LEED-Certified Properties Prove Resilient Against Extreme Weather Events
Building sustainably includes prioritizing designs, technologies and methods that support resilience to extreme weather events. The U.S Green Building Council (USGBC) and its partners have defined resilience as the “ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.” Accordingly, LEED-certified spaces include practices such as the use of durable materials, thoughtful site selection, rainwater collection, demand response, on-site renewable energy generation and more.
According to USGBC, While the recent Pacific Palisades fire ravaged over 6,000 structures, a handful of homes managed to survive. One of these homes, designed by architects Michael Kovac and Karina Maher of Kovac Studio as their own residence, is not only certified LEED Platinum, but also was built with fire resilience in mind. The architects designed their home as a test case for sustainable systems and wildfire preparedness.
A few months before the Pacific Palisades fire, Florida had already experienced the destructive power of two extreme weather events: back-to-back hurricanes. Despite the widespread damage caused by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in 2024—displacing millions and leaving behind severe flooding and damage—a residential development and a commercial property in the Tampa area each managed to remain flood-free and withstand both storms.
Located in a flood zone and nestled between Sarasota Bay and the southwestern part of Tampa Bay, Hunters Point is the first residential development in Florida to pursue LEED Zero certification. With each of the three-story homes, a recent article from CNN describes, the ground floor is a garage that was designed with flood vents to drain rising water in the event of a storm.