Lohre and Associates Office

By Audrey, September 30, 2015

This week, the project I’m highlighting ranked at the highest possible LEED level: platinum. This project, located in downtown Cincinnati, houses Lohre and Associates Marketing Communications and Green Cincinnati Education Advocacy on the three-story building’s second floor. This firm is a marketing communication agency that designs web sites, literature, and trade show and photography exhibits for industrial clients. The motivation for creating this environmentally friendly work space was the firm’s green building division.  This part of the company helps to prepare students for the LEED AP exams and the owner wanted the building to serve as a demonstration of renewable energy.

The Lohre and Associates office is located in the center of a $48 million expansion and revitalization project to restore this historical but once fairly impoverished area of Cincinnati. The row house they work out of is one of the older buildings that have been restored in the surrounding neighborhood. One incredible thing that this project accomplished was to become a certified platinum building at a low cost. They were able to achieve this lofty goal by intense material reuse and salvage. Its estimated that the building has energy savings of 25% and that full return on investments made on the building will occur in four years.

One of the most interesting things about this design, is something I’ve never seen before. The architect added a crazy toilet-sink combination called the Sink Perfect Adapter to conserve water. It works by averting water from filling the toilet to supply the sink with clean water when the toilet is flushed. What a fascinating idea; why not use the clean water before it flushes the toilet?