It takes a bit of ingenuity and a healthy dose of elbow grease to transform a 30,000-square-foot abandoned Sears auto center into a 91-point LEED Platinum certified office space, but that is exactly what Bremerton, Wash.-based Rice Fergus Miller (RFM) Architecture did. 

There are many obstacles contractors face when working on these types of projects, including everything from educating owners to following through on building operation.

These days, essentially everybody wants their building to be more efficient. But there are still barriers to achieving high efficiency and constructing a high-performance building.