Living Future '11 - Panel Discussion: Building Material Reuse: Understanding the Challenges, Celebrating the Successes, and Providing the Tools

With increasingly limited resources and a growing awareness around sustainable stewardship, material reuse represents one of the ultimate forms of resource conservation. It not only provides a vision of how to live more sustainably, it can also be economically pragmatic and nurture a community. Such principles overlap greatly with the goals of certification standards like the Living Building Challenge. Despite this potential, reuse remains significantly underutilized. Key to maturing the opportunity is building a greater awareness.  Panelists will address reuse challenges and opportunities, innovative tools and resources available, and strategies to utilize reuse as a vehicle for creativity and sustainability.

Presenter Bios

Kevin R Hydes
Kevin R Hydes, CEO of Integral Group, is a professional engineer and honorary architect in BC. He has been addressing green building issues for 2 decades since first meeting Bob Berkebile on the CK Choi project at UBC. That project opened his mind and curiosity to reuse of building materials, weaving through noteworthy projects such as the Materials Testing Lab and Telus Headquarters in Vancouver and many projects across North America including his own adaptive reuse office in Oakland, California, a low energy LEED Platinum targeted office. Kevin is also founding chair of the Cascadia Chapter and a Cascadia Fellow.

Laura Lesniewski
Laura Lesniewski, AIA is a principal at BNIM. An architect with 20 years of experience, she has spoken nationally on emerging technologies and philosophies in sustainable design, BIM and lean thinking and, most recently, at Brazil’s first Greenbuild in Sao Paulo.  Laura led the design team efforts on the Omega Center for Sustainable Living, which achieved both Living Building and LEED Platinum certification.  She co-authored “Roadmap for Integration” for the AIA’s 2006 Report on Integrated Practice and recently completed FLOW: In Pursuit of a Living Building with Bob Berkebile and Steve McDowell.  Laura is a graduate of MIT and UCBerkeley.


Nathan Benjamin
Nathan Benjamin - LEED AP, Principal + Founder of PlanetReuse & PlanetRestore – a reclaimed construction material broker and consultant predicated on a simple but revolutionary idea: make it easy for people to use reclaimed materials and they’ll do more of it to keep materials out of landfills. He has an Architectural Engineering degree, is on the Building Materials Reuse Association Board and worked on two of the first three “Living” projects. He worked on two of the Reuse Primer’s projects and has presented at the National Demolition Association, Greening the Heartland, GreenTown, past two Greenbuilds, Living Future, and the USGBC Federal Summit.

Liz Ogbu
Liz Ogbu is Associate Design Director at Public Architecture, a nonprofit that mobilizes designers to create positive social change.  Liz directs the public-interest design initiatives, which creatively address critical environmental and social justice issues.  She led development of the Design for Reuse Primer, a USGBC funded e- publication intended to demystify and inspire mainstream material reuse. Liz has written and lectured extensively on sustainable design.  She was a member of the 2010 AIA COTE Top Ten and USGBC Natural Talent Design juries and honored as a "Green Giant" by Steelcase for her work in promoting environmentally and socially sustainable design.

For more info to attend sessions, check out the conference website.

USGBC Webinar - Building & Material Reuse: Understanding the Challenges, Celebrating the Successes, and Navigating the Credits

Session Description:
The LEED credits related to building reuse (Materials & Resources Credits 1.1 and 1.2) and material reuse (Materials & Resources Credits 3.1 and 3.2) are some of the least utilized credits within the rating system. In a time of increasingly limited resources and a growing awareness around sustainable stewardship, however, building and material reuse represents one of the ultimate forms of resource conservation. The reuse of existing built fabric can be economically pragmatic, nurture communities, and provide vision of how to live more sustainably.

Join USGBC for this exciting webinar session, addressing reuse and credit challenges and opportunities, innovative tools and resources available, and strategies to utilize reuse as a vehicle for creativity and sustainability. Upon completion of this webinar session, attendees will gain a greater understanding of how to integrate building and material reuse into their projects and useful strategies for navigating the related LEED credits.

Learning Objectives:

• Define foundational concepts related to building and material reuse
• Outline credit intent and techniques that support credit achievement in Materials & Resources Credits 1.1, 1.2, 3.1 and 3.2
• Discuss, through case studies and anecdotal stories, effective strategies and methods for building and material reuse
• Identify tools and resources available to support designing with material reuse, material and team logistics, and LEED certification processes  

Speakers:
Moderator:  Sarah Buffaloe, LEED Resource Development, USGBC
Presenter 1: Liz Ogbu, Public Architecture
Presenter 2: Nathan Benjamin, PlanetReuse & PlanetRestore

Live Date: April 7th, 2011: 1:00 – 2:30 PM ET 
 
Continuing Education Hours: This session has been registered for 1.5 hrs with AIA/CES, GBCI
Pricing Information: $60 for members, $75 for non-members

To register: Link to USGBC website

USGBC 2010 Federal Summit: "Leadership in Sustainability from Coast to Coast"

From May 18-19, our nation's capital will be putting their greenest foot forward to host the USGBC Federal Summit which boasts the theme, "Leadership in Sustainability from Coast to Coast." The Federal Summit provides the USGBC, government officials, industry leaders and non-profit community experts the opportunity to all learn from one another, discuss policies, and network with other industry-people passionate about the boom in green building. If you are a government employee, there will be a half-day Forum dedicated to government-focused programming as well. Keynote government speakers will include Director of U.S. General Services Administration Office of Federal High Performance Green Buildings Kevin Kampschroer, U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program Manager Richard Kidd, Urban Land Institute Senior Research Fellow Tom Murphy, U.S. General Services Administration Commissioner of Public Buildings Bob Peck, Office of Management and Budget Deputy Associate Administrator for Procurement and Senior Budget Analyst Cynthia Vallina.

Among the many educational sessions to attend is #201 titled, "Building Material Reuse, the Purest Form of Recycling - Successful Models and Future Tools." The focus of this session shall be, "how practitioners and clients have addressed challenges and opportunities around reuse, including how they dealt with government infrastructure to accomplish their goals." The practitioners and clients that have been asked to share their experiences include Liz Ogbu of Public Architecture, Ted Huang of Webcor Builders, Darin Headrick from the Greensburg Schools, and Nathan Benjamin of PlanetReuse.

If you wish to attend the USGBC Federal Summit, early-bird discount rates will be available until May 4th for both government and non-government workers. For more information, click here!