You’ve probably heard that Fast Company wrote a recent article about some of the potential problems with the LEED system. Well, Bob Langert, Vice President of CSR at McDonald’s, just wrote a small response to Fast Company Magazine in an article titled “LEED = Progress for the Environment.“ Starting with the quote, “Perfection is the enemy of good,” Langert continued:
The Sidwell Friends School is the first LEED Platinum-rated K-12 school in the world, but what’s incredible is the story behind it. First, it’s a renovation of a fifty year old facility. Second, the renovation involved the students, so everyone was able to participate and learn about the benefits of a green building. Matter of fact, about sixteen 5th – 8th graders studied the building, wrote about its benefits, and recorded an audio feature explaining each green feature. Feel free to take the green building tour to learn about low-VOC materials, CO2 monitoring, natural light, native plants, the green roof and biology pond, photovoltaic panels, a heat recovery wheel, vertical solar fins, and the settling tank, etc. This is quite the impressive interactive visual/audio tour. Seriously, great work.
This articles was written by one of Jetson Green’s newest writers, Sarah Roe, an artist, art educator, and passionate environmentalist. As you can tell from the article below, she has considerable knowledge and experience with green materials. Welcome!
Here is one of the best looking, green countertop products on the market. And it is beautiful!! IceStone is made of 70-75% recycled material (glass mostly); of that, the post-consumer percentage is quite low (1-20%) but it is still a great product for LEED certification applications. IceStone is available in a wide variety of colors, some very bright and some neutral. My favorites are the Alpine White and White Pearl for neutrals and the Pistachio Pearl (green) for a bright accent. This product is just as beautiful in person as you would hope for it to be. It feels similar to Corian, even more stone-like, but it looks much more beautiful because of the array of glass moving through it. Some colors, usually on the more expensive side, even have white iridescent pieces of shell throughout, which is a gorgeous touch.
UPDATE: 5/1/08 – you can buy the original Inhabit now at Dwell.
Imagine stacking 50 to 100 prefabricated, modular units to create a high-tech, green, multifamily apartment building. That’s what Unico is all about. Over the last 18 months, Unico has been perfecting the development of a 15′ x 45′ foot box referred to as "Inhabit." The company started with idea of using shipping containers, but they later decided to build the box from scratch (and may revisit the use of containers later on). They partnered with Mithun and Hybrid Architecture, both major innovators in the modern and green space.
The Working Artists Ventura (WAV) Project by PLACE is a $57 million, state-of-the-art community designed by Adele Santos, Dean of Architecture at M.I.T. In total, the project will include 69 affordable artist spaces with monthly rent from $388-963; 13 market-rate, for sale lofts from $686,000-1,050,000; and 6,000 sf of arts-friendly businesses. The 130,000 sf, 4-floor building will be LEED certified and two blocks from local transit. The community will also have the area’s first car sharing program. Also check the video below.
++Working Artists Ventura Project PDF Brochure [PLACE]
++Affordable LEED Live/Work Space for Artists [Building Green TV]
Project Profiles
