In the past 10 years, ‘building green’ has been on the rise. By providing enhanced publicity and tax incentives, guidelines, certifications and rating systems have helped to shift the building industry towards sustainability, concerning the design, construction and operation of buildings.
The University of Arts of BerlinIn 2005, the European Commission launched the voluntary GreenBuilding programme (GBP). This programme aims at improving the energy efficiency and expanding the integration of renewable energies in non-residential buildings. The GreenBuilding infrastructure is being set up in Austria, Greek, France, Finland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Sweden and Slovenia. In each participating country, a so called National Contact Point is being established for aiding organisations, who consider participation in GreenBuilding. By now, 60 buildings are partners of GreenBuilding, such as the Athens International Airport in Greece, the private company Menerga d.o.o. from Maribor in Slovenia, The Renewable Energy House, a 2.000 m2 large office building in Brussels, the nine buildings of the University of Arts in Berlin and the protestant church of Stadl Paura in Upper Austria.The protestant church of Stadl Paura in Upper AustriaIn the United States, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) provides a set of standards for eco-friendly sustainable construction with its Green Building Rating System, The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Since its initiation in 1998, LEED has grown to include over 14 000 projects in 50 US States and 30 countries, covering 1.062 billion square feet of development area. The LEED system is a remarkable open and transparent process: The technical criteria proposed by the LEED committees are publicly reviewed by the more than 10 000 membership organizations that currently constitute the USGBC. Over the past year, the USGBC has initiated a programme which allows large companies such as Starbucks and Best Buy to build and certify a green prototype facility and then replicate that design all over the country. Thus, the costly LEED certification process can be skirted.LEED promotes an approach to sustainability concerning the whole building by checking the performance in five key areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. Depending on which degree a building satisfies the LEED standards, it can qualify for four levels of certification: Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum. In March 2006, 7 World Trade Center was officially certified as New York City’s first ‘green’ office tower, by achieving the LEED gold rating. Ray Kappe’s prefab LivingHome in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, designed for the company of the same name, has received the first-ever LEED Platinum rating for residential design. Presented by the Wired Magazine and LivingHomes, Kappes prefab home will open its doors from October 25th - November 11th.Stay tuned to learn more about sustainable architecture and design in our current series!Images: EU Greenbuilding

EDITT Tower under construction, SingaporeUsable energy is a scarce resource, even if we have not passed Peak Oil then we are still faced with a worldwide competition among nations for a limited resource . Ultimately the price trend is up whether that energy source is petroleum, synfuel or biodiesel. In the built environment. Even the green(er) built environment the tendency is to use lots of technology to create a high performance building. LEED structures are creations that incorporate a tremendous number of labour and energy saving devices. They use the latest technologies to provide natural light, clean circulating air, conserve water and energy. Computer controlled shades that move up and down with the sun and energy conserving lighting systems.

IBM Menara Mesinaga Building, Kuala LumpurAll of which had to designed, manufactured, shipped and installed usually over long distances. While saving money for the building over the long-term it initially 'load shifts' compliance down the manufacturing and supply chain to others. In the gospel according to Coase this means that potentially the CO2 footprint is just relocated from one place to another. I expect this will change for the better as CO2 controls and offsets extend further down the manufacturing, supply and transport chain it can also be a shell game.

Tokyo Nara TowerObviously some structures such as skyscrapers are 'unnatural' constructions, often in 'unnatural' environments. Their raison d'etre is a result of land costs, building economics and desire for status, individual and corporate. Look at trees, nature's skyscrapers which incorporate many active and passive elements together. Aggregated in a forest you get economies of scale as well as a large potential habitat. You might even call it 'green infrastructure' so why not incorporate some of these elements directly into the design of the building weather conditions permitting.
An Out-there bioclimatic-type proposal for SeoulIt is possible to build a high performance building, especially a skyscraper, without as much gadgetry, without load shifting and within modern building envelopes? Ken Yeang thinks he can. His pioneering work, much of it in Southeast Asia, has created a new genre of buildings know as bioclimatic skyscrapers. His designs incorporate living plants into the ventilation and cooling systems of the building creating a different kind of built environment, one that actually treats plants as utilities or green infrastructure. Also they make beneficial use of wind and rain and the use of a 'lifecycle approach' to building design, materials and equipment. This 'bio-climatic' approach results in savings from less electricity consumption and from using materials with better passive quailities and from using living organisms that provide unique services (air filtration, evaporative cooling, CO2 removal) and are capable of self-renewal with minimal intervention.You can install 40 floors of computer controlled blinds or 40 floors of vines that change with the season. The aesthetic for those coming from the world of glass and steel might take some getting used too but makes sense in a world where resource competition grows ever more fierce. In essence Bio-Climatic design make use of a lot of simple things we knew and forgot as we made them more complicated. Ken Yeang will be speaking a the New York Academy of Sciences, April 5th, 7 World Trade Center, New York.Books & Reference