Helmut Jahn's Near North SRO: Sustainable Social Housing
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 4.06
Helmut Jahn builds dramatic skyscrapers and vast airports all over the world; he is also the architect of Chicago's Near North SRO, (single room occupancy), a 96 unit project for housing the homeless. “The building is a stigma smasher,” said Charles Hoch of the University of Illinois... “We are borrowing the cachet of Mr. Jahn to send a message to the larger society and that message is that homeless people have value, they have a role to play in society.” Furthermore it is going for LEED certification, and has a network of wind turbines and solar panels that will generate about 15% of the building's power, and a gray water recovery system that will collect and recycle runoff from sinks and showers. The sustainable features cost a million bucks out of the 18 million dollar cost of the project; that's just over $10,000 per unit, and almost $35 per square foot. Sustainability isn't cheap; neither is Helmut Jahn or LEED certification. It is a price worth paying. ::New York Times
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LEED certification should be a requirement to be an architect in the US. I think it's high time we learn how much energy we're wasting.
Every building built in Chicago using state or federal funds MUST be LEED certified, and if built in the City of Chicago, also must have a green roof.
As an architect, I strongly believe Chicago is the most progressive urban center in the US, by far.
No other US city comes close to the rigor that Chicago pursues in not only green archtecture, but also in using architecture to improve the social urban fabric.
The City has been on a roll with new parks, urban gardens, green roofs, landfill methane production, mass transit, bike lanes, not to mention being the home to the world's first Carbon Trading.
I live in NYC but love traveling to Chicago, and could see moving there if my family wouldn;t kill me for doing so :) It is a very vibrant place that should inspire a lot of other cities.
I'm an east coast transplant living in Chicago, and I love it here...
Projects are LEED "certified", people are LEED "accredited."