Tag: LEED

The curious case of the LEED lawsuit

I’ve seen a lot of tweets lately about the LEED lawsuit. While I can’t speak to the veracity of the lawsuit’s claims I can and will weigh in on my own personal opinion of LEED and the USGBC.

I think LEED was incredibly important. It was a first step towards a national shift in the way developers, governments and commercial clients think about buildings and performance. Without LEED we might still be living in a world where green and white roofs would still be found mostly in Europe, where dual flush toilets and waterless urinals would be a curiosity found at Epcot but no where else in the USA, and where post-consumer recycled content percentages would still be found only on paper and not listed proudly on the resource webpage for carpets and other finishes. With all of that said, I think we have outgrown LEED.

I’ve seen a lot of tweets lately about the LEED lawsuit (Giffords Vs USGBC). While I can’t speak to the veracity of the lawsuit’s claims I can and will weigh in on my own personal opinion of LEED and the USGBC.

I think LEED was incredibly important. It was a first step towards a national shift in the way developers, governments and commercial clients think about buildings and performance. Without LEED we might still be living in a world where green and white roofs would still be found mostly in Europe, where dual flush toilets and waterless urinals would be a curiosity found at Epcot but no where else in the USA, and where post-consumer recycled content percentages would still be found only on paper and not listed proudly on the resource webpage for carpets and other finishes. With all of that said, I think we have outgrown LEED.

To fully understand the situation with LEED I think its important to see what LEED certification does and does not actually brings to a project.

  • LEED certification does not guarantee energy efficiency, many of the steps that are involved in LEED design are or should be standards in modern building design. What it does guarantee is a lighter foot print than if nothing environmentally sensitive was done at all. That is to say, a LEED certified building of any level is most likely going to have a better performance than anything built in the International Style; a LEED certified home will be more environmentally sensitive than Phillip Johnson’s glass house, but so would most of the McMansions built today.
  • Under the LEED v3.0 standard for a building to be LEED certified it must be worked on by a LEED AP; all this guarantees is that someone who has studied and passed the LEED exam has been a part of the design team. It does not guarantee that they are a trained design profession, nor does it guarantee that they led the project.
  • What LEED really brings to a project is marketability; people who are not in the construction trades will usually infer that a LEED platinum building is more environmentally sensitive than a non-LEED building, when this is not true. All that the LEED platinum certification proves is that specific building meets a set of standards, but NOT that other buildings don’t. This is the reason that many municipalities are opting to include environmentally friendly regulations which require buidlings to meet certain LEED criteria but not actually be LEED certified.
  • Lastly, the surest thing LEED brings to a project is increased costs. While these costs are minor compared to the overall cost of construction, they can be $.05 a square foot for documentation and application costs alone 1. If you think that this is minor, consider that the new Pei and Partners building at 1000 Connecticut Avenue, NW is over 380,000 square feet and only 12 stories tall 2. This is project is aiming to be LEED Platinum which means that in addition to all of the design costs, this project has had at least additional $19,000 in paperwork costs that have done nothing to improve the environmental footprint of the building.

Where does this leave us? In my opinion we should be phasing LEED out and in its place enacting Green Building Codes, much like California just did. This building codes serve multiple purposes:

  • It gets a private non-profit out of the regulation business. Currently, many school boards, municipalities and local governments have jumped on the LEED bandwagon and started requiring LEED certification for their buildings. This is just plain wrong. A private company should not be in charge of reguating public buildings. We do not outsource our Fire Protection, ADA enforcement and other Health, Safety and Welfare regulations to private companies to enforce, why should environmental design be any different? Especially since it has been shown that indoor environmental quality has a direct impact on the health of building occupants 3.
  • It levels the playing field and returns Health, Safety and Welfare issues to state licensed professionals. USGBC requires at least one LEED AP professional to work on a project for it to be considered for LEED certification. This means that many firms cannot bid on a project unless they team with a consultant with a LEED AP staff member. This means that states are requiring people to have a certification that is not provided nor regulated by the state. Furthermore, if you consider this in light of the above point, it means that non-licensed professionals are the ensuring Health, Safety and Welfare of the public. Consider that the LEED AP on the project is not required to hold any specific level of position nor are they required to have any liability if a project fails to meet its design criteria 4. By the state regulations, this should be something that is regulated by licensed Architects or Engineers. If LEED was phased out and a Green Building Code put in its place, licensed professionals would be liable to ensure that project designs maintain Health, Safety and Welfare statutes.
  • Lastly, Green Building Codes would mandate and ensure that we move into the 21st century with a level playing field for buildings. By requiring environmentally friendly design and materials in new construction this would increase demand, increase production and in turn decrease the cost of these materials. This has been seen with CFL lightbulbs and photovoltaic cells, as these become more mainstream their initial costs have decreased and their efficiency has increased so that they products stay relevant in the market, because they are forced to compete on cost instead of just being an ethically beneficial product. The overall effect of this might not solve our environmental issues (an ailing power grid, a lack of water on the West Coast, suburban sprawl) but it would go a long way to mitigating them and preventing them from increasing.
  1. How Much Does LEED certification cost. ↩
  2. Case Study on 1000 Connecticut Avenue ↩
  3. The EPA’s statement on IAQ and health ↩
  4. LEED AP’s under the 3.0 system are required to complete Continuing Education Requirements and those previously accredited were forced to complete additional testing in order to be considered as a LEED AP for the purpose of a project’s certification. ↩

