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At Archiplanet.org, the all-building wiki, contributors of all stripes are working to document, celebrate, and critique historic buildings (and new ones too), like Memorial Coliseum:

http://www.archiplanet.org/wiki/Memorial_Coliseum%2C_Portland%2C_Oregon

Eugene City Hall:

http://www.archiplanet.org/wiki/Eugene_City_Hall

and even endangered buildings outside the U.S., like Tokyo's Nakagin Capsule Tower:

http://www.archiplanet.org/wiki/Nakagin_Capsule_Tower

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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Oregon - and Portland in particular - has a wealth of LEED-certified buildings and quite a few LEED Platinum-certified buildings. Any one of them would have been a more credible example for this discussion of green building than the Independence Station.

It is entirely too easy to fall into the P.R. trap laid by developers who seek to attract press coverage (aka "free advertising") of unfinished buildings by promoting their anticipated green certification levels.

It has happened before that buildings were promoted as seeking a particular LEED certification only to fall short. And in the case of the recent San Francisco Federal Building - a much-hyped "green" project - the building ultimately failed to receive any LEED certification, though it may arguably be a green building.

We should all applaud a developer for seeking to build a LEED Platinum-certified building anywhere in the U.S., and especially in a small town like Independence. But it's really a little dishonest to highlight an unfinished project, whose claims of "greenness" are currently theoretical.

posted 2 years, 12 months ago
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