Submitted by Lisa Colon Heron
As “Green Building” initiatives gather steam, the insurance industry is responding to creating insurance products that respond to the risks associated with building green. The insurance industry has been slowly responding to the needs of owners, developers, and design professionals who are building green.
Builder’s Risk Products
The Firemen’s Fund has a “Green [...]
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Cisco has presented an interesting integrated information technology model in its Cisco ® Connected Real Estate solution. [http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/trec/Cisco_AAG.pdf].
The system has overlap with green goals, and encompasses a similar conceptual shift away from the operational separation of traditional tenants in a building (each with their own communications, internet, and other systems) to shared building-wise infrastructure, which [...]
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Despite predictions that the construction industry would be inundated with green building lawsuits, there is a paucity of reported lawsuits relating to green building projects. One of the first reported cases involving green buildings is Southern Builders, Inc. v. Shaw Development, L.L.C., Case No. 19-C-07-01145 (Circuit Court of Somerset County, Md. 2006). This dispute arose [...]
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Perhaps the biggest loophole in the LEED certification process is the fact that there is little incentive for owners to ensure that buildings maintain efficient performance post-certification. Under the previous LEED rating systems, once a building obtained a LEED certification level, it would not be downgraded if actual building performance deteriorated or did not live [...]
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Recently, Nicole Kibert of Carlton Fields, P.A., compiled an Index of Green Building Provisions in Municipal Codes. The article is an excellent resource for Florida green building practitioners because it identifies the local green building requirements and incentives. The following excerpt from Kibert’s article highlights state a local efforts to mandate and encourage green building practices [...]
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What’s old will not only be new again but if all goes right, green and LEED certified! The Coral Gables Museum will be housed in the city’s original police and fire station located at 285 Aragon Avenue. The building was constructed in 1939 by architect Phineas Paist, one of the original designers of the City [...]
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PURETi is a surface treatment that uses UV-PCO (ultraviolet photocatalytic oxidation) with ultraviolet light to transform treated materials into self-cleaning surfaces. Benefits include reducing the water, chemicals, and energy used in cleaning by at least 50%, plus significantly reducing air pollution. Light energy from the sun (or fluorescent lamps) energizes a mineral called anatase titanium [...]
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Have a big blank wall in a green building but don’t know what to do with
it? The social and environmental values underlying green buildings are spurring innovation in art. A great example is the Mangrove Wall at the Miami Science Museum. Conceived by artist Xavier Cortada, the wall began with volunteers collecting mangrove seedlings. The [...]
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Submitted by: Taylor Ralph, RealBuilding, LEED AP, Green Building Consultant
While the rain begins to hit our roofs almost daily—those afternoon showers that simultaneously cool things off yet make our air more humid—consider the fate of this precious source of water for our region…
Our water infrastructure includes the design of expensive, and extensive, storm water management [...]
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The June 2, 2009 issue of USA Today(page 5D) has an article, “Prefab homes now sprout green designs.” This article features Michelle Kaufmann, a San Francisco Bay area architect who first designed her own manufactured green home and then went into business building them for others. The article gives other examples and states that building [...]
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