LEED, the trials and tribulations of the Green Revolution

I just finished reading an article on the Wall Street Journal’s site about the green building movement and the practical issues faced with training professionals and navigating an unstable and untested market. As a design profesisonal who keeps putting off his LEED exam in favor of other equally worthy endeavors, this article hit home. The problem with green building right now is that the market is so new and untested both for professionals and for the products. The article describes a situation similar to one I recently faced at work. An architect specified a Green product that ended up not being reliably available which caused delays and impacted budget. In the end litigation was reached. Fortunately, in my situation we were able to determine that the LEED point was unattainable even with the specified product, and that we were well within our target status (silver) so a non-LEED approved solution was found which allowed the budget and schedule not to be impacted.

This type of problem is rare in proven markets, when was the last time you heard that concrete or brick was not available? And when they are not, an alternative product usually exists and can be used without detriment to the project. The problem with the current state of Green products is that in some divisions (parts of the construction trade) there may few choices that help qualify for points, and each choice can qualify for differing points, so an alternative product may be the same monetary cost but may cause you to lose LEED credits. All of this coordination (and possible legal exposure) is one of the main reasons that LEED projects demand a high premium on the design fees.

The other major reason for the premium that LEED projects (or Green projects in general) carry (besides the increasing demand) is that the supply of trained professionals is just not enough to keep up with the demand yet. The LEED exam, while well within reach for anyone who is good at wrote memorization, is a barrier for many to achieving LEED-AP (Accredited Professional) status. In my case, every time I start to study for the exam something more germane to my career comes up. The first time it was focusing on completing my IDP, now I am preoccupied with studying for my licensing exams. Once I finish those, I am sure I will be concerned with getting my continuing education credits. Now I know these don’t take up all my time, but as opposed to when I was a student, I have more pressing things to do in my free time than read and memorize a 500 page book for instant recall. I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that, yes professionals know that we SHOULD get accredited, but until it becomes a necessity of our field, or we are offered increased compensation for our accreditation, I have a had time believing that supply of LEED accredited professionals will catch up with demand.

Articles of Interest

Here are some links to articles that have peaked my interest in the last few days:

Home is where the LEED is

A bird's eye rendering of one of the 100k houses

[Image via Inhabitat via 100khouse]

So Inhabitat has an article which starts off like a bad joke; an architect, a developer and a builder decide to build a LEED certified home for$100,000. And that is it, there is no punchline, because its not a joke. They are building two 1000 square foot homes for $100 a square foot; they have been working at it for over a year now and just sold their first of two homes. You can read their blog and web page at 100khouse.

There are three things that intrigue me about all of this. First is that we bought our 13 year old 950 square foot condo in suburban Northern Virginia last year for $235,000 and these home are going to be/being sold for $200,000-250,000. It really highlightes the difference in cost of living and commodity. I live in a previously lived in stock developer’s condo for the same price as someone else could be living in a brand new well designed environmentally friendly single family house, and the architect/developer/contractor will all still be making a profit off of it. That just blows my mind. The second is the lack of exposure or lack fo existence of projects like this near around the country. Why are there not more affordable infill LEED housing? Why are we building more pop-up carbon footprint heavy custom builder townhomes when we could be developing LEED accredited suburban pre-manufactured well designed individual developments? And lastly, why am I not involved in a project like this? How does one go about getting ahead of the curve? Is this something that you have to wait until your licensed for, or is it something that you can make happen by being deliberate in your career path? Once you start down the road of traditional internship and licensure, is there a turnoff where you can switch into cutting edge design and urban planning? Is it possible to be something greater than an fabric building designer/builder possible without having independant wealth and patronage?

