HSPH has made the fourth floor at the Landmark Center on Park Drive the site of a comprehensive effort to create an expansive "green" office space.

HSPH is currently renovating 42,311 square feet on the floor of the historic building, the site of a former Sears warehouse from which the company’s famous Christmas catalogs shipped nationwide. Members of the Environmental Epidemiology and Environmental Science and Engineering groups, as well as the Department of Health and Social Behavior, are slated to move into the new space in August, 2001. Plans include spaces for students to study and relax. They have worked with Operations and a group of faculty to spearhead the project. A total of nearly 220 people will move to the Center.

The space will be unlike any other at HSPH. Inspired by the "Greening of the Crimson" effort (now known as the Harvard Green Campus Initiative) started by Harvard faculty, students, and staff several years ago, the renovated offices will offer cutting-edge features designed to increase the space’s energy efficiency while promoting the health, comfort, and productivity of the staff and students working there.

"We can really create something different here that could be pretty amazing," said Jack Spengler, Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation in the Department of Environmental Health, who is helping to guide the project.

Innovation at Work
The ventilation system will be underneath the floor as opposed to above the ceilings, providing several benefits. Explained Daniel Beaudoin, energy and utilities manager in Operations, common office systems blow cold air from ducts above workers’ heads. The cold air sinks through the warmer air, circulates, and dispels through other vents. In smaller or poorly designed offices, workers tend to get cold drafts from the air blowing on them while the system eats up extra energy to propel the air down. The downward direction of the airflow also tends to force dust and other irritants onto workstations rather than blowing them away.

Familiar to Europeans, the new system uses air nearly 10 degrees warmer than the air that blows from ceiling-based systems. The air supply rises from vents in the floor. Less pressure and velocity are needed to blow air, energy is saved, and irritants are carried away from the occupants, making conditions more comfortable.

"Close to half of our energy bills in this country goes towards simply heating and cooling our buildings," said Spengler. "It is staggering how much energy we waste because we are dealing with old designs and clumsy systems."

HSPH staff at the Landmark Center will also have control over the air temperature near their workstations. Using technology developed by Siemens, staff will be able to log onto a website that shows them the current temperature and levels of compounds such as carbon dioxide in the air. The same information will be available to Operations.

To create the actual offices, a company called Steelcase, which specializes in environmentally friendly office furniture, will install walls made of 70 percent recycled material. The walls stretch from floor to ceiling but are movable, meaning they can be easily dismantled and reassembled to reconfigure space.

"We approached the project with the understanding that a building evolves and that we wanted space that was readily adaptable without using more resources," said Beaudoin.

Indirect lighting using energy-efficient bulbs will save money and wear-and-tear on peoples’ eyesight. Lamps with motion detectors will be installed at workstations so that lights shut down when no one is present.

To help soundproof areas, mounted speakers will softly emit white noise that will blend into background noises of conversations and phones.

"We looked at all aspects of construction and tried to find new technologies to create comfort and sustainability," said Beaudoin.

Plans are also underway to equip classrooms at the Landmark Center to allow for simultaneous broadcasting of classes from HSPH, said Spengler.

Running at a cost of about $120 per square foot, the project is more expensive than a traditional renovation that would price between $50 to $85 per square foot, said Beaudoin. But savings are expected to eventually come from lower energy bills and more comfortable, healthier employees. Operations plans to track energy usage for a year and compare to other tenants at the Landmark Center. If the results come in as expected, HSPH at Landmark will apply for "Energy Star Labeling," a program at the US Department of Energy that recognizes high-performance homes and buildings.

A Living Laboratory
More than just a renovation, the offices at the Landmark Center will also become a sort of living laboratory for the Environmental Epidemiology and Environmental Science and Engineering faculty, staff, and students working there. They are currently designing a questionnaire for all the people moving to the building, polling them about their current workstations. Then, after they have moved and settled, the staff will be asked to fill out the same questionnaire to compare the answers. Supplementing the questionnaires will be data about energy usage and other indoor environmental factors gathered by Operations to see if the innovations changed peoples’ behavior.

"We’d like to answer the question of have we done any better at the new building," said Spengler. "We should learn something about energy consumption and good indoor air quality to share with Harvard, as 1.5 million square feet of new university buildings are planned for this decade."

When finished, HSPH will apply for certification as a leader in energy and environmental design standards from the US Green Building Council, a private consortium to which Harvard University belongs.

"The way I look at it," said Beaudoin, "we are the School of Public Health and, of all the branches of the university, we should be the ones to be the pioneers of these new technologies that improve indoor air quality, decrease energy usage, and help employees."