Once upon a time there was a voluntary, market-driven green building rating system called LEED®. In accordance with the intent of its drafters at the U.S. Green Building Council, it allowed developers to evaluate the feasibility of pursuing a third-party green building certification for a particular project based on a standard set of prerequisites and credits and then make an informed decision about whether or not follow the green brick road and design and develop accordingly. Along comes one municipality after another that decides that a voluntary market-based incentive to build certified green buildings is not enough. While many in the building industry cringed at the thought of mandatory LEED regulations for many reasons, they had little idea that it could actually get worse. Case in point: San Francisco’s mandate of LEED on acid for redevelopment projects.
October 23rd, 2008 | Paul D'Arelli | 0 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "LEED Certifiable"
Students Protest Lack of LEED in Design for CT Campus Building
There’s a bit of a LEED-driven controversy that’s currently playing out at the Norwalk Community College in Connecticut. Students are alleging that the design by Upper West Side-based Mitchell-Giurgola Architects for a new $40 million, 3-story laboratory building “isn’t green enough.” Last year, architecture professor John Sneider’s Environmental Systems class critiqued the 55,000-square-foot project, with students suggesting a building smaller in scale and the installation of a geothermal system. They contacted university officials last year and say they’ve been given the runaround; the school has spent $3 million on the design to date and finalized drawings for bidding back in January. Still, students circulated a petition and met yesterday with the design team, who explained the project’s sustainable features notwithstanding its lack of LEED registration with USGBC.
May 30th, 2008 | Stephen Del Percio | 2 comments | Continued