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.
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