Edmonton Construction 13 (November 2015)

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by Hallsy's Toupee

Province divided over new building codes
http://www.metronews.ca/news/edmonton/2016/10/31/province-divided-over-new-building-codes.html

I've been wondering about this, the new codes sound quite restrictive but I don't know if anyone has actually modeled a glass tower yet. Glass is obviously not the best material in this climate, but it does offer the best views and most natural light so it is still desirable. Hopefully this means the end of cheap window wall at least...

[Hardhatdan]

Originally Posted by Daveography

Open house for Holyrood Gardens redevelopment on Nov. 9:
http://skyrisecities.com/forum/threads/e...ments-der-associates.26188/#post-1161484

(originally posted photos of the letter but they don't scale well here)

#1) About time, my good is that a rough chunk of housing. I have no idea what it is like on the inside, but outside it's pretty clear it is at the end of life with no intention or way to save it at this point.
#2) Regency's involvement seems like a good thing because they tend to move forward with building. Unlike the folks over in Strathearn, which are sitting sitting sitting. Yea yea, supposedly next year to be done in conjunction with LRT and Neighborhood renewal.
#3) I hope it is mixed income. Holyrood, Strathearn are good, reasonably functional mixed income hoods.

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

I've been wondering about this, the new codes sound quite restrictive but I don't know if anyone has actually modeled a glass tower yet. Glass is obviously not the best material in this climate, but it does offer the best views and most natural light so it is still desirable. Hopefully this means the end of cheap window wall at least...

We have and much more than 40-50% glazing you get into real challenges. From a strictly energy point of view, our climate should be building towers with MUCH less glass, but there are tradeoffs as mentioned.

[Hallsy's Toupee]

Originally Posted by hilman

http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-ne...art-hoteling-it-with-downtown-tower-move

The second floor will be a one-stop shop for people to secure everything from building permits to dog licences, transit tickets to tax appeals. It’s scheduled to open in February.

Apart from the 2nd floor city services, still no news of any retailers or eateries opening in the COE tower?

[GreenSPACE]

^There's a Starbucks for sure. That's all I've heard.

[Coldrsx]

^^
^
I had heard Timmies inside, Starbucks outside (curious if that works for that combo) and a Subway.

[GreenSPACE]

^The trinity!

[Coldrsx]

But this was from a variety of folks over the last while so who it really might be is still not confirmed.

[Black Star]

Originally Posted by GreenSPACE

^The trinity!

Ill take a McDonald's coffee and a Mr Sub any day over these

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

We have and much more than 40-50% glazing you get into real challenges. From a strictly energy point of view, our climate should be building towers with MUCH less glass, but there are tradeoffs as mentioned.

Is triple glazing a factor at all? the cost would likely be prohibitive, but it could get the R value up enough that other trade-offs get a project to where it needs to be...

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

Is triple glazing a factor at all? the cost would likely be prohibitive, but it could get the R value up enough that other trade-offs get a project to where it needs to be...

It certainly helps, but glass is glass. Even high performance triple or 4 element glazing is challenged by the nature of what it is. That said, it could be done, but is going to be pricey.

[noodlenoodle]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

We have and much more than 40-50% glazing you get into real challenges. From a strictly energy point of view, our climate should be building towers with MUCH less glass, but there are tradeoffs as mentioned.

I find it interesting that you're a huge advocate for energy conservation when it comes to housing design, but a huge proponent of extremely wasteful energy usage with regards to literally heating the great outdoors so you can have a pint outside in November.

[GreenSPACE]

^Those two things are not even remotely on the same scale.

[noodlenoodle]

Originally Posted by GreenSPACE

^Those two things are not even remotely on the same scale.

So hypocritically wasting energy for completely frivolous, selfish & shallow purposes (like getting your drink on) is okay if it's just a little bit? Even if it's contrary to the plans, goals & spirit of environmental awareness put forth by every level of government & shared by many individuals?

I guess that means illegal dumping is wrong if it's truckloads, but throwing a coffee cup out the window is a-ok, because it's smaller scale?

Of course it isn't.

I just find the cognitive dissonance on his position to be interesting. And, now, yours too.

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by noodlenoodle

So hypocritically wasting energy for completely frivolous, selfish & shallow purposes (like getting your drink on) is okay if it's just a little bit? Even if it's contrary to the plans, goals & spirit of environmental awareness put forth by every level of government & shared by many individuals?

I guess that means illegal dumping is wrong if it's truckloads, but throwing a coffee cup out the window is a-ok, because it's smaller scale?

Of course it isn't.

I just find the cognitive dissonance on his position to be interesting. And, now, yours too.

i'm probably with Coldrsx on this one...

there are real challenges and there are tradeoffs at both ends of the scale but your analogy is more than a bit disingenuous. getting back to energy consumption and design, designing anything at all for humans to live in our climate is probably a poor tradeoff regardless of how efficient its implementation is.

if we were going to make all of our design decisions based solely on minimizing our energy consumption (whether operating or capital), we wouldn't be living here period, end of story.

and if you insist on going back to your analogy, just our being here would be the coffee cup, regardless of our choices when it comes to accommodation or transportation or entertainment.

[rapid_business]

Every day.... just looking for new ways to pick fights and stir the pot. What a gong show!

[240glt]

They're going hard installing the hoarding and hanging the swingstages for the Scotia reclad today

[noodlenoodle]

We in Alberta are already the highest energy usage per household in Canada & ~80% of that is natural gas, used for heating.

I agree that we need to change things to get that more in line with other provinces. When we're looking to minimize our energy usage heating up things like bus shelters (the City's cockamamie idea) & patios (Ian's), spaces basically on the opposite end of the spectrum from ideal for heating just seems like frittering away whatever we're gaining from conservation efforts, efficiency mandates & policy changes.

And now for some illustrative math.

The average Albertan household consumes about 129 GJ/year (combined from all sources of energy). A single 40,000 BTU propane patio heater, used for 10 hours, consumes roughly 1/2 GJ per day (or one cylinder). Or, taken over a whole year, that's ~180 GJ.

One heater, 130% the energy usage of an entire Albertan household. Now, I realize that heaters will not be on the whole year & so on & so forth, but I just thought people should know the actual numbers behind these ideas to at least get people thinking.

[240glt]

Interesting to note that we went through a fairly thorough energy analysis of all our office towers in Canada at my previous company a few years ago, and not surprising was that the towers in Edmonton scored at the highest end of the scale.

However once we drilled down further, and measured the performance characteristics of each building individually, and then normalized the building's performance scaled to a baseline (we used Calgary as the denominator) we found that the Edmonton buildings actually performed around the median (not bad for being some of the oldest buildings in the portfolio) and better than several towers in Vancouver that, on the surface consumed much less energy than the Edmonton buildings.

So it's hard to just look at consumption data or even construction type to determine whether buildings are efficient or not. Normalizing consumption data and correcting it to a baseline is important when comparing buildings in different places

[Xelebes]

Hey guys, I've created a thread on this subject in the Alberta forum. I invite you to use it and perhaps we can get some contribution from Calgary and elsewhere in the province. It is an interesting discussion.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=225675