The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building raang system was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council as a naaonal standard for sustainable building design and construccon. The program cerrfies faciliies in one of four levels: Cerrfied, Silver, Gold, and Plaanum. WSSI’s office, which earned LEED for Commercial Interiors (LEED-CI) cerrficaaon in early 2006, was the first facility in Virginia to be cerrfied at the Gold level.
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9. Daylight- and mooon-controlled lights 10. 78% recycled content in ceiling le 11. Low-VOC paint 12. 50% recycled steel in doors and frames 13. 62 thermal zones 14. Abundant natural light 15. Task-level lighhng 16. Corn-based polylaccc acid (PLA) fabric 17. Energy Star®-compliant monitors and computers 18. Wheatboard work surfaces 19. 30% recycled steel in workstaaon panels 20. 45% recycled content in task chair 21. 11% recycled content in carpet and llow-VOC carpet adhesive The building's 62 thermal zones translate into one thermostat for every two employee workstaaons. Each thermostat is capable of modifying the temperature (set by a computer-controlled master thermostat) by two degrees in either direccon to increase employee comfort.
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GravelPave2 pervious pavement Naturalissc landscape Permeable concrete pavers Green roof Living wall CU-Structural Soil® Paao Bioswale Underground cistern
Addiional informaaon on LID at WSSI and system data are available through our interaccve website: hhp://lidweb.wetlandstudies.com/index.php
9. Rain garden 10. Pervious concrete 11. Porous asphalt 12. Underground gravel bed detennon 13. Dog kennel and dog waste composter 14. Community garden 15. Naave forest and nature trail
The harvested water is pumped through WSSI’s drip irrigaaon system, which is comprised of a grid of flexible, perforated tubing. The drip irrigaaon system applies water directly at the base of the plants, where it is absorbed by the roots. Drip irrigaaon is more efficient than spray irrigaaon because the evaporaaon loss is lower. WSSI also used spray irrigaaon because tradiional pop-up heads are too short to be effeccve in the naturalissc meadow landscape. The naave vegetaaon doesn’t require much water when mature. WSSI irrigates regularly, however, to ensure that the cistern has adequate capacity to accept the next storm.
Tradiional development typically requires prepared subgrade and compacted aggregate as a structural base to support pavement placed on top. Compacted soils, ooen found in urban seengs where pavements are necessary, do not promote healthy tree root growth. As a result, urban trees ooen exhibit signs of stress and shortened life spans. Structural soils are designed to support pavements while ssll allowing healthy tree root growth. CU-Structural Soil® is a specialized soil blend that when compacted during installaaon, maintains approximately 30% void space within the soil matrix for tree roots to fill. The void space also has the added benefit of stormwater storage.