SHEARING LAYERS CONCEPT AND LEED GREEN BUILDINGS IN BOTH RATING SCHEMES AND CERTIFIED PROJECTS

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design(LEED)for New Construction and Major Renovations v3(NC)and LEED for Existing Buildings:Operations and Maintenance v3(EB)schemes were studied to examine the application of the shearing layer concept to green buildings.The manners in which(i)rating systems in their current configurations and(ii)certified projects in their practical applications treated the long life-expectances in buildings and short life-expectancies in systems were questioned.To maximally reduce nondemonic intrusion,we studied only those states in the United States in which statistically viable numbers of projects had been completed in 2016.A two-way mixed analysis of variance(ANOVA)model was used to evaluate the interaction between two types of buildings(i.e.,NC vs EB)and two sets of sub-layers(i.e.,Site,Structure,and Skin from the Building layer and Services,Space Plane,and Stuff from the Service layer).The discrepancy in the case of a new building and the similarity in the case of a renovated building between rating schemes and certified projects were revealed:(i)the NC rating scheme prefers to emphasize the Service layer(SL),whereas newly constructed projects prefer to emphasize the Building layer(BL)due to the high performance of the Site and Structure sub-layers;(ii)the EB rating scheme prefers to emphasize the Service layer,as do renovated building projects,due to the high performance of the Stuff sub-layer.

APPLICATION OF LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT TO VARIOUS BUILDING LIFETIME SHEARING LAYERS:SITE,STRUCTURE,SKIN,SERVICES,SPACE,AND STUFF

Currently,green rating systems are not directly related to environmental conse-quences.Moreover,rating systems score both building-related tasks with long life-time expectancies and system-related tasks with short lifetime expectancies without separating them.Therefore,passive solar and bio-climatic architectures,which have long lifetime expectancies and thus have a strong,negative impact on the environ-ment,are neglected.The main goal of this study is to explore differences in total environmental impact for a single“typical”building module(with the heavy wall building technology accepted in Israel)in terms of six different lifetime shearing layers,Site,Structure,Skin,Services,Space Plan,and Stuff,each of which reflects a different form of environmental damage.The objective of this study was to evalu-ate the six shearing layers using life cycle assessment(LCA)by applying Eco-indi-cator 99(EI99).It was found that the environmental damage associated with the Building layers(Site,Structure,and Skin)was higher than that associated with the Service layers(Services,Space Plan,and Stuff).The paper may contribute to the development of a more scientific(quantitative)background for green rating systems.As a result,a greater decrease in building-related ecological impacts can be achieved,thus encouraging sustainable building activities.

LEED-CI V3 AND V4 GOLD PROJECTS FOR OFFICE SPACES:THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SHANGHAI AND CALIFORNIA

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design(LEED)rating system is cur-rently progressing from version 3(V3)to 4(V4)with the aim of reducing environ-mental damage in the global construction sector.The LEED Commercial Interiors(LEED-CI)subsystem is widely used for office spaces,particularly in Shanghai and California.Comparing Shanghai and California in terms of LEED-CI projects can shed light on the ability of the LEED-CI subsystem to adapt to local green building standards and local environmental conditions.The aim of this study was to assess the difference between V3 and V4 LEED-CI Gold office projects using a comparison between Shanghai and California.The US Green Building Council and the Green Building Information Gateway databases were used to source LEED-CI V3 and V4 Gold office projects.The natural logarithm of the odds ratio and Fisher’s exact 2×2 tests with a mid p-value were used to evaluate the binary data,while the Cliff’sδand exact Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney tests were used to evaluate the ordinal data.The results show no difference between Shanghai and California in terms of LEED-CI V3 Gold office projects in the five main LEED-CI categories.The shift from V3 to V4 LEED-CI Gold office projects is increasing the difference between Shanghai and California in terms of the following LEED-CI categories:location and transporta-tion,water efficiency,energy and atmosphere,and materials and resources.Therefore,as compared to V3,V4 for LEED-CI Gold office projects demonstrated greater adaptability to local green building standards and environmental conditions.