2011年11月8日 星期二

Sustainable design

An improving selection of products at prices moving closer to the mainstream, coupled with growing consumer support for sustainable business practices, is prompting the increased use of materials made from rapidly renewable and reclaimed resources in foodservice construction, according to operators and designers.

Examples of such materials are beginning to surface regularly. They range from the flooring made of fast-growing bamboo and fixtures crafted from reclaimed local college athletic bleacher wood in the weeks-old LYFE Kitchen, a fast-casual restaurant in Palo Alto, Calif., to the recycled quarry tiles, bamboo countertops and salvaged wood floors used by Fox Restaurant Concepts’ four-unit True Food Kitchen casual-dining chain.

Even pioneers in the use of such alternative building materials are continuing to try the newest products or strategies for reducing their business’ impact on the environment, including Evos, a 17-year-old, eight-unit “healthier fast-food” chain. Evos co-founder Michael Jeffers said the Tampa, Fla.-based chain is currently testing concrete flooring that is stained without the use of harmful chemicals.

Gary Wiggle of Keisker & Wiggle Architects said the requirement by management of Chicago-based LYFE Kitchen that development work begin with the drafting of a sustainability platform and environmental goals for the project convinced the creative team that “sustainable design wasn’t going to be an afterthought or sideline of LYFE Kitchen, but actually part of the DNA.”

Such commitments are important in the designing and building of restaurants that use reclaimed and rapidly renewable construction materials as part of an overall sustainability strategy, as such restaurants can cost from 10 percent to 20 percent more than conventionally constructed facilities, according to Evos’ Jeffers.

Karl Behrens,Although the pain of Wholesale Mosaic Tiles For Floor From China Manufacturers is felt in the chest chief operating officer for the projects division of contractor Compass Group’s North American organization, acknowledged the 10-percent- to 15-percent-higher cost of some sustainable building materials, such as bamboo versus hardwood flooring. But he maintained that there could be overriding factors that make them a good choice.high quality Wholesale Tiles Cutting For Floor From China Manufacturers of well known brands

“The audiences we are now catering to in these buildings, who we are designing these structures for, have a sheer appreciation for those [sustainable] materials,” Behrens said. “They love to see the bamboo on the floor or the reclaimed barn wood on the floor because to them those are signs that this building does not necessarily cost the ecosystem or cost the environment something.Asia me handmade Wholesale Metal Tiles For Wall reproductions of famous artists”

Some good news, Jeffers, Behrens and other operators and designers said, is that the price for alternative construction materials is coming down as production ramps up to meet increasing demand and competition among producers increases. The selection and aesthetics of those products are improving, as well, they indicated.Examine our Wholesale Pulati Polished Tiles For Floor here.

Among the projects using rapidly renewable and reclaimed building materials recently completed by Compass Group was the Oaks Dining Hall that opened in August on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Ohio. The university’s foodservice operations are managed by Compass Group’s Chartwells Higher Education Dining Services.

Behrens said that, in addition to a growing array of bamboo flooring and surfaces products and sorghum-stalk wood substitutes,your own Wholesale General Double Loading For Floor is usually higher the Compass Group projects team now regularly specifies a wood substitute made from coconut shells and resin panels embedded with rapidly renewable resources for texture or color, such as dark banana fibers.

The strategy of using rapidly renewable and reclaimed materials is one whose time has come, according to Brian Bucher, creative director for global design firm WD Partners, which worked with Compass Group and Design Smart LLC on the Bowling Green State University project.

“There has been a convergence of a few things brewing the past several years,” he said. “One is the client’s interest in being more sustainable, especially now that they typically have a sustainability statement or cadence for their corporation and are interested in the long-term benefits just from doing ‘the right thing.’ You have designers, architects and developers, who are all certainly focused on wanting to incorporate [sustainable materials], as well. And you have manufacturers of materials who are now readily making these materials available to them as part of their mainstay product lines.”

Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of foodservice strategies at WD Partners, added that when it comes to the use of rapidly renewable or reclaimed materials, operators are getting “push and pull” encouragement on multiple fronts.

“The ‘push’ will come from regulations and requirements by municipalities, and the ‘pull’ from consumers,” Lombardi said. “There is no doubt that we’re at the beginning of this whole transition from what used to be called a cowboy-frontier mindset,” or belief that resources are limitless, “to a spaceship mentality” of a closed environment where some resources are limited and must be used wisely.

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