Gwinnett Environmental/Heritage Center, Buford, Ga.

   For now, though, the GEHC is a rare example of government agencies seeking to lead by example.
   The main focus of the 59,000 ft² education facility, scheduled to open in time for the 2006-2007 academic year, is water. However, its design strategies, ranging from a unique heating and cooling system to a sloped vegetative roof, are also intended to serve as a model for building water- and energy-efficient structures.
   Not surprisingly – given its location – the structure incorporates about 20,000 ft² of Georgia granite, much of it waste material created as blocks of the stone were cut down to smaller proportions. The use of that salvaged local material is an important component in the project’s quest for silver-level certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)® program.
   The idea for a center dates back a decade, during development of a master plan for what’s now the F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center, recognized as one of the nation’s most-efficient high-tech water-treatment facilities.
   Although located near the Mall of Georgia retail complex, the site encompasses 233 acres preserved in their natural state for trails, outdoor exploration and interpretation. It also adjoins another 159 acres of wetlands.
   Steve Cannon, GEHC executive director, explains that Gwinnett County, located just north of Atlanta, is the headwaters for many of the river corridors feeding the water supply for the Atlanta metropolitan area.
   “With a lot of the new regulations, we’re starting to look at what’s called source-water supply and how you protect that,” he says. “However, the Gwinnett County Commissioners didn’t want to put regulations out as a government that they don’t abide by themselves, so this was really a project of learn-by-doing and leading-by-example.”
   Ultimately, Gwinnett County partnered with two educational organizations, Gwinnett County Public Schools and the University of Georgia, for the building. Funding for the $16.6 million facility comes from special local-option sales taxes approved by voters in 2001 and 2005.
   Cannon calls the academic partnerships key to the project.
   “We have a working relationship where the school board is providing a teacher and funding,” he says. “And the university has provided doctoral and exhibit funding.”
   Then there’s the sustainability issue. Cannon says along with educating the public on water issues, the county wants the center to illustrate to the development community that ecologically sound options exist; and, while they may cost more initially, they’ll save money in the long-term by being energy-efficient.
   “We were looking for energy efficiency, ingenuity in the marketplace, and good use of recycled materials,” he says. “Even our plumbing will be supplied by reused water from the wastewater plant.”
   Luckily, Gwinnett County and the GEHC didn’t have to look very far for help turning their goals into reality. The county wanted to with a local architect; not only does the Atlanta office of Lord, Aeck & Sargent fit that bill, but the firm is a nationally recognized pioneer in sustainable, energy-efficient design.
   “They’re a local firm and they have the talent on-board so that when they went through the interview process, they let us know they knew a lot about the LEED process,” Cannon says. “They’ve also done a lot of work with colleges and the state, so we could go out and look at their work; their product is local, too.”
   Meg Needle, a LEED-accredited professional and Lord, Aeck & Sargent’s project manager for the center, says the firm has a long history of following environmentally sound design practices. When the LEED standards were developed in 1999, the firm embraced them quickly.
   For this project, Needle says the firm had a fairly specific design concept going into the architectural-selection process.
   “I think our design concept helped us win the commission,” she says. “The final design is a direct development of the concepts we’d won the job with.”
   However, developing a plan that would work for all the parties involved in the project became a fairly lengthy process that started with a series of meetings, she explains.
   “The concepts for the educational direction of the facility were documented, and then we incorporated them into the design,” says Needle. “Our exhibit consultant (Van Sickle & Rolleri of Medford, N.J.) was also involved in those meetings, and they came up with a very detailed text of what needed to go into the exhibits.”
   Further complicating the overall design process was the need for passage of the second sales-tax initiative. Work began before the measure went to the voters.
   “They had desires for different pieces and parts of the building – the educational pieces, the classroom spaces, the Blue Planet Theater and some changing exhibit spaces were all on the wish list, but they weren’t sure of their funding,” says Needle. “In our bid documents, we had to put whole chunks of the building in as add-alternates. In the end, they were able to fund everything.”
   One important role of the architects was to assist in site selection for the center. Needle says that several different spots were considered, but ultimately the straddling of a dry ravine won out.
   While that wouldn’t be an obvious first choice for many projects, the site holds several advantages, from leaving flatter areas for parking with minimal grading, to allowing the construction of a water feature – again incorporating treated wastewater – to replace the usual cooling tower for the building’s mechanical system.
   The site also provides good solar exposures for additional heating in winter, and limited the amount of deciduous trees that had to be disturbed during construction – providing immediate summer shade.
   As for the Elberton granite used for the façade, Needle notes that much of Atlanta is built from granite, owing to the huge deposits of the stone in the area. However, the architectural firm also incorporated the Elberton stone into a pair of its other recent projects: the Action Resource Center (ARC) at Zoo Atlanta, the Global Health Action Inc. headquarters and the award-winning Georgia Public Health Laboratory.
   “We’ve found that it’s an efficient material to use, and very long-lived; it will go on forever,” says Needle. “It works well blending in with the native landscape of the area.”
