Each of the six south-facing steps of the building features a solar photovoltaic system. Combined with PV trellises on the fifth and seventh floor gardens and a stair canopy on the top of the building, the system will generate approximately 70,000 KW per year, enough to power about 3% of the total building.

Via Verde features high-efficiency, hydronic gas-fired boiler-domestic hot water systems that use returning water to heat water for showers and cooking. “It further reduces the water temperature going back to the boilers, so the boilers are operating at a higher efficiency,” says Waldir Alvarez, an MEP engineer with Ettinger Engineering Associates, New York.

High-efficiency air-conditioning units will cool common areas. A monitoring system will allow managers and residents to track gas, water and electrical usage.

“It’s a feedback mechanism where you can fine-tune your system with hard data,” Alvarez says.

Metro Green

Performance feedback is critical for Rose. The firm commonly commissions thermographs of finished buildings. “It’s amazing what you can learn about how well you insulated and where the leaks are,” Rose said. “That helps us design the next one even better. Sometimes we go back to fix things.”

Thermoscan photography of the first phase of Metro Green, a multiuse, transit-oriented, LEED-Gold Neighborhood Development in Stamford, showed thermal leaks where decorative balconies and windows were inserted into the building. Perkins Eastman Architects, Stamford, modified plans for the second phase—the Metro Green Residences, a seven-story, 62,000-sq-ft, 50-unit, block-and-plank building being co-developed by Malkin Properties and constructed by Malkin Construction,

For the Residences’ metal-frame exterior, crews will spray on an air-weather barrier and install an additional layer of insulation to make the building “tighter,” says Jonathan Metz, architect with Perkins Eastman.

“The envelope has three layers of insulation: 6 inches of blown cellulose between the studs, followed by the sprayed-on, air-vapor barrier layer, then outside sheeting on top of a finished wall surface HandiePlank,” says Thomas Durels, CEO of Malkin Construction and executive vice president of Malkin Properties and Malkin Holdings.

Each unit has its own HVAC system. In the first building, the team used a tankless, condensing water heater-boiler. But when the systems proved less efficient than expected, designers selected separate furnaces and hot water heaters for the Residences.

“Green and environmentally sustainable housing should not be just for people who are rich and market-rate tenants,” Metz says. “Something green sometimes has a higher up-front cost, but you have to quantify it over the life of the building.”