existing building stock – not “just to save the planet,” but from a bottom-line perspective required by building owners who are beginning to understand that brown discounts are going to be the penalty within markets where green is becoming mainstream.

Building new comes at a higher cost than many might think

1/3 OF ALL WASTE RESULTS FROM

CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION

ACTIVITIES

1/3 OF ENERGY AND MATERIAL RESOURCES ARE

CONSUMED IN THE BUILDING SECTOR

1/3 OF ALL CO2 EMISSIONS ARE GENERATED BY

BUILDINGS

Source: UNEP Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch

To read the full Greenest Building study by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, visit ILBI.ORG/EDUCATION/REPORTS/GREENEST_BUILDING and click on Full Report.


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TIMELY TOMERetrofitting an outdated, underperforming

building is one thing, but what about

reimagining an entire city?

That’s the premise behind John Gallagher’s

Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for

Redefining an American City (2010, Wayne

State University Press).

Gallagher, a Detroit Free Press reporter,

visited countless up-and-coming community

projects and took many of the photos that

accompany the text. He wanted to uncover

some of the strategies residents of Motor City

were using to recreate their home. And he

wanted to discover how they could build on

the work to make Detroit a more sustainable,

desirable place to live after its fall.

Anywhere from a quarter to a third

of Detroit lies vacant, creating a big city

Source: Cities and Buildings: UNEP Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch

“ Buildings are key to establishing sustainable development patterns, since the sector consumes • 40% of the annual energy consumption, • 20% of the annual water usage, and • generates up to 30% of all energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.”

landscape quite unlike any other in North

America. Gallagher, who has covered urban

redevelopment in Detroit for 20 years,

spent a year on research before penning the

tome. The book showcases innovative work

happening to reclaim the urban landscape

instead of becoming another retelling of

Detroit’s well-profiled decline.

In addition to delving into subjects from

urban agriculture to restoring vacant lots,

to moving toward a more entrepreneurial

economy, the 176-page paperback showcases

some of the innovative projects already on the

go toward rebuilding Detroit. Gallagher also

points to possible role models for restoring

the city in reimagine projects from across

the globe, including Seoul, South Korea and

Dresden, Germany.

energy consumption

water usage

greenhouse gas emissions

40%

20%

30%

>


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reframe

WHILE NATHALIE KOSCIUSKO-MORIZET MAY HAVE COME SECOND IN THE PARISIAN MAYORAL RACE EARLIER THIS YEAR, SHE PUT UP UN VAILLANT EFFORT TO BECOME THE FRENCH CAPITAL CITY’S FIRST FEMALE MAYOR, IN THE END LOSING TO ANNE HIDALGO OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY.

Also France’s former minister of transport, among Kosciusko-Morizet’s pledges was to reimagine Paris’ abandoned subway stations, with the help of French architectural firms Laisné Architecte and OXO architectes. Reimagined concepts for several of the abandoned or unused subterranean spaces include lux eateries, theatres, swimming pools, night clubs, and even an underground garden.

The Paris subway, the sixth-largest in the world, transports 1.5 billion passengers annually over its 212 kilometres of tracks. At least a dozen of its stations sit ghostlike, closed during the Second World War or which never opened in the first place because they were too close to others. The stations in question are well positioned for downtown Parisian life, being close to the Bastille and the Eiffel Tower.

The French mayoral candidate said during her election campaign that, if elected, she would take to the Parisian streets, so to speak, to elicit citizen feedback on how to best repurpose the abandoned stations.

In an interview with Elle.fr, Kosciusko-Morizet said she viewed the Paris metro as a place to connect with Parisians at large on an ongoing and regular basis.

PARIS REINVENTÉ

To see more renderings of the reimagined stations, visit OXOARCH.COM/FRONT/PROJECT/STATIONS-FANTOMES-A-PARIS

This may result in better comfort for occupants, premium rent, tenant satisfaction and lower turnover.

20% of our yearly global emissions come

from buildings. This includes electricity.

Retrofits aimed at building efficiency

result in up to

35% better use of energy.

RENDERINGS OXOARCH.COM


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ANOTHER BIO BRICK IN THE WALL

TAKE 10Top reasons to reimagine buildings

PERFORMANCE AND APPEARANCE: There are opportunities to dramatically improve building performance and appearance – only 10 per cent of the reimagine projects we have seen so far go as far as they could.

FOUR FACADES: If all the facades of a reimagined building look the same, it’s likely you could do better. Shading the south side and varying the type of glass from south to north exposures can improve both appearance and performance.

STAYING POWER: You only get to reimagine a building once – so make it count! If you’re going to all the trouble to replace the skin, get the most value from it that you can. How? By rapidly exploring lots of options.

SHRINKING PLANTS: Airtight and well-insulated building envelopes can reduce the mechanical heating and cooling loads by as much as 30 per cent. That means smaller heating and cooling equipment as well as a reduction in energy use.

INTEGRATED BENEFITS: If the skin is replaced at the same time that the HVAC system is upgraded, there are significant capital cost savings.

FRESH AIR: Re-skinning offers the opportunity to add windows that open. Operable windows create better occupant comfort.

FUTURE-PROOFING: By adding operable windows, you reduce the risk of evacuation in a power outage. Preparing for the future can help you to save down the road.

MEDAL MATERIAL: Like athletes, outstanding buildings that perform well and look great earn medals – LEED, Governor General’s Awards, industry awards and others.

CARBON FOOTPRINT: Re-skinned buildings can contribute to zero-carbon building operations, if designed with high-performance building envelopes.

VALUE ADDED: Reimagined buildings are worth more and command higher rents that their competitors, which is critically important when competing with newer towers.

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RENDERING DEZEEN.COM

There’s a tower on the horizon that is about to make New York even livelier this summer.

The Living’s Hy-Fi was the winner of a contest for young architects’ art at the Museum of Modern Art’s PS1 Gallery. It will act as a showcase during the summer music series at MoMA – and you could say it was the natural choice. Made of agricultural by-products and the branching, thread-like part of fungus called mycelium,

the “bio-brick” structure will be a temporary fixture outside the museum beginning in June. It comprises twisting towers that are 100 per cent compostable and organic.

According to a press release from MoMA, “the structure temporarily diverts the natural carbon cycle to pro-duce a building that grows out of noth-ing but earth and returns to nothing but earth – with almost no waste, no energy needs, and no carbon emissions.” re


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leading edge

reimagine

ike Research pre-dicts that the global market for building retrofits will nearly

double between the years 2014 and 2023. New York City, in particular, is a hotbed of retro-fit activity. The Empire State Building made the news in 2009 when its renovation strategy was widely applauded not only for restoring the building’s original lustre, but also for integrating modern sustainability upgrades.

One mile away from the Empire State Building, architectural firm REX is coordinating a $200-million transformation of another Manhattan landmark, owned by Brookfield Office Prop-erties: 450 West 33rd Street. This landmark will be reborn as Five Manhattan West, fully integrating into Brookfield’s larger $4.5-billion Manhattan West development.

Originally designed by architectural firm Davis Brody (now Davis Brody Bond) and constructed in 1969, 450 West 33rd Street is a striking example of brutalist architecture. The precast concrete cladding with integrated windows is typical of its time, boasting what REX terms “hard beauty.”

The building was subject-ed to some aesthetic modi-fications in the 1980s, when

its exterior components were painted beige or covered over by brown metal siding. These uncomplimentary changes earned the building the not-so-affectionately nickname of The Tyrell Building, after the headquar-ters in the dystopian sci-fi film Blade Runner. Surrounded by newer developments on each side, the building was in dire need of both aesthetic and efficiency upgrades in order to

compete for the city’s “Class A” tenants.

The building’s 140,000 square metres of interior space required a facelift as well. Although it boasts exception-ally large floor plates (ranging between 8,000 and 11,500 square metres), not all of the space is leasable under modern building standards due to the structure’s distinctive geometry.

Most of the building’s perimeter walls were designed

in 1969 and sloped at an angle of 20 degrees, which meant that the minimum height for accessible paths of travel did not reach the mandated two-metre mark. Although the obvious solution was to make each floor’s windows vertical, this posed problems; snow, ice and guano would accumulate on these steps.

In the end, REX’s solu-tion was to pleat the building’s new facade, which addresses

By Kent McKay

BEAUTIFYING BRUTALIST

P

The New York City skyline is slated for a $200-million facelift with Five Manhattan West

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“�The�building’s�unique�mix�of�high�ceilings�and�large,�open�floor�plates��are�especially�attractive�to�companies�seeking�this�type�of�collaborative,��loft-like�space.”��-��Dennis�Friedrich,�CEO�of

��Brookfield�Office�Properties

and mitigates myriad challenges related to code, comfort and sustainability.

First, the new pleated facade treat-ment maximizes floor plates and meets the New York building code, reclaim-ing space that was otherwise unleas-able, yielding immediate financial ben-efits to Brookfield Office Properties. In fact, this innovation transformed a major design and leasing challenge into a net positive for the commercial real estate corporation.

“Manhattan West is a vital mixed-use real estate development and the redeveloped 450 West 33rd Street gives the urban campus even greater depth and diversity,” says Dennis Friedrich, chief executive officer of Brookfield Office Properties. “The building’s unique mix of high ceilings and large, open floor plates are especially attrac-tive to companies seeking this type of collaborative, loft-like space.”

Further savings were achieved by precisely angling the under-slung panes of the facade so that they do not qualify as skylights, which are far more expensive, requiring safety laminated glazing. This design choice marks a sustainable strategy for Five Manhattan West. Even though the pleated facade increased glass surface area, the insulation value of the new glazing assembling is higher than before, meaning there has been no reduction in energy performance or insulation value for the building.

Also, the new facade treatment improves tenant comfort within the space. The over-slung panes of glass

are partially opaque, reducing the amount of glare and solar heat gain for occupants near the windows. At the same time, the design allows additional natural light to pour into the space, enhancing the tenant experience and providing more of the occupants with access to daylight. The incredibly trans-parent and open interior spaces help to open the massive floor plates of the building. Finally, upgrades will be per-formed to the building’s lobby, elevator cores and building services, aligning with the needs of upscale offices.

The building’s improved aesthetic will integrate with the rest of Brook-field’s Manhattan West development. REX describes the shape as suggesting a “shimmering cascade” or “a beckon-ing lighthouse Fresnel lens that reflects the sky.” Either way, Five Manhattan West’s rebirth marks a dramatic urban design improvement.

The building’s triple bottom line results confirm the feasibility of trans-forming aging building stock into leasable assets.

