Overview of the Site

The Republic Finance Building is located in the central Baton Rouge area next to the Towne Center developmnet off of Corporate Boulevard on 7031 Commerce Circle, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70809. There are many corporate businesses, restaurants and retail stores in the proximity. The area is north of Interstate 10 and 12 and minutes from downtown Baton Rouge and Louisiana State University’s campus.

The facility is located in the Town Center Business Park of Cedar Lodge Plantation. The site consists of 1.7 acres. The building is oriented in a northeast cardinal direction for the maximaization of natural daylight and solar light and heat.

Overview of Baton Rouge

Two hundred years later, all the different ethnicities have created rich cultures within the state. The capitol of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, lies in between the principle town of Acadiana and the creole city of New Orleans. Located on the east bank of the Mississippi River in south central Louisiana, Baton Rouge has accepted the watered down version of the two cultures. Baton Rouge is home to Louisiana State University and Southern Louisiana University. There are four major rails lines providing freight service and the Baton Rouge Metropolitan AIrport. Three major interstates and two U.S. highways are in the city and the Port of Baton Rouge ranks ninth in the nation for waterborne commerce.

Overview of Louisiana

Louisiana has a rich diversity of peoples including original Indian settlers plus descendants from a variety of cultures such as the French, Spanish, English, German, Acadians, Africans, Irish, Italians, West Indians, Hungarians, and now include many more nationalities. The state has an interesting past and has been governed under 10 different flags. In1803, Louisiana became part of the United States, mainly because New Orleans controlled the mouth of the Mississippi RIver which the mid-west traveled for trade. Thomas Jeffereson negotiated with Napoleon for Louisiana, and doubled the size of the United States.

As part of Louisiana’s French legacy, counties are called parishes and the Napoleonic Code (rather than Common Law) holds in the courtrooms. There are two strong cultures in Louisiana, cajuns and creoles. The word cajun, comes from the mass exodus of ‘Acadians’ from Nova Scotia, and is assocated with the trianglular area from the southern coast of Louisiana to its apex in the center of Louisiana in Alexandria with it’s princliple city being Lafayette. Cajuns are known for their robust cuisine, music, and architecture. Creoles, on the other hand, are descendents from the first generation of settlers in Louisiana before it was added to the United States, the result of marriages within and between the ethnic groups who made their homes there. Creole cusine is a culmination of the ethnic backgrounds including French, Spanish, German, and Italian cooking.

Lighting Design

The first lamp was invented around 70,000 BC. A hollow rock, shell or other natural found object was filled with moss or a similar material that was soaked with animal fat and ignited. Humans began imitating the natural shapes with manmade pottery, alabaster, and metal lamps. Wicks were later added to control the rate of burning. Around the 7th century BC, the Greeks began making terra cotta lamps to replace handheld torches. The word lamp is derived from the Greek word lampas, meaning torch.

Oil Lamps

In the 18th century, the central burner was invented, a major improvement in lamp design. The fuel source was now tightly enclosed in metal, and a adjustable metal tube was used to control the intensity of the fuel burning and intensity of the light. Around the same time, small glass chimneys were added to lamps to both protect the flame and control the flow of air to the flame. Ami Argand, a Swiss chemist is credited with first developing the principal of using an oil lamp with a hollow circular wick surrounded by a glass chimney in 1783.

Lighting Fuels

Early lighting fuels consisted of olive oil, beeswax, fish oil, whale oil, sesame oil, nut oil, and similar substances. These were the most commonly used fuels until the late 18th century. However, the ancient Chinese collected natural gas in skins that was used for illumination.

In 1859, drilling for petroleum oil began and the kerosene (a petroleum derivative) lamp grew popular, first introduced in 1853 in Germany. Coal and natural gas lamps were also becoming wide-spread. Coal gas was first used as a lighting fuel as early as 1784.

In 1792, the first commercial use of gas lighting began when William Murdoch used coal gas for lighting his house in Redruth, Cornwall. German inventor Freidrich Winzer (Winsor) was the first person to patent coal gas lighting in 1804 and a “thermolampe” using gas distilled from wood was patented in 1799. David Melville received the first U.S. gas light patent in 1810.Early in the 19th century, most cities in the United States and Europe had streets that were gaslight. Gas lighting for streets gave way to low pressure sodium and high pressure mercury lighting in the 1930s and the development of the electric lighting at the turn of the 19th century replaced gas lighting in homes.

Prior to the 1960s, the concept of illumination in architecture was not considered to be important by many architects or consulting engineers. This changed with the formation of the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) in 1969, the current mission of which is “to serve the IALD worldwide membership by promoting the visible success of its members in practicing lighting design.” This created a new attitude towards the profession and raised the profile of architectural lighting design, one of the principal goals of the organization.

Approximately 20% of the electricity used in homes is dedicated to lighting. In commercial and retail applications, that number soars to over 40%. Fortunately, much of this energy can be saved. Balanced lighting design along with the proper use and control of daylight can create environments where people want to live, work, or play.

Our vision deteriorates dramatically through the normal aging process. Before age 65, we undergo optical changes, and after age 65, neural changes.

For the elderly, they focused on the needs of the aging eye by minimizing glare and attempting to create a diffuse and even glow throughout the space.

For those with circadian disorders, they provided a space, under the colorchanging lights in the great room, where those suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), Advance Sleep Phase Syndrome (ASPS), Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS), and various forms of Alzheimer’s disease could be suffused with the sky-blue glow known to be particularly effective at affecting the circadian system and dealing with such disorders.For those needing response with minimal interaction, they provided the lighting automation laboratory in the dressing room, where various lighting control schemes, simulating lighting environments from restaurants to offices to daylight, could be implemented and tested, in the true spirit of a lighting laboratory. For those who are wheelchair-bound, they located all lighting controls at locations where no inbuilt structure blocks access; and they specified all control mounting heights as 40 inches from the floor.

