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In need of a new library to house its growing collections, Laramie County designed and built a new library in Cheyenne, WY that achieved a LEED® Gold Certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED® for New Construction program. It is the first public building in Wyoming to achieve LEED® certification.
Completed in August 2007, the Library's total construction cost was $16.7
million for the 103,593 square foot facility ($161 per square foot). The
library was funded by a voter-approved tax passed in November 2003 that
increased the sales tax by 1 cent to raise $26.9 million, a donation of
$1.7 million by the Laramie County Library Foundation. The Library received
a grant from the Wyoming Business Council, Energy Office, which uses funds
from the Stripper Well Petroleum Violation Funds program. This grant assisted
in covering some of the costs relating to engineering, design LEED®
consulting, modeling and documentation, and fundamental building commissioning.
LEED® Score Card View»
LEED® PowerPoint
Presented by Lucie Osborn at the Kansas Library Association/Mountain Plains
Library Association 2009 Conference. View»
WHY BUILD GREEN?
WHAT IS LEED®?
WHAT DOES MAKE A BUILDING GREEN?
WHO ARE THE USGBC?
HOW DO YOU BUILD GREEN?
HOW ARE WE HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT?
HOW CAN YOU HELP THE ENVIRONMENT?
DO WE SAVE MONEY BY BUILDING GREEN?
WHY
BUILD GREEN?
The impact of America’s built environment is substantial.
Buildings consume 70% of the country’s overall annual electricity use,
according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Geological Service
states that buildings consume 12% of all potable water, nearly 15 trillion
gallons yearly. The Worldwatch Institute estimates that buildings use
40% of raw materials globally. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates
that 136 million tons of construction-related waste is generated in a
single year. In addition, numerous health and productive issues can be
attributed to poor indoor environmental quality for building occupants.
WHAT
IS LEED®?
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®)
Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark
for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green
buildings. LEED® gives building owners and operators the
tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’
performance.
WHAT
DOES MAKE A BUILDING GREEN?
LEED® promotes a whole-building approach
to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human
and environmental health:
• sustainable site development
• water savings
• energy efficiency
• materials selection
• indoor environmental quality
WHO
ARE THE USGBC?
The United States Green Building Council was founded in 1993 as a non-profit,
consensus-based committee organization with a mission to transform the
building industry into sustainability. The USGBC’s core purpose
is to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built
and operated, enabling a socially responsible, healthy and prosperous
environment that improves the quality of life. The USGBC is also the administrator
of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®)
Rating System, which started in 1999.
HOW
DO YOU BUILD GREEN?
During construction we:
• reduced the building footprint with a three-story
structure, thereby increasing open spaces
• recycled post-construction waste and used materials
with recycled content
• used local and regional materials
• utilized low-emitting adhesives, paints, carpet and
composite wood
• covered all the duct work to keep the building and
the air clean
• flushed the building systems prior to occupancy
HOW
ARE WE HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT?
We're helping the environment by:
• creating and following a thorough recycling policy
• managing and treating storm water
• reducing water usage by 50% with less thirsty landscaping
and native vegetation
• reducing water usage by 30% via efficient plumbing
systems
• controlling erosion and sediment on our site
• monitoring the amount of carbon dioxide we emit
• optimizing the energy performance of heating/ventilating/air
conditioning units and lighting
• flooding our building with daylight in 90% of our
space with the use of light louvers
• we are educating the publc by giving tours emphasizing
the our LEED® accomplishments
HOW
CAN YOU HELP THE ENVIRONMENT?
We encourage you to travel to the library wisely by:
• riding the bus - a city bus stop is located at the
library, and two more are within 1/4 mile
• pedaling their bike - we’ve provided numerous
bicycle storage racks
• carpooling - two or more people in a vehicle can park
in more convenient, marked spaces
DO
WE SAVE MONEY BY BUILDING GREEN?
Yes, with a projected annual energy use of 72.3 kBTU/ft2,
we are projected to save $39,000 a year.
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