HOK-Weidt Group team members who designed an affordable 163,000-sq.-ft. zero emissions office building used HOK’s Advanced Collaboration Rooms to celebrate their success with a virtual toast.

“I’m a big believer in marking passages,” said HOK Sustainable Design Director Mary Ann Lazarus, who led the nearly yearlong charrette. “We set out to discover the barriers and opportunities for market-rate carbon neutral design. And we did it!”

Tim Gaidis and Mary Ann in St. Louis:

Colin Rohlfing and Jeff Sanner in Chicago:

Gerry Faubert in Toronto:

Bill Valentine …

Is it possible to design a market-rate, zero carbon emissions office building in St. Louis? A dedicated team led by HOK and our friends at The Weidt Group decided to find out. The exciting news is that though a variety of conditions — from the climate to the cheap electricity — made St. Louis a challenging location, the answer is YES! And the design process will transfer to most North American cities. 

We’ll share details about the design and process …

The team designing a zero emissions office building met virtually on September 29 to brainstorm about the exterior walls. HOK participants included Bill Valentine and Dave Troup in San Francisco, Mary Ann Lazarus, Tim Gaidis and Tyler Meyr in St. Louis, and Jeff “heard but never seen” Sanner in Chicago. Joining the charrette via “Thunder” from the The Weidt Group in Minneapolis were Chris Baker and Vinay Ghatti.

The video quality isn’t exactly Ken Burnsesque, but the clip does provide a fairly rare opportunity to watch some really talented designers bounce ideas off one another:

Previous ZEB posts (in chronological order):

1. Onward to Zero Emissions

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This is a report on the zero emissions building design charrette that took place on September 17. HOK and The Weidt Group participants in San Francisco, Toronto, St. Louis, Berkeley, Calif., and Minneapolis saved carbon emissions from air travel by using Cisco Telepresence Technology, Polyvision THUNDER Express, WebEx and HOK’s Advanced Collaboration Rooms to meet virtually.

The team designing the a zero carbon emissions office building has made lots of progress since my last ZEB post. With the final meeting fast-approaching and an affordable carbon-free solution on the horizon, it’s time to crank out some posts to catch you up on what they’ve been up to.

Finally, a Focus on the Building …

This is a report on the zero emissions building virtual design charrette that took place on August 26, 2009. HOK and The Weidt Group participants in San Francisco, Toronto, St. Louis and Minneapolis used Cisco Telepresence Technology, Polyvision THUNDER Express, WebEx and HOK’s Advanced Collaboration Rooms to communicate.

In this meeting The Weidt Group’s Chris Baker and Vinay Ghatti pushed the team closer to a zero emissions office building design by talking the group through a whopping 89-page Strategy Report describing the potential energy use, carbon emissions and cost implications of hundreds of specific energy conservation strategies.

The report documented the results of DOE-2 building simulations for each …

This is a report on the zero emissions building virtual design charrette that took place in HOK’s Advanced Collaboration Rooms in San Francisco, Toronto and St. Louis on 13 August 2009.

This virtual meeting’s participants included Bill Valentine, Tim Gaidis, Tyler Meyr, Gerry Faubert and Jeff Sanner of HOK along with Prasad Vaidya of The Weidt Group. Ideas were flying, and the electronic flipcharts received a heavy workout. Here’s a summary of the outcomes.

Bar Length, Alignment and Core Configuration

Previous energy efficiency and generation models had demonstrated that it would be tough to meet the zero emissions goal if the total building area surpassed about 180,000 square feet. “If we need to increase …

The Zero Emissions Building design team is using use life’s principles as one filter for potential solutions. During the July 31 charrette, HOK Sustainable Design Director Mary Ann Lazarus described sustainable design ideas from nature generated in a session that included her and Tim Gaidis from HOK and Dr. Dayna Baumeister and Tim McGee from the Biomimicry Guild.

Their suggestions for the larger design team included:

• Consider solutions that are locally attuned and responsive — derived from the local climate and place in St. Louis.

• Use cyclical processes and closed loops (waste = food, for example).

• Optimize rather than maximize. Get the most benefits possible out

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The Zero Emissions Building virtual design team had another fantastic session yesterday, with team members from St. Louis, San Francisco, Toronto, Chicago and Berkeley using Advanced Collaboration Rooms (STL and SF) and Thunder Virtual Flipchart desktop software to collaborate on their exploration of the building’s core configuration, massing, daylighting, parking, slab thickness and skin.

Right at the end of the session, the connection dropped, and nobody could see or hear each other. So the team said their goodbyes on the virtual flipcharts.

The team is still marching onward toward zero …

The second zero emissions building design charrette took place July 23 in The Weidt Group’s naturally daylit offices in a Minneapolis suburb. The brainstorm team included five designers from each firm, with combined expertise in energy and daylighting modeling, architecture, engineering and integrated design. Click here to see the agenda.

The team began by restating its goal: To design a 150,000-200,000-square-foot, high-end speculative office building in St. Louis that is a zero emissions building (ZEB). The group also wants to document a process that could potentially change the way they design buildings.

HOK Sustainable Design Director Mary Ann Lazarus clarified the team’s definition of a zero emissions building: …

One of the challenges for the zero emissions office building design team will be to maximize use of daylighting. At last Thursday’s design charrette in The Weidt Group’s offices in Minnetonka, Minn., the team experienced a living lab of naturally lit space – an office that uses virtually no electric lights.

The Weidt Group’s general office area (no electric lights, north-facing windows):

“The key for getting the daylighting back into the space is the upper portion of glazing, the area above the ductwork,” says The Weidt Group energy analyst Chris Baker. “The higher the top of the window, the deeper you can get light into the space. The other key is …

We’re going to keep documenting the efforts of the zero emissions office building design team on this blog. You’ll find out along with the team whether they can meet their ambitious goal of creating a zero emissions design for a typical St. Louis office building.

Yesterday a group of HOK designers from St. Louis, Chicago and Toronto converged in Minneapolis to meet with our project partners from The Weidt Group, who are providing energy and daylight modeling for the effort. It was an amazing, eye-opening day, and we’ll have a full report next week.

Until then, here’s HOK Sustainable Design Practice Leader Tim Gaidis doing a couple of “Before” and “After” stand-ups at the airport in Minneapolis.

7:30 AM: Minutes After Arriving in …

What does it take to design a net zero emissions office building? Because few of our clients are currently considering carbon neutrality in their projects, an HOK team — with help from some wonderful friends — is designing one through a series of virtual charrettes.

In response to Architecture 2030’s challenge to the global architecture and building community, HOK has committed to designing all buildings to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030.

The idea for the charrette is the brainchild of HOK Chairman Bill Valentine, who wants the firm’s people to gain the knowledge and experience required to design zero emissions buildings. This vision is being turned into reality …