CREDIT: Bruce Edwards, The Journal Randall Stout shows his winning desgin for the Art Gallery of Alberta.

EDMONTON - Bend your mind around this one: Randall Stout's design of the new Art Gallery of Alberta is as miserly in energy usage as it is dramatic to look at.

Stout's flowing composition is the perfect camouflage for a building that will be disciplined -- even tight-fisted -- in its energy consumption.

While art patrons look forward to a gallery that provides the precise climate control needed to showcase famous works of art, some will say the true masterpiece is Stout's use of green roofs and waste heat recovery.

The building is projected to produce 1.8 million kilograms a year less carbon dioxide than a conventional design, or roughly the emissions of 360 cars.

Stout's interest in environmentally friendly design stems from his childhood.

"It really started because my mom is a biologist," he said Thursday, after the formal announcement that he had won the gallery design competition.

"She taught high school biology for 35 years. And I grew up on a farm in east Tennessee connected to the land and landscape. With her interest in biology, I learned to respect the environment."

His first job after finishing school was with a solar design division of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

"It was funded by President Jimmy Carter, one of the last U.S. presidents who really took an interest in sustainability," Stout said.

The research was primarily for a single family housing program called Solar Homes for the Valley.

Thanks to those sun-soaked years, Stout never absorbed the blinkered perspective other architects have when it comes to energy supply. He always looks for alternative or super-efficient ways to cool, heat or power the buildings he designs.

His ideas were a natural fit in Germany, where the Green Party has been part of the coalition government until recently. Stout won an American Institute of Architects Top Ten Green Award in 2003 for his Steinhude Sea Recreational Facility, built on the German coast.

Now, he sees a green building conscience creeping back into North America.

"I'm very, very delighted that after a decade or two of sustainability being outside the public profile, that it's come full circle."

Stout's Art Gallery of Alberta will have green roofs to help reduce cooling costs in the summer. It will use a co-generation engine that will burn clean fuels and recover any "waste" heat. The gallery will also use natural daylight to save on lighting costs.

Stout is an architect accredited in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a program that established a Canadian branch just last year.

Anneliese Fris, of local firm HIP Architects, said Stout contacted them to help with the building.

She said there were lots of discussions about snow and climate, as well as about Edmonton's culture.

"In order to have a focus on sustainability, the design has to respond to where you are," Fris said. "You don't design a building in Edmonton the same way you would in California."

In Edmonton, the primary focus would be on heat losses and retention and a few cooling issues in the summer, she added.

The Art Gallery of Alberta board was also sensitive to energy issues when it chose the competition winner, said board chairman Allan Scott.

"It had to meet the program, it had to be friendly and inviting, but at the same time long-term energy efficiency and conservation was part of the package."

A recent massive jump in energy prices makes the ability to stabilize energy costs very attractive, Scott said.

"In the current building, there are pretty much dollars flying out the corners because of the leaking heat."

Stout's use of zinc and stainless steel, which he says will be durable in a northern climate, impressed local architect Vivian Manasc.

Manasc Isaac Architects designed the St. John Ambulance head-quarters in town, the first building in Alberta to qualify for a LEED silver designation.

"Our throw-away culture can't continue," she said. "And buildings that are endurable tend to be more sustainable."

But Stout obviously knows buildings need to be as good-looking as they are efficient, she added.

"Beautiful things don't get thrown away like ugly things do."

hbrooymans@thejournal.canwest.com

GREEN DESIGN

Architect Randall Stout plans to incorporate a number of environmentally friendly elements into the design of the new Art Gallery of Alberta. Although many details still need to be finalized, here are some of the options he wants to use include:

- Daylighting

A technique he uses on almost all of his projects. It involves adequately distributing daylight within a space by proportioning windows properly, using translucent wall and roof panels to admit a great deal of diffuse exterior light, or using photovoltaic panels that capture light energy but also allow some light through them.

- Co-generation and use of waste heat

Co-generation units have been used in three of Stout's projects. Behind each of these is the concept that an electricity-producing generator turbine's engine housing has cavities through which water can be circulated as a heat sink, drawing waste heat from the housing before it can dissipate into the air. The recovered heat can be used as steam for radiators or hot water for the building's water supply, among other functions.

- Green roof

The term "green roof" applies to a multi-layered system that includes a waterproof membrane, a drainage plane, soil and living plants. The system stores storm water and provides cooling in the summer.

Source: Randall Stout Architects

Ran with fact box "Green Design", which has been appended to this story.