Rutherford & Chekene's commitment to sustainability lives not only in our designs, but also in our workplace. For us, sustainability begins with our daily work habits. Our employees recycle paper, plastic, metal and electronic waste. We donate used computer equipment to local non-profits for reuse and separate biodegradables for municipal composting. Our office building has recently received LEED Gold certification.
R&C incorporates principles of sustainable design into our work through the use of recycled materials, low VOC product specification, and careful selection of high-performance structural systems. Our practice includes measuring a structure's carbon footprint for comparison and optimal design choices. Examples of these designs include using exposed structure, which minimizes the need for finish materials and allows for nighttime heat purge; framing roofs to minimize solar panel support penetrations though roofing membranes; and defining a structural layout that facilitates future renovation.
During the construction of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the early 1980s, R&C became the first to use fly ash in concrete mix design. Today, we continue to lead the industry by working with concrete batch plants to design ternary concrete mixes with 50 to 70 percent cement replacement with complementary cementitious materials. Our long history of seismic design and adaptive reuse has prevented tons of CO2 emissions. We also design to a level of seismic performance that minimizes whole building and building content damage, which reduces the need for new material.
R&C engineers were among the founding members of the Sustainable Design Committee of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC). The committee was the first of its kind in the nation. Our engineers are contributing authors to papers and guides on sustainable design, including SEAONC's Structural Engineering Strategies Towards Sustainable Design and the Structural Engineering Institute’s Guide to Sustainable Design. Nearly half of our licensed engineers are LEED accredited.
A few of R&C’s green projects of note include the New de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, which includes high volume fly ash concrete; the UC San Diego Supercomputer Center, winner of the Green Building Research Center 2005 Best Practices Award; and the following recent LEED-certified and LEED-registered projects:
> Betty Irene Moore Natural Sciences Building
> UC Davis Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall
