The Caymanian partner in the proposed Cayman Enterprise City
wants to see, as much as possible, ‘green’ building on the Islands.
“If you have two choices, why not take that choice?”
she asks.
O’Hara was the lead architect on the newly completed
Government Administration Building, the first LEED certified building in the
Cayman Islands.
LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy &
Environmental Design, is a green building certification system that was
developed in 1998 by the U.S. Green Building Council.
With O’Hara’s next big architectural project, Cayman
Enterprise City, LEED certification might be out of reach, at least at the
beginning.
“I’d love to [get LEED certification],” she says,
noting, however, that there are substantial costs involved. “There are
inexpensive LEED costs; there are expensive LEED costs; and there are very
expensive LEED costs.”
It is one thing for a government to build a LEED
building, but something else for a private sector developer to do it. In the
United States, many local governments give incentives such as tax credits,
density bonuses, reduced fees, and expedited permitting for LEED-certified
buildings; however, these kinds of incentives don’t currently exist here in the
Cayman Islands.
LEED certification requires independent verification, so
it’s not just a matter of saying a building is up to LEED standards.
“With LEED, there’s a lot of work and paperwork,”
O’Hara says. “It’s a commitment and it’s expensive.”
Regardless, even if Cayman Enterprise City doesn’t shoot for
LEED certification, O’Hara intends to design as many cost-effective green
elements as she can into the project.
Work environment
O’Hara says she embraced green building practices
early on in her career, partially because she feels it’s the right thing to do.
“It makes me sleep better at night,” she says.
Part of the LEED initiative aims at making the building
sustainable, requiring less natural resources. However, another aspect of the
initiative is making the building healthier for its users. O’Hara feels that
architectural design can help accomplish the latter with Cayman Enterprise
City.
“I want people to say, even if they [don’t like] their
job, ‘I love where I work’,” she says, adding that people spend so much of
their time at their workplace, it’s important that they enjoy their
environment.
O’Hara plans to incorporate green into Cayman
Enterprise City in a literal sense; she wants ivy to cover some of its
buildings’ walls, something she’s wanted to design into a project for a long
time.
“I’m desperate to do this,” she says. “It actually
acts as insulation.”
The plan is to have ivy cover the development’s walls
facing the hotter south side. On the northern side, O’Hara wants to see natural
stone – preferably Cayman cut-stone – which she says remains cooler during the
day.
“It’s my favourite material,” she says. “It’s unique to
[Cayman] and the natural colours work well here.”
O’Hara wants to incorporate as many local materials
into Cayman Enterprise City as she can for more than just reasons of
sustainability.
“I want it to have a sense of this place,” she says,
adding that she wants it to have a feel of the Caribbean generally and Cayman
specifically.
For that reason, she also plans to incorporate some
wood into the exterior architectural design.
“Wood [historically] was a huge part of the design of
Caribbean architecture,” she says.
Landscaping
Cayman Enterprise City developer Barry Hon has a
vision that meldswell with O’Hara’s design sensibility, particularly when it
comes to creating a place where people will enjoy working.
Part of the plan is to create plenty of outdoor green
spaces where people could, if they want to, take a laptop and go work, instead
of being stuck in the office all day.
A lot of effort will go into the landscaping at Cayman
Enterprise City.
“Landscaping almost makes a place. You can see that at
Camana Bay,” O’Hara says. “For lot of developers, landscaping is almost an
afterthought. I’m actually thinking about it as a design concept.”
O’Hara says she’d like to engage a landscape architect
and environmentalist in the design stage of the project.
In keeping with the idea of sustainability, O’Hara wants the
project to incorporate indigenous Cayman plants that are drought resistant and
don’t need a lot of water in the dry season.
Ideally, she’d like to see much of the common grounds and
road system infrastructure in the development using entirely sustainable
resources.
“We’d love to be off the [electricity] grid for all of that,
using [photo-voltaic solar power] for the lighting,” she says. “That’s really
achievable for not too much cost for that part.”
Although the site of the project has not yet been announced,
O’Hara did give a hint when talking about the landscaping design elements that
will include water.
“We’re inland, so we had to bring the water to us,”
she says.
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