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Green buildings will make our earth greener as they use less energy and emit low carbon with its sustainable design. These buildings are built specially to be eco friendly as they also built using recyclable materials. The world has many green buildings constructed with recycled material but Berkeley’s David Brown Center stands out from all. It is the world’s largest recycled building; almost half of its construction is comprised of recycled materials.
This 50,000-square-foot building is designed to be 40 percent more energy efficient as it uses solar energy generated by the photovoltaic cell fitted in its roof and sun-shades on the South façade. Recycled materials can be seen almost at every nook and corner of this four story building. All the furnishings are made from salvaged wood. A mixture of plaster and salvaged soils are used for wall at ground floor reception area.
“Earth Niche” a permanent art installation built using cob, bamboo, salvaged straw earth. This was made by “The Natural Builder” owned by Marisha Farnsworth. Variety of tables and benches in the building are created by Paul Discoe from Live Edge, a company that repurposes lumber from urban street trees that have been cut down due to storm damage, disease, and for other reasons.
The buildings concrete used ¾ of Slag which makes it truly a sustainable building. Slag is an unwanted byproduct of steel-smelting, that turns out to have fortifying properties and more importantly for sustainability in the long run; greatly reduces the CO2 produced in making cement.
The building uses zinc siding that reduces the need for daylighting. The daylighting program includes the automatic controls to balance the daylight when required.
The indoor air quality is maintained with the help of properly designed windows and ventilation systems.
Radiant heating and cooling operate via tubes set into the concrete structural slabs.
The building power consumption is monitored by an interactive real time monitoring system located at lobby. These all aspects of this building are expected to receive a LEED Platinum rating, the highest certification, from the U.S Green Building Council.
Sources: Homedesignfind.com
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