Beautifully located, strolls
along Ottawa, Canada’s scenic Rideau River are mere steps away. Les Terrasses Francesca marks the first Green Globes®-certified property in Lépine Apartments’ portfolio. To its credit, the multibuilding, 276-unit, 50,720mÇ (545,945-square-foot) residential project received a Three Green Globes v.2 rating.
Lachlan Lépine, quality assurance manager/sustainability advisor at Lépine says the project undertook certification after it was completed, and he sees the value in beginning earlier on. “I could recognize the survey was set up as a design tool, so I had to go back and research how our design decisions were made,” he recalls. We used it as analysis tool of our building, however, and this knowledge will inform our efforts for continuous improvement.”
”The process sparked new ideas and our internal design team can study how these could be improved upon..”
Pascale Lépine joined the company as its community and land development coordinator. A recent graduate of New York University, Pascale Lépine’s studies had a concentration in sustainable development and – as part of her education – she reviewed all existing green building certification programs. “Green Globes was the most applicable to our projects at Lépine,” she says. “It’s less complicated and there are no high consultation fees, which is appealing.”
Les Terrasses Francesca’s design safeguards the environment in multiple ways:
- Prefabricated precast panels and walls help the building envelope support resource conservation.
- High-performance windows, high efficiency natural gas boilers and heat pumps, and occupancy sensors in many public areas save energy.
- Ultra-low emission boilers decrease harmful pollution.
- The landscaping includes indigenous species and a stormwater reservoir that harvests rain water for irrigation, reducing the need for municipally treated water.
Green Team
With Les Terrasses Francesca now leasing, Lachlan Lépine says that he’s eager to gain feedback from management and marketing on their impressions of the sustainable features. “This information will also help us decide which items are the most significant to residents.”
The company assembled a green team to carry Lépine’s sustainable efforts forward. The green team consists of an urban planner, architect, technologist, quality assurance inspector, marketing manager, the company President, Pascale Lépine, and Lachlan Lépine to provide quality assurance. “Our green team was curious as to how we were doing and the Green Globes survey offered a way for us to assess that,” he says. “I thought the entire Green Globes process was valuable and I learned a lot, especially about energy efficiency in our designs. And the program is a good fit because it’s quite user friendly.” Pascale
Lépine’s focus at the company is to make Lépine’s buildings more energy efficient and sustainable going forward. She says the company has a number of projects in the works and at least two of them are planning to seek Green Globes certification in the short term. ”The process sparked new ideas and our internal design team can study how these could be improved upon, or develop new implementations on a case-by-case basis as projects are designed.”
