Did you ever hear about an interesting project, wonder how it would  work and then forget about it?

To avoid that situation the Weber Thompson team at the Terry Avenue Office Building (at left) is blogging about what it’s like to work in a LEED gold (for core and shell), naturally ventilated building. To check it out, go here. (For more on the building, my colleague Shawna Gamache wrote about it in her blog here).

The blog’s most recent post talks about cooling the building on a hot day … and opening all 248 of the building’s windows. The post before that discusses how the building SOUNDS different…. and what it’s like getting used to that.

What a novel idea. To share with the public the water cooler discussions of how people like their new surroundings. 

(Just for the record the building we work in here at the DJC also has no air conditioning. It gets warm a couple days in the summer but it’s very doable). 

I do hear complaints - quite often - that more care should be taken to see just how well green projects perform after they are complete, both in employee comfort and in monitoring building performance. This blog is a nifty way to answer how employees like a space, though I’m left wondering if the team is also tracking its performance and energy consumption over time… anyone out there want to answer my question?

It’s a pretty interesting blog. And running it, I’m sure, takes a lot of time so kudos to Scott Thompson for stepping up to the plate. But wouldn’t it be an interesting idea for all tenants of green buildings - let’s say in Seattle - to take the time to record their experiences like this every once in a while on a blog, and share it through the lens of a bigger organization? The result could be a database of all those experiences similar to the USGBC’s online tracker of LEED projects… and a more varied understanding of the benefits (or detriments) of working in a green building.

(P.S., AIA, USGBC….. you should steal this idea).

You ask how Seattle can stay ahead of the curve? There’s my two cents. Readers, do you have ideas, either well thought out or spur of the moment, for how Seattle can remain relevant in a time where all cities are competing to be the greenest? If you do, or if you work in a green building and want to share your experience, please comment below.

Do you like those sounds or is it too much to get used to? Then again, maybe that’s the point of the green/sustainable movement: to at least try those changes and see if they work. After all, if you don’t try things they don’t get better, do they?

Tags: Projects, Seattle, Weber Thompson

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Overview, Projects, Seattle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.