Hello everyone! I am pretty new at LEED, and I am working on a building in urban areas that will earn SS credit 2. Credit Requirements specifies that "pedestrian-oriented hardscape areas can contribute to credit compliance. For such projects, a minimum of 25% of the open space counted must be vegetated." while LEEDUser Bird's eye view states that "25% of the required open space must be vegetated". It's not exactly the same thing for me. For example, let's say that I have a site area of 5 000 m2. I need to provide 20% of open space, so 1 000 m2. If the building site actually provide 2 000 m2 of open space, what is the actual area of vegetated space required? Is it 25% of the required 1 000 m2 or 25% or the counted 2 000 m2? It's not very clear for me, so thanks for your help!

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Tristan Roberts

Representative

Vermont House of Representatives

LEEDuser Expert

7780 thumbs up

Fri, 02/25/2011 - 14:22

Valentin, you bring up a good point, and I am going to edit LEEDuser's language accordingly. I think from the LEED Reference Guide (pages 85 and 87) it is clear that the 25% should be counted against the total open space (2,000 m2), not just the minimum required.

Valentin Grimaud

Thermal Engineer

TERAO Green Building Engineering

LEEDuser Basic Member

28 thumbs up

Fri, 02/25/2011 - 15:06

Thanks Tristan for your quick answer. Just a further clarification, using the same example as above. I'm not sure if I am properly doing my calculation. I have 2 000 m2 of hardscape plus a garden roof. Do I need to add the surface of the garden roof to the surface of the hardscape, and then calculate if 25% of the total is actually vegetated, or do I need to check if the surface of the garden roof is equal to 25% of the surface of the hardscape?

Tristan Roberts

Representative

Vermont House of Representatives

LEEDuser Expert

7780 thumbs up

Fri, 02/25/2011 - 15:11

I think the first method is correct—take the total open space being claimed, and multiply by 0.25.

Valentin Grimaud

Thermal Engineer

TERAO Green Building Engineering

LEEDuser Basic Member

28 thumbs up

Sun, 02/27/2011 - 13:24

Tristan, what do you think of this interpretation of the vegetated space requirement: in case of SSc2, you can take into account hardscape, but in order to do this, the hardscape must be at least 25% vegetated. I think it's more consistent with the idea of the credit, which intent to reintroduce nature into urban area. In this idea, it's not the sum of hardscape + vegetated roof that need to have a 25:75 ration of vegetated area, but only the hardscape, and the vegetated roof come as a plus. What do you think of this interpretation?

Tristan Roberts

Representative

Vermont House of Representatives

LEEDuser Expert

7780 thumbs up

Sun, 02/27/2011 - 20:28

Valentin, I think what you are describing is a more stringent path than the one required by LEED. If you want to interpret it that way, I would encourage it, but I wouldn't consider it necessary.

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