The LEED rating system stands for Leadership in Energy and Sustainable Design. It was developed by the American Green Building Council in 1998 and now includes several degrees of energy activity - depending on the points earned by the building (a possible maximum - 69 points - provides a "Platinum" certificate).
But groundbreaking structures such as Maine's office building challenge the feasibility of this entire grading system. It consumes only half the amount of electricity compared to a standard office complex of the same size, but it has no chance of getting even a regular entry-level certificate yet, scoring 26 points.
The problem is that LEED implies the use by designers of a tightly limited range of "green" building elements, most often produced by a third party. Therefore, such a technique as giving the building a minimum "thickness" so that sunlight illuminates all its rooms as much as possible and the need for artificial lighting is minimized (which was used by Tom Maine in San Francisco) is simply not included in the list of factors taken into account in the assessment. project factors. At the same time, the use of natural air ventilation is estimated at one point - as well as the presence of a parking lot for bicycles on the territory of the building, and they can hardly be called equivalent components of the overall picture of the environmental cleanliness and energy activity of the structure.
To their credit, the officials should say that in response to criticism from the head of the Morphosis bureau, they admitted that LEED is still in the process of development and the Main building will be re-inspected by them.
Thus, the building, which caused great controversy precisely because of the uncompromising desire of the architect to make his building a model of environmental friendliness, could not fit into the previously drawn up state scheme for the development of "green" architecture.
