New Mark Twain Library Follows City’s Green Building Policy

By Kurt Helin
Editor

Walk into the new Mark Twain Library in central Long Beach, and it looks like any other brand new library.

You won’t notice that the carpet is made of a high percentage of recycled materials. Or that the glass used in some glass tiling is recycled. Or that concrete was used in the parking lot instead of asphalt, keeping the ground cooler and reducing air conditioner use in the building. Or that all the windows mean less artificial light (and less electricity used). You likely won’t notice the low-flow fixtures in the bathrooms.

But all that and more is what makes the library that opened last fall the “greenest” public building to come to the city.

“Visitors won’t necessarily notice anything,” said Larry Rich, the planner for Long Beach’s sustainable city program. “It won’t necessarily look any different, but it will have hidden things like the use of recycled materials.”

It’s that type of innovation the city is promoting with its new Green Building Policy.

The Mark Twain Library earned a Silver LEED Certification. LEED stands for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and it is a green building rating system.

Rich notes that there are five different areas that LEED considers, and it covers every aspect of a new building:

• The character of the building’s site. For example, is it close to public transit stops, so people can use it without taking a car?

• Water efficiency. For example, the use of low-flow toilets or the use of drought-resistant landscaping that requires less watering.

• Energy efficiency. Having more natural light in the building so less electricity is used is one way to be energy efficient.

• Materials used. The use of recycled materials in the building wins points here, among other things.

• Indoor air quality. Using carpets and paints that are low VOC — meaning they give off less of a gas known to be harmful to humans — earns points in this category.

The point is to get builders thinking about this all in advance, Rich said.

“One of the main features of green design is called integrated design,” Rich said. “For example, you get the electrical engineer and the mechanical engineer talking early in the process to see where efficiencies can be found.”

Those are some of the features you see in the city’s Green Building Policy.

The city’s policy is a four-tiered effort that demands certain steps in all new buildings, adds some standards for larger developments and encourages developers to reach for the top couple of levels.

The mandatory steps for all buildings include things like making sure that less storm water runs off of a site after it is built than before. The goal is to get the water into spaces where it can percolate into the ground rather than run into city gutters (and eventually the ocean off the city’s coast). The most green of buildings, such as one in Santa Monica that is home to the Natural Resources Defense Council, actually retains its storm-water in tanks to do things like flush toilets.

New residential properties must have some bicycle storage for the tenants. Even new businesses will be asked to have some place to store bikes on or near the property.

Other mandatory steps will include landscaping that will reduce water usage, steps to reduce energy usage and using the recycled materials in the building process, as was seen at the Mark Twain Library.

Larger projects being built, such as some of the condominium developments coming to downtown, will be required to register for the LEED program and get at least a minimum certification.

To encourage the builders to reach for the greener standards, developers could be given advantages by the city such as decreased parking standards, increased building height allowances, decreased setback requirements and more, according to the policy.

And if it all goes according to plan, you won’t notice any of it when you walk in the building.