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Well, GBS ’18 was sure a blast!

We had an amazing time at GBS ’18. From Jim Stanislaski’s and Aminah Mcnulty’s breakout performances in the opening “Mother Earth” performance to EMD Serono winning Green Building of the Year, there were some memorable moments.

This event would not have been possible without support from all of our sponsors, judges, and our wonderful community. From the beginning, USGBC MA has been a team effort, and we firmly believe it’s your community.

Check out event photos below, as well as short bios on each of the winners of the night. We hope to see you next year!

Green Building of the Year

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EMD Serono SagaMORE
Submitted by The Green Engineer and Ellenzweig

It includes low-VOC emitting interior furnishings and finishes; high-efficiency LED and WELL-compliant interior lighting; planters full of natural vegetation indoors, and a strong visual connection to the outdoors.

Project SagaMORE is a 30,000 SF expansion of EMD Serono’s R&D campus in Billerica and was designed to enhance EMD’s progressive work culture through employee engagement, wellbeing, technology, and biophilic design. The project’s design challenge was to expand and improve upon the existing, 24,000 SF office building (Project Bridgeway) to produce a unified solution, while achieving both WELL and LEED NC certification. Both the existing office (Project Bridgeway) and annex (Project Sagamore) have jointly achieved WELL Gold certification for New & Existing Construction from the International Well Building InstituteTM (IWBI)TM. It is the 1st New & Existing Building WELL Certified Gold project in the US and only the 2 in the World.

The design and construction team understood that every decision bore a definitive impact on the project’s ability to become a WELL certified building. In this regard, the project’s successful passing of the performance verification was an accomplishment not only for the design team, but also for the occupants – who moved into a space that was officially verified to have a healthy indoor environment.

Project Sagamore is currently pending LEED NC v2009 Gold certification. It is expected to achieve a 42% water use reduction, 30% energy cost reduction, and 82% reduction in construction waste. Project Bridgeway previously achieved LEED CI v2009 Platinum Certification.

Market Leader Award Series

SITE – MARKET LEADER

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Everyone wants a home of their own.
by Utile, Inc.

The building design optimizes comfort, durability, and energy-efficiency by adopting the PHIUS+ 2015 Passive House standard specific to Atlanta’s climate.

This project imagines a 21st-century single-occupancy community by integrating a diverse and growing cross-section of the population that for a variety of reasons live alone; one that is equally attractive to those with few options to leave and those who can choose to live elsewhere.

The design is organized around different scales of open spaces that mediate the threshold between the privacy of the home and shared public realm. The Porch and Stoop units have shared, flexible “front yards” which support a range of uses from occupant-tended gardens to parking, and “backyards” which offer privacy and greener views to the constructed wetland on site. They allow unhindered pedestrian movement throughout acting as an extension of the semi-public realm.

Building design optimizes comfort, durability, and energy-efficiency by adopting the PHIUS+ 2015 Passive House standard specific to Atlanta’s climate. Buildings will be better adapted to climate change, be net-zero ready, and achieve significant energy savings. Community facilities do not rely on the municipal power grid during outages and emergency events, thus doubling up as spaces of refuge and allowing critical community services to stay fully operational in times of need.

The site design creates a responsible precedent for future development along emerging transit corridors by prioritizing sustainable transportation modes in an auto-dominant Atlanta. It accommodates a BRT stop on Metropolitan Ave servicing the proposed BRT connecting downtown to the airport. Community functions located at the project’s front-door provide amenities for the neighborhood, beyond the residents our project.

INNOVATION – MARKET LEADER

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Chicago Riverwalk
Submitted by: Sasaki

The distinct programs and forms of each typological space allow for diverse experiences on the river ranging from dining opportunities to expansive public event programming to new amenities for human-powered craft.

In 2012, Sasaki, Ross Barney Architects, Alfred Benesch Engineers, Jacobs/Ryan Associates, and a broader technical consultant team, was tasked with creating a vision for the six blocks between State Street and Lake Street. Building off the previous studies of the river, the team’s plans provide a pedestrian connection along the river between the lake and the river’s confluence.

