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challenge
Assist the county in developing a comprehensive approach to its
Green Building program
solution
The client sought to promote a greener mindset and more sustainable
building throughout the 21 communities located in San Mateo County.
Our checklist and guidelines package, now the centerpiece of the county's
public education campaign, supports a countywide approach. Cities and
other jurisdictions can now offer citizens the same resources at the
front end of a building project, when decisions are being discussed and
made. The checklist and guidelines format makes it easy for users to
determine what they can do to make their projects more sustainable,
whether new construction or renovations. Data from completed checklists
is being compiled to give the county a quantifiable understanding of
what kinds of green objectives are most and least met.
Using the checklist and guidelines is voluntary but, from the start,
they were enthusiastically received. The material, online at
http://www.recycleworks.org/publication.html, is also available in
print and will soon be translated into Spanish.
challenge
Write guidelines that are comprehensive yet easily understood
solution
Many items in the checklist and guidelines are fairly simple,
inexpensive, and easy to accomplish. Throughout, we consistently
prioritize potential goals so as to show where to make a start.
Information is organized to follow the course of a typical construction
project, enabling users to understand what can be done to be green at
each point in a construction or renovation project.
Truly green buildings are energy-efficient, water-conserving, durable
and non-toxic, offering high-quality, healthy spaces for users and
incorporating environmentally sensitive materials. So, principal author
Raphael Sperry, a LEED-accredited designer at 450 architects, also
emphasizes integrated green building, which takes environmental
issues into account during design as well as construction. Integrated
design may require a departure from conventional building systems but
offers correspondingly large environmental and health rewards.
This undertaking also illustrates our studio's collaborative nature
because, in assembling the material, we sought out the contributions of
individuals in and outside San Mateo government. Our objective was to
blend universal specifics from a variety of resources along with details
that are specific to San Mateo County.
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San Mateo County RecycleWorks Green Building Program
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