LEED Sustainable Construction Project - Term Paper Example

LEED Sustainable Construction Project Introduction The higher performance12000 square foot commercial building needs to be designed and constructed. The building is anticipated to be certified as one of the LEED facility with a minimum of Gold certification. The commercial building will move some of the corporate offices to four thousand square feet of a building’s upper floor. The remaining section of the footage will be leased to different commercial tenants. The site work will include partial partitioning and redesigning of the constructed building and putting up staircase. The site improvement will include landscaping and site amenities for the commercial tenants like enhancing the outdoor space. The site amenities will include pathway, packing lot, and outdoor gathering space. The configuration of the building will include the training rooms, board rooms, conference rooms, and commercial offices for tenants. Additionally, the project will have a certification from LEED. LEED sustainable construction project is designed to change the built environment. The project has proved performance where nothing comes so easily. When thinking of saving money, reducing consumption of water, driving innovation, conserving energy, improving the quality of indoor air, and making proper choices of building materials, then LEED has proven to be the proper choice. LEED construction project is assisting in delivering the efficiency of water and energy, health, building that are environmentally cost saving, communities, and homes. LEED construction project is more than the credits and the points. Behind the program of LEED there is an infrastructure that is immensely developed in supporting the leaders in the section during innovation and creation of cutting edge, buildings of high performance, neighborhoods and homes. For instance USGBC invested more than 30 million dollars in maintaining, operating and improving LEED and their customer delivery. There is no single rating system that nears the infrastructure of LEED. The first step is the project registration. Registering the project will open the door to award winning customer and resources (Hove &Tong, 28). Each LEED project has access to LEED online. The LEED online is a convenient and clear instrument to document the achievement of LEED credit. Additionally, the registered project will get access to customer service. Here the used will interact with the project viewer, account managers, customer service team, and representatives from the business team, and experts from LEED department. Additionally, they will get access to the professional infrastructure. When a certification with LEED is earned, the following building potential will be unlocked; assurance, performance, and unrivaled visibility. LEED certification is upheld across the world as the achievement mark in the green building. LEED therefore helps the small and large business. LEED building assists the small and large business to thrive. When one invests in LEED, is equated to a lifetime return. The certified buildings are cheap to operate with reduced water and energy bills by more than 40%. The organizations and businesses use LEED in increasing the building’s efficiency, freeing the valuable resources that might be used in creating jobs, retaining talent, and investing in technologies that are emerging (“Green building and LEED core concepts guide”, 61). LEED applies to the building in various ways; it lowers the operating cost of the building and also increases the asset value of the building. LEED also conserves the resources of the building such as water, energy, and other crucial resources. It also ensures that occupants of the construction project are safer and healthier. Also, at LEED’s core, it also offers third party verification of the buildings. The building project will satisfy the prerequisites of the program and earns points after achieving various certification levels. 2. LEED Rating Systems The rating systems are collections of requirement for the projects the need to attain the LEED certification. Each collection is mainstreamed towards the strange needs of a building type or a project. LEED is characterized to be flexible enough in applying to every project including the schools, homes, healthcare facilities and the whole neighborhood. Each project tends to earn points when the requirements for the green building are satisfied. Within every LEED credit category, the project needs to satisfy certain requirements so that they get points. The point the project earns depends on the degree of LEED certification. The main credit categories include the sustainable sites credits, water efficiency credits, energy and atmosphere credits, resources and materials credits, and indoor environmental quality credits. Other LEED for Neighborhood Development Credit groups include the linkage credits and smart locations, building credits and green infrastructure. Other LEED for the category of Homes Credit are linkage and Location credits, Education and Awareness credit. Consequently, the other bonus credit categories are Regional priority credits and Innovation in operations credits or innovation in design. The certification designed by US Green Building Council, requires that the construction project meets some exceptionally standards characterized by high green performance. Various categories for the LEED will eligibly apply to the construction project. The LEEd rating system for the new construction includes the certified, Silver, Gold and platinum. The construction project will be granted certification based on the number of credit in the construction area that entails the selection of the construction site; the design’s water efficiency, energy efficiency, sustainable resources and materials, and indoor quality of the environment. Meeting the fundamental LEED guidelines places the construction