The Fayette County Community Action Agency has earned the distinction of being the first community action agency office building in the U.S. to earn a LEED Silver certification for it’s state-of-the-art energy efficient design. The 18,459-square-foot building houses the agency’s administrative staff as well as offices of the Pennsylvania Labor and Industry Workers’ Compensation Agency. It was designed by Altman & Altman Architects.
Leading by example, the agency promotes economic and community development, and its new offices offer the agency’s budget–and its funders–a reduction of 30 percent in energy consumption when compared to the building it occupied previously.
The new facility follows the guidelines of the U.S. Green Building Alliance to capture as much energy savings as possible. Indeed, the agency points to an even greater energy cost benefit when it compares this new space with the very first building it occupied. With the improvements that earned it a LEED Silver certification, the building’s energy consumption has come down by more than 50 percent since it opened an office in Fayette County. That reduced consumption of resources also tracks to the agency’s need for water in its new space, which will drop by 50 percent when compared to its prior residence.
Another factor that weighed heavily in earning the LEED Silver distinction was the agency’s reduced requirement for new construction materials to create the structure; builders captured 75 percent of the material needed for construction by recycling the building that stood on the site before the new one was planned.
Mark Altman, the lead architect, says that everyone involved worked hard to create a space that represents a new level of environmental awareness. “Opportunities to capture energy efficiency were taken at every state of the project,” he says.
Source: Altman & Altman, Mark Altman
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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