The Tallest Green Building in the World
Posted Date: Aug 11, 2011
By: Sheena Chua
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Up until last year, the Taipei 101 was the world’s tallest building. At an already staggering height of 508m, it lost out to Dubai’s 828m-tall Burj Khalifa. Still the Taiwanese icon can stand tall knowing that it holds a new and perhaps more prestigious title: the world’s tallest green building.
(The tallest building....until last year)
Last month, the eight-year old building was awarded the platinum standard in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) – the highest accolade presented by a United States-developed certification system for green buildings.
Plants in and around the Taipei 101 form a gigantic ‘bamboo’ structure with its stacked segments and green windows. But this is not what makes the building so eco-friendly. These plants are watered with collected rainwater. Additionally, some 61% of waste is recycled, and within the past two years all of its lighting and plumbing features have been replaced with energy and water saving alternatives. As such, it is hardly any wonder that the building scored high marks on water and energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality and waste reduction.
At the July 28 award ceremony, Premier Wu Den-yih said, “The building is the pride of Taiwan and a model for others to follow.”
Indeed, in Taiwan, all new government buildings are now required to possess a Green Building Label (GBL), a Taiwanese assessment that gives the green lights to buildings who meet nine criteria including energy and water conservation as well as biodiversity, before they can begin construction.
The Taiwan Architecture and Building Centre (TABC) claims that no less than 864 buildings have already qualified for the GBL since 2000, while another 2,340 proposed buildings have received a provisional GBL for their design plans. Around 89% of these buildings are public structures.
One of which is the Beitou public library, situated in a leafy district just north of Taipei. The three-storey wooden beauty costs NT$120 million (S$5 million) and makes use balconies and vertical wood grating to minimise the amount of heat from entering the building. This means the building needs less energy to power fans or air-conditioning units. Like the Taipei 101, it also harvests rainwater, which is then used to water plants and flush toilets. Other green methods include the use of eco-friendly paint and installation of solar panels that can generate 16kw of electricity. In 2007, the public library attained the ‘diamond’ – the highest standard of GBL.
In total, Taiwan’s GBL buildings will cut down carbon dioxide emissions of nearly 600 million kilos each year, which is equivalent to the effect of 42,375ha of man-made forest, says Ke Lih-wen, a TABC engineer responsible for the programme. Meanwhile, an estimated 42 million sq m of water will be saved, an amount enough to fill 16,747 standard swimming pools.
Fortunately, the Taiwanese government is not in the green fight alone; the private sector is also taking its own green initiatives. For example, AU Optronics, which manufactures flat panel displays, has attained the Leeds platinum certification for its Taichung fabrication facility earlier this year. Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s biggest telecom services provider is installing photovoltaic cells on some of its buildings to produce solar-powered electricity and cut down on its energy intake.
For Taipei 101, its LEED award is just the icing on the cake. It expects to save millions of dollars every year on electricity and water consumption because of its green investments. The building has splashed out NT$60 million and 10,000 man-hours on its environmentally friendly cause. In fact, this eco-friendly approach has also rubbed off on some of its close to 10,000 tenants: 84% of them take public transport to work, as compared to the city average of 34%.
Hopefully, other cities around the world will soon take measures to follow in Taiwan and Taipei 101’s exemplary strides in going green.
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Related Categories: Daily Property News and Updates, Overseas
Tags: Architecture Trends, Eco Friendly Buildings, Environmentally Friendly Buildings, Green Buildings, Leadership in Energy and environmental Design, LEED, property trends, TABC, Taipei, Taipei 101, Taiwan, Taiwan Architecture and Building Centre
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