Part I: Sustainable Action Plan

AIA 2030 COMMITMENT

Siegel & Strain Architects is a proud signatory of the American Institute of Architects 2030 Commitment, a national initiative to track energy use reductions for all new building with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. Since its start, the reduction target has been steadily increased. Currently, the goal is a 70% reduction in energy use compared to similar buildings. The goal will increase to 80% in 2020, 90% in 2025 and finally 100% in 2030. The platform allows firms to compare data, best practices and energy use from around the nation. In 2016, signatory firms achieved a national average of 42% energy use reduction vs the national average, short of our goal, but an increase from previous years.

Our goal: Hit the target of 70% reduction versus the national average.

ENERGY MODELING AND PERFORMANCE DRIVEN DESIGN

We hold ourselves accountable and ensure our projects perform as intended. Beyond the 2030 goals of energy use reduction, we track 80 different data points on a range of sustainability goals including cost, energy, building envelope, lighting, water, materials and site.  When possible, we collect post occupancy data to compare how our projects perform. Some of the modeling criteria we perform includes:

• Life Cycle Analysis
• Daylighting
• Energy Modeling, auditing and benchmarking
• Building Assembly Analysis
• Water Conservation Analysis

Our Goal: Track and compare data points on all incoming projects. Perform energy modeling at the conceptual stage of every projects.

Daylight Modeling of the Brisbane Library

Tracking our projects' Energy Use Intensity against 2030 Commitment Goals

Click here to download our 2030 Commitment Sustainable Action Plan.

Part I: Jackson Sustainable Winery Building

Collaboration Pays Off with Stunning Performance Metrics

by Nancy Malone, LEED Fellow

Photo: Siegel & Strain Architects

This past May, Siegel & Strain celebrated the dedication of the Jess S. Jackson Sustainable Winery Building (JSWB) at UC Davis. And now we are celebrating again, this time for great energy monitoring outcomes!

The JSWB is designed to operate passively and to provide support services, such as electricity production, water filtration and carbon sequestration to the adjacent winery. Our design task was to deliver a passive, net-zero building: the building stays within tightly defined temperature limits without heating and cooling, and generates more electrical energy than it consumes. And based on data collected to date, we are on track to achieve this AND a Living Building Challenge Net Zero Energy certification in about one year’s time.

The main strategy behind achieving net zero energy was to create a completely unplugged (from building systems) and passive building – not easy in Davis’ hot climate, which regularly reaches summer temperatures of 100º F or more – by taking advantage of a diurnal temperature swing of as much as 40º. Our primary strategies include:

• super-insulated building envelope (R-56 walls, R-70 roof)
• a very tight building envelope (blower door test result of 1,950cfm @ 50 Pascals)
• thermal mass in a slab-on-grade floor and an 8’ high CMU wall
• shading of windows and east and west elevations
• daylighting
• night time ventilation

JSWB appears in the upper left with six new water tanks in place. Photo: UC Davis

The passive design strategies drive the design – but not without fitting into the campus in terms of form, materials and detailing. The sloped roof relates to the nearby winery structures and is oriented for photovoltaic panels. The adjacent flat roof steps down to bring daylight to the middle of the building; it is also set up to receive future concentrating solar collectors. The sloped roof extends beyond the east and west ends of the building to create deep porches that provide extra shade and increase the available area for photovoltaic panels by 30%. Vertical shading devices on the north side shade the windows in the hottest months and create beautiful shadows on the building. Every design move does double or triple duty.

Photo: Jasper Sanidad

Passive buildings are never, by their nature, of one gesture or by one author. Rather, they require integrated sets of strategies and a circular, feedback-driven design process across disciplines. And so it is here. We worked closely with a great team to develop and refine the design strategies and were able to repeatedly justify our design decisions – internally and for the client group.

The project is a design/build effort led by Siegel & Strain Architects/Pankow Builders, with design team members Guttmann & Blavoet (G&B), Ingraham DeJesse Associates (IDA) and Cunningham Engineering. Together, we adjusted the design through a series of collaborative meetings and no less than 60 runs of the energy model, constantly evaluating performance relative to construction cost. This level of design iteration is essential for high performance buildings. And to be mainstream, high performance buildings must be cost effective. At one point in the design process we were still 5º F away from our targeted performance point, and we knew that adding thermal mass would get us closer to our goal. G&B calculated how much mass we needed through energy modeling; IDA figured out how tall a CMU wall could be before needing to drastically change the reinforcing or footing. By evaluating the strategy together, we landed on the most cost effective means of achieving our goal.

And the additional design effort has paid off. Several weeks of monitoring during the hottest summer months show that the building is performing right on target: while outside temperatures swing about 40º F each day, the building stays within a narrow band of approximately 5º F. And that feels really good, both from within the building, but also from where I sit reading the data.

One month of indoor temperatures showing that the building performs 

as modeled within prescribed temperatures relative to outdoor temperatures. 

Spkes in indoor temperatures are due to days when the doors were left open for tours.

Graph: Department of Viticulture & Enology, UC Davis