Green Products: Trends & Innovations
Copper lasts for Centuries
If LEED has a shortcoming, says David Hunt, manager of architectural services for Rome, N.Y.-based Revere Copper Products, Inc., it is that there is no recognition of durability or product life-cycles.
Taking those factors into account would give long-lasting, wholly recyclable products a ratings boost.
"Copper roofing and cladding products, properly designed and installed, will last centuries," says Hunt. "And at the end of its useful life, it will find its way back into use, and will be used over, and over, and over, again."
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"It's not too far-fetched," he says "to consider that the copper in use today in somebody's roof may once have been carried as a shield by a Roman legionnaire."
Somerville, Mass.-based Charles Rose Architects Inc. incorporated copper roofing in his design of the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Campus Center at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. San Francisco-based C. David Robinson Architects turned to copper cladding for the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, Calif.
"Architectural copper, made in the U.S., is 90-95 percent recycled material," says Hunt. New processes, he says, have changed the look of copper. "Patinated" copper products, for example, offer designers a look of naturally aged copper, out-of-the-box.