Transparent Sustainability

Regional Design Market a Showcase of Glass and Green

By Tom Nicholson

Changing demographics, a renewed interest in aesthetics and the clamor for sustainable designs are keeping designers in the tri-state region busy even in these tough economic times.

The eco-friendly theme conveyed in RMJM Hillier's design for the new Becton Dixon headquarters in Franklin, N.J. reflects a general emphasis on green design seen throughout the region.

Designers in the New York metropolitan region, including western Connecticut and northern New Jersey, say that a leveling off of residential work, careening energy costs and the waning dollar are merely small speed bumps at a time when requests-for-proposals abound for institutional, commercial, health care and hospitality projects.

Among the market drivers are large-scale construction programs at dozens of colleges and universities in the region. Fred Bland, managing partner at New York-based Beyer Blinder Belle, says his firm has design projects under way or recently completed at Columbia University, General Theological Seminary and New York University in New York and at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Nearly every school in the region “is producing master plans right now,” and business “is thriving,” he says.

The education markets in the region are subject to “cyclical sourcing,” says Rick Bell, executive director of American Institute of Architects New York. Cyclical school-funding programs in each state determine where design and construction resources in the region are committed at any given time. “When there are many project in New York there aren’t as many in New Jersey,” and vice versa, Bell says.

The weakened U.S. dollar has led to an increased presence of foreign designers in the region, such as London's Lord Norman Foster, who designed the $250 million Shangri-La tower in Midtown.

Peter Schubert, design director at Princeton, N.J-based RMJM Hillier Architects, says that “across the board there is a lot of demand for institutional [work].” His firm is designing an expansion and renovation project at the University of Connecticut that includes research labs, classrooms and office space.

In a region rich with institutions and museums, many projects are driven by the need to upgrade older buildings for today’s technology needs, such as the $65-million renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, Queens, and the $15-million upgrade of the New Jersey State Museum, Trenton.

Meanwhile, architects say there is a new importance placed by owners on design aesthetics, and many institutions and commercial developers are giving freer reign to designers to attempt daring and striking solutions.

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“In the last few year architecture has become very sophisticated,” Schubert says. Owners “want buildings that are sustainable, work well and are iconic. No one wants to compromise.”

Bland agrees. “High design is much more important than ever before,” he says. In previous decades “you could put up anything and it would rent, but now developers are seeking out important designs.”

Bell adds that clients now want “energy-efficient buildings, yet remarkably beautiful. There is greater artistic appreciation for structures now.”

Pushing the trend are several factors, including imported design approaches spurred by a surge of global interest and international collaborations in the tri-state market, Bell says. Serge Appel, associate partner at New York-based Cook+Fox architects, agrees that “there is a lot of European money flowing in.

Designers say that the weakened dollar has coaxed a spate of foreign developers to plunge into the tri-state market, creating numerous projects in a region.

Transparency, most notably though the use of glass facades, has been an extremely popular design element throughout the region over the last three years.

Many point to transparent facades as one example of the new design aesthetics in the region, particularly evident on many glass-clad hotels that are springing up in Manhattan. “Transparency is common now,” Bland says. “There is incredible interest in glass.”

The foreign presence is a competitive factor for tri-state architects, who regularly must vie for jobs against the most famous architects and largest design firms in the world. The area is a showcase for “starchitects,” Bland says. “Which just makes the market more interesting because everybody is doing better designs.”

The clamor to anoint projects with a famous architect’s thumbprint is a trend that “over time will change,” Schubert says. “There is a growing demand for good design, not just beautiful designs, but designs that achieve results, and there will always be room for local architects who can offer that,” he adds.

The demand for high-performance buildings has ignited a full-fledged design revolution which is sweeping through the tri-state region, changing the way owners think, architects design and contractors build. Permeating every market and driving new rounds of construction throughout the region, the unprecedented paradigm shift can be summed up in one word: Green .

“A tidal wave has hit our shores in the past 18 months,” Bland says.

Preservation and conversion projects like the American Bank Note Building in the Bronx, designed by Beyer Blinder Belle of New York, will become more prevalent as new construction slows down.

Schubert adds: “It’s not necessarily coming from architects anymore. Everybody wants to do the right thing, and clients are under pressure to consider it.”

On the island of Manhattan, for example, where by 2030 about 80% of capacity for new construction will have been fulfilled, the “biggest impact the green movement will have will not be in construction of new, energy-efficient buildings, but in converting the existing buildings.” Appel says.

A specialist in green, Cook+Fox is leading design on the 2.2-million-sq-ft Bank of America building at Bryant Park in New York, which is on track for LEED platinum when completed next year and includes cutting-edge sustainability features such as a 4.6-megawatt gas turbine combined heat and power system. There’s also a thermal storage system that uses ice to cool the building during peak power demand hours.

“Every new [project] contact has some element of green to it,” Appel says. Included in the green thrust are Manhattan’s first geothermal wells being integrated on several current projects, he adds.

Bland says RMJM Hillier did front-end design on a project at General Theological Seminary at 175 9th Ave. in Manhattan, which included drilling of 1,500-ft-deep geothermal wells.

As high-rise projects such as the 19-story 111 Central Park North begin to slow down, firms are looking to other sectors, like higher-education and health care to keep business booming.

Appel says European designers are rushing to learn from American designs firms, which have emerged as the leaders of the global green revolution. “Green has taken off incredibly fast in America and we have leapfrogged over Europe in that regard,” he adds. “We are busy consulting with European designers about sustainability.”

Where architect’s opinions differ is on green’s cost, as “when push comes to shove, many clients may not be able to afford to go for LEED certification because it does still cost more,” Bland says.

However, “costs to build green have come down a lot in the past two years,” Appel says.

And clients “don’t want to build for the short term anymore,” Schubert says. “Everyone is looking at the long-term energy savings. It’s a business decision as much as anything else.”

Timothy Johnson, partner at the New York office of Seattle-based NBBJ, which completed a LEED silver certification for commercial interiors on renovations at its new offices at 2 Rector St. in New York, says sustainability is now a must. “Green design is part of business strategy. It is gaining momentum for both marketing and to save energy and operating costs. “I can't imagine doing a project that does not take sustainable strategies into consideration, or even drive the project,” Johnson adds. “These elements don't need to cost significant up-front dollars.”

About the only universally mentioned dim spot in the market is in residential and condominium markets, which “have fallen apart” because of saturation and the lending crisis, Bland says.

Designers are also unified on the perennially challenging dynamics and logistics on projects in the dense urban, traffic-laden environment. On projects in the city “staging is extremely difficult,” Appel says. “Every material that arrives in the city has to come over a bridge, and there can only be certain-sized pallets on the trucks.” Still, “the context of the city for an architect is a great driver.”

But it seems to most designers that the regions’ challenges are mere blips on the screen amid the juggernaut that is the tri-state construction market. “In the long term we are incredibly optimistic,” says Bland. “I can’t imagine a better area to be a part of.”