William Taylor discusses the evolution of sustainable design

DeWITT — Sustainable design and materials are a trend nowadays for new construction and design, but one long-time DeWitt architect says the principals involved really haven’t changed since his early days in the business.

William Taylor, president and owner of William Taylor Architects, PLLC in DeWitt, remembers his first job with the firm Clark, Clark, Millis & Gilson, which designed the original buildings at Onondaga Community College, he says.

During his time there, he remembers noticing the interior of the structures the firm had designed, saying “it was like a rock.”

 “It was always clean. They were always easy to maintain. I started looking at the reasons for that,” he says, noting the design and materials involved were always factors.

So, when Taylor launched his own firm in 1983, he intended to apply the lessons he had learned early in his career.

“They got the right idea. I’m going to go that way,” he says.

Over the years, Taylor has noticed that the Onondaga County Courthouse and some of the area’s old-school buildings include a composite material called terrazzo, a ground cement that’s one of the “greenest flooring products” available, he says. “That’s not new.”

Taylor also points to the region’s old factory structures, which he described as being built “like a tank,” he says.

“If you find a use for that and renovate that, you’ve made a huge step in green because you’re not expending the energy to take the building down,” he says.

Taylor does acknowledge that some elements of sustainable design and construction are technology driven, including the use of energy-management systems.

“That’s new,” he says.

Energy management is also the goal in the geothermal projects that the firm has worked on in recent years, including two that involved school renovations.

Recent geothermal projects

Geothermal heating, as Taylor explains it, is a cost-efficient, low-maintenance that harnesses heat stored in the earth and converts it for heating and cooling in the structure.

“Geothermal is using the earth’s mass to heat and cool a building,” he says.

Taylor’s firm completed geothermal projects at the Copenhagen Central School District in November 2012 and the Charlotte Valley Central School District in September 2011.

William Taylor Architects provides architectural-design services in the educational, municipal, medical, commercial, and industrial sectors.

A geothermal heat-pump system consists of a heat pump, an air delivery system (ductwork), and a heat exchanger-a system of pipes buried in the shallow ground near the building, according to renewableenergyworld.com, a Nashua, N.H.–based company launched in 1998 by a group of renewable-energy professionals who wanted their work to relate to their passion for renewable energy.

In the winter, the heat pump removes heat from the heat exchanger and pumps it into the indoor air delivery system.

In the summer, the process is reversed, and the heat pump moves heat from the indoor air into the heat exchanger. The heat removed from the indoor air during the summer can also be used to provide a free source of hot water.

Both school-district projects involved boreholes drilled to harvest the absorbed solar heat stored in the outermost layer of the earth for use in the heat pumps.

The Copenhagen project involved about 38 bore sites, each about 350 feet, and the bore sites in Charlotte Valley went to about 425 feet. Crews had to limit the depth of the sites in Copenhagen because they encountered a gas pocket, Taylor says.

In terms of cost savings for the client, the $9.5 million project in Copenhagen was one Taylor described as “significant because pre-geothermal, they were heating with fuel oil, and depending upon how cold the winter was, they were using somewhere between 35[,000] and 40,000 gallons of fuel oil. Post geothermal, there’s no need for any fuel oil.”

The school district saves on fuel costs, Taylor says, but at the same time, the geothermal-heating system drives up electrical costs between 10 and 15 percent.

Electrical costs are “highly controlled,” making them easier to plan for, Taylor says.

“So, you’re saving all the cost of fuel oil that you [previously spent] and you’re increasing your electrical [costs] by 10 to 15 percent, so you’re saving the differential between the two,” he says, depending on your cost per gallon of fuel oil.

That can be anywhere from $2 per gallon, or a total of $70,000, to $4 per gallon, or a total of ($140,000 annually.

“That’s significant,” Taylor says.

The $7.25 million renovations at the Charlotte Valley Central School District involved a similar process to the Copenhagen project, including the removal of its existing fuel-oil steam-boiler system, unit ventilators, piping, and installed the geothermal system, Taylor says.

As of now, William Taylor Architects isn’t working on any geothermal projects, Taylor says.

 “But if we come across a district that’s in the same kind of situation, we’ll definitely recommend to them to take a look at it,” he adds.

William Taylor Architects operates in a 2,300-square-foot space at 6432 Baird Ave. in DeWitt. The firm employs five full-time workers and has no plans for additional hiring in 2013.

Taylor leases the space from Julia Chiarizia.

He declined to disclose the firm’s annual-revenue figure for 2012, but said revenue “stayed even” compared to 2011.

Taylor also projects the firm’s revenue figure for 2013 “probably will decrease.”

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com