The Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) yesterday said its future headquarters are to be a “gold level” eco-friendly building, which would substantially reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption.
Located on Dongyuan Street in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), the new building is planned to have 12 floors above ground and two floors below.
The DGH said the building would meet eight of the nine indicators in the Green Building Evaluation System.
To be certified, a building must be evaluated for its biodiversity, greenery, water retention and rain water management, daily energy conservation, carbon emission reduction, construction waste reduction, indoor environment, water conservation and sewage and waste disposal facility improvement.
Buildings can qualify for four levels of certification, including certified, silver, gold and platinum.
Hsia Ming-sheng (夏明勝), chief of the bureau’s construction section, said the planned building failed to meet the requirements for biodiversity, which requires the property to occupy an area of at least 2 hectares. The new office building only occupies an area of 0.66 hectares, he said.
He said that the building can nevertheless be certified as a gold-level green building.
The building cost about NT$1.2 billion (US$41 million), which covers the construction of the building, the interior design as well as other charges.
The building’s principal architect, Hal Chiang (江之豪), said that his team had surveyed all the trees around the construction site before construction begun and managed to preserve all of them during the construction.
Chiang said that the new building is also equipped with solar energy panels and wind power system.
Jointly, the two energy systems can generate electricity of 12,882 kilowatt-hours and reduce the carbon emission of 3,000kg.
Construction is scheduled to begin in August next year.
The Ministry of Finance this afternoon announced the winning numbers for the March-April uniform invoice lottery. The winning number for the NT$10 million (US$318,060) special prize is 19531471, and the winning number for the NT$2 million grand prize is 85941329. Three numbers were drawn for the NT$200,000 first prize: 07225810, 20231230 and 83518781. Those with receipts matching the last seven digits of any of the first-prize numbers will win the NT$40,000 second prize, while those matching the last six digits will win the NT$10,000 third prize. Those whose receipts match the last five digits of the first-prize numbers can claim the NT$4,000 fourth prize,
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