The task at hand was technically challenging. The design team, for instance, needed to work within a tight permit-mandated 25-foot-wide build-out area to expand the pedestrian program spaces and negotiate a series of under-bridge connections between blocks. Further, the design had to account for the river’s annual flood dynamics of nearly seven vertical feet.

Turning these challenges into opportunities, the team imagined new ways of thinking about this linear park. Rather than a path composed of 90-degree turns, the path was envisioned as a more independent system—one that, through changes in its shape and form, would drive a series of new programmatic connections to the river. With new connections that enrich and diversify life along the river, each block takes on the form and program of a different river-based typology.

As a new connected path system, the Chicago Riverwalk design provides both continuity and variety for a park visitor. The distinct programs and forms of each typological space allow for diverse experiences on the river ranging from dining opportunities to expansive public event programming to new amenities for human-powered craft. At the same time, design materials, details, and repeated forms provide visual cohesion along the entire length of the project. Paving, for instance, mirrors the contrasts of the existing context: A refined cut stone follows the elegant Beaux-Arts Wacker viaduct and bridgehouse architecture, while a more rugged precast plank flanks the lower elevations and underside of the exposed steel bridges.

HEALTH & WELLNESS – MARKET LEADER

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EMD Serono SagaMORE
Submitted by: Ellenzweig & The Green Engineer

Project SagaMORE is currently pending LEED NC v2009 Gold certification. It is expected to achieve a 42% water use reduction, 30% energy cost reduction, and 82% reduction in construction waste.

Project SagaMORE is a 30,000 SF expansion of EMD Serono’s R&D campus in Billerica and was designed to enhance EMD’s progressive work culture through employee engagement, wellbeing, technology, and biophilic design. The project’s design challenge was to expand and improve upon the existing, 24,000 SF office building (Project Bridgeway) to produce a unified solution, while achieving both WELL and LEED NC certification. Both the existing office (Project Bridgeway) and annex (Project SagaMORE) have jointly achieved WELL Gold certification for New & Existing Construction from the International Well Building Institute (IWBI). It is the 1st New & Existing Building WELL Certified Gold project in the US and only the 2 in the World.

The EMD project design promotes the use of stairs rather than elevators. It includes low-VOC emitting interior furnishings and finishes; high-efficiency LED and WELL-compliant interior lighting; planters full of natural vegetation indoors, and a strong visual connection to the outdoors. EMD provides occupants with WELL compliant food service. It does not provide any food or beverages, within the facility or its campus, that contain trans. fats or that have a high sugar content (such as soda or junk food) in excess of the WELL standard’s requirements. The facility passed the circadian lighting and IAQ performance tests required for WELL certification. The design and construction team understood that every decision bore a definitive impact on the project’s ability to become a WELL certified building. In this regard, the project’s successful passing of the performance verification was an accomplishment not only for the design team, but also for the occupants – who moved into a space that was officially verified to have a healthy indoor environment.

Project SagaMORE is currently pending LEED NC v2009 Gold certification. It is expected to achieve a 42% water use reduction, 30% energy cost reduction, and 82% reduction in construction waste. Project Bridgeway previously achieved LEED CI v2009 Platinum Certification.

ENERGY & WATER EFFICIENCY – MARKET LEADER

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6 Industrial Way Office Park
Submitted by: Touloukian Touloukian Inc

The office building structure includes innovative Cross Laminated Timbers; the first of its kind in New England.

Designed as a three-story office space, this 16-acre site reverses the conventional, inwardly focused commercial building by implementing a flexible floor plan and indoor/outdoor program that advances human health and wellness. The office building structure includes innovative Cross Laminated Timbers; the first of its kind in New England. Lumber cut from the site is harvested and brought to local sawmills to create the material for the CLT structural panels which have lower embodied carbon than traditional steel construction. Structural wood bays provide tenants an open floor plan with large, uninterrupted views to the outdoors. Tenants are brought together at the ground level to a full cafeteria that faces a large lawn space with outdoor seating.

RESILIENCE – MARKET LEADER

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181 Coleridge Ave Residences
Submitted by: Touloukian Touloukian Inc

The site features a central courtyard which helps elevate the building access points above the FEMA floodplains and gently slopes down towards the waterfront using native plantings and rain gardens to help control the on-site storm water.

