LEED Silver for UC Riverside Research Building

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu/) -- Friday marks the official unveiling of a building at the University of California, Riverside that will not only house the first public medical school in California in more than 40 years but also serve as model for sustainable design.
The three-story, 58,000 square foot School of Medicine Research Building is designed to meet the LEED Silver standards of the U.S. Green Building Council.
The building has cloud cover sensors that activate motorized shades which deploy during peak sun hours to keep the building cool in Riverside's desert climate. With this system, it's estimated that lighting won't be needed 80 percent of the time.
Also, through a process called "night flushing," air is filtered into the building at night to cool the concrete slab the building sits on. The slab remains cool into the day, limiting the need for air conditioning during summer days when triple-digit temperatures are common.
"The building is smart enough to be run by its own weather station," said Don Caskey, campus architect at UC Riverside.The goal is to cut energy use to one-third of a typical lab building, Caskey said.

Within the building, water use is expected to cut 30 percent and outside, through water-efficient landscaping, irrigation use is expected to be cut 50 percent.
The building was designed by SRG Partnerships, Inc. and built by Barnhart Balfour Beatty.

University Of California, Riverside, 900 University Avenue University Village 204B, Riverside, CA 92521 United States

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Are Home Builders Going Green?

With the announcement in February by the National Association of Home Builders about the launch of their national green home rating system some people are questioning if this program will work or fail. In a recent article published on iGreenBuild.com green building consultant and author Jerry Yudelson explains his thoughts on this subject and gives some professional insight into NAHB's program. Read the full article here.

How do you feel about NAHB's rating system?

Seattle Sets The Pace For Green Building In U.S.

I just read an interesting piece in the Seattle Times about King and Snohomish counties having a goal to build 10,000 Built Green homes by 2010. According to the Times the total already stands at nearly 12,000 homes. Amazing! Take a look at www.BuiltGreen.net and learn about how this organization provides consumers with rating systems for green-home construction and remodeling in Seattle. This is a great initiative that other cities and counties around the nation are learning from.

Cheers to BuiltGreen.net and our friends in Seattle!