Industry Update

Energy Star Updates:

In 2013, Assembly Bill 1103 will require the Owners of non-residential buildings sized 25,000 sf or more to benchmark their building’s energy use prior to any whole-building financial transaction such as leasing, selling, or re-financing. Then, in 2014, this requirement will apply to buildings sized 10,000 sf or more.

Williams + Paddon uses Energy Star Portfolio Manager—a free, web-based program—to assist an Owner in qualifying their buildings for the Energy Star program. Portfolio Manager uses actual utility information to compare a building’s energy use to similar buildings in the same geographic area, and is used in the LEED for Existing Buildings rating system to determine the building’s eligibility for Energy Star. In addition to tracking energy performance, Portfolio Manager has other capabilities, such as determining GHG emissions and tracking water use, REC purchases and their offsets. It is an excellent, user-friendly tool that can help Owners become more informed about their building’s energy performance and perhaps take steps to reduce energy use, and thus, operating expenses. 

 

Energy Star recently completed a collection of reports from the information from Portfolio Manager that reveals trends for energy use benchmarking, and energy use in office, retail, hotel, schools (k-12) and water. Additionally, there is a 14-page summary snapshot of many different factors. For more information on these data trend reports or on Energy Star Portfolio Manager, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Regina Souchek, AIA, LEED® AP, who is one of W+P’s resident sustainability experts.

 

 

 

 

 

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Festival Spotlight: VISIONARY: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

Guest Writter: Susan Rainier, AIA, Senior Project Manager at UC Davis Design and Construction Management

One of the highlights of the inaugural Architecture Festival was a presentation on October 19, with Kai-Uwe Bergman, a principal architect with Bjarke Ingels Group of Denmark.

Kai gave a riveting full spectrum presentation (680+ slides!) highlighting their firm’s remarkably innovative and inspirational designs, not only in Architecture but also Urban Planning, Social Integration, and Sustainability.

Bjarke Ingels says, “Architecture evolves from the collision of political, economical, functional, logistical, cultural, structural, environmental and social interest, and well as interests yet unnamed and unforeseen—how to tell such a complex story in a simple way?”

This is the strength of the firm’s leader, Bjarke Ingels, and the culture of his firm.  Bjarke is a master storyteller and, as Kai explained, he is also the “Master of Ceremonies” or “Ring Leader” of the firm.  He has a talent in inspiring others to keep their minds open and look at things from many points of view, and then guide unbridled creativity. BIG has become a leader in world architecture winning multiple competitions and commissions with their masterful showmanship in presentation, “outside the box” designs and their “Architectural Evolution – An Ecosystem of Ideas” philosophy.

Those involved in the planning of the program, as well as attendees, felt very fortunate to have BIG present here in Sacramento and believe it will engender exciting conversations for a very long time. After all, who else would put a bike path to the 10^th floor of a residential building and then say “it’s a lot more fun coming back down?” BIG.

Our thanks to Williams + Paddon for supporting this event as a sponsor!

Also read "First AIA Central Valley Architecture Festival Wrap Up", by guest writer Kimberly Anderon, Executive Director of AIA Central Valley Chapter.

 

 

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First AIA Central Valley Architecture Festival Wrap Up

Guest Writer: Kimberly Anderson, Executive Director of AIA Central Valley Chapter

What a busy, inspiring and fun couple of weeks it was!  The “Top of the City” was viewed; bikes were ridden past member’s projects, art and architectural landmarks and mid-century modern homes; films were screened and discussed; dialogues were initiated covering everything from regional identity to urban agriculture. Attendees sketched the city, partied over fabulous Hot Italian pizza, member architectural offices opened their doors to the general public. This is just a few of the ways the Festival re-energized the AIACV membership and elevated architecture in our region to a new level of visibility.

Here’s the Festival “by the numbers”:

·      23 Events

·      Approximately 750 people participated from the general public, allied organizations and the Chapter’s membership.

