LEED CoreConcepts&Strategies_3rd edition - Page 050

Extracted Content

OBSERVING A SYSTEM

To observe and understand the site, team members must ask many questions:

• • What are the general climatic patterns of the site? What are the microclimates, and how and why do they occur? How does water fall on and run off the site? How does the sun affect these conditions?
• • What are the soils like on the site? Are they rich loam or hard clay? Has the site ever been used for agriculture? Can it be used to grow food now?
• • What plants and animals exist on the site? How did they get there? Are they healthy or stressed?
• • How does energy get to the site? Is the site remote or connected to a utility grid?
• • Are there roads? What type? Where do they go? Do they have sidewalks? How do the current occupants use this infrastructure?
• • What kind of buildings are on the site? How tall are they? How do they connect to the street? Are they new or old? Occupied or vacant? What are they used for?

It is important also to understand the patterns at work at different spatial scales. Mapping should always extend beyond the project borders to show how it fits into a local as well as regional scale. For example, the level of detail at a small scale might reveal much about the local street grid, but zooming out reveals connections to the regional transporation system.

Once all the relevant information about the project has been collected and assessed, it is time to return to the project goals. Given what the team has learned about the project systems, its needs and resources, do the goals of the project make sense? Are they achievable? Are there other ways to meet those goals by finding other leverage points in the systems? For a renovation project, the team might prepare a gap analysis that compares existing conditions with goals and identifies the gaps. Depending on what has been learned through observation, it may be necessary to go back and refine or revise the goals.

EXPLORATION AND SELECTION OF

TECHNOLOGIES AND STRATEGIES

Sustainable design requires thinking methodically through the types of strategies for each aspect of the system and evaluating alternatives against project goals through an iterative process. Although this process may be more involved and more expensive than a conventional design process, it is more likely to help the team arrive at solutions that will serve the project owner, the occupants, and the community over time. In general, the evaluation and selection phase of a sustainable design process involves listing all types of strategies and technologies that might make sense. This broad list is then reviewed and options narrowed based on certain criteria, such as whether a strategy is feasible on the site, whether a technology is available, and whether an approach is appropriate for the project. Once the list has been narrowed, more focused analysis may be required.

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