PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: V-KOOL SPECTRALLY SELECTIVE APPLIED FILM
Q&A with V-Kool president and CEO Marty Watts.

TREB: Describe your product, V-Kool.

Watts: Conventional applied window film was invented in the 1960s to block solar heat from overheating buildings whose window glass was not designed to block solar heat from the sun. Too much solar heat resulted in the need to use more air conditioning. Often, in new construction today, heat-blocking glass will be used; however, for the majority of existing buildings with overheating problems, an applied heat-blocking window film is much less expensive than replacing all of the original glass.

The problem with conventional tinted and reflective applied window film is that it also blocks a great deal of visible light. Blocking visible light creates the need for increased interior illumination, which can increase utility costs. In addition, denying building occupants natural light reduces their productivity and negatively impacts health and well-being, according to numerous studies conducted by government agencies and universities over the past 20 years. Worse yet, tinted and reflective film also changes the appearance of building exteriors.

The challenge for the window film industry was to develop a clear, transparent, colorless film that blocks heat as well as or better than tinted and reflective films. Such films are called spectrally selective because they selectively block heat while simultaneously transmitting visible light.

The first of these spectrally selective films appeared on the market in the mid-1990s based on low emissivity (the ability to emit heat) coatings technology developed for glass (as in Low-E glass).

Spectrally selective film is designed to be used on any structure (home, retail, office building, hospital and so on) in which overheating from too much solar energy is a problem. Because true spectrally selective film such as V-Kool is clear and transparent, it can be used only on those windows of a home or building in which overheating is a problem whereas a tinted conventional film would have to be used on all of a structure’s windows in order to maintain a uniform exterior appearance.

TREB: How does it contribute to sustainable design and building practices?

Watts: The weak link in the building envelope is glass both in terms of blocking unwanted solar energy, which contributes to air conditioning operating cost, and insulating against heat loss during heating season.

Applied window film is designed to deal with solar overheating in terms of reducing air conditioning operating cost and often eliminating the need to upgrade and expand HVAC systems. Spectrally selective film, by enhancing natural daylighting, reduces the need for both additional lighting and often the need for daylighting controls and systems as well.

Since heat often contributes to off gassing of building components and furnishings as well as mold growth when interior humidity is high, heat-blocking window film used in conjunction with HVAC can improve indoor air quality without totally relying on constant, 24/7 HVAC operation.

TREB: Is there anything else like it on the market right now?

Watts: Several window film manufacturers call their film spectrally selective. The definitive test is how much visible light does a film transmit? Most so-called spectrally selective films transmit no more than 54 percent of visible light. V-Kool 70 transmits 70 percent of visible light. Films that transmit less than 70 percent are visible on the window. If a window film looks tinted and not clear it is not optimally selective in the all-important category of visible light transmission.

— Lindsey Walker

Five reasons sustainable building is more cost-effective than traditional building

1. Lowers the overall cost of operations

2. Saves on tax dollars for energy consumption

3. Attracts more residents and businesses

4. Saves on capital construction

5. Variety of global environmental benefits

Source: DMR Architects

Humphreys & Partners Architects’ Newest Design Concept Promotes Efficiency by Creating More Value in the Same Amount of Space

Dallas-based Humphrey & Partners Architects — best known for its innovative Big House design — is at it again with its newest multifamily concept, e-Urban infill design. Using 20 percent less materials to house the same number of people, e-Urban upholds green design thought as well as provides huge dollar savings to building owners.

“The most interesting thing about the e-Urban design is that the building is much more efficient while using the same amount of materials and square footage,” says Mark Humphreys, CEO of Humphreys & Partners Architects. “Basically, if you’re building a 200-unit apartment project at about 200,000 square feet, it’s going to cost you approximately $20 million. With this design, you could potentially save $4 million in construction costs.”

This is made possible by taking away large common area and corridor spaces. The concept behind the design is a four- or five-story, wood-frame building that utilizes a number of smaller, separate elevator lobbies that open up to five or six apartment doors, as opposed to the traditional large lobbies on each floor that have long corridors and dozens, even hundreds, of apartment doors.

“With this design, there are 70 percent less corridors and common areas — that’s 70 percent less space that needs to be lighted, heated and air-conditioned,” Humphreys says.

Humphreys & Partners came up with this notion in response to the rising construction costs, which, according to Humphreys, have been going up about 1 percent a month — totaling 24 or 25 percent in the last few years — and were causing the firm’s buildings to barely function financially.

“That was our first concern,” Humphreys says. “We also noticed that the efficiency of these buildings was only 65 percent — and not just ours, so were everybody else’s.”

Humphreys went to his firm’s design department and asked them to work on a design that would get the efficiency up higher, and they did that by eliminating the corridors and creating elevator lobbies. This new concept took it from 65 percent to 88 percent efficiency (efficiency meaning rentable or sellable area versus common area), he says.

