Lessons Learned: High-Performance Buildings--An environmental information and resource guide for the commercial real estate industry

Lessons Learned:

High-Performance Buildings

edited by Pamela Lippe. Produced by Earth Day New York, 201 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017, 212/922-0048, www.earthdayny.

com. Paperback, 144 pages, $25.

Lessons Learned: High-Performance Buildingsis a deceptively modest package for the wealth of information it contains. Like the 1997 book

Lessons Learned: Four Times Square, this book uses a magazine-style format, with ads scattered throughout. While this is not a format that usually commands great respect, the three dozen articles and essays, written by many of the best-known names in the green building field, comprise a great resource on large commercial buildings.

Lessons Learned begins with the big picture: Paul Hawken explains Natural Capitalism in four pages (if you don’t have time to read that book, at least read this summary!), and Bill McDonough writes about life and living things as an inspiration for design. The book then gets down to business, with essays from four business leaders who are championing the environmental cause, followed by four articles on the economics of green buildings. Subsequent sections get into the specifics of process and technologies for making high-performance buildings, with contributions from a broad range of experts. The book concludes with sections on policy and on tools (including a description of

EBN and the other resources from BuildingGreen).

There are gems of insight here on everything from how to sell the concept of green to the benefits of underfloor air distribution for air quality and energy savings. While much of the material is broadly applicable, the book’s New York City roots are evident in the ads and some of the articles. Although many aspects of green building design are covered, there is a haphazard feel to the material’s organization, and some subjects are covered in great detail while others are only touched on. These quibbles aside,

Lessons Learned is a great value for anyone who deals with large buildings.

– NM