Friday, Nov. 16

1:00 - 5:00 pm 

This diverse tours uncovers the invisible.  Just blocks from the Moscone Center, the Arup Sound Lab helps designers mitigate noise and create positive soundscapes as design elements in and around buildings.   Experience how massing, shape and materials affect the auditory experience.  Then walk over to the Mint Plaza to see a gritty downtown alley transformed into a vibrant public space.  This tour will reveal how the public-private partnership was forged, and will challenge the participants to identify various elements of the stormwater management system.

Friday, Nov. 16

1:00 - 5:00 pm 

The California Academy of Sciences is the most-visited LEED Platinum museum in the world.  After achieving certification for new construction in 2009, the Academy embarked on proving and improving the building performance through a LEED for Existing Buildings rating, and is now a Double-LEED Platinum building.  Major operational challenges were identified and overcome through submetering, recommissioning, and employee engagement.  Life support systems for the aquaria received special attention for their critical role maintaining precise temperature, filtration and ph control.  Many unique systems will be identified and explained including wind-sensor controlled natural ventilation, advanced water efficiency, and the 2-1/2 acre living roof. This behind-the-scenes tour is not to be missed!

Friday, Nov. 16

9:00 am - 1:00 pm 

Beyond sustainable, this house is environmentally regenerative, seamlessly integrating into its ecosystem. It is highly efficient and designed specifically for the local climate, produces more energy than it consumes, has restored (native) habitat (including a new habitat for an endangered species), saves and repurposes water, reduces and reuses waste, used reclaimed and very local materials, eliminates its own and its occupants' total carbon footprint (including transportation), and creates a safe and healthy environment. In terms of metrics, in comparison to the national annual average per s.f., the home achieved 113% energy reduction and a 118% reduction in CO2 emissions.

Friday, Nov. 16

1:00 - 5:00 pm 

Join guides in a walk through the neighborhoods of San Francisco, visiting two exemplary residential projects that are contributing to the high quality of life that city dwellers in the Bay enjoy. The Zero Cottage is a custom-built home designed by David Baker, a prominent local architect, built to certify as LEED Platinum, Green Point Rated, PassivHaus and other high standards of residential green building. Also, the tour will visit a new infill development, SmartSpace Soma, an example of modular construction techniques and super efficient green design strategies.

Friday, Nov. 16

1:00 - 5:00pm 

San Francisco is full of iconic green bulidings, including a handful that have captured the attention of the larger design community. This tour will visit two such projects: the San Francisco Federal Building, and the newly constructed SF Public Utilities Commission building. Both downtown buildings include cutting edge innovations for high rise buildings, including building-integrated wind turbines, natural ventilation through complex mixed mode systems, and more.  Join this tour to see these systems in action, and to learn about the innovative design approach and team used for both projects.

Friday, Nov. 16

1:00 - 5:00 pm 

This tour will follow as art and community are formed through the innovative waste recovery and reclamation programs of the city of San Francisco. The programs are pioneering in many aspects, especially a very high diversion rate from the landfill, and the Artist in Residence program, which allows local artists and school groups to find materials in processing facilities to create art. First, at Pier 96 (Recology Golden Gate), attendees will tour the state of the art material recovery facility (MRF). The second stop is the Recology SF Transfer station, which includes an art studio and sculpture garden.

Saturday, Nov. 17

1:00 - 5:00 pm 

Bayview Hunter’s Point is one of San Francisco’s Environmental Justice Communities.  It is the largest people-of-color community and has endured decades of negative environmental impacts from highways, wastewater treatment plants, power plants and industrial pollution.  New projects are revitalizing neighborhoods and creating opportunities for disadvantaged youth.  Hunter’s View is an 800 unit LEED-ND certified redevelopment replacing a distressed public housing project including neighborhood scale stormwater management, well-connected public spaces and human-scale lighting.  The Living Classroom is San Francisco’s first off-grid building for both power and wastewater, and provides environmental education and employment opportunities for local low-income youth.

Saturday, Nov. 17

1:00 - 5:00 pm 

A public asset that touches every corner of the city, streets are tremendous opportunities to better accommodate sustainable transportation and create more vibrant places that foster social connections. Recognizing this potential, San Francisco implemented a myriad of sustainable street projects.  A multidisciplinary group of tour leaders will share their experience on the planning, policy, implementation, and operation of complete streets and public spaces within the city, visiting and highlighting context-sensitive complete street designs, slow streets, streetscaping for neighborhood retail, and the Octavia freeway-to-boulevard conversion project. Each street represents different approaches that balance multimodal travel, functional public space, and neighborhood integration.

Saturday, Nov. 17

1:00 - 5:00 pm 

San Francisco’s long history of providing social services is expressed today at two facilities, the new Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, California’s first LEED certified (Silver) hospital, and the newly renovated Kelly Cullen Community.  The new Laguna Honda features evidence-based design, operable windows, high levels of energy efficiency, TPO roofing, advanced kitchen recycling and 9 healing gardens.  The Kelly Cullen Community provides housing for the chronically homeless, many of whom have special needs such as mental illness, substance abuse, and medical frailty.  It successfully explores the intersection between adaptive re-use, historic preservation, sustainable design, affordable housing, and the neighborhood.

Saturday, Nov. 17

1:00 - 5:00pm 

This tour will visit three cutting edge green buildings, designed by local prestigious design firms, on the Mills College campus in Oakland. The Betty and Irene Moore Natural Sciences Building has one many awards for being an early pioneer in sustainable design, incorporating such technologies as greywater re-use, dichromic glass, and rainwater harvesting. The Littlefield Concert Hall has employed unique green strategies including an underfloor air distribution system for the hall, all within a gut rehab scope. And finally, the new Lorry Lokey Graduate School of Business incorporates many sustainability design strategies, including a living green roof,rainwater harvesting, natural ventilation, and radiant heat.

Saturday, Nov. 17

1:00 - 5:00 pm 

The Bay Area is famous for being the birth of the farm-to-table culinary world, where restaurants build relationships with local farms to produce healthy food and healthy local economies. This walking tour in the SOMA neighborhood will highlight two local restaurants, Piccino and Bar Agricole, that are exemplary of this model, while being housed in very sustainable buildings as well. One building, 355 11th Street, also houses office space, and was recently awarded a 2010 AIA COTE Award. The tour will be made complete with a stop at an innovative historic renovation of an office space for the architecture firm Gelfand & Partners.

Saturday, Nov. 17

1:00 - 5:00pm 

San Francisco is known today for many things, but perhaps most notably, our food, our creative culture, and our booming tech industry. This tour will offer a glimpse into all three worlds, with a tour of the Google San Francisco Offices, the Ferry Building Marketplace, and a stop by one of San Francisco's coolest museums, the Exploratorium. The tour will cover the sustainable business aspects of all three organizations, while understanding how all of them have repurposed existing buildings in the heart of San Francisco to new demanding uses.