I’m told this one is pretty huge: JRC’s new synagogue building was recently chosen as one of the top ten green projects of 2009 by the American Institute of Architects.  Here’s an excerpt from their announcement:

The new synagogue for the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation (JRC) in Evanston, Illinois, replaces the group’s original building and is located adjacent to a residential area, public park, community center, and tracks of the Skokie Swift commuter train. The design balances the limitations of a small site with an ambitious program that promotes worship, education, and community objectives.

Offices, early childhood classrooms, and a chapel occupy the first floor; the religious school and library are on the second floor; and a sanctuary, social hall, and kitchen are on the third floor. This strategy allowed cost-effective construction of high-volume space for the sanctuary.

JRC’s commitment to the principle of tikkun olam—Hebrew for “repairing the world”—is manifest in the building’s architecture. On a modest budget, the synagogue achieved a LEED Platinum certification, a primary goal of its board of directors. JRC has become a community leader, demonstrating benefits of green design.

I’ve written about this extensively before, but just to recap:  LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the point-based review process created by USGBC to certify green buildings.  It is an extremely rigorous system requiring creative integrated design, detailed record keeping and a demanding submission process. Platinum is the highest of four levels of LEED certification, requiring fifty-two points. In the end, JRC earned all fifty-three of the points for which we applied!

Visit the JRC website for the official announcement.  For much, much more on the entire project, check out the JRC Construction Diaries in this blog.

Yesterday was a day of celebration that JRC will never forget. On the coldest day of the winter, (6 degrees, wind chill of -21) several hundred JRC members generated abundant warmth together as we moved into our new synagogue home at 303 Dodge, Evanston. That’s us above, making our first motzi in our new building. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

We first gathered in the cafeteria of Chute Middle School, (site of one of JRC’s earlier temporary locations in the 1970s) and took out our Torah scrolls with a brief service. Then, covered with many fleecy layers, carrying our four Torah scrolls under a huppah, we processed out into the frozen Evanston streets to walk some six blocks to 303 Dodge. (Earlier in the morning, several brave JRC souls actually carried two of the scrolls nearly four miles from our most recent temporary location, Sha’arei Tikvah!)

When we arrived at JRC, we found several hundred more JRCers waiting for us at the building. We stopped at the entrance, sang “Pitchu Li” (“Open for me the gates of righteousness…”), affixed our mezuzah with a blessing, and entered our new home for the first time.

We ascended to the third floor, and sang and danced together for what seemed like an eternity to live music provided by JRC’s house klezmer band, Heavy Shtetl. We then placed the Torah scrolls in our new ark (see pix at the bottom – more on that in a bit.) After hearing heartfelt words from JRC president David Pinzur, I addressed the crowd, then we did our first communal kiddush and motzi together in our new home (after which the Cantor and I dropped the challah and spilled the wine on the bimah…) We then spent the rest of the afternoon, sharing food, going on self-guided tours of our new green facility, and just spending great quality time together.

Below you’ll find some pix of our beautiful new ark which was installed in our sanctuary late Saturday evening, just in time for the celebration. It was designed and constructed by Maryland-based metalsmith/craftsman David Bacharach. We were delighted that David was able to join us for the festivities (as were architects Carol Ross-Barney and Michael Ross.)

Words cannot describe the level of joy our JRC family felt on this day. It was, without question, a once in a lifetime experience for us all. But the sweetest part is knowing what is yet to come. Up until now, this has only been a building – now that it has been filled with our bodies and souls it is truly sacred sacred space. We are all so humbled at what we have accomplished and so profoundly excited about the many sacred memories that will fill these four walls in the years ahead.

Thus ends my last official JRC Construction Diary post. Of course, it is really only just the beginning…

(For a nice Fox News Chicago report on JRC’s gala move-in day, click here.)

“And let them build Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” (Parashat Terumah, Exodus 25:8)

This week’s Torah portion has incredible resonance as our congregation puts the final touches on our new spiritual home in preparation for our return home this Sunday. That’s a worker above finishing the ark in the chapel; below, JRC member Kate Spector helps fill the Religious School cabinets with school supplies.

Countless devoted JRC members have worked tirelessly to prepare our new synagogue building for this long-awaited day. Just as the ancient Israelites constructing the tabernacle in the wilderness, we have learned that it is not the building, but the process of building that creates sacred community. During the course of this process, we have truly discovered what it means to have God dwell in our midst.

