Environmental, Energy Efficient, and Green Construction Meeting

Ever wonder what a Building Committee meeting with Consultants looks like?

Here are some of the topics that were touched on at our Tuesday, September 26th meeting, convened to discuss Environmental, Energy Efficient, and Green Construction issues. 

Meeting at Barrett Studio, Boulder, Colorado

In Attendance:  Steve Szabo, Jim Highsmith, David Burrous, Martin Ogle, Rich Keilman

•  solar thermal, geothermal, face the building to the south, use passive solar on the south?
• By using energy efficiencies, your mortgage goes down.
• Doors will be up to code.  Windows will be better energy efficiency.
• What about overhang?  ---We’re taking that into consideration.
• We could do thermal imaging to find out what problems there are.
• What about sealing it with foam?
• It’s worth looking at closed cellular foam
• flash and fill.  Its hybrid of cellulose blowing in
•  The wet cellulose is problematical
• We were talking about solar thermal, geo-exchange. Cut the cord with natural gas.
•  we need to figure out the pay back
•  LED fixtures, last 2 years has really progressed.  Do them everywhere.
•  Occupancy switches.
• Replace EXIT signs with LED.  
• Load monitoring system
• Let’s look at the electric bill 
•  hybrid, geo/solar thermal.  The geo is the back-up.
•  Can we do community solar?
•  Solar Hot Air
•  Is there another PV (solar panel) place?  --We always start with the idea of hiding the panels.  --Shouldn’t we showcase them?  If you hide the panels, what are you saying? 
•  The new Tesla solar roof looks beautiful.  They look like tiles.  The roof is guaranteed for life.  They’re impact free.
•  How to make this system simple.  We want it to run by itself.
•  Insulation is key.  Building envelope is the way to go for the efficiency
•  Energy Smart Audit?
•  Thin film solar? 
• it all depends on how much it costs...       

Architects' Conceptual Design Drawings In The Foyer

Don't miss these beautiful Architectural Conceptual Design Drawings in the Foyer.

For more architectural detail, click on the files under Important Sites to Visit on the right side of this page.

Meeting With The Lafayette City Planners Last Tuesday

Kevin Muller, of the Building Committee, and Rich Keilman, architect, met with the Lafayette city planners on Tuesday, 9/5/17, for about an hour to discuss conceptual plans prepared by Barrett Studios.  Their reception of the proposed addition and remodel was very positive.  Following are answers the city planners gave to six issues which were discussed:

1)The amount of seating is not increasing enough to require a Special Use review. Our plans, in the planners' views, indicate a continuation of an existing use. This significantly simplifies the review process.  

2) The process we need to go through before submitting plans for permit review is termed Site Plan and Architectural Review.  We have had one of two required pre-application meetings. The next one will be prior to submittal to make sure we have a complete application.  This will include:  landscape plans, parking plans, site plans with all required civil engineering, the site plan, a sample board, etc.

3) We would need to submit the application before the end of a given month in order to get on the Planning Commission agenda.  After Planning Commission approval it goes to City Council for their second meeting, the following month.  After council approval, we can submit for building permit review.  The whole process will take about three and a half to four months.

4)  There is no requirement for a community meeting for Site and Architecture Review.

5)  Chief landscape considerations will be:  fencing at the south of the property, significant screening on the northwest part of the parcel, storm water detention (to be in civil plans), additional street/site trees, ground cover in the southern prairie dog terrain.  The city does not have specific prairie dog mitigation policies.  Removal/relocation would require a state permit.

6)  Given this schedule, we would not need to submit for Site and Architectural review until after the New Year.

The Great Reveal!

Dear Friends:

Sunday, September 10th is the Great Reveal!

Reveal of what, you might say?  Well, your building committee has been busy since March analyzing and synthesizing input from the congregation, the staff, the children; anyone who would give us an opinion.  We've hired an architectural firm and we've been meeting in small groups with the project manager so that he might listen to their needs and dreams. 

Now, the architect has taken all of our input and developed a "Conceptual Design".  What's that?  Well, it's a beginning design of a building.  It's not the final design.  It begins to show us what we might be able to afford.  Just a reminder, "We're not picking out doorknobs yet."  That means, we're looking at designs that are "conceptual" and we're not ready to start talking about where the doorknobs go.  Also, after more input,  spaces may change size and they might even move to a different part of the building.  Imagine looking at a building from up above in a drone.  You can see how the building is shaped, but you can't see the doorknobs.

But, we want to show you what we've gotten accomplished so far and hope that you will be as amazed as we are.   Yes, we got a peek at the design at our last meeting.

A few details about how the meeting on the 10th will run: 

1. As you enter the sanctuary, you'll be given a 3X5 card.
2. Put your name on the card and write down one (1)  question that you have for the architects or the building committee to be answered after the presentation.  If you have more than one question, ask the building committee for additional cards on which to again write your name and one (1) question.  Remember, only one question per card.
3. The architects have a 1 hour-long PowerPoint presentation that they would like to run which demonstrates how we arrived at the present conceptual design.  
4. There will not be any questions taken during the architects' presentation. They've got a lot of territory to cover.  However if you have one, write it on your 3X5 card and hold it up.  The cards will be collected and categorized according to subject.
5. After the architects' PowerPoint presentation, the building committee will ask the questions that have been submitted on the 3X5 cards.  
6. If we run out of time to answer all the questions we may have to answer them in the blog.

Just a quick reminder.  Although it would be of great interest to continue asking questions of the architects well into the night, the "meter is ticking".  We love these architect guys and spend a lot of time with them discussing design issues, but they're not meeting with us for free, remember "time is money".