How do you keep 25,000 panes of glass out of the recycling stream?
Via unconsumption:
Instead of ordering 6,514 new windows, contractors are refurbishing the existing windows and improving their thermal resistance (and performing the work from inside the building).
“[Empire State Building owner Tony] Malkin says he’s saving about $2,300 per window and avoiding the environmental impact of trucking new windows from the factory and old ones to recycling.”
“If you can retrofit the Empire State Building, you can retrofit anything.”
Read the rest of the USA Today story here, spotted on Twitter via Architectural Record, @ArchRecord [Thx, Laurie!]
The USA Today piece doesn’t mention LEED certification, but I’ve read elsewhere that when completed, the renovated Empire State Building is expected to qualify for LEED Existing Building Gold and an Energy Star rating of 90, placing it in the top 10 percent of energy-efficient buildings in the U.S. Quite impressive for a 79-year-old, 102-story building. Now if more building owners would invest in retrofits/upgrades …