JRC will be moving home this Sunday! If you’ve been reading my JRC Construction Diary updates over this past year and a half, you must surely know what a long, powerful trip this has been for our congregational community. And you will also know that our new synagogue building is a green shul, having been built according to sacred Jewish values of environmental sustainability.

What makes a green shul green, you may ask? Click below for your own personal tour…

JRC’s new building was designed to achieve one of the two highest levels of LEED certification by the US Green Building Council. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a point-based review process created by the USBC to rate private, commercial and public buildings in six major areas: sustainability, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality and innovation and design process.

Our decision to achieve a gold or platinum LEED rating required careful consideration of sustainable strategies and a comprehensive, holistic approach to the building design. The design of our synagogue included sustainable components such as reclaimed, recycled and rapidly renewable materials, wood from certified sustainable forests, and strategies such as light harvesting and water conservation. Our building maximizes the latest in technological and design advances to minimize the use of depletable resources, maximizes natural light and air, and reduces energy consumption by a careful system of insulation, heat reflection, and digitally controlled zones for heating and cooling.

Here’s a tour of our building’s environmental features, starting with the exterior:

Our ceremonial entrance door (above) is made from reclaimed maple trees harvested from our site that needed to be cut down for construction. The exterior wood siding is reclaimed from barns in upstate New York. The exterior consists of 14,000 board feet of cypress collected, re-milled and refinished for our use.

The gabion walls on the exterior of our building (above) contain reclaimed fill from locally demolished buildings as well as shards of Jerusalem stone that were used in the interior and exterior of our building. Gabion is a term for metal cages that are typically used to prevent soil erosion – JRC’s gabion walls make a dramatic statement by openly displaying materials that would otherwise go into a landfill.

Our building is built on grade and is supported by eighteen caissons which go down fifty five feet to bedrock. Our old building’s rubble was used to fill the old basement and bring the site to grade. An amazing 96% of the old building (approximately 2,700 tons) was recycled – only 4% went into a landfill! Metals were removed for scrap, while the concrete and brick were ground up (see below) to fill in the old basement and support our new foundation.

Our landscaping, which will be installed this spring, is designed to require no irrigation, and will be filled with native and drought tolerant plant species. There will be no lawn except on the parkway as required by the city. Our parking lot across the street is lit by photo-voltaic (solar electrically powered) lights. The windows of our building are made of high efficiency, insulated, gas filled, Low-E glass, which allows for sunlight but minimal heat collection inside of the building.

Moving now into the first floor of the building: the floors on all three levels are made of polished concrete designed to look like terrazzo. Besides being much cheaper than real stone or commercial flooring products, they eliminate the need for any adhesives that would be used to glue them in place. The one exception is the carpet in the offices on the first and second floors. There the carpet is made with non-VOC (Volatile Organic Compound), non-formaldehyde fibers that include both recycled content and rapidly renewable corn content.

The windows are meant to both bring in light and views at various levels for people of all heights (especially our pre-schoolers). They can be opened during those times of year when we don’t need artificial heating or cooling. The cabinets and shelving are made with Dakota Burl Cabinetry, (below) a unique composite product manufactured from a rapidly renewable agricultural fiber product including sunflower husks.

The Chapel (below) is finished with reclaimed cypress and has an east facing window looking out into a soon to be landscaped rock garden built next to our protective gabion wall. It also features a solar powered Ner Tamid (Eternal Light.) Here, as elsewhere, indoor air quality concerns dictated the use of low-toxic, non-formaldehyde emitting construction materials and furnishings as well as the use of Low-VOC paints.

Our bathrooms (below) feature low-flow water faucets and dual-flush toilets (up for liquids, down for solids) work to reduce water usage. Showers (also low-flow) have been installed to encourage bicycling, especially among the staff. The combination of water efficient features are projected to save 40% on water consumption through the life of our building.

The first floor also includes a dedicated recycling collection area. According to a recently passed congregational green policy, JRC will commit to recycle paper, glass, plastic and metal. There are also other recycled materials in the building that are not obvious. The concrete floors contain fly ash from steel mills. The steel beams that hold the building up have significant recycled steel content, mainly from automobiles. The thick insulation in our walls and roof contain recycled glass. The carpeting, the rubber baseboards, the rubber play ground mulch and other furnishings also have recycled content.

Moving up now to the second floor: this is a good place to explain our energy efficient zoning system. Each and every room in the building has a separate thermostat and variable air velocity box to deliver warm or cool air. They are designed so that air is only delivered as needed when the room is in use. Classrooms that are in use four to six hours weekly will only be heated and cooled when needed. Likewise the sanctuary can be cooled or heated only when it will be used. A central digital system is programmed according to building use and can be adjusted as our schedule dictates. Each room can also be reset up or down two degrees as needed for comfort.

