Our Space
Our living laboratory for high-performance building!
In 2006, we invested in our own building as a way to put into practice the green building strategies we had been incorporating into our design and consulting work for years. We began with a 200+ year old brick double-row building in Philadelphia’s Manayunk neighborhood. Over the centuries, the building served many uses ranging from a livery to a mechanic to a graphic design studio. Much of the work we have done here has been with our own hands - this has given us the ability to try new green building technologies in an incubator fashion before rolling out to our projects. We also believe that for us to be good architects and consultants we need to know the reality of construction - so we all roll up our sleeves and get dirty from time to time!
Three big ideas:
Hands-on,
Experimental,
Unconstrained
After seeing the value of LEED O+M to numerous clients, Re:Vision undertook a certification for our own headquarters and achieved no less than the highest rating in the tri-state area. Every staff member participated in the process so we could better understand LEED from the client perspective. Our improvements included systems upgrades, monitoring resource use, and procedure implementation that allowed us to increase comfort for employees while keeping energy and water use in check. Of particular note, we pursued an Innovation Credit for conducting a thermal scan of our building envelope. This gave us the ability to see the invisible thermal signatures related to energy use problems, make corrective action where necessary, and gain further insight to how our building functions.
Fast Facts
- Energy Use Intensity of 17 kBTU/sf/yr (EUI) is 1/5 of a typical office building
- Approximately 60% of our energy is generated from rooftop solar panels; the balance is offset with PA wind
- Envelope upgrades performed utilizing thermography and air infiltration testing
- Reduced lighting power density by daylight harvesting
- Extensive utilization of passive ventilation and nighttime flushing
- 40%+ water use reduction through ultra-low flush and flow fixtures
- 100% of workstations have access to daylight, view, and natural ventilation
- Salvaged and redlist free materials
- 97% waste diversion rate including commercial composting
Project Gallery
