November/December 2006 Special Issue: LEED®

Building Products Revue
Green Roofs Form Centerpiece to High-Profile Seattle Projects
Lushly planted green roofs that change color with the season are the centerpieces of two new buildings in downtown Seattle. The roofs provide not only a distinctive design feature for the buildings but also important environmental and economic benefits for the city of Seattle.
The Justice Center’s 8,500 square-foot garden roof was completed in 2002. From the very beginning, sustainability was a top design criterion, says Knut Hansen, senior associate for project architect NBBJ Design. The design features an intricate planting design guided by an image of sunlight reflected in a shallow streambed. But not only is the design visually appealing, the plants on the roof retain moisture and reduces the amount of stormwater entering the city’s storm sewer system.
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DCD Insights
The DCD LEED® Square Foot Cost Guide
Design Cost Data™ proudly presents the DCD LEED® Square Foot Cost Guide. Following are actual LEED rated case studies published by DCD and which are included in the DCD Archives™ online at DCD.COM.
Design Cost Data is based on the philosophy that actual buildings, when coupled with up-to-date cost indices, are the most reliable basis for future building costs. The buildings appearing in this guide reflect square foot costs that have been escalated to December 2006 and targeted to a historical location factor of 1 (see DCD Regional Modifiers and Cost Escalators on page 41 of this issue). The DCD LEED® Square Foot Cost Guide is separated by LEED® classification along with the project’s case study number (i.e. CV041140: 04 = published in 2004; 11 = Nov/Dec issue; 40 = page number) and building type.
This LEED® Square Foot Cost Guide is provided as a service of Design Cost Data magazine, which has served the industry since 1958.
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Do Green Design Strategies Really Cost More?
By Scott May
The concept of building “green” has certainly moved out of the realm of the theoretical and into the mainstream of current construction practices, and as with many economic models, familiarity and general acceptance drive down the costs of new technology. But the question remains, “Are the costs of building green marginal or extensive?” Certainly many sustainable design strategies cost no more than conventional building techniques, but the real goal of interdependence between strategies, sometimes called holistic design, makes determining the true cost difficult to determine.
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Is Sustainable Design Sustainable?
By R. Gregory Turner, AIA, LEED AP
Since it’s been only eight years since the LEED® pilot program was first rolled out, perhaps it’s too early to worry about the future of sustainable design. However, the underpinning rationale of the “sustainability” movement—that ever-increasing numbers of people will compete for scarcer resources on the globe—may be endangered. For at just the time that it seems to some that we have reached the limits of what the earth can provide, the earth may be about to be asked to provide less.
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High-Performance Roofing:
The Next Stage in Design/Cost Standards for Commercial Roofing
By Drew Ballensky
As anyone involved in the North American commercial roofing industry knows, these are two questions that building owners and managers are asking with increasing regularity. Most commercial roofing buyers still want to know about cost and performance first, but as both “cool” and “sustainable” roofing continue to gain marketplace acceptance, they are driving significant change in market dynamics, roof system design and manufacture, product innovation, industry initiatives, selection priorities, building codes and legislation. 
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