Integrated with this system are CO-2 sensors, which assure enough fresh air will be brought in to each area for a healthy oxygen level. The fresh air brought in through the system is filtered. Although the windows are operable, the system is designed to bring in fresh air and filter it. The operable windows are designed to be used only during the spring and fall when the HVAC system is off.

Occupancy sensors turn lights on or off when rooms are in use or vacant. The lighting is provided by fluorescent T-5 bulbs (below) which are controlled with dual switches. This means that we have the option of only using half the energy when daylight permits. Saving energy with the high output per bulb is not the only feature of the T5 bulb. The color rendering index (CRI) is better than the typical T12 and T8 bulbs. The lighting system offers a 50% savings over lighting usage in a standard system.

As a result of all of these features, our engineers have calculated our building will consume 45% less energy than a conventional building.

Moving up finally to the third floor: the entry foyer to the sanctuary gets daylight from our south facing windows but also from Solar Tube Skylights (below). They can also be found in the kitchen, hallway and reception areas to bring in natural lighting, reducing our need for electric lighting.

The sanctuary (below) features reclaimed cypress, as well as black walnut from storm-felled trees reclaimed from the Chicago Park district. Like the chapel there is another solar-powered Ner Tamid and the most dramatic feature is the east window wall that use of the high efficiency low-E Glass. Lighting programming provides for eight dimming “scenes.” Photo cell sensors dim for ambient lighting, and if the light gets too bright from the clerestory windows we can lower motorized shades. The track is in place for a large curtain that could be drawn across the main east window if necessary for light control.

The unique heating and cooling system in the sanctuary is called a Displacement Ventilation System. This system, used extensively in Europe, works by locating air diffusers at the bottom of the walls and circulating the air so that only the bottom 6ft of the room is warmed or cooled. This allows us to have a high ceiling without the high utility costs to heat or cool the entire room.

Our kitchen (below) utilizes Energy Star appliances, including a highly efficient quick-cycling commercial dishwasher. The washer/dryer will also be high efficiency Energy Star models with a special sanitizing feature. The goal of having a dishwasher and washer/dryer unit is to decrease our use of single use kitchen products such as paper or plastic plates and flatware and paper tablecloths and towels. There is recycled content in the stainless steel and the pressboard in the wood bases contain no formaldehyde. Solar Tube Skylights bring in daylight.

Our rear stairwells include windows so that light fixtures are less needed. Motion sensors turn stairwell lights on only when needed. On the roof, a white reflective surface (see below) was chosen to decrease our air conditioning load and reduce our “heat island” effect in the neighborhood. Most homes and buildings in America, in fact, are built with dark roofs that absorb heat, forcing air conditioners to work up to 20% longer and use a fifth more power. JRC’s reflective roof will help our air conditioning system to work more efficiently, especially during peak usage hours.

Post Script: Questions about some green options that we opted not to include in our building:

Why doesn’t JRC have a “green roof?”

A green roof, one filled with soil and plants and the water to sustain them, requires a much heavier structural support than our reflective roof. In order to provide that support we would have needed to put several structural beams in the middle of our sanctuary, blocking sight lines to the Bimah and Ark. The much higher cost to provide that structure as well as to install the green roof was also a consideration. The reflective roof we have meets the LEED requirement for mitigating “heat trapping” (discussed above.)

Why didn’t JRC put a solar hot water system on the roof?

Solar hot water makes sense in those situations when large amounts of hot water are used all of the time (like a laundromat) or when the user has discretion over when to use it (a family deciding when to wash clothes or use a dishwasher). At JRC, our use pattern is the opposite. We need small amounts during the day and then large amounts occasionally during the week such as during services. It didn’t make sense functionally, and had a very long payback period.

Why didn’t JRC install photo-voltaic solar power cells on the roof to provide electricity?

At this point the cost for PV solar power is not economical. All of the energy features we put into the building were instituted with the idea that a small higher up-front cost would pay back in energy savings in a relative short time (three to ten years depending on the feature and the cost of energy). The current PV payback is just not there. We did install a conduit so that when the price of PV becomes more attractive, we have the infrastructure already built in to the building so we would not need to retro-fit.

Why doesn’t JRC use a geo-thermal heating or cooling system?

We explored this possibility as well and discovered that the size of our lot and the type of soil we had were not ideal or practical for geo-thermal, even if it was possible. We also felt the money needed for geo-thermal was better spent on our highly efficient, non conventional heating and cooling system which does have a reasonable payback period.

