Yosemite National Park to build $10 million visitor center

Groundbreaking on "welcome center" in 
Yosemite Valley expected by this fall

by Paul Rogers, Bay Area News Group

Published: April 14, 2021

An artist's rendering of the planned plaza and the new Welcome Center proposed for Yosemite Valley. Yosemite Falls is visible in the background. The Welcome Center will be located in a refurbished building that housed the Sports Shop in the eastern Yosemite Village. (Courtesy of Yosemite Conservancy/RHAA Landscape Architects)

IN A TYPICAL YEAR, more than 4.5 million people visit Yosemite National Park, many of them first-time visitors from other states or countries who are looking to find their bearings and figure out how best to enjoy the breathtaking scenery of one of America's most storied landmarks.

Now, park officials and a leading Bay Area environmental group are working to make their experience a little easier by building a new $10.4 million visitor center in the heart of Yosemite Valley. Construction is planned to begin this fall with the new facility expected to open by the end of 2022 or early 2023.

Read the article in its entirety by clicking here or paste this url into your browser: www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/14/yosemite-national-park-to-build-new-10-4-million-visitor-center/

Julia Morgan Hall wins 2020 US WoodWorks Wood Design Award

By The Editors, February 5, 2020
Architect's Newspaper

Adaptable and Durable Wood Structures

Project: Julia Morgan Hall
Location: Berkeley, California
Architect: Siegel & Strain Architects
Structural Engineer: Bluestone Engineering
Contractor: James R. Griffin
Photography: David Wakely

Designed in 1911 by California architect Julia Morgan (who also designed Hearst Castle), this Senior Women’s Hall at UC Berkeley is an elegant redwood bungalow with exposed wall and roof framing and a natural-finish interior. The building served as a gathering place for female students until 1969, when it was converted into a childcare center. First relocated in 1946, it was moved again in 2014—to the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. To extricate the structure from its site and negotiate a winding road with overhanging trees, the building was divided into four segments, which were reassembled at the Garden, rehabilitated and upgraded to meet current accessibility standards. All of the work—including cutting, installation, subsequent removal of temporary shoring and protection, and reassembly—had to be carefully executed to avoid damage. The exposed interior wood components required only minimal staining to conceal wear and tear, while the rich wood floors were refinished. the redwood siding was replaced as required and painted, and the team added a new wood porch. 2,255 square feet / Type V-B construction.

For more winners and information, visit:
https://archpaper.com/2020/02/2020-us-woodworks-wood-design-awards-category-winners/ 
and
https://www.woodworks.org/project/julia-morgan-hall/

Global Climate Action Summit

by Larry Strain, FAIA

Zero-net energy verified Center for Environmental Studies, Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland, CA

IN SEPTEMBER, I ATTENDED THE GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION SUMMIT (GCAS) in San Francisco as a delegate of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). I also attended two affiliated events: The Carbon Smart Building Day and Climate Heritage Mobilization. I’ve been working on reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from buildings for the last decade or so, and while none of what I learned came as a big surprise, I did come away with a clearer idea of the challenges we are facing and also more hopeful about the potential solutions.

The Global Climate Action Summit brought together people from around the world to, as its organizers said, “Take Ambition to the Next Level.” This was structured (by organizers that included Jerry Brown, Michael Bloomberg, and others) as a time to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of states, regions, cities, companies, investors and citizens with respect to climate action. It was also meant as a launching moment for big commitments from countries, cities, NGOs, companies, and others. The goal is to put society “on track to prevent dangerous climate change and realize the historic Paris Agreement.”

The GCAS website states: “The decarbonization of the global economy is in sight. Transformational changes are happening across the world and across all sectors as a result of technological innovation, new and creative policies and political will at all levels. States and regions, cities, businesses and investors are leading the charge on pushing down global emissions by 2020, setting the stage to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century.​​” Community activists and indigenous populations also called for more inclusive, bottom-up solutions. It was good to see people who usually do not have a voice being heard.

The Carbon Smart Building Day focused on buildings and had great keynote talks by Ed Mazria of Architecture 2030 and Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Session topics ranged from reducing and storing embodied carbon, to retrofitting existing buildings, to creating highly efficient new buildings. Architecture 2030 introduced the Zero Code and the Materials Palette.

The Climate Heritage Day was about the importance of historic buildings, human culture and indigenous peoples and the roles they must play in addressing climate change. Traditional buildings and cultures have a lot of the answers we need. We also need to reuse and upgrade what we have. Representatives from native peoples from all over the world added their voices and perspectives on climate issues, mitigation and adaptation.

Some key takeaways:

• Our climate models are too conservative. The effects of climate change on our eco systems – human and natural – are more extreme and happening faster than predicted and are already being felt all over the world.
• We need to step up our understanding and efforts to adapt to the changes we are already experiencing and design more resiliency into human and natural systems.
• Many of the solutions needed to reduce GHG emissions – decarbonization of the grid, electric vehicles, divestment from fossil fuels, and many more – are expanding and being adopted at exponential rates. This is exactly what needs to happen if we are to avoid catastrophic, irreversible climate change.
• Those most impacted by the changing climate – the indigenous, poor and displaced peoples of the world – have a unique perspective on both the impacts and the solutions and need to have a say in creating those solutions.
• Things are also more hopeful than we thought. And we can be part of sharing the leverage points for accelerating positive change.

