Sustainable Living Center opens for tour

The almost completed Sustainable Living Center on Fourth Street, just north of the campus library at Maharishi University of Management, meets ? and exceeds ? 2030 goals for reducing energy use by 60 percent.

The building will be open to the public for a tour and refreshments at 2 p.m. Saturday.

?It will be finished enough to show,? said Keith Lindauer, a subcontractor from Colorado whose team was applying handcrafted organic plasters and paints to the interior this week.

About five years in planning and fundraising, and about 18 months in construction, has been worth the time and effort. Even with construction tools, hoses lying on the floors, scaffolding in the center hall and workers applying plaster and paint creating a thin fog of dust, the artistry and beauty of the interior is visible. Several videos, albeit not recent, are on YouTube about the building and its progress.

?This will be all cleaned up by Saturday,? said Lindauer, indicating his surroundings on Wednesday,

?The building isn?t completely finished,? said David Fisher, chairman of the Sustainable Living program at M.U.M. ?We started out to build this as a teaching tool for our students, teachers and community. As the project progresses, we realize our building is a teaching tool for the construction industry and beyond.

?We?ve had visitors from around the world,? he said. ?Visitors from Third World countries are interested in buildings that operate off the grid. In some places, the grid is off-line so much that it interrupts the school day or business. If they can construct buildings not using the grid, it will allow daily life to flow.?

Being off the grid, such as not using utility services provided by another entity or government infrastructure, is one of four areas of certification M.U.M.?s Sustainable Living Center is aiming at.

?We planned this building to earn platinum LEED certification, meet the Living Building Challenge and Building Biology designation as well as having Maharishi Vedic architecture,? said Fisher. ?We?ve met the LEED certification and Vedic architecture guidelines. We have some philosophical disagreements about Building Biology guidelines so we?re not sure if we?ll pursue that. And we?re not yet at the Living Building Challenge standards yet, but we plan to complete that. We?re waiting for more funding.?

Right now, the center is off the grid for energy needs. It can generate more electricity than it will use, with solar panels on the roof and on the utility shed roof. Inside the shed, batteries store the direct current, and send it to a converter for AC/DC use in the Sustainable Living Center. Excess energy will be sent to other buildings on campus. This is where the building exceeds the ?Net Zero? goal of energy use. Wind power also will generate electricity for those days when there is not enough sunshine.

The building plans include capturing rainwater from the roof, which is slightly slanted toward roof drains that pipe the water into storage. A geothermal system feeds hot or cool water into radiant floor piping protected by 3 inches of cellulose insulation, giving the floor an energy rating of R26.

A solar desiccant system removes humidity from the air inside, allowing for more efficient cooling.

?The cistern is not built yet,? said Fisher. ?We hope to be open for business [hold classes] in January or February. We?ll still be on the grid for water and sewer at that point.?

With more funding, the cistern will include a purification system to make rainwater potable.

?Sewer water will go through a peat moss filter,? explained Mike Nicklas, president of Innovative Designs Inc. on one of the YouTube videos. ?Effluent will be sent to sub-surface irrigation.?

The goal is to capture not only rainwater on the roof, but also create a wetlands and stream, capturing water from around the western side of campus. The stream will naturally aerate water, keeping it from stagnation. This part of the project is not yet built.

?The stream will be a nice feature,? said Nicklas. ?Entering the main entrance, you will cross over the stream.?

The main entrance, facing Fourth Street, is an east entrance, complying with ancient Vedic architecture orientation and aligning with building orientation to maximize solar energy. Windows on both the east and west sides of the 7,000-square-foot building are minimized.

The east and west ends of the building include verandas, which create shade from the summer sun, explains Masaki Furukawa, one of the project?s architects, also on YouTube.

Skylights are not as efficient as south facing windows, he said.

Naturally, there is more heat during summer and less during the winter. South windows catch the sun even when it is higher in the sky during northern hemisphere winters, which skylights might not capture.

?Building orientation is important,? he said. ?Our south side has heat gain windows. The north side has day-lighting windows.?

Interior windows allow daylight from exterior wall windows to flow through to offices and classrooms. The length of the south side is a greenhouse, with raised sidewalks through planting beds. The south-facing exterior windows are nearly floor to ceiling.

The walls between the greenhouse and interior rooms have windows placed up high, near the ceiling. The ceilings in the interior rooms slant toward the interior, with the higher end toward the windows. This helps direct daylight from outdoors into even interior rooms.

Nicklaus gives window details on one of the YouTube videos: ?We are using ?slipper glass windows? with double panes, gas and film, rated R10 energy efficient. Our day-lighting windows are not filmed, just double-glazed. This building?s interior is day-lighted in 95 percent of occupiable space, including the bathrooms.?

When entering from the east, one first sees the center hall, which soars above two stories, topped with windows around a mid-section higher than the main roof.

?The load-bearing supports in the building are whole trees,? said Fisher. ?These are Aspen from Lacrosse, Wis.?

The support beams still look like whole tree trunks, minus branches and leaves. Some are used to create arches in the ceiling. The walls are reminiscent of rounded adobe walls, and that?s because they are finished with organic plaster, made and applied by Lindauer?s team.

Many walls are painted white, to reflect the daylight even further, but some walls are a cinnamon color in contrast and a few show the exposed building blocks, which are lighter brown in color.

?We?re going back to the old ways,? said Lindauer, running his hand over the white paint. ?This is milk paint, made with organic milk from the Radiance Dairy. It creates patterns and reflective light, which change as the sun moves across the sky. It?s like a living, breathing building.?

The light brown building blocks also make use of the environment.

?We made 26,000 blocks from the dirt displaced across the street when Argiro was built,? said Fisher. ?They are not load-bearing walls, but partitions. But they also have an important role, holding thermal mass. The block walls will hold heat or coolness helping with temperature control.?

Looking at windowsills on the east side of the building, one can see the walls are thick. The walls are built using 2-by-8-foot wood studs, cellulose insulation and a 2-inch air space. During summer months, the highest windows will be opened, venting any built-up heat and allowing cooler night air to circulate. A diffuser in the southeast corner of the building will aid circulation. Ducts throughout keep fresh, outdoor air recirculating into the building.

?This is the most ambitious sustainable building being built in the world,? said Fisher. ?It?s not the biggest or splashiest, but the most environmentally ambitious.

?We will accomplish completion in stages.?

Four building philosophies

The Sustainable Living Center was designed with four green building philosophies:

? The Living Building Challenge, the highest standard for sustainable design and green building in the world. According to information on the International Living Future Institute website, the Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, advocacy tool and certification program that addresses development at all scales. It is comprised of seven performance areas: Site, water, energy, health, materials, equity and beauty. It provides a framework for design, construction and the symbiotic relationship between people and all aspects of the built environment.

? LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] Platinum certification; a systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. Levels of certification go from 40-49 points, certification; 50-59 points, silver; 60-79 points, gold; and 80-plus points, platinum, the highest rating.

? Building Biology rates the indoor living environment for a variety of irratants, including building materials and processes, indoor air quality, electromagnetic fields and radiation.

? Maharishi Vedic Architecture uses principles from ancient Vedic texts to ensure a building has only nourishing influences on its occupants. These include building orientation, room placements, proportions, natural and nontoxic materials, solar energy, and more. Also referred to as Vastu and Sthapatya design.