Rothschild Doyno Architects recently moved their offices to Penn Avenue in the Strip, taking advantage of a new program that encourages businesses to "go green"
It's the first project to take advantage of a new low-interest Urban Redevelopment Authority loan for LEED buildings and is striving for LEED-Gold certification. The loan's interest rate decreases as the LEED certification level increases.Without rewriting Lowry's entire column here, she also mentions the innovative direction taken by EDGE architects founder Dutch McDonald, as well as the grass-root advocacy group Preservation Pittsburgh's search for a board of directors. In all, it's promising news for the area.
"There are a lot of concrete block industrial buildings around the city," Rothschild said. "If as a small business we can pull off a LEED-Gold, we could be an example for other small businesses."
Green features include natural light and ventilation, individual lighting controls, soy-based concrete stain, carpet tiles and windows of spectrally selective glass, which minimizes solar heat gain.
