NASA shoots for LEED Platinum with new building
Posted on August 7th, 2010 by Daniel
As one of the nation’s premier organizations for the advancement of science, NASA really isn’t at the forefront of the latest and greatest in eco-friendly technology. That’s why the agency is making a push to revamp its decades old centers to join the green revolution. The Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Propellants North Administrative and Maintenance Facility is being constructed to obtain the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Platinum standard, its highest award for green construction.
What’s LEED? An acronym for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,” LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system. It verifies a building’s or community’s design and construction used strategies that improved performance in energy savings, water efficiency, and CO2 emissions reduction. It also verifies improved indoor environmental quality, and ensures resources were used in an eco-conscious manner, minimizing their impact on the environment.
One of the stringent requirements is to use materials and resources within a 500-mile radius from the construction site. To help it meet this requirement, the construction reused waste concrete from KSC’s demolition projects for its foundation, incorporated the old glazing and framing from the iconic Launch Control Center’s firing room, and added the crushed crawlerway rocks into its landscape.
Scheduled to open in late December, the 10,703-square-foot facility is designed to be 52% more efficient than traditional commercial buildings. It will have an underground rainwater collection system for irrigation and bathrooms, high-efficiency roofing, windows and walls, air conditioning with energy recovery technology, smart lighting controls, water-conserving bathroom fixtures and high-velocity hand dryers. Natural daylight will be incorporated with high windows at the right solar orientation, and the facility will use polished concrete and laminated bamboo for flooring.
Approximately 95% of all the waste generated during construction has been diverted from landfills. So far, they’ve recycled 475 tons of concrete, 163 pounds of crushed bottles and aluminum cans, 2.16 tons of cardboard, 164 pounds of white paper, 2.3 tons of wood and 3.5 tons of steel. These numbers will only increase as the project nears completion.
Our hats off to NASA.
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Tags: Kennedy Spaceflight Center, LEED Platinum, NASA, USGBC
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Featured Content, Green Construction and Remodeling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
i wonder if a silver snoopy award can be given for creating a healthy work environment
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