February 12, 2008
SF's Federal Building: Out-Greening Everyone (Even LEED)
Our friends over at Curbed posted this interesting nugget of news, reporting that the new Federal building doesn't qualify for LEED certification. Holy schnikes!
According to Curbed:
Too damn ahead of its time, the systems used for environmental control in the Fed Building are so innovative that they have yet to be considered so by the overly-prescriptive commandments of Green. The Green Buildings Council, however, claim that LEED is a work-in-progress, and have consented to take the next few months to reevaluate the Federal Building.
In a Curbed post from December, architect Thom Mayne was quoted as having problems with LEED's style of certification. Now Mayne has created a building that has so much new green technology it is uncertifiable and is essentially a big middle finger to the LEED establishment. The Fed building is officially greener that Greeny McGreenerson. We just can't wait for LEED to catch up and recognize it.
Photo credit: Mister Buckets Serious Time
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it's about time someone called LEED out. for god's sake, it's just a corporate stamp. a building can be environmentally friendly entirely without LEED certification. just another way to shell out more money for something that doesn't -do- anything!
sheesh. it's so stupid!
I like the building and am happy to hear that it is a "green" building. It is my understanding, though, that they don't provide secure bike parking for their employees, which is kind of a bummer.
I design and build green buildings and industrial projects for a living as a Mechanical Engineer engineer (FYI Mechanical Engineers do the energy analysis and design, architects only make suggestions to us). And yes, I am a LEED Accredited Professional.
As I appreciate the discussion that Mayne is creating around the building he designed, LEED was created for every type of building in every environment. So for example, water collection systems might not be needed here, they are neccessary in the Arizona desert.
The problem is that city governments are using LEED instead of creating there own green building standards specific to the region. LEED is only an example and is a great resource, and is only intended to be used as a resource.
Build On,
-Stupendousburg
Points gained by Feds with ahead-of-its-time LEED-ish building techniques: 1,878,567
Points lost by fraudulently bombing Iraq into the stone age: 5,123,376,376,398,209,386,837.
So it evens out.