With a projected completion date of 2016, this renovation will mark Five Manhattan West as a beacon of progress in West Chelsea, and make the financial and environmental case for innovative building retrofits. Today, Canadian cities with a glut of brutalist structures from the same era as Five Manhattan West are facing the ques-tion of either retrofit or demolition. Reimagining existing buildings proves to be both an economically and envi-ronmentally better choice. re

IMAGES COURTESY REX

The�building’s�perimeter�walls�were�pleated,�to�mitigate�earlier�issues�with�snow,�ice,�and�guano.�

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reimagine

14IMAGES COURTESY WIKICOMMONS / DANIEL SCHWEN

ost North American cities are populated with skyscrapers

and buildings that were built post-war, during periods of remarkable building booms. Many of these buildings are now landmarks due to their design, height – or in some cases, their tenants. Now many of these modern era landmarks are reaching a time that requires reimagination and reinvestment. Two examples for remarkable transformation of these landmarks include Chicago’s Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) and Toronto’s First Canadian Place, housing the Bank of Montreal. Both built in the 1970s, these two landmarks have set the standard for a total building retrofit while maintaining their iconic and landmark status.

The Willis Tower was constructed in three years beginning in 1970 and was a signature modern design by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Rising to 110 storeys, it was the tallest building in the western hemisphere, only recently being surpassed by the Freedom Tower in New York. It remains the eighth-

tallest building in the world. The amount of energy

and material it took to realize this status is staggering. There is enough concrete in the Willis Tower to make an eight-lane highway that is eight kilometres long. In fact, most modern-era buildings enjoyed the use of very fine materials. The Willis Tower, for example, used travertine in lobby walls, granite flooring and stainless steel trim.

In 2009, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture completed a wholesale building renovation of the Willis Tower. This transformation demonstrated that through integrated, architectural design, a far more energy-efficient and desirable tower could emerge. Some of the efficiency improvements included lighting upgrades and retrofits to controls. Improvements to the mechanical system, using cogeneration with gas-fired boilers, high efficiency chillers and upgrades to the distribution system, yielded greater strides in efficiency. New fixtures in all washrooms and kitchens provided conservation of 10 million gallons of water annually.

Some environmental

M

By Shafraaz Kaba

Retrofit landmarks from the 1970s need not lose their iconic status

MODERN LOVE

what’s trending

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impacts were based on how tenants would interact – such as providing bike-to-work facilities and fuel-efficient car incentives. One of the most interesting is a green roof prototype installed on the terrace of the 90th floor. If the building proceeds with a glazing retrofit for its 16,000 single-pane windows, it will save a remarkable 50 per cent in heating energy.

In Toronto, First Canadian Place – the tallest building in the British Commonwealth – has realized a similarly remarkable transformation since its completion in 1975. Designed by Edward Durrell

Stone with B+H Architects, it originally had an exterior composed of 45,000 panels of white Carrera marble. Unfortunately, these panels were not able to withstand years of freeze-thaw action and acidic rain in Toronto’s variable climate. When the panels began to fall off, a major building retrofit in 2009 replaced the exterior skin with a glass system that was sympathetic to its classic modern appearance. This new glass skin improved insulation as well as preventing undesirable heat gain, and helped with the bulk of the 27 per cent energy savings after retrofit.

“In the last four years, we dropped demand from 17.5 megawatts to roughly 13 megawatts. Aside from the considerable savings, we’ve also improved tenant comfort,” says Fernando Dias, senior operations manager at First Canadian Place.

In addition to the remarkable recladding of the building, new chillers, ventilation strategies, lighting reductions, and re-commissioning helped achieved a far more effective and efficient building. A unique energy efficiency measure was a tenant review of the building’s sub-metering

data that helped the owner and its tenant create energy reduction strategies. In fact, the recommissioning and fine-tuning of control systems played an extremely important part of the energy reduction strategy and didn’t cost a great deal of money. (For more on First Canadian Place, see the feature on page 36.)

Michael Brooks, CEO of the Real Property Association of Canada (REALpac), says as much as 50 per cent in energy savings can be realized in existing buildings. It is readily apparent with projects like the Willis Tower’s reimagining that this estimate has weight.

Imagine that most of our skyscrapers and office buildings built since the 1940s have not had much in the way of insulation, effective glass and exterior window framing, efficient mechanical or electrical systems. With reimagining buildings – by re-skinning and undertaking mechanical and electrical retrofits – we must consider how much potential there is for reducing our energy consumption while retaining the landmark buildings that define our cities. It is becoming a necessity rather than a choice. re

The Willis Tower was renovated over a period of three years from 2009 to 2012.


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material world

By Peter Dushenski

New composites strengthen a case for renovations using curtain wall systems

BEHIND THE GLASS

hether foreseen or not, commercial building operators rise to new challenges every day, but ultimately the

consequences of the decisions made during the building’s design process are very real and have lasting effects.

From the angle of a building’s roof to the orientation of its windows, design decisions made today can have long-lasting impacts. This means that the best design must also be flexible, adaptable and easy to maintain in the long run. More than just being attractive, design has to imagine a multitude of future uses.

When a team sets out to design a new building or renovate an existing one, it can be tempting to rely on only the most tried and true ideas; those that served well in the past. Of course, if this were strictly true, it’s possible that we’d still be building with sticks and mud – in which case renovating would be as complicated as adding water to dirt. Clearly, technology has taken building design and redesign far past this point of no return.

Designing better buildings means taking some calculated risks and entering uncharted territory. But this can come at a cost. If the product fails, it can always be replaced; but architects, designers and project managers have only one reputation – one that’s always hard-earned.

Enter curtain wall: the preferred building envelope of modern and contemporary architects and one of the most revolutionary design elements of the past century. Curtain walls, distinguished by an all-glass appearance and composed of little more than a frame and a glazing (glass) element, were ground breaking when they first appeared in Mies van der Rohe’s and Le Corbusier’s designs in the 1920s. And they’ve never been more popular, thanks to their striking exterior appearance and the volume of daylight that they allow in a building. Curtain walls are now integral parts of contemporary and modern design aesthetics.

Since the 1920s, curtain wall technology has evolved incrementally. Early systems were a sight to behold, but their thermal performance was always their weakness. When single-paned glass was the norm, the curtain wall systems had little insulating capacity. But, as window technology improved to incorporate double- and triple-paned glass, thermal performance has improved dramatically and energy waste has greatly decreased. Still, compared to an insulated wall, some curtain wall products bleed their fair share of energy, so the race is on to improve their performance.

As triple-paned glass use is becoming more common in buildings, we’re finding that the curtain wall frame surrounding the glass, typically aluminum, is the next hurdle to achieving more energy efficient building envelopes.

Over the years, to address the curtain wall’s frame shortcomings, composite or rubber “thermal breaks” have been added to aluminum components. These solutions were never more than a

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Band-Aid, as aluminum conducts energy so well that it ultimately lets much of a building’s energy escape. Additionally, aluminum stresses the seals between the glass and frame with constant expansion and contraction, eventually leading to air and water infiltration and further maintenance costs.

In the next few years we’ll need alternatives. With new, more energy efficient building codes coming into effect across North America, higher-performance building envelopes will be mandatory. Additionally, 2015 will also see the implementation of LEED v4, a challenging overhaul of the gold standard for sustainable buildings.

Overall, energy efficient buildings are becoming not so much an option, but an expectation. Maintaining aluminum curtain walls with all their shortcomings has suddenly become a tough pill to swallow. For 50-plus years, the lightweight metal has been the de facto choice for curtain wall frames and quite simply, there haven’t been other options. Until now.

New products like GlasCurtain, a fiberglass composite curtain wall frame, provide a solution. Since composites absorb rather than conduct energy, they give building envelopes better thermal performance and building operators lower utility bills from the start.

Meanwhile, occupants enjoy a building material that’s warmer to the touch and one which creates a more comfortable living space.

Down the road, the reduced contraction and expansion of fibreglass in response to changing seasons and weather makes it far more durable than its aluminum counterparts. Those who’ve maintained older aluminum curtain wall systems know that the seals connecting the glazing and frame will eventually fail, leaking air and water. Air infiltration leads to drafty buildings which have difficulty keeping in cool air in the summer and warm air in the winter. Ultimately, broken window seals put additional strain on energy intensive HVAC systems, increasing utility costs even further. Eventually, to stem the bleeding energy bills, the window seals are replaced at a significant capital cost.

On the cost side, we’re starting to see commodity prices take off, pricing many products and materials, particularly metals, out of renovation projects. Thankfully, replacement products made out of composite materials can be not only more cost-effective up front, but they also offer long-term material advantages and performance improvements.

The market conditions and the regulatory environment have never been more demanding than they are today. To stay ahead of the curve, it’s crucial to imagine all of the possibilities and think creatively about how to best use our buildings. It is becoming increasingly clear that GlasCurtain is one option to do just that. re

PHOTOS COURTESY GARTH CRUMP

This first full-scale installation allows the perfomance to be monitored through Edmonton’s cold winters.

GlasCurtain fibreglass composite framing has similar propeties to window glazing, but doesn’t expand and contract as much.


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ask an architect

reimagine

Excellent building retrofits span the globe from Brussels to Seoul

Where have you seen buildings being reimagined?There are interesting reimagined buildings all over the world. I saw a few examples on a recent trip to Seoul, South Korea. Also, in Brussels there are innovative examples, and in Vienna there were two reimagine projects under construction when I was last there – one for OPEC and one for the Austrian Finance Ministry.

There are some really good illustrations in the U.S., many of them 1970s buildings similar to the precast concrete clad office towers so common in Alberta. The Edith Green – Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland, Oregon, is one we will talk more about in an upcoming issue. Across the U.S., from the Empire State Building to the Peter W. Rodino Federal Office Building in New York, there are examples that lead the way – cost-effective and environmentally sensible strategies to extend the life of existing assets by another 50 to 100 years.

What is integrated design?Integrated design is a process of design in which architectural and engineering disciplines, as well as owners

and builders, are integrated into the design process to allow the project to realize synergistic benefits.

The goal is to achieve high performance and multiple benefits at a lower cost than the total for all the components combined. This process integrates green design goals and objectives into conventional design criteria for building appearance, function, performance and cost, improving environmental performance while reducing point-chasing.

A key to successful integrated building design is in-the-room participation of people from different disciplines of design: architecture; mechanical engineering; lighting and electrical engineering; cost consulting; interior design; and landscape architecture. To make this effective, a good facilitator is needed to keep the conversation moving and to cover the key issues.

By working together at multiple key points in the design process, the client team, the contractors and the trades people – these participants can often identify highly attractive solutions at conventional building costs.

Integrated building design strategies are considered for

Reimagine magazine sat down with Vivian Manasc, principal architect at Manasc Isaac, to talk about reimagine projects and integrated design.

THE ROOTS OF REIMAGINE

PHOTO RYAN GIRARD

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The Austrian Finance Ministry’s building, located between Johannesgasse and Himmelspfortgasse in Vienna, has undergone two reimaginings, one between 1967 and 1973, and the most recent in the past six years.

all aspects of reimagining existing buildings, and can integrate frameworks such as LEED Existing Buildings: Operations & Managment (EB: O&M), safeguarding water, creating healthy indoor environments, and using environmentally preferable materials.

