‘Green Building’ Certification criteria must suit SL needs

By Nizla Naizer

Vijitha Perera

With the conclusion of the Architect 2009 exhibition and conference where the theme of ‘Doing More with Less’ was extolled and elaborated upon, The Bottom Line caught up with Engineer Vijitha Perera who believes that if ‘Green Buildings’ as certified by LEEDS is the benchmark, the criteria must be suited towards a tropical country like Sri Lanka.
“Sri Lanka and the entire Asian region have accepted the US Green Building Council’s LEEDS certification but the LEEDS certification is more ideal for the temperate climates in that part of the world. The marking scheme has to be changed to suit the conditions of countries like Sri Lanka,” he explained. He added that countries like India and Singapore have already gone away from the LEEDS certification and even though there are positive elements in the certification there must be some criteria to suit Sri Lanka or we might have to move away from it too.
Perera who spoke at the Architect Convention last week elaborated on the importance of ‘energy efficient’ buildings in the future. “Buildings can be termed ‘green’ but I feel instead of giving it another name, all buildings must be made to be energy efficient.”
Commenting through his expertise in the subject of air conditioning he explained that air conditioning contributes to 60-70% of the energy consumption but in order to change that, changes must be made from the designing stages of the project.
“You cannot stop the damage once the building is completed,” he informed, “You must start implementing energy efficient planning from the design stages, which is why it’s vital for engineers and architects to work together.”
Calling engineering and architecture two arms of the same body, Perera elaborated that in these hard times it’s more important for these two professions to collaborate in creating a better future through energy efficient buildings.
“There should be more correlation between the two fields and we have to work in parallel. And we have energy efficiency systems that can be implemented on so many levels that there is no limit to what we can achieve if we move forward together.” Commenting that he has seen successful collaborations between engineers and architects towards energy efficient buildings taking place in large scale projects, Perera stated that it still isn’t enough.
“Working towards energy efficient construction isn’t widespread enough. But there is hope for the future. I was invited to talk to the gathering of Architects as an Engineer. That’s a step in the right direction,” he concluded.