Green architecture has been overly promoted whereby in some buildings, they actually do not achieve true sustainability. Some supposedly green offices are actually built in somewhere secluded so employees have to drive miles to reach the office which is not environmentally friendly. There has been an increased on the number of architects who registered with US Green Building Council (GBC) for LEED (Leadership on Energy and Environmental Design) certification because they will be given up to 35% of tax rebates. However, not many of these buildings are environmentally friendly at all. Houses are increasingly advertised as green although there is an absence of national standards to quantify what is a green house. The California Academy of Sciences is one of the few buildings which is not only green but also beautiful on the outside. It has a roof which planted 40 native species which do not need any irrigation. Surprisingly, the building is not air-conditioned at all because breezes that blow off Pacific help to cool the building down. There are weather sensors which adjust the brightness according to the weather, solar panels which store solar energy and recycled old jeans used as insulation. Architects in the future will be taught to fuse green with design, in the hope that some of them will come up with buildings which are even more environmentally friendly. Furthermore, the US GBC has changed its standards on what constitute to a green building like easy access to public transport will gain credit than the necessity of cars.
Reference
McGuigan. C. (2008, September 22).The bad news about green architecture. Newsweek, pp. 50-52.
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