Green Day
An environmentally friendly Cambridge building inspires architects and kindles a local design revolution.
A bubbling fountain backed by a garden of fig trees calms the 12-story atrium. Sunlight pours in from a glass roof and glints off a mobile of mirrored panels. The hardwood floors come from renewable forests; the eco-friendly yellow wall paint contains no noxious fumes. Genzyme’s headquarters is the model workplace of the 21st century.
When the biotechnology company unveiled its new home Earth Day weekend 2004, it called attention to a “green building” boom in the area, which has recently seen the design of several environmentally conscious structures, including South Boston’s new Artists For Humanity EpiCenter and the Capuano School in Somerville.
“Enthusiasm for green building has waxed and waned since the ’70s,” says Jim Batchelor, lead architect for the Artists For Humanity building. “Right now, however, there’s never been a broader support.” Among the reasons behind the push, he says, is a rising acceptance of the ill effects of global warming.
Batchelor credits the U.S. Green Building Council, the nation’s foremost authority on green construction practices, for implementing a rigorous rating system. (The Genzyme and Artists For Humanity buildings are two of only 14 in the country given the council’s highest rating.) Also instrumental were the 1997 Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust, the launching of Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s Green Building Task Force in 2003, and the realization that going green can actually save some, well, green.
While Genzyme’s construction cost 15 percent more than that of a comparable non-green office building, its energy costs are 42 percent less than a typical workplace’s. Internal surveys also show that 58 percent of Genzyme’s Cambridge-based employees are more productive than they were in their former office and take fewer sick days.
Of course, it’s possible these statistics could be unrelated to the building’s endless supply of natural light, 18 indoor gardens, and ladybugs-as-natural-pesticides technology. But around here, developers have taken note and continue to follow in Genzyme’s footsteps. The very eco-friendly Macallen Building in the South End and the green Spectacle Island Visitors Center are both set to open this year.
When the biotechnology company unveiled its new home Earth Day weekend 2004, it called attention to a “green building” boom in the area, which has recently seen the design of several environmentally conscious structures, including South Boston’s new Artists For Humanity EpiCenter and the Capuano School in Somerville.
“Enthusiasm for green building has waxed and waned since the ’70s,” says Jim Batchelor, lead architect for the Artists For Humanity building. “Right now, however, there’s never been a broader support.” Among the reasons behind the push, he says, is a rising acceptance of the ill effects of global warming.
Batchelor credits the U.S. Green Building Council, the nation’s foremost authority on green construction practices, for implementing a rigorous rating system. (The Genzyme and Artists For Humanity buildings are two of only 14 in the country given the council’s highest rating.) Also instrumental were the 1997 Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust, the launching of Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s Green Building Task Force in 2003, and the realization that going green can actually save some, well, green.
While Genzyme’s construction cost 15 percent more than that of a comparable non-green office building, its energy costs are 42 percent less than a typical workplace’s. Internal surveys also show that 58 percent of Genzyme’s Cambridge-based employees are more productive than they were in their former office and take fewer sick days.
Of course, it’s possible these statistics could be unrelated to the building’s endless supply of natural light, 18 indoor gardens, and ladybugs-as-natural-pesticides technology. But around here, developers have taken note and continue to follow in Genzyme’s footsteps. The very eco-friendly Macallen Building in the South End and the green Spectacle Island Visitors Center are both set to open this year.
Originally published in Boston magazine, April 2006