For those who are wheelchair-bound or of shorter stature, they provided well-shielded, lensed luminaires to avoid glare when looking up into an under-cabinet light or pendant.In addition, for all occupants, they added elements intended to improve the general lighting; they added wayfinding elements, such as subtle “puck” night-lights, which bracket the paths to the bathrooms, and amber LEDs lighting the wall below grab bars to provide sufficient light to find your way into the bathroom but not so much that it startles you during the night. Although not part of this design, delineation of transition zones aids in orientation and helps prevent trips and falls. Since the garages were the homeowners’ principal point of entry, the students wanted to make them interesting and inviting, so they added artistic illumination in the multiple garages. They also added dramatic external lighting, intended to bathe the outside walls of the Universal Design Living.

Sustainable Design

The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a 501 c3 non-profit organization committed to a prosperous and sustainable future for our nation through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings.

With a community comprising 78 local affiliates, more than 18,000 member companies and organizations, and more than 140,000 LEED Professional Credential holders, USGBC is the driving force of an industry that is projected to contribute $554 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product from 2009-2013. USGBC leads an unlikely diverse constituency of builders and environmentalists, corporations and nonprofit organizations, elected officials and concerned citizens, and teachers and students.

Buildings in the United States are responsible for 39% of CO2 emissions, 40% of energy consumption, 13% water consumption and 15% of GDP per year, making green building a source of significant economic and environmental opportunity. Greater building efficiency can meet 85% of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million American jobs. The USGBC, United States Green Building Council, developed a green building rating system, LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Not only has the ‘green idea’ swept across the United States for recycling, re-purposing, conservation, et cetera green building has become an important factor in todays construction. Architects, engineers, and designers have realized the how much of the built environment uses our resources, so their using sustainable practices now so as to conserve our future resources. From site planning to materials and resources there are many routes to incorporate points to achieve LEED Certified status.

Churches account for less than 5 of LEED Certified buildings in the United States. People who are active in erecting churches/chapels are jumping on the bandwagon for green design in their community churches.

The LEED green building certification system is the preeminent program for rating the design, construction and operation of green buildings. 35,000 projects are currently participating in the LEED system, comprising over 4.5 billion square feet of construction space in all 50 states and 91 countries.

By using less energy, LEED-certified buildings save money for families, businesses and taxpayers; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and contribute to a healthier environment for residents, workers and the larger community.

Sustainable design (also called environmental design, environmentally sustainable design, environmentally conscious design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability.

While the practical application varies among disciplines, some common principles are as follows:

Low-impact materials: choose non-toxic, sustainably produced or recycled materials which require little energy to process

Energy efficiency: use manufacturing processes and produce products which require less energy

Quality and durability: longer-lasting and better-functioning products will have to be replaced less frequently, reducing the impacts of producing replacements

Design for reuse and recycling: “Products, processes, and systems should be designed for performance in a commercial ‘afterlife’.”[3]

Design Impact Measures for total carbon footprint and life-cycle assessment for any resource used are increasingly required and available. Many are complex, but some give quick and accurate whole-earth estimates of impacts.

Sustainable Design Standards and project design guides are also increasingly available and are vigorously being developed by a wide array of private organizations and individuals. There is also a large body of new methods emerging from the rapid development of what has become known as ‘sustainability science’ promoted by a wide variety of educational and governmental institutions.

Biomimicry: “redesigning industrial systems on biological lines ... enabling the constant reuse of materials in continuous closed cycles...”

Service substitution: shifting the mode of consumption from personal ownership of products to provision of services which provide similar functions, e.g., from a private automobile to a carsharing service. Such a system promotes minimal resource use per unit of consumption.\Renewability: materials should come from nearby (local or bioregional), sustainably managed renewable sources that can be composted when their usefulness has been exhausted.

Healthy Buildings: sustainable building design aims to create buildings that are not harmful to their occupants nor to the larger environment. An important emphasis is on indoor environmental quality, especially indoor air quality.

Sacred Spaces

The drive to separate the mundane from the sacred, to form places for special events, in order to try and control what might otherwise be seen as random commenced with the dawn of man and has never left us. Beginnings with cave paintings to moving heavy stones from the landscape. Congregating to study the hunt or separating an area used to honor the dead, we have always separated a special space for hierarchial events.

During mediaeval times, great cathedrals took decades to build and whole townships. Wood was used widely, but with no electricity and the use of candles, many churches burnt down. They started building with stone, but would not pass code if built today. Glass used to allow daylight to come in and pronounce the choir area. Every town in Europe and the Middle East has it’s own church or cathdral. In many towns, it was in the center and the town was built around the church. Today, we are reconsidering the past church building practices. We build with sustainibilty in mind also expressing the congregations values. The stewardship of the built church is still an offering to God.

Rationale for Study

Someone very close to me died last year, and I sought outlets for the grief I was feeling. I went to the student health center on campus and started meeting with someone once a week, from there I joined an art expression group with other students. I also met with my spiritual advisor once a week, and began participating in yoga classes. Three different destinations four to ten times a week! Although each session helped immensely I felt all the sessions together improved my well being. It was just an added hassle to travel from one destination to another. So when thinking about what I wanted to do for a senior capstone project, I proposed to include all these sessions into one place. For the average person seeking inner peace or a greater fulfillment in their lives to wanting to shape up physically or having somewhere to vent the issues of the day, Green Sphere Wellness Center can be that safe place where anyone is welcome.