Posted by Melanie Bender on July 15 at 3:54 PM
In a recent article in
Good Magazine (
William Bostwick on the Life and Death of Green Design), William Bostwick argues the seemingly impossible point that the widely embraced
LEED sustainable building rating system has killed green design. His reasoning: LEED has purged sustainable building of its innovation - the lifeblood of great design, and especially essential for the cutting-edge field of green architecture.
As someone five-sixths of the way through studying for the LEED Accredited Professional exam, the idea of 100 hours of my life being rendered pointless due to an imminent backlash against the LEED system was enough to shock me into contemplation.
No one can argue against LEED's invaluable contributions to the awareness and propagation of green building. As result of the program simplifying, defining and corralling previously-abstract green building methods and principles - which Bostwick likens LEED to a standardized test - and green building was finally accessible to the masses. However, what effect has this 'mass-production' of green building techniques had on the
design component of green design? Does simply ticking your way down a pre-defined checklist incentivize against innovation, a component that is truly critical to the further advancement of green building?
The problem here stems from building designers following the letter of the rule and not the intent - a symptom of pursuing LEED certification for purely marketing purposes. Yes, innovation in design - a founding principle of LEED - is lost when architects approach green building design simply as a worksheet of pre-defined options that they check off along the way. However, LEED has incorporated room and incentives for rule-breaking at every turn, in the form of Credit Interpretation Rulings and Innovation in Design credits. Architects may choose not to utilize those options, however that is certainly a function of the architect's own priorities and preferences and not a shortcoming of LEED - much like faulting Tollhouse for stymieing baking breakthroughs by publishing a down-right tastey recipe for chocolate chip cookies.
LEED is what you make of it. If you choose to take the road-less-travelled and devise your own unique green building solutions, you can still bask in LEED's golden glow - as long as your willing to deal with some extra paperwork brought on by CIR and ID procedure. And if you're simply more comfortable designing a status-quo green building - hey, not everyone can conceive of or afford to build the next One Bryant Park - then that's still a vast improvement to designing a status-quo
un-green building.
2 Comments so far...
I can certainly understand Mr. Bostwick's point, as I have personally worked on a number of LEED projects where the architects have simply devised a LEED "punch list" to run down all the standard scenarios which offer the least resistance to get the required credits. Too often I find architects are concerned or unwilling to step outside the box on innovation. Certainly a component of this is the USGBC does not make it easy to expedite a LEED credit clarification on any new innovation, which can be understandingly frustrating with a project certification hanging in the balance.
However, having said all that, I would argue that LEED was perhaps the major determining factor in pushing green building to the larger construction market and responsible for hundreds if not thousands of green buildings that would not have been built to the same green standards without it. With the mandate to bring LEED rated buildings to most municipal, state and blue chip new construction the overall market has adapted and accepted that “green” building is no longer an option in commercial construction but a requirement. As the market has shifted and integrated LEED all the way through the contracting and facility owner level the program is now too ingrained to see a major backlash at that level.
Green building systems have been around for years before LEED and architects and designers have been building to these principals long before that. Yet it wasn’t until LEED was accepted and adopted at the ownership level that “green” building became something people were willing to invest in for their own buildings. Ultimately the program I believe is here to stay and LEED is nothing if not constantly adapting to the changing market, the differences between LEED 1.0 and LEED NC 2.2 are so dramatic they are barely resemble the same program. Architects and designers need to push LEED to allow quicker and more streamlined processes for credit clarifications and continue to push new ideas at the USGBC for adoption into future LEED programs.
Innovation in green buildings isn’t dead yet, just hidden by the path of least resistance. There will always be those who push beyond convention and design the next great green innovation, isn’t that the point of architecture in the first place, or the reason we are all drawn to it?
Posted by Jason Warnock on July 16 at 12:48 PMI need only point us to look at the manifold luxury apartment buildings "sprouting" up around Manhattan. As a citizen of the Upper East Side, where every corner is marked by a construction site or a building skeleton, I can vouch for the fact that LEED need not stand in the way if the architect is creative and inspired. Those luxury apartment buildings all intend to be LEED certified and they are quite beautiful, interesting and ground breaking in their own unique ways.
Posted by JR on July 18 at 2:41 PM