Sustainable Parking Structure Will Have Santa Monica Motorists Seeing Green

By Jorge Casuso

March 28 -- Hoping to make history, Monica City officials unveiled what is likely the nation’s first sustainable solar-powered parking structure Tuesday.

The six-story, 882-space structure at the Civic Center features photovoltaic roof panels, a storm drain water treatment system, recycled construction materials and energy efficient mechanical systems.

The $29 million structure -- which sits near the entrance and

exit ramps at the end of the 10 Freeway -- also features ground-floor retail, art works on every floor and sweeping city and ocean views.

“From the Santa Monica Mountains to Catalina Island, these parking spaces have the best view in town,” Council memebr Kevin McKeown told the crowd gathered on the top floor, as a cold wind swept in from the white-capped ocean a few blocks away.

What Makes a Building Green?

A green building, also known as a sustainable building, is a structure that is designed, built, renovated, operated, or reused in an ecological and resource-efficient manner. Green buildings are designed to meet certain objectives such as protecting occupant health; improving employee productivity; using energy, water, and other resources more efficiently; and reducing the overall impact to the environment.

What Are the Economic Benefits of Green Buildings?

A green building may cost more up front, but saves through lower operating costs over the life of the building. The green building approach applies a project life cycle cost analysis for determining the appropriate up-front expenditure. This analytical method calculates costs over the useful life of the asset.

These and other cost savings can only be fully realized when they are incorporated at the project's conceptual design phase with the assistance of an integrated team of professionals. The integrated systems approach ensures that the building is designed as one system rather than a collection of stand-alone systems.

Some benefits, such as improving occupant health, comfort, productivity, reducing pollution and landfill waste are not easily quantified. Consequently, they are not adequately considered in cost analysis. For this reason, consider setting aside a small portion of the building budget to cover differential costs associated with less tangible green building benefits or to cover the cost of researching and analyzing green building options.

Even with a tight budget, many green building measures can be incorporated with minimal or zero increased up-front costs and they can yield enormous savings (Environmental Building News, 1999).

Sustainable design a.k.a ECODESIGN is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment and services to comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability.

The intention of sustainable design is to "eliminate negative environmental impact completely through skillful, sensitive design"[1]. Manifestations of sustainable designs require no non-renewable resources, impact on the environment minimally, and relate people with the natural environment.

1. Solar Panels for electricity.

2. Thermo Block protection walls, roofs and floors are fire
earthquake, hurricane and water resistant and
terminate proof. The revolutionary process and
material will change the way we live and save massive labor
and material cost.

3. Electrolyzer splits water and makes oxygen, hydrogen
and distilled water.

4. NU Preserve which is a revolutionary natural preservative
used in paint helps prevent rust, mold and fungus.

5. The Graywater System will use micro terrain ecology
to maintain the preferred condition. Graywater uses
bathwater and washwater to grow edible food,
plants and herbs. Greywater is then pumped to the
toilet for flushing and ultimately sent to the Blackwater
Botanical System.

6. Natural Purification system(plants, fruits, trees, banana leaves).
Banana leaves have been known to clear airborne carpet fibers from
the air, giving the occupants beautiful oxygen to breathe.

7. Blackwater Botanical System uses a rubberized cell to contain
toilet water used to grow non-edible flowers and plants.
In this fourth and final cycle all of the retreats waste is filtered
processed and re-used.

8. Water Cistern - Harvesting rain from the sky 4 times with
the state of the art filtering system. A 10,000 gallon cistern
would equal 40,000 gallons as it cycles its way through the
shower sink , greywater, rainforest cell then flush to the black
water rainforest cell. At the end of the cycle nothing is left for
septic or sewage. Trully Guilt Free Living.

9. The passive solar double greenhouse admits the sun
and buffers extreme summer heat or extreme winter cold
from entering living spaces. For example if outside temp is -10 deg
1st barrier blackwater green house is 38-40 deg, 2nd barrier
grey water greenhouse is 62-64 deg, 3rd barrier living space is 68-70 deg
with no heat on in the building. And the state of the art Convention Roof
Vents take out extreme heat in the summer.

10. Wind Turbine for electrical power,

11. energy pod contains Bio-fuel/ Hy-Fuel generator backup and a
plastic alkaline fuel cell that is 5kw. Hy-fuel is a hydrogen and
Biio-fuel mix which creates a highly efficient clean fuel. The Energy pod
contains Solar-Wind-Hydrogen-Biofuel-Hy Pane-Fuel Cells.