“This has been very exciting to a lot of our clientele,” Humphreys says. “We’ve had over 150 phone calls in six weeks. It’s been a bigger reception that we received on our Big House product for which we’re well-known.”

Humphreys & Partners currently is working on approximately 30 projects with e-Urban infill design, several of which are located throughout Texas.

“We pride ourselves on coming up with new products that the market does not have. We felt there was a need for this, and it turned out we found the solution,” Humphreys says. “We have met with some of the largest developers in the U.S. already on this product, and they’ve looked at the design and said it was remarkable. It’s very simple; it’s amazing nobody has thought of this before.”

— Lindsey Walker

BUILDING A GREEN COMMUNITY FROM THE GROUND UP
Mueller Airport project is a model of sustainable design.
Matt Whelan

The redevelopment of the former Robert Mueller Municipal Airport in Austin, Texas, is incorporating sustainable development practices such as the recycling of construction materials, the employment of non-toxic finishes and energy-efficient lighting systems.

The city of Austin, Texas, is widely recognized as one of the country’s capitals of green building.

So it’s no surprise that at the largest real estate project in Austin history — the redevelopment of the former Robert Mueller Municipal Airport — the best practices of sustainable development are being incorporated into every single home, office, storefront and civic building in the community.

The city of Austin and its utilities have worked with local developers to make this new mixed-use urban village a showpiece of what is being called Green Urbanism. Public support for the idea has been intense, and ambitious environmental design goals and objectives have been built into the project’s award-winning masterplan and design book.

Today, real estate companies involved with Mueller are working to exceed those goals and demonstrate how green building principles can be applied on a community-wide basis to make Mueller a model for future development.

Specifics vary by building type, but the design techniques being incorporated at Mueller include virtually all hallmarks of sustainable development. Builders are recycling construction materials and employing non-toxic finishes. Structures feature natural light and ventilation. Lighting systems are energy efficient. Inside plumbing fixtures and exterior landscaping are designed to significantly reduce water consumption over time.

Furthermore, all buildings at Mueller have to earn at least a two-star rating (or for single-family homes a three-star rating) in Austin Energy’s Green Building Program, one of the nation’s pioneering programs and a key influence on the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED programs. A two-star rating basically corresponds to a national LEED certification.

Given that Mueller’s 711 acres will, at full buildout, be home to more than 4,600 housing units and nearly 5 million square feet of commercial space, these green building standards in themselves make a huge impact on urban and regional sustainability.

But Austin’s residents and businesses have shown they are able and willing to go further. Individual homebuyers are working with our homebuilders to upgrade to state-of-the-art green building amenities. Commercial projects have exceeded the plan’s requirements and are eligible for premium levels of LEED certification. Indeed, Mueller’s first big employment anchor — the new Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas — is seeking LEED Platinum status, the first hospital in the U.S. to attain this benchmark.

These individual green-built projects would be less impressive and effective if they were set in a traditional development pattern that encouraged auto use, threatened surface and groundwater resources, or had other characteristics of sprawl. The Green Urbanism concept for Mueller tackles those issues head-on with community-wide sustainability features embedded in the master plan.

The location itself — an urban infill site only minutes from Austin’s downtown — does a great deal to reduce auto travel and takes advantage of existing infrastructure. The Mueller community vision builds on these advantages by incorporating bus and future rail transit and encouraging walking and bicycling, with dedicated walkways and bike paths along every street and trails throughout the development.

Much of the new street infrastructure on-site includes recycled material from the former airport runways. As for utility infrastructure, Mueller is served by the Austin Water Utility’s initial reclaimed-water system, allowing the use of recycled greywater for irrigation and other non-potable uses. And Austin Energy has constructed an innovative, self-contained energy-efficient mini-plant to provide power, heating and cooling to the Dell Children’s campus.

More than 20 percent of the Mueller site is being developed as public parks and green space, with the planting of 15,000 trees, including many mature specimens preserved both on-site and from other development sites in the area. Mueller parkland also features low-water-use native plantscapes designed in partnership with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. The Mueller design standards also call for one tree for every four parking spaces in the surface lots of our retail center and future town center, which will diminish urban heat island effects as well as make these spaces more walkable.

Even the public art at Mueller conveys the environmental message. At the main gateway to Mueller’s retail center along Interstate 35, a series of 16-foot-tall “SunFlowers,” sculptures built as solar collectors, will produce their own energy.

The people of Austin, and the builders serving them, have come together as willing partners in making Mueller a living sourcebook of good ideas and proven best practices for sustainability. With luck, the high environmental standards being set at Mueller can be adapted by other builders to make any new project — from a single home to an entire new town — more sustainable and more successful.

— Matt Whelan is senior vice president at Catellus Development Group, master developer of the Mueller project.