What are the fundamental elements in integrated design?There are three key elements that we have learned impact effective integrated design:

Smart Start. It’s critical to define success at the start, and to define the key stakeholders and their expectations. When we include our full team at this stage, we gain energy and buy-in into the project, and achieve outstanding sustainable results.

Continuity. This relates to the transition from start to finish. Creating continuity in the design process results in successful sustainable buildings. Keeping continuity, starting from programming, through detailed design construction documents, and onto construction ensures you of integrated design’s value.

Simulation. Design visualization, when done quickly and in the room helps the team to build a shared understanding of the project. Energy and daylight models help to simulate building performance. In an integrated design approach, the

mechanical or energy engineer calculates energy use and cost very early in the design, informing designers of the energy use implications of building envelope alternatives, glazing changes, mechanical systems and lighting options. Significant savings can be identified, right at the start of the design process.

Integrated design is an innovative design process that results in lower operational costs and increased efficiency at lower capital costs than traditional design processes. The integrated design process is also known for the quality of its value analysis. From the first design meeting, it helps to establish cost and value parameters for the project. The team should be conversant with current market conditions. At each stage of design, an integrated design team prepares clear illustrations and a detailed opinion of probable cost, for each stage of the project.

So, that explains what integrated design is, but how do you make that happen? What are the steps? We’ll answer that in the next issue of Reimagine magazine! Stay tuned. re

The Big PictureFor more information on integrated design, see the Whole

Building Design Guide of the National Institute of Building Sciences:

www.wbdg.org/design/engage_process.php

PHOTO VIVIAN MANASC

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WHAT’S OLD IS NEW AGAINProponents of reimagining agree holistic retrofitting is a better but often overlooked option for aging and underperforming buildings

By Omar Mouallem

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Shortly after the baby boom came the office-building boom. In cities across the country, developers and planners cleared their cores for low-rise and highrise buildings that would fill up and drain out with white collar workers as the sun rose and set.

By Omar Mouallem

Further accelerated by the oil rush, Edmonton and Calgary’s towers went up so fast there was little regard for heritage or energy conservation. But, then again, that was the zeitgeist before the oil crises of the 1970s.

Today the commercial and institutional sector that inhabits many of those structures makes up 13 per cent of energy use in Canada, and the build-ings themselves are d’un certain âge. Yet another oil rush has brought rapid growth to Alberta and office-building owners now face the same question their predecessors had. Should they preserve what they have, knowing full well they’re underperform-ing, or destroy and rebuild?

There’s a third possible fate for such a building, too, though it’s often overlooked. It can be reimag-ined; that is, re-outfitted with an attractive facade, energy-efficient envelopes, mechanical system upgrades and other redesigns that make it more comfortable and more inviting for its tenants and passersby. And though a holistic rehabilitation can sometimes cost just as much as new construction, more property owners are realizing the long-term benefits to their pocketbooks, tenants and planet. >


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Randy Ferguson, chief operation officer of Strategic Group, is one of them. When Strategic purchased the Hillsboro Tower in Calgary’s Mission District in 2011, the 30-year-old eyesore looked like a “dilapidated strip mall,” he says. The retail on the lower level had a brown and beige facade, pointed gables reminiscent of a suburban garage and a cluttered walkway. The parkade above was opaquely fenced and adorned with a large and gaudy damask print. “It was dated and it didn’t present itself well to the street,” he says, “but it had tremendous potential.”

Upper-end retailers and restaurants were cropping up in the surrounding spaces and the Calgary-based company wanted a piece of the action. Ferguson approached Manasc Isaac Architects, with whom he’d worked before joining Strategic Group in 2012, and soon the architects and engineers from the Alberta firm had a feasibility study to reimagine it.

Luckily for Strategic Group, 1800 4 Street SW, which has since been renamed “1800,” required a minor makeover compared to some of its other 72 operating assets across Calgary, Edmonton and Surrey. So now, two years since the feasibility study for the tower, drivers and passersby see a bright and steely facade, a lauded high-end French bistro and open walk-ways. A bright green band streaks across 1800’s rounded upper-body and spikes like a vital sign. Indeed, it got a second life.

At the time that Vivian Manasc, senior principal of Manasc Isaac, was studying architecture at McGill University, the world had just experienced the 1973 OPEC embar-go and witnessed the price of oil quadruple overnight. “It influenced what we discussed in school,” she says. “There was a lot of conscious-

ness to energy conservation.” As climate change became the crisis of her generation, the con-versation only got louder, and the need to do something about these energy-sucking office buildings got more urgent.

Early in her career, the Edmonton architect made environmentally friendly design a signa-ture of her work. In 2002, she co-founded the Canada Green Building Council and became a LEED-accredited professional, that is, someone knowledgeable about green building technolo-gies, best practices and the ever-evolving Lead-ership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system. Over the years, she has been impressed by how the international brand has enabled a discussion about sustainability.

“People think it’s a rating system but it’s actually a language,” she says. “You can write the National Enquirer with that language or you can write Shakespeare. It doesn’t determine how well it’s being used. It’s a means of communication.”

Manasc Isaac had been designing new as well as reinvigorating existing buildings to be high-performing for 30 years, but it recognized that without a name the conversations around the work lacked consistency. Manasc Isaac’s holistic transformations, as well as those being done around the world by like-minded firms, were more than a retrofit, repurposing, renova-tion or re-skinning.

Five years ago, the team decided to coin the term: reimagine. The lower-case “r” was an invitation and challenge for the real estate industry to use it too. “As architects, we have the opportunity to influence, and an obligation to do the right thing around everything we design, everything we touch,” says Manasc. “We often talk about how great it is to design sustainable buildings – and that’s great, that’s nice, but for every new building that one designs, there are a hundred or a thousand old buildings.”

Of course, the responsibility doesn’t solely lie with architects. Property owners must raise their standards, tenants must want to associate themselves with environmental practices and governments must enable it with building codes or financial incentives – or both, as the City of Toronto did. Since the 1996 Better Buildings Partnership initiative to reduce CO

2 emissions

was implemented, that city has invested $711 million into reimagining more than 2,000 build-

Some reimagine projects include:Servus Corporate Centre (interior shown at bottom)Slave Lake Government CentreEPCOR 1931 Heritage BuildingFirst Canadian Place


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Isaac’s very own reimagined office) have helped building owners achieve higher green standards, but there are some basics too. Windows that open, for example, are sadly rare in office buildings despite the comfort workers get from being able to connect to the outside. Another is clear glass that lets in the sun for better daylight and psychological comfort.

Fixtures aside, a big focus for reimagining is better insulating the building envelope, which Manasc describes as its coat. “Build-ings are a lot like people,” she says. “If you go outside in the cold, your body can only generate so much heat. There’s a couple of ways to solve that problem, the least expensive being putting on a warmer coat.” You could add a bigger boiler – the building equiv-alent to energy bar – but that only works if energy is cheap or free, which it rarely is. “If your mechanical systems are at the end of their lives and you have to replace them anyway, the old way was to buy a new boiler. The reimagined way is to improve the envelope and do with a much smaller boiler.”

Though the conscientiousness of the real estate industry has come a long way, it’s still got far to go. “The biggest challenges are indifference and the attitude that high energy use is just the cost of keeping the doors open,” says Bob Hawkesworth. The former Calgary alderman and Municipal Climate Change Action Centre coordinator helped implement the first government green building policy for the City of Calgary. The sense of pride the community gets out of this, he says, is another overlooked benefit.

Although there’s a patchwork of energy-saving incentive pro-grams across Canada, most exist at the municipal and provincial level. REALpac would like to see the federal government do more. “There’s old building stock in every city in Canada,” he says.

Without such incentives and language to lead the conversation around sustainable building, developers might still think that tear-ing things down and building is the cheaper option. “If you don’t think about it the right way,” says Manasc, “you might come to the erroneous conclusion that you need to tear it down.”

She adds, “The greenest building in the world is one that al-ready exists.” re

ings and 500 million square feet of office space. In total, industry watchers estimate that the city has collectively cut CO

2 emissions by 560,000

tonnes – or the equivalent of pulling 73,684 cars off the road for a year.

Though the market is transforming more slowly than Michael Brooks, CEO of the Real Property Association of Canada (REALpac), wishes, he says the national trend is moving to-ward sustainable design. “Most big office tenant firms want to be associated with sustainability and are accordingly asking their landlords to green the buildings they occupy – or they’re moving,” he says. However, the focus is largely on new construction, and existing buildings risk falling behind.

For too many building owners, there’s little pressure to upgrade because tenants often pay the energy cost and, as Brooks puts it, “If the tenant is not complaining and the building is full, why would a landlord bother?” But as Strategic Group and other Manasc Isaac clients know full well, there are many reasons that go beyond increasing the market value. “The evi-dence just gets stronger every year that sustain-able and green buildings are worth more, lease up quicker – and for higher net rents.”

When a feasibility study is calledfor, as it was for 1800, Manasc Isaac brings a technical team to the building and parks itself there, sometimes for a whole week, to examine all its conditions and aspects, from engineering to zoning. Whether it was the Edmonton Pub-lic Library’s flagship location or an empty re-mand centre, “We’ll set ourselves up – a folding table in a big empty hallway works – and we’ll start to work through the options,” says Manasc. “We’ll funnel it down to four or five conceiv-able scenarios and we show them the must-do, should-do and nice-to-do investing.”

The Strategic Group building is just the first of many properties in its holdings about to be reimagined. “Before, if you thought about doing that on an existing building, there was no chance at all you could make economic sense out of it,” says Ferguson, who has worked in real estate for 38 years. “When I look back just two decades ago, it’s like looking into the dark ages. Technology has moved us forward very quickly.”

It’s true that LED lights and solar-panelled sunshades (like those at Manasc

“ The evidence just gets stronger every year that sustainable and green buildings are worth more, lease up quicker – and for higher net rents.” - Michael Brooks, CEO of REALpac


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Vivian Manasc: What interest do you see in sustainable buildings?Gary Whitelaw: For different categories of buildings, we see varying levels of interest. Overall, I would say that sustainability in the real estate portfolio is going from “nice to necessary,” both because of tenant demand and due to owner preference. This is especially true in CBD office buildings and top-quality retail, though we see the value in sustainable buildings across all categories in part due to their need to be efficient and more resilient in extreme weather.

VM: What are the factors driving that trend you mentioned, from “nice to necessary”?GW: Many of our clients who are big public sector pen-sion funds report on triple bottom line. Bentall Kennedy is a member of UN’s Principles of Responsible Investment and is a recognized global leader in responsible property investing. Every year this is more and more important to our clients. Pension funds and other institutional investors are beginning to link financial performance and sustainabil-ity. Take Sun Life, for example. In 2012, Sun Life received seven commendations at the national, North American and global levels for ongoing sustainability initiatives.

