maintenance, and disposal of building materials. The requirements are designed to support a life-cycle approach that improves performance and promotes resource efficiency. Energy and Atmosphere — This category approaches energy from a holistic perspective, addressing energy use reduction, energy-efficient design strategies, and renewable energy sources. Steel framing can provide the building block for truly energy-efficient designs, while steel cladding products can help create exceptionally tight building en- velopes. Additionally, steel roofing provides an excellent platform for photovoltaic systems to earn Energy and Atmosphere credits, SMDI said. Sustainable Sites — Construction professionals can earn Sustainable Sites points by using steel roofing products to reduce heat island effects and prefabricated steel products to reduce onsite construction times. In addition to environmental product declarations (EPDs), life cycle inventory (LCI) data is available for nearly all steel construction prod- ucts, allowing designers to complete the whole building life-cycle as- sessment process, SMDI said. LCI data for semi-finished steel products — including hot-rolled structural sections and cold-formed steel fram- ing — is available at www.steelsustainability.org/life-cycle-thinking/ life-cycle-inventory-data.aspx. A listing of industry-wide steel product EPDs is available at www.buildusingsteel.org/why-choose-steel/ product-transparency.aspx. The guide, LEED v4 for Steel Products Used in Construction Ap- plications, is available for download at www.steelsustainability.org/ construction/leedv4.aspx.
Designing for sustainability
Steel industry releases guide to LEED v4 certification.
The Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI) released a guide to using steel construction products for the latest version of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building certification program. The guide, LEED v4 for Steel Products Used in Construction Applications, will help design and construction professionals understand how steel products can earn points toward LEED v4 certification. “A rapidly evolving green building industry and increasing demand for sustainability have led to a number of updates and a more rigorous certification process in LEED v4,” said Mark Thimons, vice president, Sustainability for SMDI. “The new process places an increased fo- cus on material and resource transparency. This new guide for steel construction products will help builders leverage steel’s sustainability benefits to meet their certification goals.” Steel has always been well-positioned for credits in categories such as recycled content, but LEED v4 offers even more opportunities to earn credits for steel use across a range of categories, including the following: Materials and Resources — Steel-intensive design truly excels in this category, SMDI said, which focuses on minimizing the embodied ener- gy and other impacts associated with extraction, processing, transport, “The city is a people’s art, a shared experience,” a Philadelphia archi- tect and planner named Edmund Bacon once wrote, adding that any urban designer’s job was to “conceive an idea, implant it, and nurture its growth in the collective minds of the community.” It sounds like a common-sense approach to city building — and one that could lead to a pleasing urban mosaic, as both community needs and architectural styles change over time. But according to MIT profes- sor Brent D. Ryan, Ph.D., this approach to designing cities that are of the people and for the people has been absent from most urban design work. MIT professor urges broadening approaches and conceptions of design for a more democratic vision. Plural urbanism
Information provided by the Steel Market Development Institute (www.buildusingsteel.org).
46
csengineermag.com
february 2018
Made with FlippingBook Annual report