Green Building Materials: A Guide to Product Selection and Specification

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Summary: "Green Remodeling" would be a good companion guide
Review: Green materials are definitely an important aspect of green building; however, I think we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking green materials *are* green building. We need to think more holistically - for example, asphalt roofing may not be "green," but it will last 40 years and save me significant money over a sterotypically "green" recycled-tile or slate roof. I can use this money towards green-ing other features of my home. Most of us need to spend our money wisely, so we need to pick and choose green features for homes as best we can. I highly recommend the book "Green Remodeling" as a companion guide to this book that will offer much needed practical remodeling advice and whole-systems thinking.

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Summary: An excellent and long-needed guide to green specifications!
Review: This is an absolute MUST-HAVE addition to the libraries of every firm and organization that deals with designing, constructing, maintaining, or restoring commercial and public buildings. It should be required reading in every architectural school. It also offers much value to residential builders, even though they seldom use the sophisticated specification systems of the commercial building trade.

For some three decades, articles and books on environmentally-sound architecture have focused on the design side. And most have focused on residential construction. Spiegel & Meadow's new book breaks new ground in two respects, by dealing with the product/material side of (primarily) commercial buildings.

The specification aspect of green construction -- in which the appropriate materials and products are prescribed -- has been largely unaddressed. This is partly because the commercial building industry, in general, has culturally been behind the curve in terms of concern for the environment, but also because even the most conscientious firms have serious difficulty finding and obtaining green building products.

There are two reasons for this difficulty of specifying green materials: 1) Few architects receive any meaningful level of training regarding specification in their schooling, preferring to focus on the more glamorous process of design; and, 2) Neither the commercially-available master guide specifications (such as SpecLink and MasterSpec) nor the product catalogs (such as First Source, SpecData, and Sweets) have figured out how to provide a useful and accurate means of helping specifiers compare the greeness of one item over another.

While Green Building Materials can't solve the industry's lack of useful tools, it provides designers with the first comprehensive education on the specification process as it relates to green building.

New tools are finally entering the market, such as the LEED system (from the U.S. Green Building Council) for measuring the greeness of a building, which will soon be incorporated into the Construction Specification Institute's new PerSpective software for performance specifying.

Used in combination with this book, architects and building owners are finally beginning to get what they need to create buildings that are healthy for both their occupants and the world's environment.

The authors have a level of intimacy with their subject that oozes out of each page. Readers come away with the distinct impression that this book is a product of both passion and deep expertise, and is obviously not some publisher's attempt to quickly plug a serious gap in the literature.

A rapidly-growing number of public and private owners are requiring a level of greeness to all of their new buildings. Green Building Matierals is the tool the owners need in order to get what they want. It's also what designers and builders need to respond successfully to such demands.