project at the certification level of LEED, and when the construction project meets the exemplary guidelines gives the building the silver, gold, or platinum rank. The LEED construction site will take less expenses to operate, and will have harmless impact on the environment that the normally operated and designed buildings. The construction project will reduce waste, conserve energy and water, and generally use material that is less harmful to the building. According to the council, the construction project will stand out from their competitors and raises the rental rate of the building, and attract tenants highly with the certification from LEED. The colloquial evidence shows that the certification has become a standard need for the commercial tenants that look for areas to lease, exerting pressuring on the owner of the building to apply the certification of LEED. The Green Building Act sets the performance standards for the private building, publicly financed, and city’s public. The construction project must meet the LEED silver guidelines. The construction project will be forced to meet the LEED Gold standard. The indicator is used in updating the count for the LEEd construction project especially those that are Gold certified. The urge of reducing operational cost or environment effect may affect the owner of the building in applying the LEED certification. This same applies to the desire for meeting the expectation of clients and market differentiation. The above standards are performance oriented systems of rating where the construction project will earn points to satisfy the criteria designed in addressing the specific impacts of the environment inherent in the construction of the project. The certification system is organized in terms of sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, material and resources and indoor environmental quality. The point breakdown for the construction will be based on point where 40-49 is certified, 50-59 Is silver, and 60-79 is Gold, while 80 and above Is platinum. The certification is seen as an achievement for signifying that the construction project is designed and operates as it is intended. The certification will help the owner of the project to manage and measure the building, this certification is compared to the nutrition label found on the food packages. Just like other projects, the construction was designed for the office building, but has also applied to other projects like commercial occupancies, service establishment, retails, residential buildings, and institutional buildings. 3. Sustainable Sites Sustainable site credit encourages the mechanisms that reduce the effect on the water resources and ecosystems. The category for sustainable site comprises of a prerequisite called the Construction Activity Pollution Prevention. The prerequisite needs projects to use the sedimentation and erosion in reducing pollution from the activities of construction through controlling airborne dust generation, soil erosion, and waterway sedimentation. The intent for credit 1 is to avoid developing inappropriate sire and minimize the environmental effect of the position of a construction on a site. The constructors are not advised to develop landscape, parking areas, roads, or hardscape on a portion of the construction site that meet the following criteria; prime farmland defined by the federal regulations, previously undeveloped areas having an elevation lower than five feet above the elevation. Additionally, land that is identified as the habitat for the endangered list. The Potential technology and strategy for this category specifies that during the process of site selection, preference should be given to sites that do not have insensitive site elements and confined land types. A suitable construction, location should be selected and develop a building with minimum footprint to reduce the size disruption of the environmentally sensitive regions that are identified above. The intent of the first credit is to rehabilitate the damaged construction site where building is complicated by the contamination of the environment, reducing the pressure on the land that is undeveloped. The requirements needed for this is to develop on the construction site documented or on the construction site defined by the local, federal government , or state by the brownfield. The potential strategies and technologies during the process of site selection, offers the preferences to sites considered by brownfield. The construction site needs to identify the property cost and tax incentives. The development plan of the construction site needs to be coordinated. The second credit for this category is development density and community connectivity. The intent of the rating is to channel development to areas having existing infrastructure, protected Greenfields, preserved natural resources and habitat. The first option is development density where the construction project needs to be developed in the community, having a minimum density of sixty thousand feet per acre. The second option is community connectivity, where the construction project needs to be developed on a site that was previously developed and within a half mile of the residential zone having a density of ten units per acre. The potential strategy behind this is that the process of site selection needs to be given preference to urban regions with a pedestrian access to various services (Kubba, 92). 