VM: What are tenants asking for?GW: When we get requests for proposals from the For-tune 500 companies – there is almost always a sustain-ability component – most are expecting to lease space in LEED Silver or Gold base buildings. Those tenants look-ing for big blocks of space in an existing building want to see a recognizable benchmark such as LEED EB (Existing Buildings) or BOMA BESt (Building Environmental Standards). This has typically become necessary for larger tenants and is increasingly being appreciated by smaller tenants as well.

VM: How do you look at existing buildings and the opportunities to retrofit them?GW: We have long-term plans for existing buildings, which includes expected lifecycles and replacement costs of major building components. This helps us to think ahead and protects against building obsolescence. To complement this process each building has a third-party energy audit conducted and all significant energy savings opportunities are considered. This analysis occurs in a pro-prietary tool we’ve developed called Eco Tracker, which prices the capital costs and energy savings and informs investment decisions. Eco Tracker is used throughout

Talking the

TALKGary Whitelaw is CEO of the Bentall Kennedy group of companies, which employs more than 1,300 people throughout Canada and the U.S. In this role, Whitelaw manages upwards of $32 billion in property assets on behalf of more than 500 clients across 140 million

square feet of office, retail, industrial and residential properties throughout North America.

Gary joined Bentall in 1998 as president and chief executive officer of Bentall’s Investment Management group (formerly called Penreal Capital Management) and has led the company through 15 years of growth and change. Gary sits on the boards of all Bentall Kennedy entities and client funds, and is responsible for the performance and governance of all operating and investment groups.

Prior to joining Bentall Kennedy, Gary held progressively more senior executive positions in several public and private real estate operating, investment and development companies active in Canada and the U.S. He also practiced as an architect for several years at the onset of his career.

Gary holds a degree in architecture from McGill University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He currently sits on the boards of Delta Hotels and Resorts, Ltd. and Silverbirch Hotels. He is also past Chair of the Board of REALpac – the Real Property Association of Canada, and is a past director of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers. Gary is also a frequent speaker and panelist at industry conferences in both the U.S. and Canada.

The following conversation took place between Vivian Manasc, principal architect and president of Manasc Isaac Architects – an Alberta-based leader in the design of sustainable buildings – and Whitelaw in April of 2014. Manasc and Whitelaw were classmates at McGill’s School of Architecture at the height of the first energy crisis.

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our office portfolio, enclosed malls and multi-residential prop-erties throughout Canada and the U.S. Eco Tracker provides a single management and reporting system for energy utilities, water and waste. It also includes a modelling tool, EcoModeller, to model energy-saving, water-saving or waste-reduction mea-sures and predict reductions in cost, consumption and GHGs (greenhouse gases).

VM: So the Eco Tracker is your main way of evaluating renovation options?GW: In the context of sustainable buildings, yes. We look at what we think will happen to operating costs and ask whether the net rent can be captured. If the capital can be recovered – meaning that there is alignment between those who invest and those who reap the benefits, then renovation makes sense. Where replacement is required and the cost falls outside of those parameters, a similar analysis is done. Within the context of the longer-term capital plan for the property, we look at the capital appreciation that may result from a capital improvement program.

VM: What about the older buildings that are being vacated by the advent of newer and more sustainable assets?GW: Yes, there is an element of keeping up with the Joneses – particularly if your buildings are losing market share. There are often defensive reasons to make such investments. Sometimes owners sell older buildings – these are “functionally obsolete”– so as not to have to carry underperforming assets. Small floor plates are also often found in older buildings, and these are not that attractive to contemporary tenants. Interestingly, many older buildings have thicker curtain walls and less glass, so after a deep retrofit they can be very energy efficient and compete well in the marketplace. We recently completed such a retrofit of an Art Deco building in Boston. We certified it LEED Gold and it was leased by a prestigious tenant.

VM: What are the priorities in terms of sustainable buildings?GW: We find new construction easier. New buildings can be designed with large floor plates and sustainable systems. We can readily and cost-effectively achieve LEED certification during development. The construction cost of new buildings is easier to predict than the complex process of renovations. Our focus on existing buildings is to continue to pursue LEED and BOMA BESt certification and to evaluate resiliency, efficiency, and take a long-term view of the money we invest on behalf of our clients.

As an example, for an owner of a rental apartment building, there may be better value in re-skinning a building or making larger investments, as the landlord typically gets the benefit of the reduced operational costs.

VM: So what do you see as the barriers to reimagining existing office towers? GW: It’s difficult to quantify the cost of renovation – there are often surprises when you open up an older building – and it’s tough to keep budgets under control. The minute you start tak-ing things apart, there are so many potential surprises. There are also code and life-safety issues. Each time you come across one of these, the construction cost increases but the environmental impacts are not necessarily improved – nor are the returns on the investment.

VM: So how do the Pension Funds account for the environmental ben-efits that could accrue from a renovation as opposed to a new building?GW: If you are a signatory to UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment, as a number of our clients are, they advocate that a pension fund has a fiduciary duty to act in the best long-term interests of its beneficiaries. Whether we build new or renovate existing buildings, our role is to deliver a sound financial return that considers environmental benefits to the pension funds or institutional investors. re

BP Centre is one of the many green-focused buildings Bentall Kennedy manages. Among other retrofits, in 2012, a partnership between Bentall Kennedy and Blu Planet resulted in setting up a waste diversion target of 60 per cent for the LEED Gold building, at 240-4 Avenue SW in Calgary.

PHOTO JOEY PODLUBNY

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Reimagining of Alberta’s largest credit union’s head office brought a dark and disconnected space to LEED Silver status

SUSTAINABLESERVUS

By Kent McKay

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T ISN’T EVERY DAY THAT A BANKING GROUP LETS YOU SMASH A HOLE IN THE CENTRE OF ITS HEAD OFFICE, BUT THAT’S PRECISELY WHAT HAPPENED AT THE SERVUS CREDIT UNION CORPORATE CENTRE RETROFIT.

Servus Credit Union is an Alberta community-based financial institution with a progressive approach to doing business. The largest credit union in the province, Servus takes pride in its community leadership, performance and corporate social responsibility commitments. In 2007, Servus approached Alberta architectural firm Manasc Isaac with a request: to transform a recently purchased former call centre into a healthy, vibrant workspace for 400 of its staff.

The firm’s first visit to the site revealed that this retrofit would be a challenging one for both designer and client. The building that Servus had purchased was ideally situated in the dynamic Edmonton Research Park, and was effectively new, having only been oc-cupied by its previous owner, Dell Inc., for two years. The facility was a duplicate of another call centre in Oklahoma, and Dell found it not feasible to maintain the two centres, so it closed up shop in Edmonton.

I>


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A near-new building seemed per-fect, but there was a twist to the plot. The American design of the original structure had not factored the severity of Alberta winters. Beyond operational cost implications, this inefficiency also com-promised the building’s environmental performance.

A company committed to environ-mental sustainability, Servus confirmed its need for a sustainable head office when it approached architects at Manasc Isaac. Servus and members of the Mana-sc Isaac team met to determine the best solution for the institution. A decision had to be made: reimagine or rebuild. Ultimately, the design team and owners identified reimagining (and particularly re-skinning) the structure as the best solution for the company, its employees and the environment.

“When Servus was looking for a new corporate centre, we considered this building because it would allow us to move in much quicker than building a

new one,” says Brian Los, senior manager of properties at Servus Credit Union. “It also allowed us to incorporate many energy efficient features to achieve a LEED Silver status.”

The team took dramatic steps to transform the building into the dream office that Servus had envisioned. Today, the Servus Corporate Centre stands as an environmentally responsi-ble landmark, showcasing the organi-zation’s strong and vibrant corporate image while delighting staff and visi-tors alike.

When the design team first visited the space, it found that the call centre’s key design focus had been to maximize occupant capacity. “Walking into the first iteration of this building was like walking into a teenager’s base-ment bedroom,” says architect Myron Nebozuk. “Dark and disconnected from the exterior, many of the previ-

Manasc Isaac was enlisted by Servus to breathe new life and sustainability into a former Edmonton call centre.


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ous call centre spaces were solely focused on customer service beyond the walls of this building,” he explains. “As we walked through the mothballed building, the design team was struck by the facility’s twilight quality, even with all of the lights turned on.” Nebozuk and the team resolved to make things better and brighter, suggesting an interior atrium to give more people more access to natural light and views.

The design team suggested punching a large hole in the core of the structure, bringing light into the centre of the building and creating a heart for the office. “Cutting a hole in the floor is no simple matter,” says architect Vivian Manasc. “It results in less office space and it affects the building structure; cutting holes has to be done carefully, to keep the structure stable.”

Yet the benefits promised a huge payoff. Daylight helps to reduce operational costs by adding natural lighting, and more importantly, it improves the look and feel – the architecture – of the space, boosting employee productivity and health. Em-ployees can now look out windows adjacent to their workspaces and see the sun, sky, grass and even the changing weather.

This open atrium is the location of a dramatic feature stair-case that connects each of the building’s three floors. Serving as a meeting point for employees, the staircase fosters collaboration and cross-pollination between departments. Featuring a rare steel construction, the staircase even flexes as users climb or descend. By making the staircase interactive, the design team ensured that occupants would want to take the stairs, in turn helping maximize the atrium’s physical, mental and social benefits.

Thermal imaging scans identified areas of thermal ineffi-ciency in the building. Although the envelope, itself, was made of durable and proven materials such as brick, concrete and steel, the envelope’s functioning resulted in significant heat loss. It was clear the building needed additional insulation to withstand Edmonton’s climate; the design team resolved that a re-skinning (or installation of a new building envelope) was necessary.

The new skin wraps around the exterior of the building like a blanket, boasting two layers of additional insulation over the old brick and concrete. Finally, metal cladding encloses the

insulation and offers a well-sealed rain screen. The results were radical, yielding instant benefits in both operational costs and occupant comfort.

Building science engineer Mike Turner says that “even when the work was incomplete, the recladding proved to have a con-siderable effect on the conditions inside the building. Construc-tion workers in the building noted that the only drafty areas in the building were where the cladding work hadn’t been fin-ished,” he explains. “The result is more consistent temperatures year-round, especially in office areas close to the exterior. This means improved comfort within the building, and improved durability of the structure itself.”

“ AS WE WALKED THROUGH THE MOTHBALLED BUILDING FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE DESIGN TEAM WAS STRUCK BY THE FACILITY’S TWILIGHT QUALITY.”- Myron Nebozuk, architect

Thermal Imaging scans revealed significant heat and energy loss in the building.

