Layman's Blog to Green Building

The advent of green building design has challenged the established best practices of building designers.   This requires building designers to have a forward-looking viewpoint with respect to the environmental performance and utilization of the building, as well as the emerging need to plan for decommissioning.  This forces designers to incorporate more parties into the design process than is traditionally necessary, thereby reshaping the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved.  In this blog series we will evaluate how current design practices are being morphed into a more collaborative effort of owners, designers, and operators.  We will also identify the necessary change to planning, and the tools (both existing and developing) to facilitate the changing planning requirements.  By educating and understanding client expectations, as well as methods of quantifying the environmental performance of a building, the planning and design process...

There is a lot of confusion on what the definition of a “ Green Building ” means today.  The building design and construction, as well as the facilities management industries are pushing for “greener” buildings, yet for a large part of the industry, there is an abundance of differing opinions of what makes a building “green”.  The challenge of sorting through these varying and sometimes conflicting definitions can create fiscal, technical, and legal problems for designers, builders, and operators alike.   One common problem across all industries striving to be more "green" is that it is difficult as a consumer and corporate user alike to clearly distinguish the claims of products or buildings on sustainable measures, unless one is to use a well developed system of metrics for gauging the actual performance of a building or product against established benchmarks.  When it comes to building design and construction, the metrics are often found in a number of...

If you are reading this foreword, then chances are you are like countless others that have succumbed to the inevitability of Building Green.  Whether your interest has peaked as a result of economic, social and/or political pressures, this guide is for you. Whether the inevitability is a result of newly imposed government regulations; introduction of new technologies that make economic sense and/or a heightened awareness of how the Construction industry can actually make an impact, the movements underfoot today are not just a passing fancy.  Building Green is a worldwide phenomenon that is evolving at a pace which makes it difficult to stay abreast.  Surprisingly though, the principles behind the current movements are much easier to grasp than one might imagine.  To begin with, a worldwide campaign was launched following the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol on December 11 th , 1997 and development of the Copenhagen Accord created at the COP-15 Copenhagen En...