The process technically began back in college at the University of Texas in the mid 1970's. I became involved, mostly by accident, with an effort within the School of Architecture that focused on what was generally referred to as "Alternative Energy". We studied issues like capturing solar energy through solar collectors and Trombe walls. We worked with recyclable materials, oriented buildings and building components to capture breezes, developed site plans that incorporated natural water collection and rotating pond locations, studied wind power, promoted natural lighting and the like. The husband and wife teaching team I studied under the most lived in a 100 year old, stone farm house in the hills west of Austin. They had no electricity and cooked over a fire in the fireplace, by choice.
Downstairs, at the Architecture Annex where all of this took place, another professor was "growing" buildings by submersing electrically charged chicken wire forms into brine tanks, a process that sped up crustaceous growth that naturally occurred in seawater. As a quick aside, I should mention that one of the student stars of alternate energy program was the now well known movie producer and director, Katherine Hardwicke. It was an, uh, interesting time. Little of this, however, had any real application when I graduated and began working in architecture in the late '70s.
When I started to focus on historic preservation in the late 1980's, many of the lessons about natural lighting and ventilation, site use and orientation and materials conservation came roaring back. It seems that many of these practices we had learned in school had been in common use for centuries. They remained so through the early part of the 20th Century, but had been cast aside in the technology boom following World War II. By 2000, we had begun to refer to historic preservation as "The Ultimate Recycle".
Thirty years after those interesting days at university, those same concepts of energy efficiency and conservation of natural processes are now referred to as collectively as Sustainability and are being promoted, even required, in all areas of architectural and engineering practice. This effort has come to be embodied in the program known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, administered by the US Green Building Council (USGBC).
Included in this program is a process whereby those involved in a variety of building disciplines can demonstrate their understanding of the principals of LEED and can be recognized as a LEED Accredited Professional.
After more than 35 years of various levels of involvement of this effort, I am pleased to note that I obtained LEED AP status this past week.
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