The
US Green Building Council's conference this week, "Greening the Heartland: Breaking New Ground," held in Cincinnati, could have adopted the theme "Breaking the Mold" for its innovative
Legacy Project. Scheduled to be presented to the green building community on Wednesday, June 22, this life cycle assessment study, possibly the first of its kind in the nation, will compare the eco-profile of renovating existing historic homes to that of newly constructed homes and evaluate the environmental benefit of reusing existing vacant buildings in historic neighborhoods.
Based on an actual case-study of renovating two existing homes in the historic neighborhood of Over-The-Rhine, the study will measure the benefits of rehabilitation through four life-cycle assessment impact categories: primary energy consumption, cost, weighed raw resource use, and global warming potential.
"Historic buildings can be hard to make energy efficient," said Sanyog Rathod of
Sol Developments, one of the study's presenters.
But quantifying the embodied energy of an existing building takes into account the reuse of an old building's original materials, which have already been harvested, milled and refined. Likewise, the study also quantifies the green value of location. Factors that favor walkability and urban chemistry can often give an old building in an urban landscape an immediate head start in LEED certification, Rathod added.
Based on these and other impact categories, the study creates an eco-profile for the renovation project. It evaluates a systematic life-cycle inventory of all existing and new materials used, labor to restore historic elements of the project, and cost. This eco-profile can then be compared to an equivalent-size standard new construction home in a suburban setting.
Co-developers
Cincinnati Habitat for Humanity and
Over-the-Rhine Community Housing have joined forces with sustainable and historic preservation professionals from
Over-The-Rhine Foundation to develop the Legacy Project. The result is a true community study of urban neighborhood sustainability. With this new measurement tool to evaluate historic renovations on similar footing as new construction, Rathod said that historic renovation and green building - typically seen as conflicting goals, could come together and, "can become a sustainable choice."
Writer: Becky Johnson
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