LEED in Hyper-Drive with Certified Living Building

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LEED in Hyper-Drive with Certified Living Building Next time you are driving around Salt Lake City, take a moment to pay attention to the architecture in Park City or any of SLC's other outlying communities. Chances are you will see at least a few buildings originally intended to meet LEED standards when first constructed. Some of those buildings do indeed meet the standards while others never quite got there despite the best efforts of architects and engineers. Achieving LEED certification is not easy. For the record, it is more difficult with commercial structures than residential due to the intense energy requirements of commercial enterprises. But the challenge of building an LEED-certified structure is not stopping architects like us or our engineering team from pursuing the goal. And in some cases, we are going even further by pursuing what are known as 'certified living buildings.' The Certified Living Building standard is incredibly difficult to achieve. What is it? It is a standard described by the Sacramento Bee ĂƐ ͞> ƚŝŵĞƐ ϭϬ͘͟ dŚĞŝƌ ĚĞƐĐƌŝƉƚŝŽŶ ǁĂƐ ƉĂƌƚ ŽĨ Ă ƌĞĐĞŶƚ ƌĞƉŽƌƚ ŝŶǀŽůǀŝŶŐ ĂŶ ĂƌĐŚŝƚĞĐƚƵƌĞ Ĩŝƌŵ ƚŚĂƚ recently purchased an old warehouse in the city with visions of creating the area's first Certified Living Building, which will eventually become the company's Sacramento headquarters. The History of LEED The LEED standard dates back to 1994 and a desire among members of the U.S.

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• Publié par: seorumer
• Publié le: 16 mai 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• Langue: English

Extrait

LEED in Hyper-Drive with Certified Living Building Next time you are driving around Salt Lake City, take a moment to pay attention to the architecture in Park City or any of SLC's other outlying communities. Chances are you will see at least a few buildings originally intended to meet LEED standards when first constructed. Some of those buildings do indeed meet the standards while others never quite got there despite the best efforts of architects and engineers. Achieving LEED certification is not easy. For the record, it is more difficult with commercial structures than residential due to the intense energy requirements of commercial enterprises. But the challenge of building an LEED-certified structure is not stopping architects like us or our engineering team from pursuing the goal. And in some cases, we are going even further by pursuing what are known as 'certified living buildings.' The Certified Living Building standard is incredibly difficult to achieve. What is it? It is a standard described by the Sacramento Beeas ͞LEED tiŵes ϭϬ.͟ Their descriptioŶ ǁas part of a receŶt report iŶǀolǀiŶg aŶ architecture firŵ that recently purchased an old warehouse in the city with visions of creating the area's first Certified Living Building, which will eventually become the company's Sacramento headquarters.

The History of LEED The LEED standard dates back to 1994 and a desire among members of the U.S. Green Building Council to promote new standards of building design and construction that would maximize energy efficiency. From its inception through the end of 2015, LEED standards have gone through multiple changes that go well above and beyond the council's original vision. What started as a single standard for residential construction has morphed into multiple sets of standards that are interrelated and cover nearly every aspect of both residential and commercial construction. www.SparanoMooney.com

LEED's primary purpose was, and still is, to encourage sustainability by maximizing efficiency and use of energy resources. It covers everything from building insulation to heating and cooling to making occupancy work in a building's favor rather than against it. Yet there is one deficiency in the standards that the developers of the Certified Living Building are seeking to overcome: LEED standards are mostly about external power consumption and preservation. The Certified Living Building standard seeks to eliminate external energy sources as much as possible. For example, the project cited by theSacramento Beeenvisions a new kind of building that will, among other things: generate 105% of its energy needs through solar technology collect rainwater to eliminate the need for municipal service  recycle gray water from showers and sinks  collect toilet waste to be recycled as compost on the property. As you might expect, building according to the Certified Living Building standard is extremely costly. TheSacramento Bee reports that construction of the local building will likely cost twice as much as standard construction. Meeting the standards of the certification program are so tough that only eight other buildings in the world have done so to date. Unfortunately, construction costs related to both LEED and the Certified Living Building standards make it difficult to convince building owners to go the green route. It can be hard for them to see the long-term financial benefits of doing so when they are spending so much money upfront to build. Here atSparano + Mooney Architects, we are committed tosustainable designa core of our business. Whether as working on commercial architecture in Park City, a civic building in Los Angeles or a new residential project in downtown Salt Lake, we want our structures to be as environmentally friendly as possible. A Certified Living Building is certain to be in our future. Sources: 1.Sacramento Bee–http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/bob-shallit/article52343780.html

www.SparanoMooney.com