Architects & Climate Change

by Larry Strain

Climate change is happening. No help and a lot of hurt is coming from Washington. Architects are going to have step up our efforts. Buildings account for close to half of the Green House Gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S.

So what can we do now?

ZNE-verified: Center for Environmental Studies, Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland, CA

Reduce Operation Emissions
We can design and advocate that all new buildings be zero net carbon (ZNC) – super-efficient, all electric and powered by renewable energy. (Adding short term on-site battery storage also helps the grid stay off fossil fuels when the sun isn't shining.) If our buildings can't achieve ZNC, they can be ZNC ready, and can still be powered by 100% off-site renewable power, through programs like Community Choice Energy or PG&E's Solar Choice program.

Reduce Embodied Emissions
We can reduce the embodied carbon footprint of our buildings. Building a new home generates 30-50 tons of GHG emissions and larger commercial buildings generate a lot more – equal to more than 10 years of operating an efficient, code compliant building. When our new buildings are ZNE, embodied carbon accounts for all the emissions. We can reduce those emissions by 25-30% by just focusing on concrete and a few other materials. Higher reductions are possible when we pay attention to everything else, and use carbon sequestering materials. Building with materials that are made from atmospheric carbon – wood, straw, and, coming soon – concrete and even plastics – could transform our buildings into carbon sinks instead of carbon emitters.

Reuse & Upgrade Existing Buildings
We can design and advocate for reusing and upgrading existing buildings instead of building new ones, which saves carbon twice – reuse generates less carbon emissions than building a new building and upgrading reduces the operating emissions from existing buildings. (Operating existing buildings accounts for 95% of all building emissions). Most existing homes and a lot of commercial buildings could be retrofitted to be ZNC.

None of this is easy, but if we're serious about addressing climate change, it's what needs to be done.

"Carbon Is Us"

The featured image is Siegel & Strain’s work for Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, CA. The Center for Environmental Studies is a net zero energy project. Photo by David Wakely.

 

A response to William McDonough's new language of carbon.

By Guest Contributors Henry Siegel, FAIA and Larry Strain, FAIA
published in The Urbanist on April 4, 2017

“We’re made of star stuff.” –Carl Sagan

“We are stardust.” –Joni Mitchell

Carl and Joni got it right. So does William McDonough when he says that carbon is not the enemy (“Carbon is Not the Enemy,” in the journal Nature in November and referenced in Blaire Brownell’s “William McDonough Reconsiders Carbon and Its Misuse,” in Architect the same month). Carbon is, after all, a basic component of all life on this planet. His “new language of carbon”—distinguishing between fugitive, durable, and living carbon—challenges us to rethink what carbon is and how we might work with it differently. McDonough correctly points out that carbon negative is a positive and we should start calling it that. (Fugitive is an interesting word choice for unwanted carbon. The first definition of fugitive—“a person or thing that has escaped”—makes sense. The second definition—“fleeting and quick to disappear”—is, unfortunately, not the case for atmospheric “fugitive” carbon.)

He is also correct to call out carbon offsets. We need to plant trees and convert fugitive carbon to living and durable carbon, but not as a justification to continue making more fugitive carbon. Finally, he sets the bar at the top: “Just stop it. Don’t offset it. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is like lead in a river, right? You don’t put lead in rivers. You don’t start saying, ‘I’m going to reduce my lead in the river by 20 percent.’ You stop it.”

New buildings, he says, should all aspire to bring forth “a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world with clean air, water, soil and power.” Who wouldn’t want that? Architects have made progress, but we still fall short of this goal and thinking only about new buildings is part of the problem.

We cannot build our way out of the global warming crisis by relying only on new cutting-edge green buildings. Most of the emissions from the built environment come from operating existing buildings, so one important strategy is to upgrade and reuse existing buildings—and build fewer new buildings.
Reuse recycles the durable carbon that is tied up in building materials and reduces the need for constructing new buildings and manufacturing of new materials with their associated fugitive emissions. Efficiency upgrades, powered by renewables, reduce fugitive carbon emissions from operating our existing and inefficient buildings. 

Another important strategy is reducing embodied carbon—the carbon dioxide emitted during the manufacture, transport, and assembly of building materials. Carbon emissions have a time value; embodied carbon is front end loaded: It ends when the building is occupied (except for upkeep), while operating energy starts with occupancy and continues at a steady rate throughout the life of the building. As buildings use less and less energy to operate, carbon emissions embodied in building materials and construction become a larger part of the fugitive carbon equation. Over the next 20 years—the critical period for reducing the adverse effects of climate change—embodied carbon will be responsible for most new building emissions. 

The built environment is, as we all know by now, responsible for 40 to 50 percent of “fugitive” carbon emissions. What’s missing in McDonough’s redefinition is the sense of urgency required to really act on climate change, since we are on track to hit a global tipping point in the next 10 to 20 years. Given that timeline, we need to do everything we can. Actually, less bad is good.

We can’t wait for the economy to be reinvented. We don’t have a century to get to carbon positive. We need large reductions in carbon emissions now. By all means, let’s encourage and hasten transformational, paradigm-shifting change. But we also need incremental, obvious, “we already know how to do this,” change right now.

Read the article on The Urbanist website.