December 9, 2005—The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) has announced that its historic Van de Kamp Bakery Building has become the first construction conversion project in the US to achieve a Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) rating. The building will become the Northeast Center of Los Angeles City College.
BREEAM is a registered trademark of BRE, a leading center of expertise in environmental technology. For more than a decade, BREEAM has been used to assess the environmental performance of both new and existing buildings. It is regarded by the UK’s construction and property sectors as the measure of best practice in environmental design and management.
BREEAM seeks to minimize the adverse effects of new buildings on the environment while promoting healthy indoor conditions for the occupants, according to officials. The environmental impacts of a new building, such as energy use, waste disposal transportation concerns and water usage, are assessed at the design stage.
Two UK-based BREEAM assessors, Amy Garrod and Lionel Delorme, attended the 2005 LACCD Sustainability Conference on Dec. 2, 2005 to present the award to LACCD.
The Van de Kamp building will also be built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified standards. LEED Green Building Rating System, similar to the U.K.’s BREEAM, is the US standard for developing high-performance sustainable buildings.
For more on BREEAM, visit the Web site.
