Purpose

What's LEED Corner?  I'm sure it will change and evolve over time and I hope it does.  But for right now, it's a place for me to park, in one place, information and approaches to sustainable design. 

There is a lot of information out there.  There are a lot of great forums and websites that have pieces of information.  My great dream would be to have a place that brings all this information together.  I haven't found that place yet so in the meantime, I've decided to set up and share the information I gather into this little corner of the web.

Before I begin, I need to set the record straight on two things.  First, myself. I have experience in the sustainable building industry but the more I work on projects and explore new areas the more I realize there is so much to learn.  Roughly translated - take everything you read, here and elsewhere, with a grain of salt, and please feel free to correct/add to anything I post.  I look forward to expanding my knowledge through items shared.

Second thing to address: what this site focuses on.  One way to boil the issue of sustainable buildings down to the simplest terms, is to realize they fall into two categories:
1. The design and implementation of sustainable measures (for new or existing buildings) and
2. The metric used to measure the magnitude of the measure (i.e. LEED).

The posts mainly focuses on providing resources for the second item for the simple reason that the majority of our time should be spent on focusing on the first item - designing sustainable buildings. I don't want to spend gobs of time searching for a sample of a thermal comfort plan.  I want to spend that time working with the owner figuring out what the best fit is and how they can use this resource as a tool most effectively.  Partly through looking at sample plans done by others.

There is a third thing I should clear up at the start.  LEED.  Yes, I think there's lots of improvement that can be made in both the rating system and the administration by the USGBC/GBCI.  Yes, I think there is a lot more out there beyond LEED.  And yes, I find myself continually reminding team members that LEED is a metric, not a code.  We should be designing a sustainable building first and foremost, not building to LEED.  That being said, I do support LEED for many projects.  I have seen time and time again projects that ended up pushing the envelope (no pun intended) further then they normally would have simply for a LEED point.  Sometimes that carrot is needed.

That pretty much sums it up and I look forward to using and sharing this new knowledge management tool.