The John W. Olver Transit Center in Greenfield, MA is an intermodal transportation facility that serves as a catalyst for the town’s urban revitalization strategy. The building combines a bus terminal with government offices and a train depot and is the first net-zero building transit center in the United States. The design for the new facility establishes a balance between a progressive design approach and the historic New England character of the town.
Architizer chatted with Charles Rose, FAIA, Principal at Charles Rose Architects, to learn more about this project.
Architizer: What inspired the initial concept for your design?
Charles Rose: The John W. Olver Transit Center occupies a former brownfield site near Greenfield’s Main Street Historic District and reflects twin design impulses: to acknowledge the town’s architectural past and to construct a technically innovative net-zero carbon building.
© John Linden
What do you believe is the most unique or ‘standout’ component of the project?
The transit center pushes far beyond standard industry designations for sustainable design and represents a noteworthy achievement in green building practices in the region. The building produces the energy it uses in a sustainable way: through solar and geothermal sources, an on-site boiler fueled by wood pellets, a lumber-industry byproduct. It has 22 geothermal wells and a 7,300-square-foot photovoltaic array.
© John Linden
What was the greatest design challenge you faced during the project, and how did you navigate it?
Achieving net-zero, particularly in a large-scale building like the Transit Center, requires close collaboration between architects and engineers. We started working with our engineers during the schematic design phase of the transit center. In the old days—when energy efficiency was a lower priority for clients—that never happened. A critical piece of our initial design focus was energy conservation—how to reduce the transit center’s electric and HVAC loads. We looked at strategies for super-insulating and at materials for cladding. We developed designs that project natural light deep into the building to reduce the lighting requirements.
© John Linden
How did the context of your project — environmental, social or cultural — influence your design?
The design team worked closely with the town in an iterative and public design process to embed the new structure within the context of the adjacent structures through massing, materials, and orientation. Feedback from the public officials and community stakeholders focused on creating usable and valuable public street-level experience, resulting in a Transit Center that not only acts as a connecting hub of activity for transportation, but also provides meeting rooms and a café that are open to all, and easily accessible by foot, bike, or transport. The project also developed a sensitivity to the historic New England character of the town, with façade materials that recalled the historic context yet used in different ways to meet the energy and performance goals of the structure.
© Peter Vanderwarker
What drove the selection of materials used in the project?
The materials chosen for the exterior—brick, copper, and locally sourced stone—are a respectful nod to the downtown business district and its stately buildings. The extensive use of brick imbues the center with a sense of place: the dark-textured, Roman-style, horizontal brick cladding on the west facade makes a material connection to the elegant 19th Century dark-brick buildings of downtown Greenfield. The building’s monolithic and curving sculptural form conveys a sense of fluidity and movement—a visual cue to its purpose and infrastructural mission. Yet, its main purpose is green as it regulates the building’s exposure to the late afternoon summer sun. In areas, the brick dissolves and the façade becomes a shading screen to allow filtered light to enter the windows within; daylight is diffused and heat gain is eliminated.
© John Linden
What is your favorite detail in the project and why?
The brick lattice detail is the most interesting because it was driven by functional considerations of limiting solar gain, but in the execution the brick becomes this incredibly poetic moment where the solid wall dissolves into immateriality. A number of custom-designed bricks were created to achieve the finished effect, and we worked through the installation in the field with mockups and feedback from the masons informing the final design. From the interior the lattice creates a beautiful space of dappled light which is a great moment of merging functional and aesthetic design.
© Charles Rose Architects Inc.
How important was sustainability as a design criteria as you worked on this project?
The design was driven by a deep commitment to sustainability.
In what ways did you collaborate with others, and how did that add value to the project?
Collaboration between Charles Rose Architects and the engineering team at Arup was essential to the performance and form-making of the building. Many critical design decisions were made in collaborative sessions where energy models were tweaked in parallel with architectural changes like massing, orientation, and fenestration, allowing real time answers to design trade-offs. This highly integrated process allowed a creative design driven by both aesthetic and performance criteria.
© Charles Rose Architects Inc.
Were any parts of the project dramatically altered from conception to construction, and if so, why?
In the initial stages of this project, there was a limited aspiration for sustainable design, but nothing approaching the net-zero level that was eventually achieved. However, recognizing an opportunity in the energy agenda of the incoming presidential administration, funding was applied for through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that acted as the catalyst for re-envisioning this building as a sustainable model for future development.
© Charles Rose Architects Inc.
How have your clients responded to the finished project?
Post-occupancy surveys and a continuing relationship with the client have shown that the building works as intended and is well liked by the occupants. In particular, the materials chosen for longevity and low maintenance are a well-liked feature, as well as the high quality of the workspaces lit by natural daylighting.
What key lesson did you learn in the process of conceiving the project?
An essential, but easily overlooked, aspect of designing a net-zero building is the importance of the building teaching and communicating the sustainable strategies to the end user. By utilizing real-time data displays on energy performance and other didactic design elements, we were able to make the energy use evident to the occupants who understand and participate in the energy reduction goals.
How do you believe this project represents you or your firm as a whole?
Net-zero projects have had a profound impact on the way Charles Rose Architects designs. We are creating buildings that are highly integrated. It’s a fundamentally different way of designing. Our engineers are serious collaborators. Once again, architecture is an art and a science.
How do you imagine this project influencing your work in the future?
This design represents a new model of early integration and collaboration with various design and engineering teams that we have carried forward to all subsequent projects.
Team Members
Charles Rose, Whitney Hudson
Consultants
Structural Engineer: RSE Associates Inc. MEP/FP Engineer: ARUP Civil Engineer: Nitsch Engineering Geotechnical Engineer: McPhail Associates, Inc. Landscape Architect: GroundView, LLC Building Envelope Consultant: Building Envelope Technologies, Inc. Specification Writer: Kalin Associates Code Consultant: R.W. Sullivan Engineering
Products / Materials
Custom copper panels fabricated by Zahner Custom bricks by Spaulding Brick Co.
For more on John W. Olver Transit Center, please visit the in-depth project page on Architizer.
John W. Olver Transit Center, Net-Zero Energy Building 
