Entry 3: Japanese Green Building Founder Visits

Today, a special guest visited Duke University from Japan. Mr. Ishiguro is the Founder and Vice Chairman of the Green Building Council in Japan. He is also a founder and president of an international green commissioning company based in New York, which is where we got the connection (Duke Alum) to arrange a visit. Smart House President Mark Gu presented a brief overview of the Smart House project, which followed with a question and discussion session. Then, we gave Mr. Ishiguro a tour of the Clean Room construction site in CIEMAS. Mr. Ishiguro and his group were very much interested in learning more about our project. In Japan, they work on various commercial green building projects by studying the efficiency, quality, and methods used in construction.

After the tour was finished, we discussed what our relationship will consist of in the future. Mr. Ishiguro would like to return to the US and test the energy efficiency and design of our Smart House right after it is built and 2 years later to draw a comparison. He is very concerned with environmental friendly materials and methods for the building. He was most impressed by the fact that our Smart House will be for the residential market — most of the technologies applied in the current market are used with commercial buildings. We put an emphasis on the fact that our Smart House will serve as a testing site and laboratory for future home related technologies.

All in all, the meeting with the visitors was an educational and rewarding experience. To quote Tom Rose, Program Director of the Duke Smart House, “What I took away from it [the meeting] that was so interesting, was that it seemed like there were cultural differences between the United States and Japan that created a different basis for green building in both of our countries...and that basis didn't necessarily support green building in Japan and he [Ishiguro] was coming here to figure out what can be done to change that, so I was really happy for the Smart House to be a part of that.”