Tufts' School of Dental Medicine this month received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification for the Level 2 Renovation project on its building in Boston's Chinatown.
The renovation project was completed in late 2011 as part of the school's ongoing implementation of a master plan to promote environmental sustainability and equality.
Director of the Office of Sustainability Tina Woolston expressed her excitement about the project attaining gold certification.
"It's a laboratory space and it just got new dental chairs and often those places are energy intensive so getting LEED gold is extra impressive because [the Dental School] is a more high energy use field," Woolston said.
The second floor renovation followed the first phase of the master plan, a five−story vertical expansion of the building initiated in 2008, which received LEED silver certification.
LEED is a voluntary, consensus−based rating system for developing high−performance, sustainable buildings. LEED has nine different rating systems based on the type of project.
A scorecard with multiple categories evaluates a project as being LEED certified, LEED silver, LEED gold or LEED platinum — the highest possible certification. The other Tufts building with LEED certification is Sophia Gordon Hall, which is gold certified.
The Sackler building in Boston is in the midst of its certification process, according to Betsy Isenstein, director of facilities technical services and the Tufts Energy Manager.
"The Sackler Building in Boston is registered but the certification process takes a while and is not completed," she said. "I believe LEED silver is anticipated for that."
Isenstein added that Tufts is working on having a unified philosophy of following LEED standards or aiming for LEED certification for all buildings.
"There are actually some projects where we've used the process as some sort of guide, but not necessarily gone through the full certification process," she said. "We always try to focus on the energy portion of it."
Architectural Resources Cambridge (ARC), the architectural firm that designed the Level 2 Renovation and vertical expansion, used LEED consulting firm Fore Solutions to certify the project.
The vertical expansion and second floor renovation were certified under different LEED rating systems with different criteria — LEED version 2.2 for new construction and LEED for commercial interiors system, respectively — Fore Solutions Project Manager Michael Pulaski explained.
The Level 2 Renovation project met LEED gold certification standards in five of the categories listed on the commercial interiors scorecard: sustainable site, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources and indoor environmental quality.
The renovation project received three times as many points in the sustainable sites category and twice as many in water efficiency as the vertical expansion, according to Pulaski.
The use of dual−flush toilets, low−flow urinals and metered lavatory faucets will lead to 40 percent water savings on the renovated second floor, according to the Tufts Office of Sustainability's website.
Such water efficiency measures receive more credit under the current upgraded version of the commercial interiors scorecard.
"The points in the newer standard were actually shifted around a bit to give you more points for actions that you're doing that reduce carbon emissions and also improve water efficiency," Pulaski told the Daily.
The project was able to earn additional points because of the dental school's location in downtown Boston, according to Pulaski.
"We were able to get a lot more points because it's located in such a dense area with access to lots of public transportation," he said.
The city of Boston requires buildings over 50,000 square feet to complete the LEED certification process, according to Pulaski.
"In this case the project wasn't required by the city to pursue LEED certification, but there was [a requirement] from the University perspective because it's my understanding that there's a need to have consistency throughout the whole building so they'll eventually say the whole building is LEED certified," he said.
Another ongoing university construction project, the Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center, will not be LEED certified due to cost considerations, but it is nevertheless following LEED requirements, according to Isenstein.
"The Tisch athletics project had very little flexibility in funding, so the decision was made to follow the LEED program, but to use all available funding on the building project rather than [spending it on] the additional costs of certification," Isenstein explained.
"As of the last time we tallied up the points, the results looked like the project would have been silver with the potential to reach gold," she added.
