LEED, Green Initiatives Find Widespread Favor in Energy-Intensive Airport Terminals

10/1/2006 By Russell Fortmeyer

	click images to view larger Photography: © HOK and Assassi Productions
	Courtesy Gensler

With airports throughout the world undergoing massive improvement programs to respond to increasing security threats and record levels of passengers, architects are seizing the opportunity to implement sustainable design strategies into a building type that has received little scrutiny for its energy performance in the past.

Kent Turner, AIA, was the project manager for HOK on the new Terminal A at Boston’s Logan International Airport, which as of August was the first airport terminal in the world to achieve the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)’s LEED certification for new construction. “We had LEED certification as a charter from the beginning, and we all agreed to it,” says Turner. HOK incorporated such green strategies as energy-efficient HVAC equipment, construction waste and demolition recycling, and the use of recycled materials. Turner says one of the challenges was integrating daylighting into the terminal, since expanses of glazing next to aircraft requires deluge sprinklers and costs more than a conventional blank wall.

Turner said HOK “had to get a lot of interpretations from the USGBC because LEED was originally developed for commercial office buildings, not airports.” For example, Turner asks, how do you establish the occupants for a terminal where thousands of people are only passing through for a few hours at a time?

There is discussion within the USGBC to expand LEED as application guides—as opposed to entirely new programs—into a variety of other building types, including airports, but designers are forging ahead without it. Nellie Reid, with Gensler’s Santa Monica office and a board member of the USGBC’s Los Angeles chapter, has proposed that the USGBC consider introducing LEED for airports as part of her work guiding an expansion of San Jose’s new airport terminal toward LEED certification. “One of the difficulties with an airport is we have all of these different packages on their own schedules, like the foundation, structural steel, building enclosure, and building fit-out,” Reid says. Still, Gensler has incorporated a number of sustainable strategies toward its goal of LEED Silver: displacement ventilation; glazings that minimize heat gain and loss; occupancy sensors for lighting; and a variety of recycled and sustainably produced finishes and materials. The terminal is scheduled to open in 2008, though there have been some delays.

Airlines have lost billions since 9/11, which has made it difficult in the past to make the case for investing in green design strategies. “Airports have a tendency to emphasize initial cost rather than long-term operational expenses,” says Steven Howards, founder and administrative director of the Denver-based Clean Airport Partnership. “Furthermore, design guidelines don’t provide any motivation to consider sustainable strategies. It’s a major disconnect in the airline industry.” Howards points to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s implementation of sustainable strategies, such as lighting and HVAC control systems, as having saved that airport 25 percent in energy costs per year with comparatively little investment. “Airports can heighten the awareness of sustainability for what people could adopt for their own homes,” he stresses. “People have time to kill, especially now with all of the security requirements.” He thinks the public would favor it even more if energy saving could be passed onto them with lower ticket prices.

Howards says airports should include sustainable requirements in their design guidelines, as this will even the playing field for architects submitting proposals for new projects. “If the airlines wanted green building as part of the design criteria, it would happen,” he says.

What’s more, introducing sustainable design to airport terminals has fostered the implementation of cutting-edge technology. HOK and Syska Hennessy Group have designed a radiant cooling system into the floor of a grand public space for the new Indianapolis airport terminal now under construction. Robert Chicas, AIA, with HOK’s New York office, says the floor is supplied with chilled water from the airport’s central plant, leading to significant energy savings. A similar technique is employed at the new Bangkok International Airport by Murphy/Jahn Architects and Transsolar. Carl D’Silva, with Murphy/Jahn, says the radiant cooling slab will not only relieve the airport’s more conventional mechanical system, it will also absorb solar load from the terminal’s massive skylights and overhead trellis system. The airport officially opened in September.