News:
Integrated Design: Design-Build on LEED-NC projects
By: Wendy Hageman
One of the hottest topics right now is sustainability. More and more municipalities and private companies are requiring sustainable designs for their new buildings as well as their existing facilities. Some of these requirements include the certification of the building with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
One tool for measuring how sustainable or “green” a building has been designed is through the LEED-NC (New Construction) process; a rating system developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). Through the LEED rating system a building and its site are evaluated on six categories for sustainability; Sustainable Sites,
Water Efficiency, Energy & Atmosphere, Materials & Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality and Innovation & Design. And within these categories are credits and points to pursue and achieve.
The purpose of LEED is to provide criteria by which to evaluate buildings consistently for sustainable practices, to promote integrated, whole building design practices, to raise awareness of environmental design and engineering practices that can be implemented, and to encourage the sensitivity of the environment in which we work and live.
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