Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by Peter Chee
Being in “green” shared office space can help keep your companies operating costs down. Yes, it does cost more to go green, but the payback begins right away. thinkspace has the ability to offer shared office space in a class A shared building and keep the lease rates reasonable. One of the big ways we’re able [...]
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Posted on July 9th, 2008 by Peter Chee
On June 30, 2008, Thinkspace had it’s Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. Thinkspace broke new ground by being the first building in the Puget Sound Region to market pre-certified, “green” LEED-compliant executive office suites with a carbon neutral option. The 25,000 square feet of executive office suites is located at 8201 164th Avenue in downtown Redmond. According [...]
Filed under: LEED, green building, sustainability | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 29th, 2008 by Peter Chee
The Thinkspace main lobby desk has been built and installed. In addition to having a professional appearance we wanted our lobby to make a statement about sustainability. To gather ideas, we went to Ecohaus and looked at different types of materials and decided we wanted to showcase beautiful sustainable materials.
We used a gorgeous Vetrazzo recycled [...]
Filed under: LEED, green building, sustainability | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 27th, 2008 by Peter Chee
For our commercial tenant improvement project we chose to go with a “green” carpet. The critical things to look for when picking a commercial grade environmentally sustainable carpet is 1) what is the carpet top made of; 2) what is the backing material made of; 3) what type of adhesives will be used.
Carpet Top: The [...]
Filed under: LEED, Recycle, green building, sustainability | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 10th, 2008 by Peter Chee
We have put a lot of focus on air quality for our executive office suites build-out. Early on in our design process we decided to use either a low or no-VOC paint. Yes, it’s good for the environment (reduces smog and ozone pollution) but even more important it is good for your health.
“VOCs” are Volatile [...]
Filed under: Cost of Green, LEED, green building, green interior | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 27th, 2008 by Peter Chee
On March 13th, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) issued a report stating “buildings represent the greatest opportunity for considerable reductions in CO2 emissions”.
“Every year, buildings in North America cause more than 2,200 megatons of CO2 to be released into the atmosphere, about 35 percent of the continent’s total CO2 emissions. In the United States [...]
Filed under: Cost of Green, business, green building, green interior, sustainability | No Comments »
Posted on March 23rd, 2008 by Peter Chee
Puget Sound Energy (PSE) has awarded a $13,000 conservation grant to Thinkspace for energy efficient lighting retrofits. Thinkspace’s plan calls for a reduction in energy consumption by approximately 21,106 KWH. Annual energy cost savings are estimated to be a little over two-thousand dollars per year. Our discussions with PSE have been on-going for three months. It [...]
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Posted on March 11th, 2008 by Peter Chee
Over the past few months, I have been searching for companies, organizations, government agencies that encourage other companies to go green with their tenant improvements. One of the first places that I called was PSE (Puget Sound Energy). I talked with an Energy Management Engineer and he was happy and willing to meet me at [...]
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Posted on March 9th, 2008 by Peter Chee
In addition to using HEPA air purifiers to maintain air quality during the demolition of the existing space, we also took a close look at the existing HVAC system. Inside the space we have existing VAV (variable air volume) boxes. VAV boxes are used to zone areas in large commercial buildings and also contribute significantly to the [...]
Filed under: HVAC, LEED, green building | No Comments »
Posted on March 6th, 2008 by Peter Chee
Electricity is one of the largest expenses in a commercial office building. Whether you’re the building owner or a tenant that is occupying a large space, it is good business to look for ways to reduce your energy consumption. For a building owner it means lower utility costs, a more energy efficient, and desirable building. For [...]
Filed under: Energy, LEED, green building | 1 Comment »
Posted on March 5th, 2008 by Peter Chee
One of the LEED Certification goals is to divert construction, demolition, and packaging debris from landfill disposal. Our personal demolition goal is to recycle 95% of all materials. We started off our project with the Site Foreman telling all of our subcontractors that we don’t use the word “dump”. All of the existing materials in [...]
Filed under: LEED, Recycle | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 25th, 2008 by Peter Chee
Once I decided that the business was going to make an impact by going LEED Certified, I spoke with my friend Stuart Mckee, former State of Washington CIO, who told me that I should look into how government could assist me in my endeavor. This triggered a whole bunch of ideas which included looking into [...]
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Posted on January 27th, 2008 by Peter Chee
Our story begins with our business needing to build out space to run our company. Our 25,000SF build-out is large and I wanted to make sure we did something special with the space. I wanted to make sure that our space was not just another run-of-mill tenant improvement project. After I started to do more [...]
Filed under: LEED, green building | No Comments »