Page 214 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

190 CONCEPTUAL AND SCHEMATIC DESIGN

11 Can the circulation plan reduce the extent of impervious surfaces or find other
ways to support vehicles, including emergency vehicles that require less paving?
12 Have we considered site restoration as part of the building program? If so, are we
committed to creating natural areas versus providing active recreation areas?
13 Have we begun to consult with the landscape architect about site vegetation
preservation and potential restoration, where appropriate? If this is an urban site,
are we talking about saving water and creating habitat even in our hardscape
plantings?
14 How can the design be made unique to the place and/or region, for example,
through the use of regional or onsite building materials, or design references to
local or natural features?
15 Are there landscape elements such as trees or watercourses that can be extended
into the building, to connect indoors to out and thereby enhance the “sense of
place”? What about “winter gardens” or other “inside/outside” features?

PLATINUM PROJECT PROFILE

Donald Bren School of Environment, University of California,
Santa Barbara
The second LEED Platinum building ever certified, the Donald Bren School of
Environment is an academic laboratory and classroom facility located near the
Pacific Ocean in Goleta, California. The construction cost earlier in this decade
for this 84,672-square-feet building was $26 million. Twenty-five percent of the
building’s energy needs are met by a combination of grid power from landfill
methane gas and roof-mounted photovoltaic panels (which supply 7 percent of the
building’s energy). Energy savings are 49 percent compared to a standard
ASHRAE 90.1-1999 building. Mechanical interlocks on the operable windows
sense when the windows are open and automatically turn off the HVAC system.
The project uses recycled materials throughout the building, including fly-ash in
concrete (80 percent recycled), structural steel reinforcement (80 to 100 percent
recycled), fireproofing material (made from gypsum, polystyrene, cellulose, and
newsprint) and steel deck (30 percent).*

SITE WATER MANAGEMENT QUESTIONS
Water is emerging as a crucial design concern in many high-performance projects.
An integrated design team will look at water in a much more holistic way, consid-
ering the entire “water balance” of the site. Some important questions include the
following:

*Architectural Energy Corporation [online], http://www.archenergy.com/services/leed//donald_bren/, accessed
April 2008.