Email #78 - The Green Question

My trick question in the last email - What's Wrong With This Picture? -stumped most of you. Was the picture "Too Green, or Not Green Enough?"

Actually both, as it turns out. I'm sending it again with this email except it now has less green color on the floor and some drywall surfaces. So yes, the neutral surfaces in the first picture were too green, as tinted by the "color of light" reflected from the green walls, which are rendered accurately in these photos. The unwanted green tint was easy to fix (mostly) in Photoshop.

The bigger question is embedded in "Not Green Enough?"

An ace M.Arch. student saw the "Green Architecture" implications immediately, even if most of you didn't. Less than an hour after I sent it out on March 2, Todd B. shot back:

"I'm guessing that they wussed out on the ventilation above the windows."

Yup, it looks like the historic transom vents above the windows have been blocked off with nicely styled metal plates. Why aren't these going to be open and used in our new Green Building which is supposed to be naturally ventilated?

The short answer according to Doug Zuberbuhler is "extremely expensive," especially because acoustic baffles would have to be installed to dampen incoming noise. Instead, the second floor studios will be ventilated simply by opening and closing double-hung windows in combination with the new breather walls and fans along the central axis of the building.

However, the historic transom vents were not permanently blocked off. Indeed the channels were actually extended through the new shotcreted shear walls. That means they can be easily reopened in the future if necessary by simply removing the metal plates and pieces of insulation behind them.

Similar transom vents in the first floor offices will be opened and operable for natural ventilation. (Not). But not on the top floor or ground floor.

Any loss of potential transom ventilation is probably compensated for by opening the top windows (top down) of the large double-hung windows, while keeping the bottom window either open or closed. If you're in one of those studios, you will probably keep the bottom window closed to keep the wind and rain off your papers and laptop.

Our Ventilation Heritage: Architecture Hall is extremely well-endowed with transom vents. They are above virtually every window on all three floors in both wings. That's because it was designed to be a state-of-the-art Chemistry Building in 1907-1909. That meant LOTS of natural ventilation, and hence the transom vents, the breather walls and the catwalk plenum.

Now in 2007-2009, how will the new Green Architecture work in this building?

We'll find out soon. In fact we'll be the guinea pigs in a big Ventilation Experiment.

Or maybe more like canaries.

John Stamets
Mar 10, 2007

P.S. Special thanks to Dean Heerwagen for his keen observations and stimulating conversations that informed these last two emails.