4. Water Efficiency The water efficiency credits encourage proper use of water, internally and externally, to minimize the consumption of portable water. The intent of credit 1 is to eliminate using portable water or resources of water near the sites, for irrigation of landscape. The reductions are attributed to irrigation efficiency, using captured water and using recycled rainwater. Credit 2 minimizes the wastewater generation and demand of portable water while raising the recharge of local aquifer. The first option is reducing the use of portable water for constructing the sewage conveyance. The second option is treat half of waste water to tertiary standards. In summary, Credit is made when the water efficient landscaping is reduced by 50 percent. The intent of this system is to eliminate using portable water or subsurface water resources that are found the site of projects. The requirement under this category include factor of plant species, irrigation efficiency, using captured rainwater, using recycled waste water and using the treated water by the tenants. The potential strategies and technologies under this category involves performing climate analysis in determining the best design and plant material the landscape with adapted plants in reducing or eliminating the irrigation requirements. When irrigation is needed, the climate-based controllers need to be used. Additionally, the category is credited when the use of portable water is not embraced. The requirements are using the recycled grey water and those conveyed by the public agency. Alternatively, installing landscaping that does not need permanent irrigation schemes. The artificial irrigation system for establishing the plant is removed if they are removed within a single period of installation. The potential strategies for this involve using the grey water and condensing the irrigated water. Credit 2 which is innovative wastewater technologies embraces the technology of reducing the wastewater generation and demand of portable water while rising the domestic aquifer recharge. The requirement has two options; reduce using portable water for developing the sewage conveyance by half through using the fixtures for conserving water and water that are non-portable. Another option is treating half of the wastewater on the construction site to territory guidelines. The treated water need to be infiltrated on the construction site. The potential technologies and strategies for this involves specifying fixtures that are highly efficient and drying fixture like compositing the systems of toilet and non-water by employing urinals in reducing the volumes of wastewater. The options for the construction site include packaging biological the systems that remove the nutrients, developed wetland and using filtration systems that are highly efficient. Energy and Atmosphere The atmosphere and energy credits encourage the energy performance of better building through strategies of innovation. The intend for this category is to extend the life of the existing stocks, conserving resources, retaining the cultural resources, reducing water, and reducing the environmental effects of the new building when relating to materials transport and manufacturing. The requirement here is to maintain at least three quarters of the building structure and envelope them. Hazardous material remediated on the scope of the project will not be included in the calculation of the maintained percentage. The intent of credit 1 is to achieve an increasing performance level above the guidelines in the prerequisite in reducing economic impacts and environmental associated with the increasing use of energy. The requirement of this credit involves selecting one of the path options described below. The option for the credit demonstrates a given improvement in the performance of the building compared to the performance of the guideline by the entire simulation of the project using the performance of the building. The minimum energy expenses must conform to the standards. Therefore, achieving the points, the design must adhere to the mandatory guidelines. Additionally, the building must include the cost of energy associated and within the commercial project and must undergo compared against the baseline building complying with the standard. The energy cost of the default process is 25 per cent of the energy cost for the project. The potential strategies and technologies of the credit is to develop the building systems and envelope to increase the performance of the energy. The building need to used the simulation model of computers in assessing the performance of the energy and come up with the efficiency measures. The intent of credit 2 is to divert construction, demolish, and clear debris from the incinerators and landfills. Additionally, they redirect the recyclable resources back to the process of manufacturing. The requirement for such a credit is to salvage at least half of the demolition debris or the non-hazardous construction. The building systems and envelope needs to be designed in order to maximize the performance of the energy. The computer simulation model need to be used in assessing the performance of the energy and identify the cost effective energy measures. The energy performance need to be quantifies when compared to the building’s baseline. Assuming the domestic code has shown textual equivalence and quantitative, the outcomes of the analysis need to be used in correlating the performance of the local code. Additionally, the building needs to be assessed for potential of renewable and non-polluting energy like the solar, wing, biogas strategies, geothermal, biomass, and low impact hydro. 