How do I make my building designs more self sufficient?

Question

I am in my 3rd year of my Architecture class, and we are beginning to design commercial building designs. We were told to make it "green", meaning that they want me to design the building more environmentally friendly. How are some ways I can incorporate the "green" into my designs? (right now, we are designing a dentist office)

Answer 1

Most practical means:
1.Lower your heating & cooling loads.
(Better insulation & window systems, control insolation with shading)
2.Electrically efficient lighting system.
(Discharge instead of incandescent)

A little farther out:
1. Use green materials.
(Recycled plastic trim etc.)
2. Solar contribution.
(Water preheat etc.)
3. 'Earth Storage` Heat pump system, (dependant upon location & ground water conditions.)

Answer 2

Try a 'green roof'; they are actually quite easy to install on a new building and they have tremendous environmental benefits. A green roof will keep the building cooler and greatly reduce stormwater runoff.
Try using 'pervious pavement' either pervious concrete or asphalt, or paving blocks, to allow grass to grow and stormwater to infiltrate.
Use locally-produced materials for construction, so as to reduce the fuel consumed by delivery trucks.

Answer 3

Something new in Europe is a system that saves gray-water, like from washing machines and showers, and then reuse that water for the toilet (watercloset).

Other technologies include:

Sewer-mining (taking water from the city sewers and and using them for black-water)
phase change materials for cooling
automatic night-purge windows
wavy concrete cielings
Louvres that track the sun, and adjust all day (solar powered, of course)