Project: Intelligent and/or Green

For my term project, I will be focusing on the topic “Intelligent and/or Green”.  I really wanted to work on this topic for two reasons.  The first reason is that I have been interested in green buildings since high school.  I was in a magnet program in high school that focused on the environment.  The program not only showed us what was currently out there (we visited a landfill and an incinerator) and what was emerging technology (we visited BP’s solar cell factory and learned a little bit about alternative building materials, like hay bales), but also taught us about the pros and cons of everything (existing and emerging).  During my senior year of high school is when green buildings were just starting to make a name for themselves and people were starting to really analyze their impacts.  It was also at this time that construction of the Philip Merrill Center, headquarters of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, had been completed.  The Philip Merrill Center is the first LEED Platinum building; it was so “green” that USGBC had to create the Platinum certification for it because it exceeded the Gold certification standard by such a large amount.  Since it was the agenda of the program to turn out “save the trees (and the animals and the catfish and the spiders and the ….)” high school graduates (who would then hopefully go on and become lawyers or engineers or anyone who would be able to change policies to save the planet), we drove 2 hours to visit the CBF headquarters.  From that day on, I knew that I wanted to be a part of the green industry – whether it was design or construction.  At my alma mater, we were encouraged to always think sustainably.  When we learned new material, someone would inevitably always ask about its sustainability and life cycle.  Thankfully, I get to work at the company that constructed the Merrill Center and try to realize my dream to construct every building “green”.  Since I will be able to make green buildings a part of my career, I chose this topic to learn more about the topic I am so passionate about.

Secondly, I know very little about intelligent buildings.  When I used to hear the term “intelligent buildings”, it was usually the TV version of intelligent buildings that popped into my mind – house that talks to you, cooks food for you, etc.  From the first couple of classes, I know that this may be a future version of intelligent buildings, but right now intelligent buildings are about how they regulate themselves.  This regulation may be adjusting the temperature in a room to be a set temperature or adjusting window shades to allow more or less light inside.  From the knowledge I have of sustainability and how it pertains to green buildings, I am very interested to learn how these two combine with intelligent buildings and how it makes each of the them better.

As Matthew wrote in his blog, infrastructure improvement is a dire need for this country.  The last time this country pushed for infrastructure improvements was in the 60's.  This means that the majority of our infrastructure is over 50 years old and reaching the end of its design lifespan.  The longer we wait to improve infrastructure, the more we jeopardize the safety of the public that we are committed to protect.  In Matthew's post, he also mentioned the importance of improving water systems and conserving water.  As he says, water in this country is taken for granted as we assume that we will have clean water to drink and use when we turn on the faucet.  This assumption is quickly becoming history as the population grows and fresh water is becoming a scare resource.  Through our urban development, we have drastically reduced the pervious surfaces that allow water to infiltrate the ground and recharge our aquifers.  Instead, this water runs off into our surface waters carrying pollutants, which leads to contaminated and dirty water.  Ignoring the problem will lead to countries having to implement other, more expensive, methods at turning unusable water (e.g. saltwater) into drinking water.  Unfortunately, despite the continuing decline in water availability, it remains a minor issue with green buildings.  When I was studying for my LEED exam, I noticed that the section on water management was small compared to the other topics.  When you look at the 2009 scorecard, Water Efficiency only has 10 points compared to 26 for Sustainable Sites and 35 points for Energy and Efficiency.  Only Innovation and Design (6 points) and Regional Priority (4 points) are less than Water Efficiency.  This limitation with green buildings is something that I will be addressing in my paper.

I think the biggest challenge of this project is going to be finding material on intelligent buildings.  Green buildings will be easy to find as everyone is talking about green buildings and their impacts on the triple bottom line.  Intelligent buildings though may be referenced it various terms in research papers which may make them difficult to find.

USGBC LEED Green Associate Study Guide. Washington, DC: U.S. Green Building Council, 2009. Print.