Tag: sustainable

Hennebery Eddy Architects Announces New Hires and Promotion

New staff members strengthen firm’s sustainable design and BIM expertise

L-R: Sam Bennett, AIA, Abby Short, Amber Nobe
L-R: Sam Bennett, AIA, Abby Short, Amber Nobe

Hennebery Eddy Architects welcomed two staff members to the firm this summer, deepening its sustainable design, architectural and building information management (BIM) capabilities.

Samantha Bennett, AIA, joined the firm as a project architect, bringing high- and mid-rise multifamily housing, student housing, commercial, and mixed-used project experience, with specialized expertise as a Certified Passive House Consultant. She previously worked as an energy analyst, modeling energy savings and providing technical leadership and support for commercial energy efficiency projects. Sam applies a unique perspective on whole building design and sustainability to her Hennebery Eddy projects, which include rehabilitation of an historic dormitory in Mammoth, Wyo., and a new maintenance facility in the Lake Historic District in Yellowstone National Park. Sam is a LEED Green Associate and earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon.

Abby Short joined Hennebery Eddy as a member of the firm’s design staff, applying significant BIM knowledge to the Portland International Airport Concourse E Extension project. Abby specializes in coordinating design models and drawings and working with project teams on Revit implementation. She is a LEED accredited professional and earned a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Ball State University and a Master of Architecture at Portland State University.

The firm also announces the promotion of Amber Nobe to marketing manager. Since joining Hennebery Eddy in 2016 as senior marketing coordinator, she has managed proposal and qualifications package development, marketing content and the marketing database, as well as the firm’s website. She is also a member of the firm’s sustainability committee, promoting a net-positive design approach. Amber has a Bachelor of Arts in mass communication from Linfield College.

Restore Oregon’s DeMuro Award Honors Chapman Hall for Exceptional Historic Rehabilitation

Hennebery Eddy’s rehabilitation of the c.1939 Chapman Hall at the University of Oregon garnered a 2018 DeMuro Award from Restore Oregon, a nonprofit that advocates for preservation and reuse of historic structures. The DeMuro Awards honor extraordinary historic rehabilitation projects across Oregon, recognizing the creativity, persistence, and craftsmanship required by outstanding restoration projects.

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Lessons Learned: THERM and an Evolution of Wall Assemblies

By Mike Meade, AIA

Mike is a senior project architect with 18 years of experience and is a member of our in-house building enclosure committee, which provides envelope resources and technical support to our project teams. He sits on the board of the Portland Building Enclosure Council and is currently working on the PDX Terminal Balancing and Concourse E Extension project, discussed at the end of this post.

I attended a training from Passive House Canada on THERM software, which was developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab for evaluating heat transfer through building components. Using THERM, you can model 2-D heat-transfer effects in components at building interfaces like windows, walls, foundations, roofs, and doors. Heat-transfer analysis allows you to evaluate a product’s energy efficiency and local temperature patterns, which may relate directly to problems with condensation, moisture damage, and structural integrity.

After the training, I was hungry to share the software and give our project teams a better way to evaluate details for thermal performance. I also thought about buildings I have built over my career. I’ve worked on buildings with many types of walls — some just to meet code, some just to meet the budget, and some to create the highest possible performance. I used THERM to evaluate these assemblies to see how we fared.

R-value measures the ability to prevent heat transfer. The higher the number, the better.

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Design Week Portland Open House

Design Week Portland is an anticipated annual event in the design community, bringing together architects, artists, makers, and creators to explore design across disciplines and scales. This year, Hennebery Eddy hosted our first DWP open house, giving attendees a chance to visit our studio and see our work — and explore resilient design in the built environment.

Resiliency and resilient design are increasingly part of the discussion among building owners, consultants, and regulatory organizations. Similarly, “The Big One” and disaster preparedness are gaining more attention in public discourse. We noticed a gap in the discussion within the broader design community and felt Design Week was an opportunity to begin making connections between industry experts and Portland citizens in addressing these complex issues.

Guests were greeted by hand-drawn map of predicted earthquake ground shaking for the Portland metro area (magnitude 6.8).

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Earth Day: Sharing Our Net-Positive Impact Stories

How can you be a positive force in the world? What can you do to improve your community, your project, your planet, or your life? This was the topic for Hennebery Eddy’s Earth Day celebration, a festive pin-up sharing our net-positive impact stories.

In our office work, we aspire to design net-positive spaces that reflect and respond to the natural environment and the people who use them. The result is a healthy, efficient, and adaptive net-positive outcome for clients, users, and the planet. In our pin-up, we reflected on that mission — and took it a step further, by looking at our personal net-positive experiences, too.

This topic has been on our minds as we wrap up participation in another inspiring EcoChallenge with the Northwest Earth Institute and Project Drawdown. From lessons learned on our design projects, to reflections on our connection to the natural world and tips we picked up from Drawdown’s research or our own, here’s what we shared.

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Social Responsibility: Promoting Equity Through ‘Just’ Transparency Label

When you buy packaged food at the grocery store, you can check the nutrition label to see what’s inside. Similarly, Hennebery Eddy design staff research Environmental and Health Product Declaration (EPD and HPD) labels to evaluate the life-cycle environmental impacts of the building materials and finishes we specify on our projects.

And now, anyone can see “what’s inside” the business of Hennebery Eddy through our JUST label.