12. Air products Hydrogen fuel station using free range organic hydrogen
to fuel cars.

13. Solar engine makes heat to drive a motor, generate electricity,
make hot water and make a lot of hydrogen.

14. Car, truck , bus & hydrogen retrofit; it takes 4 hours to retrofit
a gas vehicle. HydroGene(559)907.7623

15. Hydrogen storage well will act like a battery system storing free
range hydrogen for cooking, cooling, heating and to fuel cars.

16. HyPane propane hydrogen blend that makes gas cleaner, more
effiecient and cheaper to operate.

17. DNA Vortex wind turbine produces electricity and hydrogen.

18. Home Gasifier will turn garbage into hydrogen and electricity.

19. Vortex water falls for energizing and oxidate restructive water.

A sustainable building, or green building
is an outcome of a design which focuses on increasing the efficiency of resource use
—energy, water, and materials — while reducing building impacts on human health
and the environment during the building's lifecycle,
through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal.

Reducing environmental impact

Green building practices aim to reduce the environmental impact of buildings. Buildings account for a large amount of land use, energy and water consumption, and air and atmosphere alteration. In the United States, more than 2,000,000 acres (8,100 km²) of open space, wildlife SUPS habitat, and wetlands are developed each year.

Practices

Green building brings together a vast array of practices and techniques to reduce and ultimately eliminate the impacts of buildings on the environment and human health. It often emphasizes taking advantage of renewable resources, e.g., using sunlight through passive solar, active solar, and photovoltaic techniques and using plants and trees through green roofs, rain gardens, and for reduction of rainwater run-off. Many other techniques, such as using packed gravel for parking lots instead of concrete or asphalt to enhance replenishment of ground water, are used as well. Effective green buildings are more than just a random collection of environmental friendly technologies, however.^[9] They require careful, systemic attention to the full life cycle impacts of the resources embodied in the building and to the resource consumption and pollution emissions over the building's complete life cycle.

On the aesthetic side of green architecture or sustainable design is the philosophy of designing a building that is in harmony with the natural features and resources surrounding the site. There are several key steps in designing sustainable buildings: specify 'green' building materials from local sources, reduce loads, optimize systems, and generate on-site renewable energy.

Materials

Building materials typically considered to be 'green' include rapidly renewable plant materials like bamboo (because bamboo grows quickly) and straw, lumber from forests certified to be sustainably managed, ecology blocks, dimension stone, recycled stone, recycled metal, and other products that are non-toxic, reusable, renewable, and/or recyclable (e.g. Trass, Linoleum, sheep wool, panels made from paper flakes, compressed earth block, adobe, baked earth, rammed earth, clay, vermiculite, flax linen, sisal, seagrass, cork, expanded clay grains, coconut, wood fibre plates, calcium sand stone, high and ultra high performance concrete, etc.^[10][11]) The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) also suggests using recycled industrial goods, such as coal combustion products, foundry sand, and demolition debris in construction projects ^[12] Building materials should be extracted and manufactured locally to the building site to minimize the energy embedded in their transportation.

Reduced energy use

Green buildings often include measures to reduce energy use. To increase the efficiency of the building envelope, (the barrier between conditioned and unconditioned space), they may use high-efficiency windows and insulation in walls, ceilings, and floors. Another strategy, passive solar building design, is often implemented in low-energy homes. Designers orient windows and walls and place awnings, porches, and trees^[13] to shade windows and roofs during the summer while maximizing solar gain in the winter. In addition, effective window placement (daylighting) can provide more natural light and lessen the need for electric lighting during the day. Solar water heating further reduces energy loads.

Finally, onsite generation of renewable energy through solar power, wind power, hydro power, or biomass can significantly reduce the environmental impact of the building. Power generation is generally the most expensive feature to add to a building.

Reduced waste

Green architecture also seeks to reduce waste of energy, water and materials used during construction. For example, in California nearly 60% of the state's waste comes from commercial buildings^[14] During the construction phase, one goal should be to reduce the amount of material going to landfills. Well-designed buildings also help reduce the amount of waste generated by the occupants as well, by providing on-site solutions such as compost bins to reduce matter going to landfills.

To reduce the impact on wells or water treatment plants, several options exist. "Greywater", wastewater from sources such as dishwashing or washing machines, can be used for subsurface irrigation, or if treated, for non-potable purposes, e.g., to flush toilets and wash cars. Rainwater collectors are used for similar purposes.

Centralized wastewater treatment systems can be costly and use a lot of energy. An alternative to this process is converting waste and wastewater into fertilizer, which avoids these costs and shows other benefits. By collecting human waste at the source and running it to a semi-centralized biogas plant with other biological waste, liquid fertilizer can be produced. This concept was demonstrated by a settlement in Lubeck Germany in the late 1990s. Practices like these provide soil with organic nutrients and create carbon sinks that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, offsetting greenhouse gas emission. Producing artificial fertilizer is also more costly in energy than this process.