Abstract
The objective of this study was to present directions for improving the application process of G-SEED, which is the representative green building certification adopted for sustainable architecture domestically, as not only as an evaluation tool but as a guideline for sustainable architectural design. In order to do so, in-depth interviews of architects and analysis of the assessment content for architectures which received certification were conducted to identify the practical issues in the application of G-SEED to office buildings. Then, analysis of international green building certifications was conducted to derive supporting basis for the improvement of G-SEED. Using the above objective and methods, the following problems and directions for improvement of the G-SEED were presented in this study. First, the process of applications of G-SEED to office buildings progresses completely independent from the overall design process. Due to this, the certification criteria is being applied in fragments in order to obtain points for the certification criteria regardless of the objective and characteristic pursued by the project. Consequently, application of the certification criteria is being assessed in the final design phase, which has led to limited design application, unreasonable design modifications, and construction expense increases. In order to improve such problems, design charrettes for each design phase were adopted to allow the integrated approach by all experts and parties concerned from a holistic perspective of the project. Second, commissioning, which was reduced in the domestic certification criteria, was made to conduct evaluations appropriate to the essential objective so that the effective operation of the architecture can be guaranteed through the verification and adjustment of the design, construction, and operation phases. Lastly, The certification criteria was subdivided to allow the sequential design to proceed according to the individual design strategies along with the implementation and expansion of the certification criteria for the realization of an integrated design process. This is expected to supplement the limitation of G-SEED which only presents the final assessment criteria and induce the effective application of the certification criteria by the architects.