Engineering-News Record’s survey of the Top Green Building Design Firms lists HOK as the No. 1 architecture/engineering firm.
HOK is again among the world’s most environmentally responsible design firms, according to ENR’s annual survey of sustainability within the design industry. HOK ranked No. 3 overall in the report and as the No. 1 architecture/engineering (A/E) firm.
Excerpted from Engineering-News Record:
The market for sustainable design and construction continues to grow. However, the well-ordered world of sustainable design and construction process through compliance with the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards has become more complicated, with the growing acceptance of alternatives to LEED. The complexities and unfamiliarity of LEED Version 4 sustainability standards, and the growing client demand for more targeted sustainability options, such as healthy buildings or energy savings, have industry firms scrambling to keep up.
USGBC unveiled its plans at the annual Greenbuild conference last November to update its LEED standard with LEED v4.1. LEED v4.1 will allow projects to earn LEED points through building performance monitoring via the Arc platform. It has now launched a beta version to the revamped standard for existing buildings.
Many industry leaders see this move as sharpening LEED’s focus on energy performance. “Unfortunately, the pushback against changes in the Materials category delayed implementation of LEED v4 significantly, and around 30 states and the District of Columbia have energy codes in place that are equal or more stringent than the LEED prerequisite for energy performance,” says Anica Landreneau, senior principal and director of sustainable design at HOK. “This is one of the main drivers for the LEED v4.1 conversation because LEED is not keeping up with energy.”
Image: Green roof at the NewYork-Presbyterian David H. Koch Center in New York. Photo by Ari Burling.