>


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Windows can be a blessing or a curse to a building, de-pending on their quality and sustainability credentials. Since the former owners had not invested in efficient windows, the design team opted to install all new windows. A high performance Visionwall system was chosen. An innovative technology devel-oped in Switzerland, these windows provide the highest win-dow R-values (which measure thermal resistance and ultimately efficiency) on the market without reliance on inert gas fills.These are no small savings: the new windows are three-and-a-half times more efficient at reducing heat loss than the building’s previous versions. Equally important to their energy efficiency is the fact that the occupants can open each window, optimizing each employee’s control over his or her work environment. It also saves operational costs by reducing the need for artificial cooling, saving money and energy.

Facing north, the space’s new “donut hole” atrium dramati-cally increased daylight in the building. A large opening was cut into the roof, second and third floors of the existing building, and the clerestory now features windows two metres in height. These windows can be opened, providing natural ventilation and fresh air for the building.

Ultimately, the addition of daylight to the centre of the building reduces its electricity use by 32.5 per cent and boosts employee health. The ever-changing character of the light during the day connects employees to nature, and to each other.Fresh air and daylight make for a sustainable and healthy space, and perhaps less obvious is the selection of materials that sur-rounds building occupants throughout the workday. The design team made sure that the materials used in this project were both sustainable and healthy choices.

In fact, a large number of the items in the building are made from recycled materials. Coat hooks, shower curtain rods, mir-ror and stainless steel shelves were created from objects that had other applications before the reimaging.

Dawson Wallace, the project’s general contractor, exercised careful management of waste during the demolition and con-

struction process, ensuring a maximum reuse of material. From donating old lockers, to reusing communication system cables and repurposing more than 90 per cent of the building’s former carpets and floor tiles, waste was kept out of the landfill during the Servus Corporate Centre renovation.

Servus had no need for a kitchen in its new facility, and the one Dell had installed was in disuse. As luck would have it, Manasc Isaac was in the midst of a school renovation in a neighbouring community – and the school’s funding did not allow for a kitchen. Though the school planned to fundraise for a kitchen, there ended up being no need: Servus was happy to donate its lightly-used and Energy Star-rated appliances to the school where it now serves 1,500 students.

The Servus Corporate Centre features a generous amount of wood throughout. Staff and visitors might notice its use at the reception desk, copy room cabinetry, and elsewhere. Certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council, the wood is a product that passes through the hands of ecologically responsible producers,

Among changes to the former Dell call centre were adding windows,

a high-performance Visionwall system, and a

“donut hole” atrium.


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from the forest to the mill to the building. The design team’s choices are not just sustainable, they

are healthy. Unlike some furniture and building materials that release toxic gasses, the design team specified products that would not negatively impact employee health or indoor air quality. Some green upgrades are not immediately visible in the Servus head office. Boilers, for instance, were retrofitted with new burners. By replacing the burners to match the load, the design team was able to increase energy efficiency and decrease operational costs, all while extending the life expectancy of the equipment itself.

Since the Corporate Centre won’t see occupants squished into the workspace like sardines, it made sense to pull and replace mechanical ducts to accommodate smaller, more sustain-able occupant numbers.

As so much natural daylight floods the building via the atrium and clerestories, it relies less on artificial lighting. New motion detection sensors help achieve energy conservation, turning off lighting in areas that are unoccupied. These simple mechanical upgrades work together to ensure that Servus Cor-porate Centre performs as a lean, smart and efficient facility.

Of the international certification standards, the best known is

LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Once a decidedly unsustainable and dingy call centre, the Servus Corporate Centre is now a hallmark of sustainability, awarded LEED Silver certification in 2012. The certification reflected consideration of many factors, including air quality and comfort, reuse and recycling strategies, and energy efficiency.

The certification is a holistic one: other factors look beyond the building itself. Site considerations and water usage both earn points toward LEED certification. Near a major transit hub, public transportation serves Servus well. The team eliminated the need for the landscape irrigation system the previous owners had installed so they removed it.

So, what does the inclusion of all these leading edge, but simple, green building techniques mean for the building at the end of the day? For one, the process resulted in a group of happy clients, Los says. “The Servus staff is enjoying the new space and the organization is benefitting from the co-location of our staff.”

Los adds that Servus is very proud of this building and the partnership with Manasc Isaac. In concert, they have achieved a great look and practical feel for Servus’ employees, members and the greater community. re

The open atrium is now the location of a dramatic staircase that connects each of the building’s three floors.

ULTIMATELY, THE ADDITION OF DAYLIGHT TO THE CENTRE OF THE BUILDING REDUCES ITS ELECTRICITY USE BY 32.5 PER CENT AND BOOSTS EMPLOYEE HEALTH.


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GREEN VALUEBy Matt Hirji

Photo Ryan Girard

Appraisers, architects and developers see the return in sustainable renovations, and

it’s not just measured in dollars

Tegan Martin-Drysdale and her business partner Paul Gibson are helping RedBrick achieve new sustainable building practices.

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f you walked into Stadium Apartments – a 34-unit modular apartment building located in the community of Parkdale in Edmonton, you wouldn’t get the carpet smell that’s become a

common scent in recently developed buildings. Nor will your nose be treated to that fresh paint smell signature to newly christened apartment blocks.

While those smells are commonly associated with the presti-gious privilege of living in a freshly constructed building, for Tegan Martin-Drysdale, these odours elicit something entirely more menacing.

“Those smells are actually toxic,” says Martin-Drysdale, explain-ing that the odours we commonly relate with “new” are actually what scientists would describe as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – chemicals in the air that are dangerous to human health. “VOCs are cancer-causing agents.”

That’s one of the reasons Tegan Martin-Drysdale and her team at RedBrick Real Estate Services – the company that is the lead on the development of the apartment block – have taken strides to choose building materials with low VOCs. RedBrick has also incorporated other sustainable design practices such as triple-glazed windows, solar panelling and water-efficient plumbing fixtures.

“Hands-down, it’s about the health of the occupants,” Martin-Drysdale says. “In Canada’s climate, we spend 90 per cent of our time indoors. And our health is directly related to the health of the indoor environment that we live in,” she explains. “When you work in a building that has somehow integrated a sustainable initiative into the construction or retrofit, you have lower amounts of volatile organic compounds that are being emitted into the air in the interior of the building, so you’re breathing in less toxic substances. In Canada, with our winter climate and our extreme temperatures, we have the most to benefit from buildings that are sustainable. I just think it’s smart.”

Martin-Drysdale is part of a growing fraternity of developers, landlords and architects who have made a commitment to sustain-able building and renovation practices – a broad term that encap-sulates structures that conserve resources during construction or retrofitting and throughout operations.

In increasing numbers, progressive-minded people like Martin-Drysdale contest that sustainable buildings – particularly green-orientated redevelopments – could contribute to the protection of the environment while also improving the comfort, productivity, and livability for the people who occupy them.

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A study initiated by Chris Corps of Sequel Integrated Resource Management in 2005 gives even more credence to these beliefs.The study, entitled Green Value, was the first-ever analysis of benefits of sustainable attributes of green building. The study offered a variety of case studies of projects in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom that had integrated one or more green initiatives into the building. The results, according to Corps, substantiate Martin-Drysdale’s belief that one of the key benefits of sustainably designed or redesigned buildings is in the health and productivity of the occupants.

“One example that I cite is a building in New York,”

Corps says, pointing to a case study from Green Value focused on the Solaire – a 27-storey residential apartment building in Manhattan, New York. “In that building they put in low VOCs. A family moved into this apartment building in New York and their daughter had asthma. She had never slept through an entire night in her life. But after moving in, she slept through the first night, then she slept through the second night, and then she slept through the third night; it just carried on. The answer was low VOCs. She’s finally breathing in good air, and she’s feeling better.”

Since Green Value was published in 2005, a substan-tial amount of literature has

been published that provides further proof that buildings designed and constructed – or reimagined – with sustain-ability in mind increase the quality of life of the occupants as well as the quality of the environment.

Increasingly, experts are beginning to uncover the social and economic benefits of green redevelopment as well. And according to Corps, former chairman of the Canadian Roy-al Institute of Chartered Sur-veyors who has been involved

in sustainable building initiatives since the late 1980s, the benefits of thinking green often appear in unexpected places.

“The place where most people go when they look at doing these is ‘Well, can I get more rent?’ ” Corps says. “But the value also comes to the landlord in other ways: reduced turnover, reduced churn, and you get reduced vacancies because more people stay.”

One reason that tenants who occupy green buildings are reporting high levels of satisfac-tion is because their workforce is more productive in these buildings. If you find that hard to believe, look no further than the Vancouver Island Technol-ogy Park in Victoria, British Columbia – the first LEED Gold building in Canada.

“We found one tenant in the Vancouver Island Tech-nology Park that had actu-ally documented increased throughput in their business,” Corps says. “They had a 30 per cent increase in their productivity. They proved that up by showing that they had more lines of code written per hour after moving into the sustainable building.”

Corps also points to the

Left, a rendering of the Stadium Apartments complex, once completed

Right, the Solaire in NYC, and the Vancouver Island Technology Park (VITP) in Victoria

“ THE IDEA IS THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO RECOVER AS MUCH AS YOU CONSUME. THROUGH ENERGY-EFFICIENT MATERIALS AND PROCESSES, YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO INCREASE THE OVERALL EFFICIENCY OF YOUR BUILDING.”

PHOTOS COURTESY REDBRICK REAL ESTATE SERVICES, WIKICOMMONS, VANCOUVER ISLAND TECHNOLOGY PARK


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increased natural light that is often associated with green buildings. “You’re saving on electricity, but the real savings is on the staffing side,” Corps says. The statistics on staffing is that between 75 and 95 per cent of your business costs are in staff. So, when you provide daylight, you affect staff, and that’s a bigger bang for your buck than electricity savings.

There’s lots of documenta-tion of increased productivity. You have to look carefully for it. So the tenant gets the benefit, but does the landlord get the benefit? The answer to that question has been a resounding yes. And it’s not just that a sustainable build-ing brings in higher rents per square foot – as is the case for the Vancouver Island Tech-

nology Park. It also results in lower monthly operating costs for the property owner.

“The idea is that you are trying to recover as much as you consume. Through energy-efficient materials and processes, you have the abil-ity to increase the overall efficiency of your building,” says Nathalie Roy-Patenaude, director-counsellor of profes-sional practice at the Appraisal Institute of Canada. “It’s always about minimizing your oper-ating costs – your water, your heating, and your electricity. That minimizes the energy waste and minimizes your op-erating costs overall,” she adds.

With that reduction, appraisers are more likely to assign higher property values for buildings with sustainable

attributes when compared to a more conventional building.

“Certainly it’s a consid-eration. You’re looking at two things: you’re looking at the longevity of the building itself and the quality of the building over time. Based on the quality of the finishings and the materials being used, there may be components in a sustainable building that you won’t have to replace quickly compared to more conven-tional builds,” Roy-Patenaude says, explaining that green buildings might fetch higher market values when prospec-tive buyers understand the concrete value. “You are look-ing at the quality of the con-struction of the building. This is something that might set a sustainable building apart.”