·      2,500 individuals were reached through Social Media and 16,000 visitors were welcomed to the Chapter website from mid-September to November 1^st.

·      39 Financial and In-Kind sponsors—Williams + Paddon was one of our generous supporters!

·      Partnered with Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, Sacramento Downtown Partnership, Crocker Art Museum, American Planning Association, Sacramento Modern, and the US Green Building Council/Capitol Branch.

·      Shared the Festival concept and events through media coverage via the Festival Guide produced and published by our Media Sponsor, Sactown Magazine, as well as articles and promotion by the Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Press, Capitol Public Radio, Sacramento Magazine, Sacramento 365, Comstock’s Magazine, and various regional blogs.

 

Also read, "Festival Spotlight: VISIONARY: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)" by Susan Rainier, Senior Project Manager at UC Davis Design & Construction Management.

 

 

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City of Sacramento City Hall Parking Structure

The Otto Construction / Williams + Paddon team is excited to announce recently being awarded the design-build contract for the City of Sacramento Parking Garage Revitalization Project.

Located on the corner of 10th and I Streets in the heart of Downtown Sacramento, this high profile project consists of the complete rehabilitation to the existing parking structure that primarily serves City Hall. The scope of work includes redesigning and replacing signage, repainting portions of both the interior and exterior, and design-build electrical. The parking garage is considered one of the busiest and most frequently used facilities in the area and we are proud to work together with the City of Sacramento on bringing it back up to par.

-John Otto, Marketing Associate
www.ottoconstruction.com

 

 

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W+P Tech Guy Assignment No.2 – Baby Room

 

Continuing to prepare for our first born:

As you know, my wife and I are currently preparing for our first born child. For the last month or so, we have been gathering the baby “necessities”, attending baby showers, and prepping for parenthood. I mean, come on, I’ve learned more about the female anatomy, infants, labor, baby product do’s and don’ts, and even breastfeeding in the last couple months than a man really should or needs to know. EVER! What was once my home office sanctuary, AKA: Man Cave, has been transformed into the baby’s room.

Being the architects that we both are, Kim and I are planners—to the extreme! And being the technology savvy guy I am (hence the title of my blog contributions) I like finding complicated solutions for simple problems. So when it came to the baby’s room, you know it wasn’t going to be a simple task…

First and foremost, I must announce…. IT’S A GIRL!!! Although I kind-of-sort-of-half-wished-hoped for a boy, I always knew it would be a girl. After all, my wife is ALL girl, all pink, all the time. The furniture and bedding had already been chosen so we had a rough place to start for room colors. So this made the room design easy… right?

 

STEP ONE: Model the entire room

In Revit of course! This allowed for the best real-world color and lighting studies in a variety of programs. I also made sure that the geographic location and orientation was accurately set. (I told you this wouldn’t be simple.)

 

STEP TWO: Export into 3D Studio Max
I produced low resolution images just to study the color and light—which reduced the image processing time from 20 minutes to under 2 minutes, but still allowed for soft shadows and color gradients that were based on real world parameters. I put the furniture in the model, too, so the room lighting would be that much more accurate, since this room is north facing and would be lit by diffuse north light instead of direction southern light. The final result was not a sea of pink, but some cooler colors that contrast well with the brighter accent pinks in the room. 

 

STEP THREE: Step back and revel in my skill

That’s right. Because of my due-diligence, we were able to narrow down the color palette and patterns to a select few, in one afternoon!

STEP FOUR: Get to the real work

80+ hours of… Painting. Taping. Wiping. Scraping. More painting. Cutting. Crown moulding. Organizing. More painting. Adhering. Putting together. Taking apart. Putting back together again... And more painting.

 

 

STEP FIVE: Have a beer

Well, next month I will be a father and the baby adventure will be under way, so I’ll won’t be posting again for a while. But when I do, I promise no more baby talk... just good ol’ tech stuff.

Until then,

 

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Happy Holidays from W+P!

