Whether LEED or not...

[Edgar]

...it still looks like a beautiful building to me, and produces more energy than it consumes. What do you guys think?

[Michael Bulatovich]

Very nice. I went to the firm's website. Also very nice. Kubala has the humility to say. "I have to pinch myself." I should say so.

[RicodJour]

Looks tasty. I'll have to look into the details when I get a chance. Thanks for posting.

R

[3D Peruna]

We've seriously looked into LEED. It's goals are worthy, but the process is not. It's politicized, expensive and having "LEED" on your building is simply a marketing ploy to get more people to have "LEED" on their buildings. They way the system is set up there are few priorities. Stupid stuff helps you qualify as much as real stuff.

Also, from the site: $333.333/sq. ft. Ouch. What's the payback on that?

Buildings that use less energy to build, heat/cool, and maintain are great. Let's just be realistic about building them.

[RicodJour]

Kind of like AIA on your letterhead? =:O

? That $333.33(3?)/SF doesn't reflect mortgage costs. It, in and of itself is a borderline imaginary number. If it's built by an individual, there will be a mortgage, if it's built by an agency of some sort, there may be bonds and interest on that. None of that stuff is ever reflected in the SF costs.

There are also very substantial incentives for going low impact - state, federal and power company rebates, low cost loans, etc. CA has a program where you're paid a higher number per KW sold to the utility than what you pay when you buy a KW. You should not trivialize such things as they have a major impact on the viability of going green. Plus the chicks love it!

R

[Michael Bulatovich]

>

US or CAN ? ; )

Seriously though, I've done conventional projects with those kinds of budgets. As for the politicization of 'sustainability, well, enough said.

I'd rather hear what you think of the design, form what little you can see of it. (No plans, etc.)

[3D Peruna]

'zactly. Stupid organization.

Yes... The total extra cost will probably never be known.

If they are used, then again, the real costs are even more than $333/sq. ft., so "green" isn't nearly as affordable as they want us to think it is. You and I are paying these guys to be "green."

I'm married, so I don't care if the chicks love it.

[3D Peruna]

US, it' would be, um less, in CAN now, than it was before.

Sure, so have I. But one of the apparent selling points of "green" is that doesn't cost extra. Obviously, there isn't much in terms of visual/plans/design to see, but the place doesn't look $333/sq.ft. to me.

It's nice enough. But hard to tell with so little info.

[RicodJour]

Plans? Plans? We don't need no steenkin' nifonged plans! Plans require trees so we did without. I can offer up a virtual tour, though.

the intro and a plan with clickable hot spots magically appears.

I give Google search lessons on the first Noonday of Leap Year. ;)

R

[RicodJour]

And this:

are sections and a whole bunch of pictures and stuff on there. You have to subscribe to get full viewing access.

R

[RicodJour]

Married Dead! You have to design for everyone, 3D, even the smoking hot chicks. It's the law.

R

[Michael Bulatovich]

If that were the case, and you got all the payoffs for free, then everone would be doing it.

Did you go to the architect's site? A principal lectured of Alexander. I love his (Alexander's) insights.....I don't buy the overarching method, but he seems pretty good at the details. I guess it dates me.

[Michael Bulatovich]

You get an "I" for Imitative. Thanks for the link.

The building is essentially a showcase for 'sustainability', is that right? I take it that the energy requirements of the project are slight compared to other uses on kW/hr/sq.ft. basis.

Speaking of trees...I took note of the fact that mainly bad trees were killed to make the building, which helps the good trees.

[3D Peruna]

Only if they're really rich! And pay our fees.... Sort of a reverse "Indecent Proposal".

[Michael Bulatovich]

I just noticed the 'carbon neutrality' is based on the sequestering of 8.75 tons of carbon by the surrounding forest. That's great. All we have to do then, is make sure that every new building is surrounded by enough forest to sequester the amount the building emits. Problem solved.

Now how 'bout those ultra-high energy cosmic rays?:

"Cosmic rays are energetic particles that are accelerated by magnetic fields in space. A very small fraction of the cosmic rays that penetrate Earth's atmosphere have tremendous energies, exceeding tens of EeV (1 EeV is 1018 electron volts). Their presence is puzzling because cosmic rays should lose energy very quickly as they travel through space, and so these highest-energy particles would not be expected to survive the journey. The Pierre Auger Collaboration (p. 938; see the cover and the news story by Cho) detected 80 of the highest-energy cosmic rays and located their directions in the sky by combining two detection techniques. The most energetic cosmic rays originate statistically from areas of the sky that are populated by nearby active galactic nuclei, which themselves trace galaxy-rich regions that include the supergalactic plane. Thus, the cosmic rays' huge energies might be explained if they were accelerated around giant galactic black holes lying within 75 megaparsecs of the Milky Way."

[Secretia Green]

That's one difference between LEED's aproach and (if one gives a shit) the Kyoto protocols. Those tree 'credits' would not count. Existing trees would have to be removed and saplings put in thier place. One of the reasons the U.S. was against the treaty was because the they would not allow credit offsets for the huge amount of forested area that exists here.

[Michael Bulatovich]

Yabut, the area was forested before we started burning fossil fuels, and presumably the 'balance' was 'just right' then. Counting existing forests against future emissions seems like a dodge. The current balance, including existing forests, is presumably 'not right'.

I could see planted forests against current or future emissions as both are new inputs. What about future limestone creation under your territorial waters.... Hey.... I think I just came up with a money-maker....

[ryan]

LEED is growing and we can help. We manufacture FSC cert. Veneer off of FSC managed Timberlands. We can provide FSC PURE Panels and Plywood with full service Veneer Management!

[gruhn]

I think if you staple a fission reactor to the roof of a plywood oneholer outhouse it will produce more energy than it consumes.