Landlords who own green buildings will be able to generate a premium on their lease rate if a tenant is looking to occupy a space in a superior quality building. That, combined with lower operating costs, increases the building’s marketability and creates value. “To determine the value of a commercial

property, we convert that income into an indication of value. We apply what we call a capitalization rate, or a discount,” Roy-Patenaude explains.

She adds: “You’re converting your income by using a discount or cap rate, and converting that into an indication of value. So, let’s say the property generates $60,000 a year, and assume a capitalization rate of 10 per cent, that’s $6,000 more income per year. When we convert that income, it has the potential of leading to a higher value at the end of that day.”

For many professional land developers, sustainable build-ing and renovation practices represent a way to forge a better future.

“There’s no excuse not to do it,” Martin-Drysdale says. “It’s a value. It should be en-trenched and entrained in the way that every business does things. The old way of thinking that sustainability can’t be done, that’s antiquated rhetoric that needs to be broken down and tossed out, because it’s not true. Sustainability is a way of life.” re


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High Expectations

Re-skinning First Canadian Place – one 90-kilogram marble slab at a time – was no easy undertaking, but the results are golden

WHEN THE LEADERSHIP TEAM AT BROOKFIELD OFFICE PROPERTIES DECIDED TO RENOVATE AN ICONIC TORONTO SKYSCRAPER, THEY JUST WANTED TO UPGRADE THE EXTERIOR. But, as Stefan Dembinski, senior vice-president of asset management,

points out, renovations are rarely as simple as you imagine them to be on the outset.

That’s not to say re-cladding the skyscraper was a simple matter. The tallest building in the British Commonwealth when it was built in 1975, First Canadian Place remains the tallest skyscraper in Canada. B+H Architects, a global firm that’s well-versed in sustainable design and retrofitting, with long experience in large-scale projects, was the architect of record when the property was constructed in 1975. It was

only fitting that the firm came back for the re-cladding project, collaborating with Moed de Armas & Shannon Architects as the design architects. In its e-book The Second Life of Tall Buildings, B+H writes that the 72-storey First Canadian Place was innovative at the time of its construction, being an ear-ly example of structural tube steel construction and boasting a double-decker elevator. Its exterior was made up of 45,000 Italian marble panels, which were impressive enough, but in 2009, just over three decades

By Jen Janzen

IMAGES COURTESY B+H ARCHITECTS

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First Canadian Place’s re-skinning involved the addition of 5,600 glass and bronze panels


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later, they were starting to show signs of deterioration.

“We had a program in place to deal with re-placing the marble,” said Dembinski, “but despite our best efforts, the marble wasn’t performing to our satisfaction. We decided it was in everybody’s best interests to replace it.” If the building was a testament to innovation when it rose from the ground at the corner of King and Bay streets in Toronto’s financial district, it stands to reason, then, that the building’s rejuvenation would need to be just as advanced. And with 5,600 glass and bronze panels planned to replace the Italian mar-ble, the new facade would be just as impressive.

But first, all that marble had to come off, each 90-kilogram slab of it. Enter the scaffolding.

A three-storey unit that was mechanical-ly connected to the building and able to scale up and down the length of the skyscraper, the scaffolding could hold up to 160 workers as they carefully lifted off each marble panel. On each floor, they started at the bottom level, removing first the marble, then the sealant and support brackets that held it there.

The marble may have no longer been suited to coat a 72-storey building, but it was still reus-able. Dembinski says all Brookfield leaders agreed that as much of the marble as possible needed to be re-homed. “It couldn’t go to some junk pile,” said Dembinski. “It was stone, and didn’t contain any chemical, so it was easy to re-use.” Some materials were used for artwork, some went to Habitat for Humanity, and other slabs were even used in concrete and roadways. Dembinski says they even gave marble away to people who had connections to First Canadian Place. “There are now a few home projects re-done in white mar-ble thanks to us,” he explains.

For every eight marble panels coming down, one glass panel went up in its place. The glass used a ceramic frit, which, when installed on the building, echoed the white, luminous look of the marble. Dembinski says Brookfield chose the glass for several reasons. “We couldn’t analyze the marble in terms of structure and rigidity, so we didn’t want to go with marble again, and we couldn’t find granite in the right mix and colour.

We decided it was better to go with a manmade solution that would keep the iconic look of the building, but keep the structure we wanted for long-term durability,” Dembinski says. The glass was also a local alternative. Whereas the marble had been imported from Italy, the glass was man-ufactured less than 50 kilometres away from First Canadian Place.

It took about three days for 80 workers to replace all the marble on one floor. The tenants of the building were top of mind at every part of the project, with the loudest work being done through the night shift so the tenants could go about their days relatively undisturbed.

WHILE THE MARBLE WAS OFF the building, Dembinski says it was a good chance to inspect the underlying facade. “We had it all re-sealed,” he says, noting the weath-er protection helps to keep air from leaking in. After his team removed the marble panels, they upgraded the old insulation with state-of-the-art, fire-resistant insulation and then installed the glass. The 450-kilogram glass panels were trans-ported to the platform by an elevator hoist and carried across by a monorail to where they were needed, said B+H in its The Second Life of Tall Buildings publication.

But the Brookfield team didn’t stop with the building’s exterior. “It’s kind of like when you renovate your kitchen,” says Dembinski. “All of a sudden, the dining room doesn’t look so good anymore, and you just keep going.”

They replaced the chillers from the standard units to high-efficiency units, and switched out the 35-year-old pumps for newer models. “The chillers are one of the biggest electricity-users in the building,” Dembinski explains. “The old school pumps turn off and on at fixed rate, but the new technology for pumps adds a variable speed motor, so its energy expenditure varies depending on its requirements.”

B+H also reduced the lighting in the offices, taking out a third of the light bulbs. Outdoor air fans were outfitted with high-efficiency motors that were able to respond to the amount of


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ventilation required at any time, thanks to carbon dioxide sensors. Brookfield also reduced the building’s water consumption by 35 per cent with low-flow fixtures in all the washrooms. The estimated water savings? About 66 million litres per year.

Even now, with the renovations complete, First Canadian Place continues to lead the way in sustainable operations. Brookfield reports its annual emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project and the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark survey. The property’s Smart Commute Program promotes car-sharing and bicycle travel, and the entire building boasts a waste diversion rate of 76 per cent. Overall, Brookfield estimates it has reduced total energy consumption by 31 per cent

since the project began in 2009, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 39 per cent.

The First Canadian Place project began just as the Canada Green Building Council launching the official Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)’s Gold Certification for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (EB: O&M) program. Upon the building’s completion in 2012, after the required analysis and waiting period to measure the performance of the energy-saving initiatives, the property received its LEED Gold Certification (EB: O&M).

If the brains behind the project call it innovative, they’ve got confirmation from others: First Canadian Place received a City of Toronto Urban Design Award, and a Stelco Design Award Hon-ourable Mention. In 2012, the Recycling Council of Ontario awarded First Canadian Place Gold in Marketing and Com-munications and in Facilities.

“Something to this scale had never really been done before,” says Dembinski. “We’re very proud of the result.” re

RE-CLADDING THE TORONTO SKYSCRAPER WAS NOT A SIMPLE MATTER. FIRST CANADIAN PLACE REMAINS THE TALLEST HIGH RISE IN CANADA.

In addition to re-cladding First Canadian Place, its owners

also replaced chillers with high efficiency units, resulting in huge

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room of their own

A 1930s power plant nets new life as an innovative office space for EPCOR employees

PCOR Water, Edmonton’s water utility, is located in the city’s historic

Rossdale neighbourhood, nestled in the city’s picturesque river valley. The site has undergone myriad incarnations throughout its history.

At one time a First Nations campsite and burial ground, Rossdale later became the location of the original Hudson’s Bay Company trading post, Fort Edmonton. Ultimately, the Edmonton Electric Lighting and Power Company (which would become EPCOR) stationed the Rossdale Power Plant here. Edmonton’s first water treatment plant shares this site, as do laboratories, administrative offices and pump stations that are still in use today.

As part of the overall ac-commodation planning at the Rossdale site, EPCOR Water Services began to look for a new location for its senior management team in 2013. An unlikely location emerged as a viable possibility: the 1930s administration build-ing. A provincially designated historic resource, the building boasted a brick facade, antique double-hung windows and dramatic interior features, all of which promised an attrac-

tive and potentially-sustainable home for executive staff.

Since 1931, various ren-ovations and modifications had been carried out on the building. Outdated interior features such as faux-wood wall treatments were added,

while the structure’s mechan-ical and electrical systems and building envelope had deteriorated, rendering the building inefficient by modern standards. EPCOR was aware that to transform this trou-bled character building into a

modern and progressive office for its executive staff, it would need to significantly alter the place. Capable hands would have to coordinate this ren-ovation, though; as a historic resource, even small changes would need to be approved by

By Kent McKay

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New windows, reinsulated walls, and repointed masonry extend the life of this building and reduce energy use, while maintaining the integrity of its historical appearance.

IMAGES COURTESY MANASC ISAAC

Alberta Culture’s Historic Resource Management department.

Architectural firm Manasc Isaac was commissioned to reimagine the EPCOR 1931 Heritage Building. The firm kicked off the renovation with a series of deeply collaborative workshops, bringing together the project’s designers, contractors and clients to map out a holistic vision and integrated process for the project.

By becoming intimately familiar with EPCOR’s operational require-ments, behaviours and desires for the space, the design team was able to accurately articulate a conception of the building as a progressive office. The reimagine approach was applied to both the exterior and interior of

the EPCOR 1931 Heritage Building, dramatically improving both building performance and aesthetics. “I recall the dungeon feel of the interior when we first visited the existing building,” says Vedran Skopac, project architect for the EPCOR 1931 Heritage Building. “It was obvious that one of our main missions would be bringing daylight deep into the dark central part of the deep floor plate. Also important was to add context by exposing the structure of the host building. Suspended ceilings were added to create a psychological effect of invisible walls, separating the interconnected space into specific uses; communication, collaboration, quiet work, rest and dining.”

Although the exterior of the building looks much the same as it did before the renovation, the facade was upgraded to contemporary building standards. While bricks last forever, mortar does not, so the building’s mortar was repointed, which involves replacing all of the deteriorated or weathered mortar in the masonry, reducing the future risk of water infil-tration. Meanwhile, to improve energy performance, the design team added a layer of spray insulation behind the interior layer of brick. The added insulation acts like a blanket that wraps around the building, preventing energy loss during cold Alberta winters, and making the space more comfortable for occupants.

