Green Solution of the Month - Eat at Joe’s:

An Ivy League cafe earns LEED Gold—and orders off the eco-menu, too

October 2011 - As they settle into their semester routines, University of Pennsylvania students may notice flora unexpectedly sprouting from the roof of longtime campus building Steinberg Hall–Dietrich Hall. This Wharton School of Business facility was the last commission of McKim, Mead & White, and the green roof belongs to a 1,300-square-foot rear entry pavilion just completed by Voith & Mactavish as part of a second major renovation. Although the Philadelphia-based architects’ limestone and mullion detailing caringly respects the original 1952 design, the green roof also represents a sustainable 21st-century perspective.

Inside, campus residents can sate their sustainability appetites at Joe’s Café, which is LEED-Gold CI (commercial interiors). Most of the dining area is located within the new east-facing structure. Low-E-coated, double-glazed floor-to-ceiling windows boast a U-value of .36 that keeps tabs on solar thermal gain in the 18-foot-tall interior. A steel-and-limestone trellis appended to the south side of the pavilion casts shade on the dining area to reduce both heat and glare.

Tracking those daylight levels are sensors that dim and brighten the CFLs in pendants over the dining area, while the adjacent servery is illuminated on occupancy sensors. Voith & Mactavish partner Daniela Voith also notes the second-chance bottle and mirror glass embedded in the terrazzo floors, and insulation and other materials that are locally sourced, low-VOC, and partly recycled. The academic community “was really so taken” with the LEED system, Voith says, “because it makes so much sense. Our [education] practice has become more rigorously green in advance of that.”

Yet the cafe does more than mark checkboxes for a sustainable interior. Joe’s operator is diverting at least half of its waste, for example, thanks in part to compostable clamshell and salad containers, paper plates, disposable utensils—from tiny salt and pepper packets to large trash bags. read more>>>