Thursday, April 29, 2010

Benedictine nuns, Mormons build to a higher (green) standard | GreenerBuildings

A monastery in Madison, Wis., that earned LEED-Platinum certification and a solar-powered Mormon meetinghouse in Utah are the latest examples of houses of worship that adhere to principles of sustainable design.
With green elements that include a geothermal heating and cooling system using 39 closed‐loop wells, each 300 feet deep, the Holy Wisdom Monastery of the Benedictine Women of Madison recently received a platinum green building rating. The designation is the highest of four certification levels available under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design standards.

This week in Utah, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints showed off its new meetinghouse in Farmington, one of five being constructed according to green building prototypes under a LEED program that supports expedited certification of projects built according to pre-approved designs. The other meetinghouses are in Eagle Mountain, Utah, Apache Junction, Arizona, and Logandale and Pahrump, Nevada. The Apache Junction and Logandale sites also will be solar powered.

The projects by the Benedictines and Mormons are the most recent in growing efforts to green houses of worship in the U.S. and abroad.

Click on the link for the rest of this story on GreenerBiz.com.

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