Another year, not just another card:

Yes, yes... we love the goodies, the coming together of people, and the overall joyous attitude this time of year brings... but here at W+P, we looooooove us some holiday cards!

So here is ours to you, and please send us yours! We love seeing what you all are up to this fine holiday season!

 

The gang, wishing you the best!

 

Snowman Tom...

 

 

Tracy, eager as ever...

 

 

Cigi, putting Tracy in her place!

 

 

...and he took his dog Dan, and he took some black thread, and he tied a big horn to the top of his head!

 

 

Sweet 'lil Jessica!

 

 

Brian, being... well.. Brian.

 

 

Naaz puckering up!

 

 

Greg, up to his usual...

 

 

Ecstatic Sarah...

 

 

Lauren-loo-who...

 

 

Regina, in her natural element!

 

 

Jimmy Clause...

 

 

Jack, with his nose so bright!

 

 

Mark, checking in on Kim...

 

 

Kim, she's jazzed!

 

 

Terry, day dreaming... suprise, suprise!... :)

 

 

Trish, decked out for the season!

 

 

Aerie, expressing how we all REALLY feel about fruitcake...

 

 

Brett, W+P's own holiday birthday boy (25th!)

 

 

Robi, being the angel that she is!

 

 

Jeff, getting down...

 

 

Yingxi, she always knows best!

 

 

Joey the bad elf...

 

 

Pauly Brown, and his frumpy tree...

 

 

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

 

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GreenBuild 2012

Last week, Regina Souchek and I attended USGBC's annual GreenBuild conference in San Francisco. We joined roughly 30,000 attendees, choosing from several hundred seminar sessions and viewing over one thousand hands-on product displays.

This conference has grown and matured from the first GreenBuild I attended in Austin, back in 2002. Back then, it was difficult to find "green" products and even more difficult to confirm a manufacturer's green and sustainable claims. USGBC's primary mission has always been to incentivize market transformation by encouraging detailed benchmarking of building performance, including individual products and construction techniques. One decade later, it is difficult to find architects who do not claim to design sustainably, products that are not green, and contractors who are not building in a more resource conserving fashion.

Williams + Paddon is proud to be a leader for sustainably integrated building design, as notably evidenced by our SMUD Customer Service Center—designed a decade before the LEED® rating system was initiated, then received a LEED® for Existing Buildings Platinum certification a decade after it was first occupied. To date W+P has nearly two dozen LEED® certified and LEED® registered projects to our credit. And, to USGBC's credit, they keep raising the bar as the market catches up to previously reaching benchmarks. The over arching goal is to certify buildings based on five simple performance objectives: human experience, transportation, water, energy, and waste.

We came back fully energized after seeing, hearing, and connecting with all things green!

 

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Another Big Year for HOT PINK

 

Another year and another Hot Pink Fun Run under my belt! 
For this fifth annual run, we introduced a number of changes—a 10K event, a new route and a new day of the week. It was the biggest and most successful to date, with over 1,550 runners through three different events (10K, 5K and 1-mile) and $29,100 raised for the Placer Breast Cancer Endowment. We received such positive feedback from so many people on this year’s run. It has been a pleasure to be involved for the last four years and to have co-chaired it for the last two.

 

What many don’t realize is that the Hot Pink Fun Run is planned, organized and ran by volunteers—blood, sweat and tears go into putting on the best run we can, because the cause is personally important to us. Neither my co-chair, Anne Chacon, nor I thought we could pull off such a huge event. But the event went off without a hitch, thanks to our small but very dedicated committee! (Not to mention our supportive husbands that did a lot of the heavy lifting!) It is really amazing to see how the community has made this event what it is today. Five years ago, we had 300 runners and raised about $10,000. Today, we have increased our runners by 500% and raised a total of $96,000! I am proud to be a part of this success and hope to see it continue to grow into the future.

 

Want more info? Keep uptodate with all things PINK @ https://www.facebook.com/hotpink5k?ref=ts&fref=ts#!/hotpink5k.

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