The leadership of RB+B Architects, Inc. is pleased to promote Josh McGarvey, AIA, LEED AP to Associate.

Josh joined RB+B in 2008 and has been a project manager for a multitude of projects, ranging in scale from the recent renovations/upgrades to Mead Elementary and Middle School, to the new 63,000-square-foot High Plains Preschool-8^th Grade School currently under construction in Loveland.

“Josh is very detail-oriented, has a great sense of design and scale, is fun to work with, and clients love him. He is a tremendous asset to our project teams and his promotion to Associate will enable him to continue leading clients through a successful design and construction process,” says Corky Bradley, Principal at RB+B.

Josh received both his Masters and Bachelor of Architecture from Judson University in Elgin, Illinois. He is a licensed Architect in the state of Colorado, a member of the American Institute of Architects, as well as a LEED Accredited Professional.

Built in 2006, $17 million Kinard Middle School is the only school in Colorado to earn a perfect Energy Star Score of 100. Kinard was the first school in the country to specifically be “Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR” and was awarded an Energy Star rating in its first year of occupancy (2007). The school is the most energy efficient school in the state of Colorado operating at between 20 and 25 kBtu/sf/yr. In 2013, Kinard was awarded a Green Ribbon School award by the United States Department of Education and is currently a bronze level partner in the Environmental Leadership Program.

Take a virtual tour of Kinard and learn all about the building’s sustainable features, presented here by the Kinard C.A.R.E.S. program.

To learn more about Kinard C.A.R.E.S. visit their website or connect with them on their Facebook page.

Each year, RB+B Architects holds an internal staff workshop to support the firm’s Sustainability Management System (SMS). For the past two years, the SMS workshop has been held at Primrose Studio in northwest Fort Collins and has focused around sustainable project design.

Goals for this year’s workshop included:

• Help staff understand all the steps of a project going through the office, from Proposal to Post Occupancy Evaluation.
• Work in teams to develop a concept for a net-zero office building.
• Help staff become familiar with office resources that support our sustainability goals.

As an exercise to incorporate these goals, staff were divided into teams of four and given a hypothetical site on which to develop a concept for a net-zero office building. Teams were given information about the site, program, and design goals based on the One Planet Living® principles (RB+B uses the One Planet Living® framework to inform our sustainability program). Teams then researched strategies needed to achieve these design goals and, as a group, filled out the project goals checklist and built models of their designs – all in under one hour!

Model of one team’s conceptual net-zero design.

Model of one team’s conceptual net-zero design.

Each year during the City of Fort Collins’ Bike to Work Month, RB+B Architects implements its own office-wide initiative to reduce carbon emissions. Alternative Transportation Month, as it has been affectionately termed, was an initiative developed by the organization’s G:REEN | team to raise awareness for, and encourage staff to participate in, commuting to work and meetings with less reliance on personal vehicles.

A quick recap of the results last month:

• The effort reduced 890 total pounds of carbon emissions.
• 90% of staff participated in the initiative.
• The person who commuted by alternative means did so 21 work days throughout the month.
• The person who commuted the most miles by alternative means tallied 208 miles by bicycle.
• The three methods of alternative commuting including bicycling, walking and carpooling.

Alternative Transportation Month by the numbers.

In 2010, RB+B Architects adopted the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2030 Commitment. The AIA 2030 Commitment is a national initiative providing a framework with both metrics and strategies for evaluating and reporting project energy usage. The same year the commitment was adopted, RB+B was one of only 56 firms nationwide to take part in data reporting for their buildings. Data reporting helps architectural firms (and their clients) understand how decisions throughout the design process affect building energy performance over time.

Because buildings are the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas production (nearly the equivalent of both transportation and industry combined*), architectural firms’ primary impact on improving the environment is best achieved through energy efficient building design. More and more architectural firms are recognizing the benefit of utilizing tools such as the AIA 2030 Commitment. Just this year the program saw a 33% increase in the number of firms reporting data over the previous year.

This is an exciting step towards carbon neutrality within the architecture industry. In 2015, RB+B will continue to support programs such as the 2030 Commitment as we strive to enhance our culture of sustainability and the design of high performance buildings.

*Source 2013 2030, Inc./Architecture 2030.

RB+B is happy to publish the third annual report of RB+B’s Sustainability Management System (SMS). The SMS document originated in April 2011 by RB+B’s G:REEN Team with input from the entire office. In our third year of implementation, it has become a valuable tool in guiding our office processes as well as the design of our buildings and their environments.

Our SMS annual report has helped us to document our vision and chart a course for action around each of the three areas of our business: Internal Operations, Internal Process + Technology, and External Product Offerings. With this report, we have provided a benchmark both for ourselves and for our industry to measure growth against. As we move forward, the SMS annual report will help us to tell our story, hold ourselves accountable, and celebrate our positive impact on the world around us. We firmly believe that sustainable design, as we practice it, will positively affect ourselves and the lives of the people who use our buildings.

Concentration areas for 2013 included (1) developing firm-wide sustainable goals and metrics for projects, (2) implementing sustainable design goals and tracking/reporting project data, and (3) broadly engaging staff in sustainability efforts.