Although our friends across the pond are responsible for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, if a new apartment building in New York is anything to go by, they may well be changing their tune.
The Solaire - a 27-story, 293-unit glass and brick residential block - is the latest addition to the New York skyline.
Although completion on the building was delayed owing to its close proximity to Ground Zero, the site of the former World Trade Centre, this colossal building is now open for business and has already been rated by the American Institute of Architects in their top ten green projects.
The environmentally-friend block, found in the Battery Park district on the tail-end of Manhattan, is designed to consume 35 percent less energy, whilst reducing peak demand for electricity by 65 percent.
Integrated solar panels generate five percent of the building’s energy at peak loading, while the building incorporates an advanced heating, ventilation and air conditioning system fueled by natural gas and free of ozone-depleting nasties.
An on-site water treatment and reuse system supplies the cooling tower and toilets with water. While a stormwater catchment system provides irrigation to both a rooftop garden and a green roof.
Over two thirds of the building’s materials were manufactured within a 500-mile radius of the site, and more than 93 percent of the construction waste for the project was recycled.
However, being this green will cost you a lot of green. A P.O.A. price tag suggests that only the most privileged planet savers will be on the waiting list.
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