Winter Is Green At 2010 Olympics

2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Villages achieve a new level of commitment to LEED sustainability.

The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming!

The thrill of victory. The agony of da’ feet. The passionate cheers of glory-hogging fans as their team squashes mine.

What can I say? I’m an avid underdog-rooter.

But this year as the Parade Of Nations goes by - and our mouths hang open in rapt amazement when we find out that toosmall-istan actually has a curling team  - we will also have another reason to cheer.

For the first time the Olympic Village, including 16 buildings and 1.4 million square feet, has been constructed to the LEED Gold standard. The Community Center is being built to the LEED Platinum standard.

Taaa-daaaa! Winter is green, after all.

All of the buildings in Vancouver’s Olympic Village compound are fitted with solar panels and green roofs irrigated by rainwater. There is also an in-slab hydronic heating and cooling system. The latent heat of the sewer pipes is also being used by an innovative heat exchange system within the structures.

When the games are over, the building will not sit empty and unused, either.

About 900 of the residential dwellings will be sold at market rates. About 250 will become non-market housing for seniors and low income singles and families.

Sustainable construction on this scale is intended to showcase cutting edge architectural and engineering practices in an urban setting.

The larger of the Olympic Villages, Southeast False Creek, includes an elementary school, a streetcar line, parks, day cares, commercial, retail, office space, at least one grocery store, a community center, and a marina.

The housing complex, all built to meet the highest levels of LEED sustainability, will ultimately house between 10,000 and 15,000 people.

After the Olympics, the Village’s apartments, row-houses and community facilities will be renamed to reflect the nationalities of the athletes who stayed in their homes while competing.

With everything the Vancouver Olympic Committee has accomplished for 2010, London has some big shoes to fill in 2012. But they have already promised an even higher standard in environmentalism and sustainability for the games.

Go team green!

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