October 23rd, 2019 – Washington, DC. Green Infrastructure Foundation is proud to announce the first three certified projects under the Living Architecture Performance Tool (LAPT) v1. These projects demonstrate the potential green roofs and walls when they are designed, installed, and maintained for high performance and maximum benefit.
The LAPT is a rating system and best-practice guide with a goal of certifying that green roofs and walls are planned to achieve certain measurable and replicable performance benefits. Providing performance benchmarks will increase the efficacy of living infrastructure and bolster industry-wide credibility. Designers, building owners, and maintenance professionals can use the LAPT to optimize the range of benefits possible from their projects, while policy makers can also use the tool to maximize public benefits and create effective policies for living architecture.
The three projects are:
Platinum: Adlai E. Stevenson High School East Building Addition (Lincolnshire, IL) - Wight and Company, Omni Ecosystems, and Nedlaw Living Walls
Gold: Carroll Rooftop Farm (Chicago, IL) – Omni Ecosystems
Silver: Harvard Business School McArthur/McCollum Building (Boston, MA) – Recover Green Roofs and Omni Ecosystems
The projects will be profiled at the Grey to Green Conference in the DC Metro Area on October 29th. Project representatives will outline how each project met the requirements of the LAPT and how the green roofs and walls of each project were part of a holistic, integrated system designed for maximum performance.
“The LAPT has the potential to dramatically increase the implementation of green roofs and walls by making their performance easier to count on”, said Steven W. Peck, Founder and President of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.
The development of the tool is being led by Lois Vitt Sale, FAIA, LEED Fellow, and David Yocca, FASLA, AICP, LEED AP. The two co-chairs of the technical committee were deeply involved in the development, early adoption, and promotion of other high performance rating systems such as LEED and SITES.
“As communities are looking to green roofs/walls to provide more livable, sustainable cityscapes, the LAPT offers an essential tool to help quantify and optimize the amalgamation of benefits that can accrue from truly integrated design, implementation, and long-term maintenance of living surfaces for any application in every geographic context and scale.”, said David Yocca. “This tool can help to ensure that green roofs and walls are integrated into projects in ways that maximize their value and performance benefits. Now their beauty can be more than leaf deep”, said Lois Vitt Sale.
The pilot phase of this program is still ongoing, offering innovative and forward-thinking organizations the opportunity to participate until May 31, 2020. Getting involved in the pilot phase will help organizations optimize the range of benefits possible for their projects, demonstrate their leadership and innovation, set the stage for long term performance of their projects, and receive recognition in the marketplace.
For further information or to register visit greeninfrastructurefoundation.org/lapt or contact Rohan Lilauwala, Program Manager, Green Infrastructure Foundation, at rlilauwala@greenroofs.org. The Grey to Green Conference will take place at the Tommy Douglas Convention Center in Silver Spring, MD, on October 29th, with tours and training on October 30th.