sustainable design
Translucent door panels provide privacy while making use of natural light, cutting down on energy use.
Green Efforts Create Healthy Environments
Green Design is more than putting photovoltaic panels on a roof or specifying recycled products. It’s about creating healthy environments for residents and staff, inside and outside. Green Design is a priority to Kaas Wilson Architects—both Collin Kaas and Link Wilson are LEED Accredited Professionals. In addition, Link serves on the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) Advisory Committee for Green Buildings and will be leading an executive workshop this spring on behalf of the AGC. Kaas Wilson Architects are currently working on the LEED submission for Inver Glen Senior Living. If certification is granted, this project will be the first LEED-certified senior housing project in Minnesota.
Guiding the LEED Process
Based on our LEED experience and extensive work on multi-family residential projects, our strategy begins with developing an overall plan for certification. We usually recommend an initial strategy to achieve Silver certification. During the Value Engineering phase, we eliminate features that we find are too costly to pursue. Having a few points to spare allows room to step down to base level certification if necessary.
In our experience, LEED certification is achieved by simply doing the following:
- Taking a whole-systems approach and knowing what choices to make as a team
- Assigning the most knowledgeable team member to tackle each task
- Oversight by an LEED Administrator who has been through the process before
