school design and martin otterbeck

Photo courtesy of NINA RUUD

Kids are inherently creative; never having been told yet what is acceptable or not. In my school district, there are plans to build a new high school. Sadly, it seems that the concept to "demolish and build new" is more on the horizon than "renovation."

LEED v.4 invokes politial controversy in the Ohio Senate

Ohio has the most LEED certified school buildings above any other state.
Edgewood High School Media Center, Pursuing LEED Gold, Designed by SHP Leading Design.
Photo courtesy of SHP Leading Design.

On October 31^st, 2013, the Ohio State Concurrent Resolution 25 (SCR 25) was proposed in effect to ban the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Version 4 from all public construction projects in the State of Ohio.

Ohio Senators Joe Uecker, R-Loveland, and Tim Shaffer, R-Lancaster introduced the resolution noting that while it is in the best interest of the State of Ohio to continue to encourage energy efficiency and green building practices, that LEED v.4 needs to be banned. “This is a resolution, not a bill. A ‘wake-up call,’ and a ‘please take notice and listen to our concerns’ kind of effort,” says Senator Joe Uecker.

After extending the comment period for nearly a year, the USGBC officially celebrated the introduction of LEED v.4 at the USBGC’s national conference Greenbuild in Philadelphia in October, 2013.

“LEED v.4 has a new credit that requests building owners to track the chemical content of a certain percentage of the products they use in the building. This credit could start to evolve into a chemicals redlist [a type of blacklist] such as one that exists within the Living Building Challenge already,” says Allison Beer McKenzie, AIA, LEED AP and Sustainability Director for SHP Leading Design, of Cincinnati, Ohio.