Michelle Fredette, Technical Editor
Architects and developers are increasingly focusing on sustainability, constructing buildings that use less energy and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide. The technical writer’s lexicon will expand to contain words and acronyms that describe new processes, ideas, and products aligned to the new ways of conducting business.
Recently, while checking out the construction progress of the Whole Foods store at Cambie and Broadway, I noticed a bit of eco eye candy on the north facing exterior wall on West 8th. A vertical garden or “green wall” – a living wall comprised of plants – has replaced the usual bare concrete and steel structure. Developed by G-Sky, an eco innovation company based in Delta, BC, the wall is designed to provide numerous interior and exterior eco benefits.
A desktop research of “green walls” produced a range of sustainable terms and acronyms. Green walls can act as “biofiltration systems” – a pollution control technique that uses plant life to catch, strain, and process pollutants, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – harmful molecules composed of hydrogen and carbon. Microbes that naturally exist in the plant’s root system are built into the “substrate” – surface on which an organism grows – and filter out pollutants that can cause “sick building syndrome” – poor indoor air quality due to HVAC systems (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) – that is often blamed for workplace allergies.
Both interior and exterior green walls are visually attractive. At the Musee du Branly in Paris, the “cladding” – material that forms the exterior of a building’s walls – is a sustainable tapestry of ferns, ivy, grasses, and wildflowers. Interior green walls help contribute to a healthy indoor climate. And as German landscaper Andreas Schmidt of Schmidt & Co. said, “…you cannot rule out the [uplifting] psychological effects of a green wall on the people working inside a building”.
Green walls are natural insulators. They help reduce energy costs while lessening a building’s contribution to the “heat island effect” – when temperatures in heat-absorbing concrete and asphalt urban centres are unnaturally higher than the neighbouring countryside. The walls also help buffer urban noise.
In San Francisco, the Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park is housed under a hilly living roof that is home to wildlife, helps cool the building in the summer from “solar gain” – entrapment of heat by solar radiation on a building’s surface – that in turn helps to heat the structure during the cooler months. The living roof also absorbs storm water and filters pollutants.
As companies and office buildings around the world move towards a more ecologically sound operation, technical writers will need to be at the forefront of the expanding terminology to convey and describe innovative methods and processes for a sustainable future.