Exploration of the Audubon Center and Green Building - Assignment Example

The Audubon Park is built on a 5,023-square-foot piece of land and is the first in Los Angeles City to be fully powered by on-site solar systems. Moreover, the building uses less water than any other conventional structure of its size. 

Audubon Center Recently, I visited Audubon Center at Debs Park and learned a lot regarding environmental conservation. I discovered that to conserve the environment, one has to put in place various significant issues. For instance, on assessing the Audubon Center, I concluded that virtually every aspect of the building, from the ground floor to the rooftop, was custom-made to conform to the stringent requirements. Where need be, recycled materials including melted down handguns and scrap metal were adversely used in the rebar to act as strengthening materials to the concrete blocks and floors.

Organic materials were also significantly embraced. This is demonstrated in all aspects, from the carpeting of the Mexican agave plant to cabinets and desks made of wheat board and sunflower board. Audubon Center uses a fully solar-powered air conditioning system thus meeting various goals of the broad-based environmental movement that not only encourages the use of clean energy technologies but also brings the presence of nature close to people who rarely leave urban centers to travel to nature. I discovered that the solar power which costs about $90,000 and is about 10 tons uses an 800-square foot array of Chinese Sunda vacuum tube solar harvesters, each having a copper heat pipe and an aluminum nitride absorber plate that harvests the solar radiation.

I found out that the Sunda tubes work on a principle of heat-pipe, which asserts that water under low pressure in tubes is normally heated and is transformed to a vapor that eventually flows up to the condensation section of the tube. Ultimately, water is heated and flows to the manifold that connects all the tubes, thus transferring thermal energy from the collectors to the hot water storage tank through insulated pipes. Several things can be done in my home area to conserve energy.

Firstly, to achieve the requirements for the platinum Rating, my community must ensure that it constructs a building that would meet the fundamental requirement of green building by earning a minimum of 52 sustainability points out of the possible 69. I would advise my community that points are awarded on basically everything from the selection of the site to the building materials used to being innovative in interior design by having indoor finishing that is environmentally friendly. It is worth noting that the Audubon Center at Debs Park scooped 53 LEED points.

A major fraction of the points came from its efficiency in water systems as well as renewable energy sources. I would also insist on using locally manufactured and harvested materials which may include wood, sheet metal, paving materials, landscape plantings, and concrete since these are stressed by the LEED program.