   Lord, Aeck & Sargent also took charge of the project's construction administration. Needle says this is a common practice for the firm, ensuring that design concepts expected by the owner are properly executed in the building process. For LEED projects, the construction-phase involvement by the design team reinforces and communicates sustainable design strategies to the buildings.
   Needle adds that Lord, Aeck & Sargent’s services include a commissioning person dedicated to LEED issues related to mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, and a separate LEED specialist focusing exclusively on LEED issues.
   “Most of the LEED points really have to do with design, so by the time it gets to construction administration it’s a matter of protecting the design and making sure the contractor is abiding by the design scope that’s been set,” says Needle. “Much of the contractor’s LEED contributions have to do with waste management and local- and regional-materials documentation.”
   While potential contractors for the job weren’t pre-qualified, Needle says one important requirement for bidding the job was previous LEED experience. Atlanta-based Juneau Construction Co. won the job, based on its low bid.
   Eric Kerley, Juneau’s project manager for GEHC, agrees with Needle that many of the LEED qualifications come through the design process.
   “It’s up to the architect and the engineers to design elements that are LEED-compliant and specify products that are going to be LEED-compliant,” Kerley says. “We’re sort of the enforcer to make sure our subs are using the proper materials and keeping track of that.”
   Along with being in charge of a lot of the material credits applied to LEED, Kerley adds that a big part of the contractor’s job was making sure everyone understood the procedures for recycling construction waste.
   Finding a masonry subcontractor for the job wasn’t that difficult, he adds, although LEED is still a new-enough concept that often times it’s necessary to explain LEED certification to the subs.
   “As long as they follow what’s in the specification, it’s pretty easy for them,” Kerley says. “One of the more challenging aspects of the process is the additional documentation required, and we have to work with our subs to provide the additional documentation needed. For LEED certification, the contractor must verify the recycled content used and the manufacturing or harvesting locations for materials.”
   Ultimately, Conyers, Ga.-based Sullivan Stone won the masonry sub, again based on a hard bid. Kerley says the use of the hard bid process may be something governments may need to look at as they build projects to LEED certification.
   “In our opinion, it’s better if it’s more of a negotiated project, so the contractor can get on board early, be involved in the concept and help with the design,” he says. “That would also give us more leeway to select our subcontractors and get them on board early, too.”
   Sullivan president Jim Sullivan says his company was invited to bid by several different contractors interested in the job. As with Juneau, the company worked on previous LEED projects, and Sullivan agrees that they’re not that difficult.
   “They all have their challenges,” he says. “Trying to meet the requirements is sometimes a little tricky.”
   For this project, the use of what could best be described as an industrial waste product wasn’t difficult at all. Sullivan says his company obtained the bottoms, sides and ends of blocks of Elberton granite run through the saw, along with stones cut and spoiled in actual monument fabrication.
   “We took them and broke them up and used them for dimensional stone,” Sullivan says. “You can even go a step further and take the pieces that are left over or really don’t fit and use them for rip-rap and drainage. It’s a really neat product for meeting the requirements for LEED.”
   For the GEHC project, the pieces were split into squares and rectangles ranging from 6” square to 20” square, and installed in a random ashlar pattern with vertical and horizontal joints.
   The real bane of the job, from Sullivan’s perspective, was the specified tie setup.
   “It’s an ‘L’ bracket that comes off the wall that’s attached to the poured-in-place concrete wall,” he says. “We needed to put a series of those in a straight line and drop a 3/8” galvanized rod down through the holes, and then there are ties that hook around the rods. The waterproofing and insulation board had to go up after the clips were on, but before we could drop our ties.”
   Lord, Aeck & Sargent’s Needle explains the system is similar to those used in seismic situations. However in the case of the GEHC, this made the structure as energy-efficient as possible.
   “This system was specified to protect the integrity of the thermal envelope while still allowing random coursing of the stone,” she explains. “Using standard corrugated ties or dove-tie anchors with channels cast into the concrete would have required the masons to cut through the insulation at random locations to fasten the anchors to match the stone coursing as it was laid.”
   Sullivan calls the system, “a little more time-consuming,” but he says in the end it worked well.
   The stonework on the project started last September, and finished early this year. Sullivan says that, at the height of the job, he had three 10-man crews working at the site.
   Along with the random ashlar façade, the company also fabricated solid stone lintels for some of the doors and windows, and cut nine 5’ X 8’ X 2” Elberton granite slabs for the sign subcontractor.
   Although the final product is still some weeks away, the overwhelming response of those involved in the project is extremely positive.
   “I think this will be one for the picture books,” says Sullivan.
   “It’s been challenging these last few months,” says Needle. “However, I think the building will absolutely be well-received.”
   “We have a really unique building here,” says the center’s Cannon. “From the first rendering, the architects captured what we were after, and what we wanted was those things that really make a difference in how we illustrate to the development community that you can do these things. We’ve got the rock, we’ve got wonderful textures, and we have a sloped vegetative roof.
   "It really is an education center.”

Client: Gwinnett County, Ga.
Architect: Lord, Aeck & Sargent, Atlanta
Contractor: Juneau Construction Co., Atlanta
Masonry Subcontractor: Sullivan Stone, Conyers, Ga.

This article first appeared in the July 2006 print edition of Stone Business. ©2006 Western Business Media Inc.