Public Employee Press

2nd in a series
Green schools, Green rules

Members design with the whole earth in mind

By JANE LaTOUR

Members of Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375 at the School Construction Authorityare pioneering in a new field —environmentally friendly design and construction. They helped develop the 161-page New York City Green Schools Guide, and now they are implementing it.

Chapter Chair Zygmunt “Ziggy” Jagiello worked on the guide, which covers subjects from acoustic windows to water use and parallels the nationally recognized Leadership in Environmental Engineering and Design system for green building initiatives. The guide sets “sustainable design” requirements for new construction and major remodeling projects.

“We have a talented team of members here,” said Jagiello. PEP and Local 375 Vice President Jon ­Forster set up a roundtable discussion with the SCA engineers and architects to learn more about green schools.

While 20 SCA projects are on-line at any one time, only two of these are being done in-house. “But our team of highly skilled, state-of-the-art people, working together on these projects from the first step to the last, can do it better than outside consultants,” said Forster.

“After the design is complete, our people oversee the construction and are ready to respond to any problems as we pilot it through to completion,” said Jagiello, a Mechanical Engineer.

As is fitting for people developing schools for the future of New York City, the Local 375 members involved are a veritable United Nations. They come from Bangladesh, Egypt, Guyana, Iraq, Mexico, Poland, the Ukraine and Yugoslavia. Arrayed around an architectural model of the All City Leadership Secondary School, which is to open in September 2011 on Gates Avenue in Brooklyn, they described the building’s innovative green concepts.

Associate Architect Allyson Mantello worked on the feasibility study and the preliminary design. She explained that site selection is based on a system that “awards points for items such as proximity to transportation and community access to playgrounds and auditoriums. The idea is to use fewer resources and share functions.”

Everything is energy efficient and it will be a healthy environment for the students, with no pollutants or toxins,” said Engineer Maulik Shah. Energy efficient windows, computerized sensors to control lighting and high efficiency boilers are all part of the design. To save energy and create a healthy environment, the school will be built with local materials, and low-water-use plumbing fixtures, and itwill have no ozone-depleting refrigeration.

“We are building ecologically friendly schools to enhance the learning environment for New York City kids, and we are taking maximum advantage of natural lighting and natural energy,” said Project Lead Architect Slobodan Bekvalac.

Associate Architect Dianna Beemsigne emphasized the benefits of teamwork: “For newcomers such as me, this is such an excellent experience. We all learn from each other about new energy sources and environmentally friendly products.”

As the city transitions to a greener economy, hundreds of green jobs are being created. In order to operate the new system, the maintenance staff for the school should receive computer usage training from the Schools Facility Division of the Dept. of Education.

Enthusiasm for the project and the SCA’s pioneering role runs high. Associate Engineer Olga Chernobilsky summed up this consensus for the team: “I’m very proud to be part of this team. Just to know that we are in a big city and are able to make a building or a space that is environmentally friendly feels very special.”

Plumbing Engineer Samy Khalil views the project through a special lens: “When I design a school, I imagine that my own kids are going to it. I try to develop schools that will allow our youth to learn in a healthy environment.”