In an unrelated but yet pertinent development, I have the possibility to help a friend out with their damaged home. They suffered sever roof and exterior wall damage as well as water damage and depending on what they decide to do, they may need to do a thorough renovation. I would love to finally have the chance to think critically again and solve their design problems, to break away from institutional work for a little while and explore smaller more human forms and scales. On the other hand, if they don’t decide to go with me, the whole process has been a learning experience, one that gives me some light at the end of the tunnel and helps me to see some answers to the questions I posed above. Specifically – yes it is possible, it is all possible, it just takes time, friends and the right series of unfortunate events.

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Solar Glass

See through PV glazing used as a skylight

[Image via Suntech]

So I was going through last month’s Architecture Record and as an unlicensed architect working in building production (not design) I tend to spend more time and effort looking at the products advertised instead of the featured buildings. One of the products that jumped out at me is Suntech’s See Thru photovoltaic vision glazing. This product utilizes insulated glazing technology to apply a thin photovoltaic film on the interior surface of a glazing panel and can turn “clear” glass into a solar array. Some examples of this in action can bee seen here.

If this product was used in addition to the thin film roof membrane I previously mentioned here, I think that many more structures – residential and commercial – could easily be turned into parts of a large scale distributed power generator. In addition, achieving the LEED point for on site energy creation would be much easier to achieve without having to design a building with all flat roofs and solar arrays. The new Green Architecture Symbol may very well be glass. Think of it, the International Style might actually be suitable as an international style; the Farnesworth House could be an icon of self sustainability instead of a symbol of architectural ego triumphing over nature and place.

Solar Stickers – Now by LISA FRANK!

Lumeta PowerPly PV Panels

[Image via DRI Energy]

So I have been studying for my LEED AP exam lately, so my interest was peaked when I came across this article online. Apparently, DRI Energy has come out with a product called Lumeta PowerPly which adheres directly to the roofing membrane instead of being mounted on an expensive and heavy roof structure, which is one of the prohibitive cost factors in the implementation Photovoltaic Panels. I imagine that this application will have less of a yield because it is fixed to the angle of the roof than rack mounted systems, which can be tuned to face an optimal angle or even rotate and tilt to follow the sun.What is lost in yield I imagine can be made up on roofs that would normally not be able to handle PV panels (such as curved roofs and steep pitches). In addition, I would worry that since this bonds to the roofing membrane, if there is a membrane failure the PV panels will need to be replaced as well, instead of being able to be removed and remounted in a traditional system.

I knew that this technology was out there, but I was unaware that it was already being marketed. I think that this kind of application process could definitely help bring PV panels and solar energy use to projects that would normally not even consider it.

(And in case anyone is wonder, no they aren’t in rainbow colors and are not actually made by Lisa Frank)

Article: D.C. Paves Way for Environmental Responsibility

US Green Building Council\'s LogoOn tuesday the DCist ran an article about the National’s Stadium being the first LEED rated stadium in the country and the general move of DC towards what may be perceived as “Green Architecture”. (Click here for the article)

I feel that this article fails to clarify some key issues and understand a few things about the difference between “Green Architecture” and LEED. First, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) to quote their own website is “a 501(c)(3) non-profit community of leaders working to make green buildings accessible to everyone within a generation.” This group is not affiliated with any state government, and I feel that it bears questioning the merits of requiring new construction to comply with a private non-profit agency (as DC is doing), instead of a public agency. This smells a little too strongly of privatization for me, but thats another post for another day. Second, the LEED system is a method of ranking a building based on points for certain qualifications. While this system requires certain points to be achieved and assigns value to certain points, it is important to understand that the value of these points. A certified building is the lowest tier, silver is third, gold second, and platinum is at the peak. It is possible for a building to garner enough points for a certification by a combination of existing infrastructure, choosing the right products, and painting your roof white. While it is true, all of these help decrease the carbon count of a building and are worth doing, I would hardly say that this is being on the forefront of “Green Design.” In addition there are some green design points which do not figure (or figure very minimally) into LEED ratings, such as operable windows, brownfield redevelopment, and products from renewable resources.

All of this speaks to a larger issue here, what is Green Architecture? Is it designing a building to achieve a punch list of environmentally friendly goals as one would fit a building code or the ADA, or is it something greater? An embracing of alternative design strategies that permeate the entire essence of the building? If we start labeling all LEED buildings as Green Architecture we are doing a disservice to architecture; whilst they may be Green not all are Architecture.