Chong Partners Architecture: Practicing What It Preaches

The San Francisco-based firm receives a gold rating for its new headquarters office. Sustainable features include daylight-monitoring sensors that reduce energy consumption by 30 to 35 percent.

The design team selected furniture, fabrics, carpet tiles and finishes that produce a minimum of potentially harmful emissions in order to promote a healthy indoor environment (photo courtesy of Chong Partners Architecture).

San Francisco-based Chong Partners Architecture recently received a LEED-gold certification for its new headquarters office in Foundry Square. It's the only architecture and design office to so far achieve such status from the U.S. Green Building Council's commercial interiors pilot program.

LEED stands for leadership in energy and environmental design. The LEED-rating system is featured-oriented in which credits are earned for satisfying specified green building criteria. Certified, silver, gold and platinum levels are awarded based on the total credits earned.

"I'm very proud of our design team," said Gordon H. Chong, FAIA, the firm's founder. "Sam Nunes, Bryan Shiles, Cathy Barrett, Pauline Souza, Melinda Rosenberg, Abigail Meurk and Michael Hinkley-Reck, along with our engineers at Flack & Kurtz, and Venture Builders, all contributed an enormous amount to this effort. The results prove that sustainability is beautiful."

The USGBC launched the pilot phase of its newest green building rating system- the LEED commercial interiors program (LEED-CI)-in July 2002. It's an intensive two-year effort to test "green" ratings in commercial tenant spaces. LEED-CI evaluates environments in five areas: selection of sustainable tenant space, water usage, energy consumption, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

The open design of the office, with few visual or structural barriers, takes full advantage of available natural light and at the same time supports the collaborative work style of an architectural practice.

With LEED certification as one of its goals, Chong Partners Architecture in 2002 selected a modern, 10-story building on Howard Street (south of Market Street) for its new 43,000 -sq.-ft. corporate office-single-floor space that offered the potential to support green design. The building includes a central atrium and glass curtain perimeter walls that provides abundant natural light, a raised floor system that allowed under-floor HVAC and dual-pane glass that would enhance insulation to conserve energy.

"We wanted our office to be a beautiful, healthy work space for employees and an inspiring model of sustainable thinking and practices-from site selection to design concept to the selection of systems, materials and furniture," said sustainability advocate and associate partner, Pauline Souza. "While we addressed all of the 57 potential points that can be achieved under the LEED-CI program, we focused our efforts on maximizing energy efficiency and indoor air quality."

The design team selected furniture, fabrics, carpet tiles and finishes that produce a minimum of potentially harmful emissions in order to promote a healthy indoor environment.

The team also specified sensors that monitor daylight-and reduced energy consumption for lighting 30 to 35 percent of average (.7 watts/sq. ft. versus 1.3 watts/sq. ft. standard). Optimized energy performance for HVAC is 30-percent better than standards set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. Additionally, lighting and under-floor air are digitally controlled by zones to accommodate different levels of sunlight or temperature at the perimeter of the workspace or in the building core. Motion sensors are located in offices, supply and print rooms and the model shop.

With LEED certification as one of its goals, Chong Partners Architecture selected a modern, 10-story building on Howard Street (south of Market Street) for its new 43,000 -sq.-ft. corporate office. The building includes a central atrium and glass curtain perimeter walls that provide abundant natural light (photos courtesy of Chong Partners).

Souza said since the lease is not adjusted for energy savings, the firm felt that it had a responsibility to the community to install photo and motion sensors that would reduce the electrical load.

The open design of the office, with few visual or structural barriers, takes full advantage of available natural light and at the same time supports the collaborative work style of an architectural practice.

Founded in 1976 by Gordon H. Chong, a former national president of the American Institute of Architects, Chong Partners Architecture employs 180 people. It has offices in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego and London.

At the grand opening, Chong said green design is more than good intentions.

"It's also about good business-and reducing the real costs of a building through reduced operating costs, long-term building flexibility, an improved image in the market and more productive people," he added. "It's important to realize that initial construction represents only a fraction of a building's life-cycle costs."