“Tubes are put in the ground and they get the heat from the ground into the building as water and that runs to the heat pumps. You use that to heat the building," he explained. "We used this concept of a sunflower where the geo-roots are like a flower and the translucent panels are like the petals of the flower … We thought that was a great concept.”
Use of recycled materials, improved insulation, occupancy sensors and natural lighting are other eco-friendly aspects of city hall.
Even though the building is more than 14,000 square feet larger than it was 11 years ago, it's energy use is about half. In 2007-08, the building used 4,668.4 MMBtu, a unit of energy measurement. In 2011-12, it used 2,142.5 MMBtu. Because of that, the building is well on its way to recuperating the cost of the remodel, he said.