5. Material and Resources Resources and material credits encourage the waste reduction and using sustainable building materials. Credit 1 maximizes the performance of energy. The requirement needed here are simulation of whole building energy. The process energy includes the elevators, escalators, refrigeration, and laundry washing. In this credit, the process loads will be similar for performance of baseline building and the performance of the proposed building. Credit 2 is on site renewable energy. The renewable energy is used in offsetting the energy cost of building. The project performances are calculated through expressing the produced energy by systems such as energy cost percentage. The potential strategies and technologies for the potential of renewable energy include the solar, wind, bio-gas strategies, biomass, and low-impact hydro. When the strategies are applied the net metering will be used with the domestic utility (Marcus, 82). The strategies and technologies used here involve reusing the present building including the interior elements that are non-structural, envelope elements, and structure. Consequently, elements posing as the risk to the occupants of the building that will improve the efficiency of water and energy like the plumbing fixtures and mechanical systems. Consequently, other diversion goals need to be established in incinerators and landfills and adopting the management plan for the construction waste in achieving the goals. Specific areas of the building need to be designated on the site for commingles or segregated collection of the recycled materials and tracking the recycled effort in the entire construction process. Also the construction recyclers and haulers need to be identifies in handling the designated materials. The diversion may entail donating materials to organization and salvaging the materials on the construction site. 6. Indoor Environmental Quality Indoor environmental quality credit encouraged better air quality and accessing daylight and views. The intent of credit 1 is to reduce the indoor surfaces, building occupants, and distribution if ventilation air from CO. This can be done through prohibiting smoking in the building, and locating the designated smoking zones 25 feet away from the outdoor air intakes and windows that are operating. The second option is to prohibit smoking in building apart from designated smoking zones. Additionally, one needs to locate designated smoking region far from entrance. Therefore, the potential strategies and potential technologies for this category involve prohibiting smoking in commercial area or control the ventilation in smoking zones. In residential areas, smoking need to be prohibited in common regions, developing envelope and system to reduce transfer of ETS among the dwelling regions. Therefore, the ventilation system of the building should be designed in meeting or exceeding the minimum ventilation rates according to the standards of ASHRAE. The ventilation rate on the energy use need to be balanced and the quality of the indoor air in optimizing the efficiency of energy and the health of occupants. In areas that have spaces which are mechanically ventilated, the heat recovery needs to be used. This is important in minimizing the consumption of additional energy that is associated with the ventilation rates. The spaces that are naturally ventilated to follow the requirement of develop design, paths of plan airflow, identifying the uses of the building and area that needs special attention. The requirement for the ventilation need to be determines. Other requirement includes the estimation of the external driving forces, selecting the ventilation devices, analyzing their design, and the devices for size ventilation. The software for the public domain like CONTAM, Loop Da, Sizing Tool, and Multizone Modeling Software need to be used in predicting the airflows. 7. Conclusion The sustainable construction building will be covered with recycled copper cladding on the exterior of the building. The division of the outside and inside world is made possible by the use of extensive glasses. This has made the success of the building apparent. In the entire building copper was prioritized due to its superior durability, high degree of recyclability, and higher maintenance cost. Additionally, the project sculpted most of the exterior that fits the traditional surroundings. And copper was the ideal material that was proven to work. The cladding employed the flat seam technique to bring the building to an older campus building and traditional surroundings, the flexibility of design attained with copper enabled the designers to use the glazing desired while reducing the glare which accompanies it through manipulation of copper in creating horizontal and vertical sun shading. The shading reduced the glare and also minimizes the variation of temperature in the building. The building brought multiple envelop elements under a single roof. Other features that are found in the building include durable brick and recycled copper used to construct the exterior of the building. There is also water recycling systems that tapped water in landscape irrigation. Additionally, the building has automatic lighting controls, and sensors that recognizes when people are found inside. Consequently, the motorized windows are energy efficient taking advantage of ventilations (Meisel, 74). To improve the building rate in the category of water efficiency, the designers could have incorporated the technologies and strategies for water efficiency during the design and construction process. Additionally, they could have done the early integration and planning by comprehending the water efficiency credit, in addition the design strategies for meeting the planning requirements and processes. Therefore, the designers could have incorporated the strategies because it is crucial to maximize the water efficiency of the project. Reference Green building and LEED core concepts guide. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: U.S. Green Building Council, 2011. Print. Hove, M. A., and S. Y. Tong. Surface crystallography by LEED: theory, computation, and structural results. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1979. Print. Kubba, Sam. LEED practices, certification, and accreditation handbook. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann/Elsevier, 2010. Print. Marcus, P. M. Determination of surface structure by LEED. New York: Plenum Press, 1984. Print. Meisel, Ari. LEED materials: a resource guide to green building. New York, N.Y.: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010. Print. Read More