According to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), buildings in the United States are responsible for 39% of CO2 emissions, 40% of energy consumption, and 13% water consumption. Consumption of the natural resources at this rate is unsustainable in our current economic and political climate thus challenging the stewards of the built environment to rethink the way we design and build our homes, our offices and ultimately our cities. This is no easy task but over the past few years, going green has been slowly gaining momentum within the industry and the public eye transforming our urban centers into sustainable works of art.
It is an amazing time within the industry to experiment or play with how we design, what we use to design with and how green architecture shapes the urban jungle of cities past into more compact and sustainable centers for people. At this point, there is not one green or sustainable system, manifesto, or practice that is inherently more right than the other but there are a growing amount of great case studies and educational examples in which to learn from. This article will assess the Terry Thomas Building by Weber Thompson as one of those case studies to learn from.