Power Shift at Greenbuild 2022

Shruti Kasarekar returns to Greenbuild on November 1st to speak on the Adobe North Tower with Kris Herrera from Adobe, Hao Ko from Gensler, and David Heinzerling at Taylor Engineering.

The tower is designed for an electric grid poised to decarbonize over time. Prior to the City of San Jose’s ban on natural gas, the North Tower project identified the benefits of designing for future flexibility and electrification early in the design process. The project is designed as a high-performance building with massing, shading, space planning strategies, and all-electric systems, thereby eliminating any natural gas connection to the project.

The session will present design strategies that were selected to reduce carbon emissions. Knowing that the operational carbon emissions of the project will change over time as the local electric grid evolves, the project used carbon emission forecasting to assess both current and future carbon emissions. Shruti will discuss the analysis results showing the comparison of design choices and a discussion on how carbon analysis methodologies can be used on new building projects. New strategies to provide future flexibility and a path for carbon emissions reduction for an evolving grid will be discussed.

Adobe’s North Tower case study will also include the much-needed cost information of key strategies to bust the myth around the cost associated with high-performance, all-electric building design. Finally, the team will summarize key considerations such as building design, cost, regulatory market, building codes, and the carbon emission profile of the electric grid that were crucial in driving the design and construction of this ambitious project.