There were several great COTE events at the AIA convention in
Boston.
On Thursday afternoon we held the COTE Open Forum and heard
about what many COTE chapters across the country are doing. There
was much discussion of advocacy and of the New Jersey resolution
that called for the AIA to endorse the LEED rating system. While
COTE national agrees that LEED has been a potent force for green
building and is the preeminent rating system, we believe that AIA
is right not to endorse LEED (or any other "product" for
that matter.) We realize, however, that this creates problems for
advocacy at the state and local level. Local AIA advocates could be
more effective if they had AIA national's backing when asked to
comment on green building rating systems for local legislators. For
this reason, COTE thinks that AIA national should officially
acknowledge that LEED is the best rating system currently available
based on evaluation against AIA's own criteria for rating
systems.
AIA statement on rating systems:
http://www.aia.org/static/state_local_resources/adv_sustainability/Green%20Rating%20Systems/AIA_Sustainable_Ratings_PS.pdf
AIA rating systems study:
http://www.aia.org/SiteObjects/files/Quantifying%20Sustainability.pdf
By now many of you have seen the joint letter from Chris McEntee
and Rick Fedrizzi, CEO of the US Green Building Council. The
meeting that sparked this letter was a direct result of COTE's work
to bring together the leaders of the two organizations. We think
this is a very positive step forward and continue to work to foster
a closer collaborative relationship between the two
organizations.
On Thursday night we held the COTE reception at the Epicenter,
Artists for Humanity Building, a 2007 Top Ten winner and Boston's
first LEED Platinum building, just down the street from the
Macallen Condominium project, a 2008 Top Ten winner. Several
hundred attendees heard Bob Ivy, Editor-in-Chief
Architectural Record and GreenSource, speak on the
growing importance of green building. Top Ten winners were in
attendance and were acknowledged by the crowd.
On Friday, David Miller, FAIA, and I were joined by Top Ten
jurors Marvin Malecha, FAIA (2009 AIA President), and Rebecca Henn,
AIA, to present the 2008 Top Ten winners. We had a great jury this
year, including Pritzker Prize winner Glenn Murcutt. The jury was
demanding and looked for strong designs that were also strong
performers: they picked ten great projects as well as one honorable
mention.
Just as at San Antonio in 2007, we had a standing room only
crowd of almost 800 for the presentation. Winners from most teams
were present and came to the front of the room to talk about the
collaborative aspects of their design process. The power point slide show from this presentation
is now available for download (complete with script!) on the COTE
web and we encourage you to download it and use it to present the
Top Ten winners at your chapter. You can also find more exhaustive
detail about the winners at the Top Ten web site: http://www.aiatopten.org/hpb/. Be
sure to check out the Top Ten Metrics View -- the easiest way
to navigate how each project responded to each of the Top Ten
measures: http://www.aiatopten.org/hpb/grid2008.cfm
Have a great summer!