The building’s old, deteriorating energy-inefficient single-glazed windows posed a particular challenge, as Alberta Culture’s Historic Resource Management department mandated that the windows be maintained. The design team had to find craftsmen capable of meticulously restoring them to their original 1931 condition, >

“ It was obvious that one of our main missions would be bringing daylight deep into the dark central part of the deep floor plate. Also important was to add context by exposing the structure of the host building.” - Vedran Skopac, project architect


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room of their own

including counterweights and hardware. Now refurbished, the operable windows are a focal point for these new executive offices, and a window into the past. Skilled trades people were able to maintain the original appearance yet dramatically improve energy performance of the building.

Inside the building, the behind-the-scenes efficien-cy upgrades continued. A high-performance mechanical induction system now mini-mizes the size and amount of ductwork within the space. Skilled trades refurbished the original vintage light fixtures and upgraded them to money- and energy-saving LED technology.

The team restored the structure’s special heritage features and returned them to prominence. Perhaps the most historically significant area in the building is its dramat-ic lobby. This space features terrazzo flooring – a mixture of glass, marble or quartz with a binder. One doesn’t often see this kind of flooring in modern office design because it is labour-intensive to the point of being cost prohibitive. Its rarity made this composite material desirable, so the de-

sign team identified the ex-isting terrazzo as an asset, and worked to restore horizontal and vertical installed terrazzo features to their past glory. Ornate stair railings and heavy wooden doors, which the team restored and reused, and glass panels further add to the period character of the lobby.

The historical value of these features shouldn’t fool visitors into thinking that the office is stuck in the 1930s. EPCOR 1931 Heritage Building is a thoroughly 21st-century office. Alberta Culture’s Historic Resource Management suggested a visible demarcation between historical features and modern upgrades, and tasked the design team with making modern design choices that also respected the history of the building. To that end, a step past the building’s lobby reveals a series of modern offices and meeting spaces that offer any amenity that executive staff might expect.

The modern kitchen’s focal point is an LED-lit backsplash; its changeable hues lend visual interest. The design team’s generous application of glass partitions in the office areas addresses privacy and sound concerns while

allowing light to pour into interior spaces. Modern light fixtures with dynamic forms remind occupants and visitors that although the building is a treasured historical asset, it is also a functional, comfortable and contemporary workspace. Using demountable glazed partitions, the offices are both private and transparent, allowing daylight deep into the building.

Since moving into the transformed space in the fall of 2013, the EPCOR Water leadership team has been enjoying its refurbished home. The EPCOR 1931 Heritage

Building renovation is proof positive that the reimagine approach works.

The design team used simple techniques to breathe new life into a very old building, one that is well beyond the average life span for its type. By reclaiming an underused space, EPCOR invested in preserving the architectural legacy of the Rossdale site and side-stepped the environmental impact of tearing down and building new, all while achieving its original goal of a contemporary and sustainable space for its executive team. re

The design team made modern design choices that also respected the history of the building.


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higher ground

The Toronto Tower Renewal initiative is poised to change downtown and act as a model to other tired Canadian cityscapes

hen it comes to the location of mid-20th cen-tury residential towers, Canadian cities are an anomaly in North America because most res-idential towers are in the suburbs. Why does it

matter? Because many of them are now reaching the end of their initial life cycles, yet they’ve been omitted from city centre regeneration plans undertaken by many municipalities in the early 2000s.

“A lot of discussion on sustainability has been around re-vitalizing downtowns,” says Graeme Stewart, an associate with Toronto’s ERA Architects Inc. “That’s actually been remarkably successful. But Canadian cities are unique in that we have a different sort of urbanism than in American cities. If you look at achieving sustainability, the biggest challenge is: what do you do with the suburbs?”

That’s precisely the challenge the City of Toronto set out to answer six years ago. In an unprecedented move, then- mayor David Miller presented a report to city council proposing a tower renewal initiative. The idea was to create a central hub of information, consulting services and planning assistance to encourage the owners of Toronto’s 1,200 residential towers to renovate their buildings over a number of years, with the initial purpose of making them more energy sustainable.

“The latest Statistics Canada data shows us there are 548,000 people living in these buildings,” says Eleanor McAteer, project director for the Tower Renewal initiative. “These buildings have a lot of potential for improvement. There is no energy efficiency built into them at all. They are sturdy buildings that will be with us for a long time to come, and it’s much more cost-effective to improve them and retrofit them than to tear them down and replace them.”

More than just improving energy efficiency and aesthetics, Toronto Tower Renewal extended its focus to look at the social dimension, with a challenge to build sustainable communities for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents. The bulk of the towers exist in suburban deserts, with limited access to transit, green space and services. Most residents are renters in low- income groups, including newcomers to Canada and seniors.

“We know this is a real opportunity to look at the neigh-bourhoods, these tower neighbourhoods that were originally

built in the 1960s, with the notion that everyone would have a car and they would drive to whatever they were doing,” explains McAteer. “Many of them are isolated with lots of space around them. We can use that space better; animate the space by putting in playgrounds, community gardens and better walk-ways. It’s also possible to use this open area for new develop-ment and in that way bring investment into areas of the city that are otherwise not seeing new investment.”

By Brynna Leslie

URBANREGENERATION

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by Sam Thinker

Nam sed eum inctet ut quam volorumqui acep et eum inciiscidero experis eum vel eos presequ

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The owner of 1011 Lansdowne in Toronto had already started a retrofit of the

building when Toronto announced its Tower Renewal pilot project.

IN 2008, THE CITY INVITED FOUR BUILDING proprietors to take part in a Tower Renewal pilot project, including the owners of 1011 Lansdowne, a 23-storey, 352-unit structure that was identified as the worst highrise building in Toronto in the late 1990s. Prior to 2005, it was known as Toronto’s main “crack tower.”

“Empty units with missing doors served as headquarters for drug dealers and squatters,” noted a Toronto Star report in 2012. “Prostitutes roamed the hallways. Residents bragged they’d lived there for years without paying rent.”

Owner Vincenzo Barrasso, who owns five residential towers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), had already started the retrofit process on 1011 Lansdowne – renovating units, improving security and tenant pull – when his colleague received an invitation by the city to take part in the Tower Renewal pilot project.

“I immediately recognized there was a path, a framework within which I could manoeuvre to provide a better quality of life, a better building, more energy efficiency and a better business,” says Roslyn Brown, vice-president of Barrasso’s three companies. “The energy, the vision and the expertise I found at Tower Renewal suggested nothing was too big or too long a timeframe to be overlooked.”

Tower Renewal is built on six different components, including three environmental – improving energy, water and waste – and three designed to improve quality of life for residents – community-building, safety and building operations.

The city has incorporated a program called STEP, to guide landlords through what is generally a multi-year, or even multi-decade, approach to refurbishment.

“The first step is to know your building,” explains McAteer. “Gather information, do an energy audit, a water, waste diversion and safety audit, get a complete assessment of the state of good repair of the building, look at community amenities you have and the kind of community support residents of your building would benefit from.”

From there, landowners are encouraged to undertake low- cost or no-cost upgrades, including replacing broken locks and light bulbs, cutting back hedges or reconditioning existing utilities equipment to make sure it’s in good operation.

The third step is to undertake things that require more investment or are more complex.


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“On the building side, they engage with tenants to understand what kind of programming and investments they would like to see at the building,” says McAteer. “It might be something like a new playground or a community garden, which would require a tenant association to be established. On the energy efficiency side, it may be a larger investment like a new boiler with building automation.”

The final step is about “cutting-edge improvements,” she says, giving the example of an on-site community dental clinic to serve residents and those in neighbouring buildings. “On the energy efficiency side, it might be something like cogeneration, where you’re also providing energy to the grid,” says McAteer.

The city estimates between 200 and 300 tower owners have registered with the program, with each tower now in some state of retrofit. “The city launched a new financing program this year that can provide 20-year term low interest loans,” says McAteer. “Owners can borrow up to five per cent of a building’s assessed value, with repayments added to their annual property tax bills.”

Built into Toronto Tower Renewal is the assumption that other Canadian cities can emulate the initiative. Vancouver has 614 residential buildings that are more than 12 storeys high; Montreal is home to 452 high-rises; Ottawa has 240; and Edmonton, 238. Most of the aging building stock is located in

areas outside of city centres, according to the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal, a non-profit think tank co-founded by ERA Architects.

“Canada is still a young country, so we’re not used to retrofitting; we’re used to building new,” says Stewart. “Because the buildings are so similar across the country, there’s a really good opportunity for systemization.”

Stewart says in order to get a solid retrofit system in place, however, Canada needs to create a sophisticated industry of builders, architects and manufacturers of materials. Much of the cladding used on high rise retrofits in Toronto, for example, is currently coming from Europe, which makes the process more expensive than it needs to be. “It’s like anything – when you do it the first time, it’s sloppy and expensive,” says Stewart.

But as the promise of tower renewal spreads beyond Toronto’s city limits, Stewart believes it represents a great, albeit time-sensitive, opportunity for the private sector. “The retrofit industry is getting bigger and bigger as buildings get older and older,” says Stewart. “There’s still a bit of time until a crisis. Fifteen years from now, however, there may be a consideration of tearing these buildings down. Even the most extensive retrofit is about a quarter of the cost of tearing down and building new.”

The next phase for Toronto is a rezoning application to be put before city council in July that will allow for mixed-use of residential towers, to encourage the establishment of shops – primarily grocery and pharmacy – and services, like medical and dentistry, in the lobbies of their buildings. It may also allow tenants to legally use units as office space for small businesses, something that researchers know already goes on behind closed doors.

After more than $2 million in renovations, the property at 1011 Lansdowne, once a scar on the city’s landscape, is now a beacon for others, something that couldn’t have been accomplished without the centralized support of the city, says the company’s vice-president.

“I shudder to think what life would look like to me without the Tower Renewal initiative,” says Brown. “Not only would it work in other cities, I think it’s a must. If I were running a city, I would require every landlord who has a tower to register, at least to learn something. Because once you learn, you can’t look back. Once you’re exposed, you’re on the road to fulfilment – the landlord, the tenants and the company as well.” re

In order to get a solid retrofit system in place, however, Canada needs to create a sophisticated industry of builders, architechs, and manufacturers of materials.


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A 1966 office tower ushered in a time of plenty with unadorned optimism. Do we value it enough to reimagine it?

y attachment to Edmonton’s Chancery Hall has less to do with

an admiration for its ground-breaking precast concrete cladding and nostalgia for its mid-century lines, and more to do with personal reminiscence.

My father’s law firm, Purvis & Alford (which included other names, depending on the year and partners involved), had its offices there. My dad often worked weekends, one or more kids in tow to do homework or just goof around while he worked. As a child, I spent many free-ranging weekends combing the hallways, riding the elevators and rolling stuff down the stately spiral staircase in the entranceway that led to the basement, accompanied by a friend and one of several dogs – again, depending on the year. The office tower looms as large in my imagination as a favourite childhood park might in another adult’s reckoning.

It will always be a silhouette in my memories – but that’s my prejudice declared. Should the aging tower also keep a place in

the skyline of an increasingly important part of Edmonton’s downtown?

