Green Building

We visited Artists for Humanity, an environmentally friendly youth arts facility established in 2004 dedicated to expressing the voice of youths while incorporating renewable energy technologies in a feasible and affordable way. The center was awarded the LEED platinum certification from the United States Green Building Design. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System sets high standards for high-performance sustainable buildings. AFH earned this award because of its use of technologies such as solar power, super insulation, high thermal glass windows, south facing windows, allowing a maximum amount of light to penetrate, occupancy censors, and energy efficient light censors, as well as for its educational program. Solar power provides energy with no negative effectives; however, it doesn’t feed into a battery so it can only be sued when there is sunlight, and that tends to be one solar power needs to be used the least. The super insulation is an excellent way to keep heat in, reducing the amount of electricity and gas that needs to be consumed to create more heat. The windows also keep heat in; however, they are costly. The large windows let in lots of lateral night and heat, an excellent way to save electricity and gas. Additionally, natural light is more pleasing than artificial illumination. While the occupancy censors tell lights to go off when a room isn’t in active use, they don’t consider that a room may be in passive use. In other words, if one is in a room but they are standing or sitting still, the lights go off after seven minutes. However, the only rooms with light sensors were the bathrooms, so if one is sitting on the toilet, they may get the lights out routine. The energy efficient lights can’t go wrong. They are a great way to conserve electricity and light-bulb life. All-in-all, the center seemed to be fairly efficient, but they didn’t use their space wisely. I think they could have fit into a building half that size, which would have saved much more energy than being reliable on green energy. Additionally, Shane, our tour guide, was very personable, but had limited knowledge of the energy statistics for the building, so we didn’t take back any accurate numbers on the impact that the center has on the environment. In my opinion, it is a very small carbon footprint. However, the AFH proved that this energy efficient system is affordable, so anyone can out it in place. People just need some motivation!

~ Jeremy W.