Hennebery Eddy received a JUST label from the International Living Future Institute; see a full-size label here

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Community Service: Volunteering with Portland’s ReBuilding Center

Portland’s ReBuilding Center is a community development resource that uses building and remodeling materials to create positive outcomes in the Portland area.

As part of their DeConstruction program, crews glean reusable materials from demolition sites, salvaging about 85% of a building’s parts. These materials are taken to a re-processing lot, where volunteers remove nails, screws, staples, and the like.

The ReBuilding Center then uses this lumber in the construction of tiny homes for the houseless, as instruction material for their award-winning ReFind Education Program, or for re-sale in the ReBuilding Center’s public store at 40-90% off market value. It’s the triple bottom line of sustainability in action — environmental, economic, and social — and that’s the kind of community service we get behind.

As part of the firm’s annual Day of Service participation on Martin Luther King Day, our in-house Sustainability Committee organized a group volunteer shift at the processing lot. We liked it so much, we’re headed back on President’s Day for a second shift.

Hennebery Eddy pays for staff to volunteer up to 8 workday hours on MLK Day (or President’s Day) with an organization of their choice. Beyond our group activity, our staff also helped plant trees, weatherized homes for seniors, and lent a hand at local schools. These efforts are part of our net-positive philosophy in creating a better community around our business.

Hennebery Eddy Architects to Design New Bonneville Power Administration Fleet Services Building

Firm will draw upon its proven track record to deliver sustainable building design and safer industrial work site for agency’s new Ross Complex facility

Bonneville Power Administration employees at the utility’s Ross Complex are getting a safer, simpler, and more efficient workplace. The power utility that services more than seven states and 300,000 square miles across the Pacific Northwest has selected Hennebery Eddy Architects to lead a major facilities upgrade at its Ross Complex in Vancouver, Wash. When complete, the site will include distinct zones for heavy equipment, personal vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians, and a new 45,000-square-foot fleet services building with separate repair and administrative spaces.

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Hennebery Eddy renews Sustainability at Work Gold certification

When you visit our studio, there are a few things you likely won’t find around our workspace or conference rooms – items such as plastic water bottles, paper plates, or disposable cutlery. The absence of these single-use items is intentional. As a business committed to sustainability, we strive to make the most environmentally aware choices when it comes to our design work, material selection, and our day-to-day operations.

Wood plaque showing Sustainability at Work Gold certification for Hennebery Eddy Architects

As we know from the EcoChallenge, the cumulative effect of many small choices is powerful and impactful, and for Hennebery Eddy, they’ve resulted in our Gold certification as a Sustainability at Work business, a designation awarded by the City of Portland. We first applied for the three-year certification in 2014 and successfully completed the re-certification process in October. The Sustainability at Work program awards points for 50 different criteria in the categories of Reduce/Reuse/Recycle, Employee Engagement, Transportation, Energy, Water, and Community Engagement, as well as additional “actions” organizations can self-report. Bronze, Silver, and Gold designations are made based on the total points accrued from all categories.

Beyond the criteria outlined by the City of Portland Sustainability at Work program, at Hennebery Eddy we embrace the following business practices that contribute to a healthier environment:

  • An organized “net positive committee” of employees facilitates and implements on-going sustainability efforts and education within the firm
  • 100% of our design staff are LEED accredited
  • Became a JUST™ organization through the International Living Future Institute
  • A net-positive design approach is one of our core areas of expertise
  • Participate in NWEI’s EcoChallenge; for the last four years, we have finished in the top 10 teams out of more than 600
  • Offer employees a secure, sheltered bike storage room with shower
  • Our vendor food policy prohibits “box lunches” and encourages family-style meals without the use of paper plates and other disposable serving items
  • Offer a robust in-office composting program in addition to recycling
  • Transitioning much of our technology hardware to energy-efficient models

We are proud to be a Gold Sustainability at Work company and hope that our certification will inspire other organizations to participate in the program.

 

Yellowstone National Park Youth Campus receives Architecture 2030 Award from AIA Portland

Hennebery Eddy is pleased to share that it has received an Architecture 2030 Award from AIA Portland for the design of Yellowstone National Park Youth Campus.

The project is pursuing both the Living Building Challenge Certification and Passive House Certification. These complementary certifications are based on actual performance and provide an organizational framework for tracking and ensuring the highest standard of design, detailing, construction, and operations. Upon completion, the project would be the first in a national park to achieve both certifications. The new Yellowstone Youth Campus is aspirational in seeking to set a new standard for design and sustainability within our national parks.

Yellowstone National Park Youth Campus daytime rendering of back of commons by Hennebery Eddy Architects
Rendering of the back of the commons building, one of 10 buildings on the campus of the Yellowstone National Park Youth Campus. Image copyright Hennebery Eddy Architects.

Beyond achieving the programmatic goals of growing youth programs, the campus will serve as both a teaching tool and a gateway to Yellowstone National Park for youth nationwide. The campus – comprising 10 buildings – will serve as the future home for multiple youth programs currently operating in Yellowstone. Inspired by the dramatic landscape and rich cultural history of the region, campus buildings reflect a contemporary expression of vernacular architecture of the West.

This award is one of a series of accolades Hennebery Eddy has received for its sustainable design work; it has received a AIA COTE Top Ten Award and three other 2030 Challenge design awards.

The 2017 AIA Portland Architecture Award is sponsored by BetterBricks.