Why doesn’t JRC have pervious pavement in the parking lot or along paths?

This was an area that we strongly desired but could not afford. There was also a concern as to whether these surfaces would be accessible enough for people who have trouble walking.

Why doesn’t JRC have bamboo or cork floors?

Another desirable feature that we could not afford in the end. We held several meetings where our Financial Oversight Committee was required to make massive cuts only to discover that they needed to make more after the later estimates came in still higher.

Why doesn’t JRC use cotton batting insulation?

The cotton batting, although rapidly renewable, comes from China. We opted for locally manufactured fiberglass, which is less expensive and mitigates the use of fossil fuels for transport.

(Thanks to JRC Members Julie Dorfman and Jerry Herst for helping compile this material!)

Things are getting exciting as the contractor puts the final touches on JRC’s new home. They are looking to finish the bulk of the work this week so that we can get ready for an upcoming indoor air quality test, a requirement of LEED certification by the US Green Building Council.

The picture above shows the cypress that wraps along the ceiling of our first floor chapel. The shot below shows the cypress slats that have installed along the sanctuary wall. Just to make things official, our name went up on one of the gabion walls in front of the building (second pic down) and beneath this you can see our front entryway. It features a ceremonial door made of reclaimed maple trees from our former site. The last two pix offer views of the kitchen and of a men’s room respectively.

The big move will take place during the first week in February. On 2/8-9 we will hold our final Shabbat services in our temporary site (Shaarei Tikvah in Chicago) then on Sunday, February 10, we will joyfully process with JRC Torah scrolls as we bring them to our new home!

Stay tuned for more…

The final interior finish continues. The two pix below show the reclaimed cypress slats that are being installed along the walls of the sanctuary. The bottom pic: the metal overhead hood for the kitchen stove. (The stove itself will be delivered next week.)

The other big news of the week is that we have, at long last, received our final move in date: February 4. JRC’s triumphant return to 303 Dodge is finally in sight!

While there is still a bit of final exterior work to be done, the majority of the work now is primarily interior finish. The pic above shows a lovely view of the bimah construction. You can see how the steps have been cut out and run along the periphery. When finished, the bimah floor will be made of dark walnut.

A radically different kind of picture can be found below. Now why would I possibly be showing you a close-up shot of a toilet handle? This is a feature of JRC’s water saving “dual flush” toilets: you pull the handle up for liquid waste (which needs less water) and push down for solid waste (which uses more water). Our toilets will clearly necessitate a new consciousness raising effort for bathroom usage in our new building. (JRC members: consider yourselves on alert!)

Below this are two views of the reclaimed cypress which is now being installed along the sanctuary walls. The final pic is a view of the Jerusalem stone walkway that leads to the building’s main entrance.

We’re kicking to the finish!

The second pic from the bottom shows one of the cabinets and counter tops in the Religious School workroom. All our cabinet faces and shelving are made from Dakota Burl, which is a wood-like material made from recycled sunflower husks. At bottom there is a photo of the tile in one of the bathrooms. All of the sinks and toilets have been delivered to the site and the plumber will start installing them next week.

We continue to move along with construction, most of which is essentially finish work, such as millwork, installation of doors, counter tops and other final pieces. The bimah will be completed and the walls of the sanctuary will be worked on so that the cypress siding can be installed.

Finally: our local NBC affiliate, NBC5 recently featured JRC’s new building on the evening news. Click here to watch!

We can safely say construction has entered the “home stretch” phase (not a technical term). As you can see from the pic above, the south side exterior is almost complete. The glass on the curtainwall should be installed in the next week or two. The pic below offers a close up view of the gabion fences which run along the south and east side of the building. The fence on the front of the building is approximately four feet tall and filled with pieces of brick, stone and other material from other buildings that were recently demolished. This material would typically go into a landfill and has been reclaimed to be used in our fences. (In the original building plan, gabion was to be used for the entire exterior shell. In the end, we opted for reclaimed cypress instead.)

The next two pix down show our building’s white reflective roof. Most homes and buildings in America, in fact, are built with dark roofs that absorb heat, forcing air conditioners to work up to 20% longer and use a fifth more power. JRC’s reflective roof will help our air conditioning system to work more efficiently, especially during peak usage hours. The small domed items on the second pic down are Solartube skylights that will let natural light into our kitchen.

The second pic from the bottom shows the interior of one classroom and the final shot shows the new sidewalk across the street from our building. We will be working on the remaining sidewalks around the property over the next couple of weeks.