Green building - not a goal, but an expectation
Hopefully you've been lucky enough here in Spokane to experience first-hand the awe-inspiring beauty of sustainable rennovation. You might even say we're spoiled here, though we're the first to admit not spoiled enough. The way we see it, green building innovation and practices is just plain smart. Every builder and developer's goal should be meeting today's needs without compromising those of tomorrow.
A great example of this is the recently rennovated Admissions and Alumni building at Seattle University, one of the greenest buildings on Capitol Hill. The 33-year-old LEED Gold structure was once a former warehouse, with 90 percent of the new building's materials coming from the older building. Some 20 green features in the building include a roof that collects and filters rainwater, natural ventilation, drought-tolerant native landscaping, natural lighting and photovoltaic panels.
If you're in the Seattle area, or traveling there this weekend, you can see it yourself at a public unveiling this
Saturday, Oct. 17, at 3 p.m., at 12th Avenue and Marion. The event
will include remarks by Seattle U President Stephen Sundborg, S.J., and a tour of the building. If you can't make it, check out this "virtual" tour. It's pretty neat.
Here in Spokane we have several examples to pull from. Just last April, the Saranac Building on Main Street was Certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum from the U.S. Green Building Council, the highest certification awarded. A goal that the constuction site across the street from the Saranac, the Main Market Co-Op, hopes to attain. Spokane Falls Community College recently became Washington’s first community college building to receive the LEED Gold certification. And Spokane's own Mountain Gear operates its catalog and web order, warehouse, and corporate operations out of a 112,000-square-foot LEED Gold certified building in Spokane Valley.
To consume less so others can have more - that's the goal of green builidng. But alas, sustainble building should be more than a goal, it should be an expectation. Then we truly will be spoiled.
