17 Best Green Practices from LJ's New Landmark Libraries
By Louise Schaper Jun 7, 2011Green means a lot to the future of library design. An important criterion for LJ's New Landmark Libraries project is sustainable design, and the winners are models of green choices inside and out. Some communities, like Phoenix, have their own mandatory green building requirements for public facilities while others require a specific level of LEED certification. Other libraries have no mandate to meet but the one defined by increased interest and need for green solutions.
Poplar Creek Public Library expanded its building from 44,000 square feet to over 96,000. Built green, but without a certification, it showcases a gigantic planted green roof, LED light fixtures, sun "scoops" to capture heat in the winter and decrease it in the summer, as well as high efficiency boilers, water heaters, and chillers. But, instead of doubling its utility bill, the library decreased it by 19 percent, saving a whopping $17,000 a year.
While not hugely evident in the New Landmark Libraries applications, it does appear that more libraries are choosing to carry green practices into the operation of the building. For example, the Roseville Library chose a waste free opening event, while Westhampton Free Library and Hamilton Mill Branch Library use green cleaning and pest management practices.
Green strategies commonplace in New Landmark Libraries and Honorable Mentions are:
- Occupancy sensors
- Low flow plumbing fixtures and waterless urinals
- Green roofs
- Reflective membrane roofs
- Computer controlled window shading
- Automated lighting systems
- Highly efficient and automated heating, cooling, and ventilation systems
Here are 17 of the best green practices from LJ's New Landmark Libraries and Honorable Mentions that are ready for adoption:
1. Install dual flush toilets. They are used in the restrooms at Durango Public Library and Poplar Creek Public Library and have been readily adopted.
2. Make a point with preferential parking. Libraries, like Honorable Mentions Anacostia Branch, White Tank Branch, Kilton Public Library, and Eastern Avenue Branch Library are now offering preferred parking for efficient vehicles and bicycles. Hamilton Mill Branch goes even further with special parking for skateboards. This strategy is a visible reminder to reduce the use of gasoline-and at Roseville Library, public art marks vanpool parking spaces to bring attention to sharing vehicles.
3. Buy LED lights, especially now that prices are dropping. Routinely installed in greener public libraries, they use up to 90 percent less energy and, as Poplar Creek Public Library found out, they rarely need to be changed, thereby decreasing maintenance costs. Sammamish Library's children's area features LED lights that look a lot like a constellation of stars.
4. Let in the light. Solar tubes bring diffused light throughout the center of Anythink Wright Farms, and sun "scoops" at Poplar Creek Public Library admit light and capture heat during the winter and block heat during the summer.
5. Open the windows. Where once unthinkable, green buildings are incorporating operable windows like the high ones at the Mission Bay Branch or Richmond Branch, both Honorable Mentions.
6. Educate the public. Interactive kiosks for educating the public on the library's green features and processes. Eastern Avenue Branch, for one, has three kiosks inside and three outside. Interpretative signs throughout the landscape of the Roseville Library speak to the project's ground water management and living upstream themes.
7. Deploy new materials. Greener materials continue to emerge. Check out the stunning mica encrusted, heat repelling, iridescent, and color-shifting siding on the Appaloosa Branch Library. Bricks made entirely of recycled materials, with looks as good as the "real" thing, clad the Hamilton Mill Branch. Children's chairs at the Roseville Library are made from recycled yogurt containers. Library! at Cole & Ustick, an Honorable Mention, uses old blue jeans are used for acoustic insulation and 100 percent recycled porcelain is in its bathroom wall tiles.
8. Walk on rubber. Recycled rubber flooring, found in most of our New Landmark Libraries, is used in staff areas, as well as in public areas. It's a common flooring material at Poplar Creek Public Library because it has a high slip resistance, feels good on the feet, and serves as an acoustic buffer.
9. Reimagine an outdated building. It is usually always greener to reuse rather than tear down and build new. Roseville Library, Poplar Creek Public Library, and the Richmond Branch are three great examples.
10. Go geothermal for heating and cooling as seen at Anythink Wright Farms, Maple Grove Branch, Kilton Public Library, and Sammamish Library. A hugely efficient and cost saving technology, it's also fun to show on tours.
11. Think alternative when it comes to power. Between its dozen geothermal wells, a wood pellet boiler, and electricity purchased from certified sustainable sources, Kilton Public Library runs without fossil fuels. Mission Bay Branch, located in a mixed-use building, shares in the energy savings from a 30 KW photovoltaic solar system. Westhampton Free Library invested in a 16 KW photovoltaic system to supply ten to 25 percent of its energy needs. White Tank Branch can get up to 30 percent of its power from a highly efficient solar system featuring 228 solar panels funded from the federal stimulus program.
12. Build into the earth or use earth berms to achieve greater insulation, as at Cesar Chavez Library.
13. Save water. Collect every bit of roof run-off for use in irrigation. It is useful everywhere, but critical to the desert libraries of the Southwest.
14. Study the sun. Careful siting to minimize heat and harvest sunlight is crucial to energy efficient buildings. The Arizona winners and honorable mentions take this in stride, but it's applicable everywhere.
15. Imagine green IT solutions, such as Energy Star rated computers. Not to be scoffed at: Hamilton Mill Branch Library shaved 45 percent off its equipment energy use.
16. Reuse existing parking. Several libraries deployed successful money saving strategies to reduce parking needs. For instance, Poplar Creek Public Library resurrected an existing but remote lot by connecting it safely with a stoplight and walkways, and, in turn, shaved off the expense of having to build a new one.
17. Reduce harmful water runoff. Rain gardens, permeable parking, under-building parking, and living green roofs are seen at Sammamish Library. Eastern Avenue Branch Library corrals roof water through a "scupper," drains it into a water basin, then to a water garden followed by a bioswale in the middle of the parking lot and finally to an infiltration pond where it is cleaned and returned to the ground to feed the natural wetlands near the library. Maple Grove Branch directs its excess rainwater into a roof edge where it creates a scenic waterfall that plunges into a native granite basin and moves on to help refill the manmade lakes nearby.
Explore all of LJ's New Landmark Libraries and Honorable Mentions, and the archive of LJ's Free webcast, A Tour of Four Library Journal New Landmark Libraries, will be available soon.