Located in East Boston, this new multi-family residential development faces many challenges as a waterfront site already affected by the rising coastal tides surrounding the Boston Harbor. The project focuses on resiliency planning and Chapter 91 public spaces for the growing neighborhood showing how both requirements can be designed to benefit each other. In addition to the 19 residential units, the site features a central courtyard which helps elevate the building access points above the FEMA floodplains and gently slopes down towards the waterfront using native plantings and rain gardens to help control the on-site storm water. Amenities include a dry flood proofed underground parking garage, access to the “urban beach,” and public kayak storage. An independent townhouse to the residential side of the site helps bridge the small-scale residential street language into the larger and modernly detailed development abutting large public spaces of the beach and parkway.

PEOPLE’S CHOICE – MARKET LEADER

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Northeastern University
Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex
Submitted by: Payette

A parametric model was developed alongside custom compositing software to allow the team to perform iterative simulations accurately predicting solar performance of the screen, optimizing the profile, form and performance of the sunshade system.

Constructed on an urban brownfield site consisting of an existing surface parking lot set between two garages, the ISEC represents the completion of the first phase of the newly planned 660,000 SF academic precinct. Dynamic movement systems permeate the project, expand a campus and bridge two Boston neighborhoods. This cutting-edge research facility defines a new academic and social hub for students and allows Northeastern University to compete as a premier research institution.

Aggressive targets and an integrated approach to sustainability were embedded in the project from the planning stages throughout the design process, impacting everything from the programmatic organization of the building to the design of the building enclosure, including its signature “solar veil.” A parametric model was developed alongside custom compositing software to allow the team to perform iterative simulations accurately predicting solar performance of the screen, optimizing the profile, form and performance of the sunshade system. This workflow was used to tune the system performance feeding directly into the building energy model, allowing the engineers to correctly size equipment, which provided 33% energy savings over code.

Eversource Energy Optimization Award

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Bentley University Ice Arena
Submitted by Suffolk and Bentley University

The Bentley Arena not only enhances student life on campus, but serves as a “living laboratory” connecting the classroom to the built environment.

Bentley University’s new state-of-the-art multipurpose arena, this facility is home to Bentley’s NCAA Division I men’s hockey team and the setting for university events such as career fairs, concerts, high-profile speakers and alumni gatherings. The venue, designed by Architectural Resources Cambridge and built by Suﬀolk Construction, marks Bentley’s rise as a modern, nationally-recognized business university.

The Bentley Arena not only enhances student life on campus, but serves as a “living laboratory” connecting the classroom to the built environment. Students studying business and sustainability are analyzing the arena’s energy usage data and the impact of the rooftop solar array on the university’s greenhouse gas emissions and operating budget; students studying media technology operate the video control room; and marketing students are engaged in graphic design development for the arena’s jumbo-tron.

The LEED Platinum certified building boasts a 500KW rooftop solar array which provides the standalone ice arena with 40% of its annual electricity needs. A state-of-the art heat reclamation loop captures waste heat from the ice making equipment and uses it in domestic hot water and space heating systems throughout the building. LED lighting is present throughout the building and a large amount of window glazing allows much more natural light into the space than is typically seen in arenas. The combination of energy efficient technology and onsite renewable energy has resulted in the Bentley arena emitting 50% fewer climate-change causing greenhouse gases per year as compared to similar ice arenas.

Arena visitors enjoy views to the outside from all of the public areas in the building and a specially cut window on the building’s west side provides a view to the adjacent wetlands. This special window is accompanied by a sign educating building visitors on the importance of the wetland area both as a natural habitat and in stormwater management for Bentley’s campus.

Low-flow plumbing fixtures and waterless urinals reduce the buildings plumbing water use by 48%. Native and adaptive plant species including a meadow planted with local wildflower species on the north side of building eliminate the need for irrigation.

The Bentley Arena is a sustainable investment in the future of Bentley, providing a gathering place to welcome the entire Bentley community for many years to come and enhancing the place-based student experience that is the hallmark of a Bentley education.