September 1, 2010

KEITH TUFTS/LYDON LYNCH ARCHITECTS LTD.

Giant glass atriums allow natural light to penetrate into the interior of the new Seaport farmers’ market.

Halifax farmers’ market project a testament to local skills

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

For RCS Construction and Lydon Lynch Architects Ltd., the recent opening of the $12 million Halifax Seaport farmers’ market marked the successful completion of what is being called one of North America’s most environmentally sustainable buildings.

“We’re incredibly proud of the efforts of our entire team as well as the more than 50 subtrades and suppliers involved in construction,” says Doug Doucet, president of Bedford-headquartered RCS.

Designed by Keith Tufts of Halifax’s Lydon Lynch, the 44,550-square-foot facility has been designed to attain LEED Platinum status, one of only a handful of buildings to meet this standard.

“It’s a great success story for the local professional and construction community,” says Tufts, a principal in Lydon Lynch and the firm’s senior environmental designer. “And it was all done with local expertise and know-how.”

The project involved renovation of a century-old pre-engineered building at Pier 20 on the waterfront. The team included structural engineers Campbell Comeau Engineering Ltd. and mechanical and electrical engineers, M&R Engineering.

KEITH TUFTS/LYDON LYNCH ARCHITECTS LTD.

Four wind turbines are housed on the roof of Halifax’s new $12-million facility.

The new market, which opened in early August, boasts an array of features designed to minimize both energy and water consumption.

Four wind turbines are housed on the roof of the facility, along with more than 600 “solar evacuated” tube collectors which harvest energy from the sun. Seventeen 650-foot-deep geothermal wells are drilled into bedrock.

Giant glass atriums or solar “lanterns” allow natural light to penetrate the building and contribute to a “see-through” design.

Tufts says the facility is expected to consume 75 per cent less energy than a typical R-2000 structure, making it one of the most energy-efficient buildings in North America.

Water conservation was also a major factor in the design. Rainwater is collected in a 10,000-litre storage tank, to be used for toilet flushing and irrigation purposes.

The facility has a large biowall as well as a 25,000-square-foot green roof, the second largest in Canada. An onsite vermiculture room will turn organic waste into compost for use in various planters.

More than one-third of the building materials was sourced locally, Tufts says. Materials with recycled content were specified as well. An existing concrete floor was crushed on site and used for fill. Salvaged steel was re-used.

More than 80 per cent of all wood is Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

Landing the contract to build what Tufts refers to as “a LEED Platinum plus” building was a coup for RCS, a medium-sized company that competed against some of Canada’s largest contracting firms to win the job.

But building Atlantic Canada’s first LEED Platinum project posed its share of challenges for RCS and its team.

“LEED is still fairly new to the construction industry here in Atlantic Canada,” Doucet says. “So for a lot of the trades, working on the project was a real educational experience.”

Ensuring that only LEED-compliant products, such as low-VOC paints and adhesives, made it onto the job site required a certain amount of diligence on RCS’s part, Doucet says.

“A lot of the trades hadn’t used these products before.”

Diverting a high percentage of construction waste, a move required to gain a LEED credit, represented another challenge that Doucet says was out of the norm.

“We literally had an employee going around steadily sorting garbage and training people about what had to go in what bins and keeping track of where it actually ended up.”

At the end of the day, more than 90 per cent of construction waste was diverted from landfill.

Delivery of materials had to be carefully orchestrated.

Most of the FSC-certified wood, for example, was harvested from forests in Quebec.

Some scheduled deliveries were disrupted by heavy winter snowfalls.

In another case, two Florida-grown trees that were to be planted inside the building couldn’t be delivered “when there was a lot of dust” being generated during construction.

“It was a challenge to get the building to the point where the timing was right to bring in the trees,” Doucet says.

The landscape contractor drove to Florida himself to pick up the trees.

Similarly, deliveries of the tropical plants for the building’s biowall had to be scheduled precisely “so that the plants would survive when transplanted.” The supplier was in New Jersey.

Other challenges included: addressing unforeseen below-grade structural conditions; having to drill the geothermal wells an additional 100 feet than originally anticipated; installing a non-standard green roof; and manoevrering on an “incredibly tight” site.

“There was also a lot of experimentation by our concrete suppliers and installers to get the white concrete mix design just right,” adds project manager Peter Sarty.

The project was funded by municipal, provincial and federal governments as well as local investors through a community economic development fund.

“Having such a signature green building on the waterfront caught the attention of all levels of government,” says Tufts, whose firm also provided LEED consulting services on the project.

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