Half-Day Tours
Register for a tour through Greenbuild Registration »Half Day Tours at Greenbuild are being offered at the following times:
Friday from 2:00 – 6:00 pmSaturday from 8:00 am – 12:00 pmHD01: From Soundscapes to StormwaterThis diverse tour in the heart of San Francisco uncovers the invisible. Just blocks from the Moscone Center, the Arup Sound Lab provides tools for designers to learn how to mitigate noise and create positive soundscapes as design elements in and around buildings. Experience how mass, shape and materials affect the auditory experience. Then walk over to the Mint Plaza to see how what was once a gritty downtown alley was transformed into a vibrant public space. This tour will reveal how the public-private partnership that created this space was forged, and will challenge the attendees to identify various elements of the stormwater management system.
HD02: Double Platinum: Greenest Museum on the PlanetThe California Academy of Sciences is the most-visited LEED Platinum museum in the world. After achieving certification for new construction in 2009, the Academy embarked on proving and improving the building performance through a LEED for Existing Buildings rating, and is now a Double-LEED Platinum building. Major operational challenges were identified and overcome through submetering, recommissioning, and employee engagement. Life support systems for the aquaria received special attention for their critical role maintaining precise temperature, filtration and ph control. Many unique systems will be identified and explained including wind-sensor controlled natural ventilation, advanced water efficiency, and the 2-1/2 acre living roof. This behind-the-scenes tour is not to be missed!
HD03: State of the Art Recycling and Art, tooTrace art and community ties forged through innovative three-stream waste recovery and reclamation programs. The programs are pioneering in many aspects -- keyed to the 2020 net zero waste goal in San Francisco: high landfill diversion rates, robust municipal composting, effective C&D waste recovery, and an Artist-in-Residence program, which invites artists and school groups to source and repurpose materials from processing facilities to art. To follow these transformations, attendees will visit Pier 96 (Recology Golden Gate) to tour the state of the art material recovery facility (MRF). Second, at the Recology SF Transfer station, which showcases a dedicated art studio and sculpture garden.
HD04: Smart Living: Passiv and Ultra-Efficient Urban Residential ProjectsTwo exemplary residential projects offer insight into integrated building design and high quality of life in the City by the Bay. Zero Cottage, a custom home designed by prominent local architect David Baker, is built to certify to multiple residential green building standards and systems, including LEED Platinum, GreenPoint Rated and PassivHaus. SMARTSPACE® SoMa is a four-story, car-free, 23-studio project on a 3,750 sf lot. Each micro-unit meets urban dwelling needs for smarter living. Designed by Panoramic Interests and ZETA, constructed on-site by Pankow Builders with units fabricated off-site in ZETA’s factory, these stylish, efficient, green apartments target LEED Platinum.
HD05: San Francisco’s Super Sustainable High Rise BuildingsSan Francisco is full of iconic green bulidings, including a handful that have captured the attention of the larger design community. This tour will visit two such projects: the San Francisco Federal Building, and the newly constructed SF Public Utilities Commission building. Both downtown buildings include cutting edge innovations for high rise buildings, including building-integrated wind turbines, urban rooftop solar arrays, underfloor air distribution, external shading, automated mixed mode natural ventilation systems, and building-integrated blackwater treament. Tour attendees will see these systems in action, and learn about the innovative design approach teams used for both projects.
HD06: Cavallo PointFort Baker, located at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, has been transformed into Cavallo Point Lodge and the Institute of the Golden Gate, a unique public, private and non-profit alliance created to sustainably restore and enhance the historic U.S. Army base as a new National Park. Located in 27 acres of parkland, Cavallo Point is comprised of 21 rehabilitated historic buildings and 14 new lodging buildings sensitively integrated into the National Register Historic district. The new conference and retreat center offers 142 guestrooms, multiple meeting rooms, a restaurant, spa, and cooking school. Cavallo Point approached LEED as a campus-wide project and achieved a Gold rating through sustainably preserving the existing buildings while integrating photovoltaics and green materials in the new construction. The lodge's master plan was based on the historic district's capacity in order to limit the impact of development on the site and the local community. New construction was integrated into the hillside topography based on solar orientation and behind the historic structures that ring the site's central feature - the historic parade ground. These complementary strategies powerfully demonstrate the interrelationship between preservation and sustainable design and were key to the project's success.
HD07: Tah.Mah.Lah on the PeninsulaTah.Mah.Lah is one of the ultimate examples of how design and environmental stewardship can push the boundaries of green building. Built to be “beyond LEED” as the greenest home in its class, the house had an additional 31 innovation points it could have submitted over and above the maximum of four LEED currently accepts for the “official” process. Since being completed six months ago, the house has won numerous awards and certifications with almost every group noting they created a “new category” for the house or that the house had achieved the highest point totals ever. Tah.Mah.Lah is environmentally regenerative, seamlessly integrating into its ecosystem. Special care has been taken across every dimension of green building: energy, water, materials, habitat and waste. It is a net zero energy (including all its transportation), fossil fuel free house that is highly efficient, producing more energy than it consumes. Other major elements include restoring and re-creating native habitat; saving and repurposing water, reducing and reusing waste, reclaiming materials, providing a healthy indoor environment and eliminating its own and its occupants’ total carbon footprint (including transportation). In terms of metrics, in comparison to the national annual average per s.f., the home achieved 113% energy reduction and a 118% reduction in CO2 emissions.
