As reported by Curbed, the California Academy of Sciences recently lost the race to build the first LEED Platinum certified museum. They had to concede defeat to the Water + Life Museums in Hemet, California, which apparently came about when, after the construction of a local reservoir in the 1990’s, several significant fossil finds were unearthed, which ended up needin a home. Naturally, the response is “let’s build a green museum!” rather than, “where are we going to get the money for this?”
The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building System was introduced in 1998 to provide a standard by which the “greenness” of buildings can be measured, and is comprised of several itemized categories. Each category has a number of attributes that, if met, contribute to the LEED point total, which then in turn determines your certification level: Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum. Whereas you’d only need a minimum of 38% of the available points to earn a Certified rating, Platinum requires 76% or more. Everything from adding public transportation access to switching to less-offgassing glues counts, which means that Platinum is a serious commitment to making a building more “green”. Only about 75 buildings or building projects so far have been rated (or are gunning for) LEED Platinum, versus almost 500 that have the Certified rating (LEED maintains a list of projects). The relatively large ratio of Platinum to Certified would suggest that the LEED system is indeed working, incentivizing new projects to be “greener”.
The U.S. Green Building Council (the non-profit behind the LEED standards) has also branched out into creating separate rating systems for buildings like schools, retail outlets, and even residences. It is not, however, without its weaknesses. Often cited is the fact that once a building is LEED rated, its certification need not be renewed, leaving the social engineering door wide open for abuse (leaving computers on, running the A/C cool, etc). Perhaps the next LEED standard, 3.0 (YouTube), will attempt to address these issues, along with an expected points expansion for reduction of greenhouse gases.
Meanwhile, the California Academy of Sciences’ PR department has shifted their campaign focus just a tad:
When the Academy opens its doors in 2008, the design team anticipates the museum will earn international recognition as the world’s largest LEED Platinum-certified public space.
