Field Trip

This past Tuesday evening my Sustainable Construction Practices class went on a field trip to visit the Gerding Theater in downtown Portland. I'd seen the building from the outside - it's in the old Oregon National Guard Armory - but I had no idea that there was a fancy theater inside. My pictures don't do the place justice. If you'd like to see more, Portland Center Stage has a great slideshow.

Anyway, our class went on a tour of the theater to learn more about LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) standards and how good design could make a building better for the environment and its occupants. The renovated Armory became the first LEED Platinum building in Portland and the first LEED building on the National Register of Historic Places.

Because the theater generally has lots of people and lighting warming the place up it has more cooling than heating needs. A system of chilled beams is used for overhead heating and cooling. Where do they get all that cold water from? Well, it turns out that NE Portland has a chiller plant providing chilled water to several buildings in the Brewery Blocks. The building also uses rainwater and a 10,000 gallon underground cistern for flushing toilets. I could go on with the details, but everything I could say is either on the previous links or here on the case study.

I think in this case, the big picture is even more interesting than the details. The theater decided to save an old building when they could have built a new one. They used the old space carefully to serve their needs; even tucking offices underneath the amazing laminated trusses. There is just something really cool about having a breakroom in a turret.