My first presentation of the quarter is now over. It was a group presentation for a precedent study we did on affordable housing for seniors. Our particular project was the Casa Grande Senior Apartments in Petaluma, CA. It was interesting for me because they recently won a really prestigious award from the governor for being both environmentally and economically conscious. They received a lot of "green points" but they were awarded for things like eco-friendly materials and materials containing recycled content. According to the sources they used a metal framing system rather than wood to conserve natural resources.
That doesn't make much sense to me because it seems like metal, even if it has recycled content, would take as much energy to produce as wood and metal is not renewable. And while using recycled materials and eco-friendly products are important, they should be awarding green points for passive design elements; for example, how much of the space can be fully lit with daylight alone for how many hours a day, in winter?
The design had a little of that with floor to ceiling windows and a south-east orientation but it's not enough, and those efforts weren't really recognized.
We need to change the way we evaluate buildings in terms of sustainability. NOW.
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