All Posts Tagged With: "radiant flooring"

A few weeks ago, GOforChange visited the Furbish Company headquarters to tour their newly-renovated Lucky’s building, a green office space south of downtown. This Brooklyn warehouse was originally used as a wood mill, then became a convenience store warehouse in the late 1970’s. It is now home to several sophisticated systems and practices of ecological design and efficiency. As the developer and owner of Furbish Co., Michael Furbish approached the project by honoring the building’s existing integrity. He added only what was needed to update and enhance the structure’s inherent environmental sustainability.

Working with a hydraulic engineer revealed that the building was sitting on 8-feet of water, which quite often would spring up through the floor in the basement. Most people would see this as a problem, but with careful calculation and several hundred feet of tubing, a geothermal system was installed to assist with more than 70% of the building’s cooling needs.

Heat for the building is provided by a solar hot water system that transfers heat gain from the sun to a storage cistern that sits on the roof. Continued

Furbish Company is a sustainable building company specializing in, living roofs, biofilter walls and vegetated retaining walls. Some projects include a living roof installation for a South Baltimore BP filling station and the conversion of an old convenience store warehouse turn modern industrial office space. Located in Brooklyn Park not far from I-95 Luckys “utilizes a modern hydronic energy system for heating and cooling vs. the traditional ducted, forced air system.” How to rent office space and more about Luckys go to: http://www.awebpub.com/furbish/luckys.html
Other projects have included one of the largest straw bale structures on the east coast, maxing out at 27,000 sqft. Commissioned by the Friends Community School and located in College Park, MD the building is post and beam with all exterior walls filled with highly insulated straw bale, delivered from a local farm. To protect and fire proof the straw a lime stucco was used for the outside while a hand mixed earthen wall was made for the inside, 60% of which was used from material found on site.