CHANCERY HALL HAS its genesis at the crossing of several architectural movements in evidence at the time. It was built in 1966, during a decade of booming construction in Edmonton,

much of it characterised by the straight lines, steel and concrete that had for decades been the hallmark of modernism all over the continent.

In late-19th and early-20th century North America, architect Louis Sullivan was modernizing city skylines and inspiring the Midwestern architects of the Chicago

School, including Frank Lloyd Wright. Sullivan is sometimes called the “father of skyscrapers.” His preference, part of his time and era, was strongly to eschew ornamentation, opting instead to reveal the forms that lie within.

“It would be greatly for our aesthetic good if we

By Mifi Purvis

MY URBAN PLAYGROUND

M

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should refrain entirely from the use of ornament for a period of years … We shall have learned that ornament is mentally a luxury, not a necessity,” he wrote in 1892’s Ornament in Architecture. “We feel intuitively that our strong, athletic, and simple forms will carry with natural ease the raiment of which we dream.”

Modernist architecture later included brutalism under its umbrella, a post-First World War movement that started in Europe under the stewardship of Swiss architect Le Corbusier (nee Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris). Modernism and, more narrowly, brutalism influenced the rebuilding of swathes of post-war Europe, and made appearances in Canadian buildings, many of them public, from the 1950s through the 1970s. Brutalist examples include the Manulife Centre in Toronto and the University of Alberta Faculty of Law building in Edmonton. In fact, most Canadian university campuses are home to at least some brutalist architecture. To the modernist sensibility, brutalism adds concrete as a finishing element, giving many of our public structures a squat, bunker-like look.

Sullivan’s strong, athletic Midwestern forms intersect

neatly with Le Corbusier’s brutalism in many North American cities, perhaps nowhere more obviously than in Edmonton. The city’s skyline today is a testament to the times, much of it built as

concrete boxes of greater or lesser loveliness. And though it is a building that might be overlooked, I would argue that Chancery Hall stands firmly on the side of greater loveliness.

Bouey and Bouey

Architects originally designed the building in the expressionist style – expressionism characterised more esoterically by pent emotion, and more practically by lines found in nature – >

At 50, Chancery Hall is at a precarious age. Features like these playful precast stairs, which once led to the notable swish restaurant The Pickwick Inn, are in need of a revamp.


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think curving cave walls and the iterating edges of minerals. The upward jutting zig-zag of the roofline and the gently rounded windows hark to that sensibility. “It is a response to modernism,” Shafraaz Kaba says of the building’s expressionist origins. He’s a partner in Manasc Isaac Architects, one of a dozen or so firms that responded to the city’s requests for expressions of interest in repurposing Chancery Hall.

“The windows have a sculptural quality,” Kaba says. “They are portal-like,

reminiscent of ones you’d see on an aircraft, and they run counter to the harsh modern style of the time.”

Chancery Hall faces Sir Winston Churchill Square, and it neighbours the Francis Winspear Centre for Music and the Citadel Theatre to the south. Directly north are the graceful, swooping lines of the Art Gallery of Alberta, itself a reboot by Randall Stout of the brutalist 1966 Edmonton Art Gallery, which opened its refurbished doors to the

public in early 2012. Also near City Hall, and connecting directly to the LRT, Chancery Hall’s position in the city’s civic precinct and arts district means that its stature is far greater than its 11 storeys and 14,617 square feet.

In 2004, Ascent magazine called Chancery Hall one of the top 50 most significant precast concrete projects in North America, a list that features what the magazine calls “the best of the best,” selected from many hundreds of projects. On this list, Edmonton’s stalwart rubs

shoulders with Toronto City Hall, San Francisco’s TransAmerica Pyramid and Florida’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Ascent says that, after its debut in 1966, the precast, pre-stressed “design concept was soon duplicated with buildings in Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, North Carolina and Florida.”

Coming up on 50, Chancery Hall is at a precarious age. In Capital Modern: A Guide to Edmonton Architecture and Urban Design,

1940-1969, Kaba quotes architecture critic Christopher Hume, who said: “Once a building hits, say, 75 or 80 years old, it becomes venerable and is deemed untouchable, protected by vigilant preservationists. But between its 40th and 70th year, it is at its most vulnerable.”

Trevor Boddy, critic, curator, and historian of architecture and urbanism at the University of British Columbia, wrote in Capital Modern that this vulnerability

is especially sharp in Edmonton. “Edmontonians come to hate their recent past with a vehemence that does not exist elsewhere.” Recent examples of this local derision include the loss of the Central Pentecostal Tabernacle, and the modernist granite-clad BMO building on Jasper Avenue. Something has to happen to Chancery Hall, and demolishing it in favour of a new build is one of the options. Does it stand a chance?

“ It has a modern, sophisticated look,” Shafraaz Kaba says. “There are many ways to reimagine it in a contemporary way.”

Paul Van Imschoot’s bas relief stretches upward

from the basement past the lobby. History of Law

was commissioned as a nod to the building’s first

tenants – lawyers.


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A stroll through the hallways, well away from the windows that look out on downtown, leaves visitors feeling hemmed in.

CHANCERY HALL HAS had upgrades to its mech-anical structures, and many of its windows have been replaced or resealed. “But one engineering study says the precast is not in good shape,” says Walter Trocenko, branch manager of real estate, housing and economic sustainability at the City of Edmonton. With floor plates of 10,080 square feet, the building is no longer adequate for its current tenants, City of Edmonton employees.

Its low ceiling height is no longer standard in an office building, and it limits the space available for mechanical systems. A stroll through the hallways, well away from the windows that look out on downtown, leaves visitors feeling hemmed in. The city bought the building in 1987 and will be moving its staff from Chancery Hall and other downtown locations to its new digs in the multiuse space of the downtown arena, set to open in August 2016.

Trocenko’s main task these days is to plan and move 2,000 staff to the new space in a seamless fashion. But thinking about the future of Chancery Hall is also on his radar. “We have to huddle around the building,” he says. “We have solicited requests for expressions of interest. And

we need to start the discussion before the end of the year.

“This is an iconic and recognizable building,” says Manasc Isaac partner Vivian Manasc. “It has very cool architectural elements. But the building is of its time. The City of Edmonton needs bigger floor plates, and it doesn’t serve a large organization well. It’s not efficient, and it’s not bright – it needs to be reimagined.”

Manasc says she can envision the first few floors being dedicated to office space for smaller tenants, including not-for-profits and smaller businesses. “The remaining floors could be reimagined as residential space.” There would be an undeniable appeal to living on Churchill Square, with access to the LRT right in the building. The approach depends on the team of architects.

“Personally, I would try to create new windows and bring in more light,” Kaba says, “but retain the precast concrete. It has a modern, sophisticated look. There are many ways to reimagine it in a contemporary way.” He says that to ensure the building is performing as efficiently as possible architects would have to look at the wall assembly. If it proved too difficult to leave

the iconic cladding on the outside, they could consider re-skinning with a glass box around the building.

“I would also like to give the building a better interface with the street,” Kaba says. “A sympathetic canopy would allow patios for street-level businesses, and provide a welcoming look and feel.” The building craves a more effective way to open onto the world. Once inside, the lobby is modestly welcoming. A bas-relief by Paul Van Imschoot, History of Law, still graces the interior. I would hope that any reimagining of Chancery Hall would keep this feature as a testament to the many lawyers who have strode its halls, including several City Solicitors, and of course my dad, Stuart Purvis, QC.

Sentiment aside, Manasc agrees with Kaba. “I would like to retain and bring out the best elements of the building,” she says. “It could be as wonderful as, or better than ever.”

Trocenko says there are challenges beyond the upgrades and the small footprint and celing height of the place. The concrete cladding has structural properties. “It will take a team with capacity and creativity to work with us on Chancery Hall,” he says. “But it has the

makings of a great public piece. We just need to engage a team of individuals to find the right way to do it.”

In Edmonton, we lurch from boom to boom without ever truly “finishing” an area. In our effort to outrun our former selves, we can neglect buildings around us that are truly notable. Many of our public buildings are gems, especially considering the masses of indifferent and uninspired private commercial structures that we see cropping up all around us. Thankfully, we may be at a time when it’s possible to reimagine a building not only because it’s the greenest option out there, but also because it allows us to pay homage to our built past instead of disparaging and razing it. Here’s to hoping that the enlightened minds at the City of Edmonton truly engage with Chancery Hall and, as Trocenko says, “huddle around it,” to reimagine it as the signature structure it is. re


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SOURCES: ZEROFOOTPRINT.NET AND THE BUSINESS CASE FOR GREEN BUILDING (WORLD GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL)

The percentage of improvement in mental function and memory that occupants demonstrate in LEED-certified buildings with outside views

The percentage decrease in hospital stays those occupants experience

The percentage by which a green building’s energy is reduced compared to a conventional building, based on LEED-certified buildings in the United States

40 million. The number of tonnes of building rubble that London would generate by tearing down just its high-rise towers.

The percentage of North America’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) that can be blamed on buildings50

The mathematics behind sustainable and reimagined spaces adds up to a convincing case for investing in the future of our buildings

BY THE NUMBERS

last word

79The percentage of New York City’s carbon footprint that its 5,000+ towers generate

10-25

25% - 30%

8.5%

+14%

Increase in test scores by students in LEED-certified buildings with daylight

+18%

Increase in productivity workers experience in these settings

$30The value in U.S. dollars that deep retrofits have added per square foot in value to office spaces, based on decreased energy costs and higher productivity

up to

780.429.3977 manascisaac.com MANASCISAAC

70.5%

Reduction in natural gas usage:

42.5%

Reduction in power usage:

ASSET VALUE

SERVUS CREDIT UNION CORPORATE CENTRESignificant reductions in energy

consumption were achieved

during the first year after being

reimagined, resulting in lower

operating costs.

REAl RETURN ON yOUR INVESTmENT.

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40 million. The number of tonnes of building rubble that London would generate by tearing down just its high-rise towers.

BY THE NUMBERS

780.429.3977 manascisaac.com MANASCISAAC

70.5%

Reduction in natural gas usage:

42.5%

Reduction in power usage:

ASSET VALUE

SERVUS CREDIT UNION CORPORATE CENTRESignificant reductions in energy

consumption were achieved

during the first year after being

reimagined, resulting in lower

operating costs.

REAl RETURN ON yOUR INVESTmENT.

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MANASCISAAC

Top: Water Centre, Calgary Alberta. Bottom (left to right): Eastgate Offices for Environment Canada, Edmonton Alberta; Government Centre and Library, Slave Lake Alberta; Athabasca University Academic Research Centre, Athabasca Alberta

edmonton 780.429.3977 calgary 403.614.9909 manascisaac.com

We are Canadian leaders in green design, shaping the built environment to be healthy, beautiful and sustainable.

architecture engineering interiors

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