Green Schools Offer New Lessons
In the new age of green buildings, input from school officials, parents and the community is crucial to ensure that a new facility is designed with components that are the most beneficial to the people it serves. Environmentally friendly bells and whistles are rendered irrelevant and sometimes become costly add-ons if they are not understood, accepted and harnessed by the community.
CHICAGO — Greenbuild, the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual conference, swept through Chicago last week, cramming the facilities at McCormick Place with more than 21,000 attendees and 850 exhibitors.
The conference site appeared overwhelmed at times with limited space for educational seminars and attendees waiting in long lines to hear speakers and purchase food and beverages.
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OS ANGELES — A new $102.5 million crime lab in Los Angeles County designed to meet LEED certification recently opened its doors, changing the way law enforcement in the region handles criminal cases and the way students learn their trade.
WASHINGTON — The new Washington Nationals professional baseball franchise may finish the 2007 season in last place but come next 
spring they will lead the league when they swing for the fences in the first environmentally sustainable sports stadium in the United States.
Greenbelt, Md. — NASA broke ground on a $56 million eco-friendly Exploration Sciences Building at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center here.
The 265,500-square-foot research-laboratory and office building, which is registered for LEED Silver certification, will house personnel from the astrophysics and solar systems exploration divisions and the office of the directorate.
WEBSTER, Texas — The Houston metropolitan land market and simple long-run economics pushed Jacob White Construction to develop the three-story East Medical Center project around environmentally sustainable technologies that may win LEED gold certification with the largest living roof in the state, according to officials.
But company president Jeff Mickler also sees the project, which features two 48,000-square-foot medical buildings, as a marketing tool that can differentiate Jacob White in the market.
ATLANTA — The DeKalb County School System started construction of a new high school that is expected to achieve LEED silver certification and set new building standards for the district and the state.
Arabia Mountain High School, scheduled to open in January 2009, will be the first LEED-certified public school in the state of Georgia, according to reports.
Sustainable design concepts can take hold in a variety of different ways. Some school planners are forced to take a subtle approach, incorporating design techniques that offer the most cost-effective solutions for communities that are still not sold on the legitimacy of the green building. Other planners have the luxury of stretching their arms and grasping new ideas that push the boundaries of what can be done to produce high-performance, sustainable schools.
BALTIMORE — Goucher College officials broke ground in April on a new 100,000-square foot, sustainable building that will serve as the central gathering place for the campus.
The Athenaeum, designed by Hillier Architecture of Princeton, N.J., will be a multi-use building that will include a campus library, an art gallery, a café, and a center for community service and multicultural affairs.
Students will also have access to an open forum for performances, lectures and other events, exercise space and an area for conversation and relaxation.
WASHINGTION — An American Institute of Architects committee that focuses on sustainable design released the 2007 selections for the top 10 green projects, which include a university research center, a U.S. Courthouse and a water purification facility.
The Committee on the Environment released its selections for the program that started in 1997 in conjunction with Earth Day and the projects were honored May 3 at the American Institute of Architects National Convention in San Antonio .
