NEW YORK - New York City has been known for inventive uses of its limited space, such as rooftop green spaces, and in recent years has experimented with some of the first sustainable and green building designs for high-rise buildings and mixed-use buildings. Guidelines, including New York City's High Performance Building Guidelines and Battery Park's Green Guidelines, have emerged from New York's experiments in design.

Following these examples, the developers of the World Trade Center site are compiling their own sustainable design guides specific to the site. The guidelines exist in preliminary form as part of the recently released environmental impact statement for the site. In addition to calling for 20 percent of the building's energy to be generated by renewable resources, the guidelines call for developers to incorporate local and recycled materials as well as products made from renewable agricultural resources for interior and insulating materials.

The World Trade Center guidelines integrate energy, water, land, and construction issues, and will evolve as a result of the public review process currently underway.

For New York City's High Performance Building Guidelines, see www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/ddc/html/ddcgreen/highperf.html.

For Battery Park's guidelines, visit www.batteryparkcity.org/guidelines.htm.

To view the current draft of the sustainable design guide for the World Trade Center site, see Appendix A of the environmental impact statement at www.renewnyc.com/content/pdfs/eis/Appendix_A.pdf.

Publication date: 03/29/2004