HD10: Hunters Point: New Neighborhoods, New HOPEBayview-Hunter’s Point is San Francisco’s largest community of low income residents. Having endured decades of negative environmental impacts from highways, wastewater treatment plants, power plants and industry, there are now two new projects revitalizing the neighborhood and creating opportunities for disadvantaged youth. Hunter’s View is an 800 unit LEED-ND Silver redevelopment replacing a distressed public housing project with neighborhood scale stormwater management, well-connected public spaces and new housing for a mix of incomes. The EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park is San Francisco’s only off-grid building for both power and wastewater, providing environmental education for elementary/secondary students and employment opportunities for local youth.
HD11: Greening the Street, Block, Neighborhood and CityAs a public asset that touches every corner of the city, streets are tremendous opportunities to better accommodate sustainable transportation and create vibrant places that foster social connections. Recognizing the potential, San Francisco developed a pioneering policy, The Better Streets Plan, and implemented a number of innovative strategies for improving the public realm. A multidisciplinary group of tour leaders will share their experience on the planning, policy, implementation, and operation of new approaches to streets and public spaces within the city, visiting context-sensitive complete street designs. Highlights include slow streets, streetscaping for neighborhood retail, and the Octavia freeway-to-boulevard conversion project. Each street represents different approaches that balance multimodal travel, functional public space, and neighborhood integration.
HD12: Healthcare from Twin Peaks to the TenderloinSan Francisco’s long history of providing social services is expressed today at two facilities, the new Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, California’s first LEED certified (Silver) hospital, and the newly renovated Kelly Cullen Community. The new Laguna Honda features evidence-based design, operable windows, high levels of energy efficiency, TPO roofing, advanced kitchen recycling and 9 healing gardens. The Kelly Cullen Community provides housing for the chronically homeless, many of whom have special needs such as mental illness, substance abuse, and medical frailty. It successfully explores the intersection between adaptive re-use, historic preservation, sustainable design, affordable housing, and the neighborhood.
HD13: Socially Responsible by Design: The Legacy and Leadership of Green Building at Mills CollegeExplore a legacy of green campus development and environmental stewardship at Mills College, Oakland. Attendees will tour three buildings nestled in the historic campus designed by local design firms. The LEED Platinum Betty Irene Moore Natural Sciences Building, an early pioneer in sustainable design, incorporates rainwater harvesting, interactive energy metric displays and photovoltaic panels. The Jeannik Mequet Littlefield Concert Hall employs an underfloor air distribution system in the context of a challenging historic renovation. Finally, the first LEED Gold business school in California, the Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business, integrates cutting edge with effective green strategies, including a living green roof, rainwater harvesting, natural ventilation, and radiant heating.
HD14: Farm to Building: Local Food and Green DesignThe Bay Area is famous as the birth of the farm-to-table culinary world, where restaurants build relationships with local farms to produce healthy food and healthy local economies. This tour of the SOMA neighborhood will highlight two restaurants, Piccino and Bar Agricole, that take sustainability a step further with unique and creative green building strategies. The 2010 AIA COTE Award winning 355 11th Street building houses Bar Agricole and office space. Attendees will also tour the renovation of the land-marked James Lick Baths to an innovative office space for architecture firm Gelfand & Partners.
HD15: Waterfront Revival: Eat, Play, Work (Ferry Building, Exploratorium, Google SF)Three of San Francisco's dynamic cultural touchstones will be highlighted on this tour. The Ferry Building, an iconic historic landmark repurposed as a center for sustainable agriculture and renowned farmer's market, the Exploratorium, a waterfront pier and shed repurposed as the largest net zero energy museum in the U.S., and Google's SF offices, a historic building renovated as a center of our booming tech industry. This tour will offer a glimpse into all three worlds in the heart of San Francisco, covering aspects ranging from energy management, sustainable operations and community engagement through environmental and green building strategies.
HD17: Berkeley Walking Tour
Historically, Berkeley has been at the forefront of the progressive movement since its founding, creating a culture of acceptance and experimentation. In addition to housing one of the Bay Area’s most prestigious universities, Berkeley showcases a variety of environmentally sensitive design projects. The David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza contain a vibrant headquarters for the local environmental community, a sprawl-fighting repair of downtown, homes for low-income families and special needs residents, and acts as a model encouraging both sustainable development and social equity. Finally, the McGee Salvage House provides an exemplary story of materials reuse through a beautiful and creative home.