With an ever-growing concern for energy costs, natural resource consumption and wear and tear on our environment, an Anderson architect is trying to help out with environmentally friendly qualities in his designs.

Mike Montgomery, of K.R. Montgomery and Associates Architecture and Interior Design in Anderson, is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified professional. LEED is part of the U.S. Green Building Council.

“The amount of energy and fuel products consumed by buildings is staggering,” Montgomery said. “If we can do better at making efficient, better places to live we will reduce the impact on our environment.

“I have seen how us becoming a ‘green’ society will be better for us and our firm can play a role in that happening,” he said. “We are pursuing becoming a ‘green’ accredited firm.”

In Indiana there are 150 LEED certified professionals, with half of them being architects, and the rest engineers and contractors. Montgomery is the only one in Anderson.

The change toward environmentally friendly buildings is growing, but didn’t come overnight, he said.

“It started in the mid-70s after the first oil embargo. Because of the political situation and long lines at the gas pumps a 55 mph limit was imposed to reduce consumption of foreign oil,” Montgomery said.

A concern grew from oil consumption and businesses began building solar powered and underground facilities to reduce energy consumption, he said.

“But some buildings were not nice to be in,” Montgomery said. “There was no fresh air, no windows. They were not good places for people to work in.”

What evolved from this concern was the U.S. Green Building Council worked in the early 1990s to develop a set of standards which became the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It started catching on more than it had in the 1980s because strategies were set and rated on a scale.

The desire to work under LEED standards has grown, but has yet to really become well-known.

“In the early ’80s, the Americans with Disabilities Act came out and people complained that (handicap accessible designs) would make buildings cost more,” Montgomery said. “Twenty years later, now it’s just a way we design buildings. It’s required, part of the code.

“Eventually this will be same way,” he said of LEED structures. “People are complaining now that it will cost more, but they are really saying ‘I don’t want to change.’ They are used to doing things a certain way. We will look back 20 years from now and say this was one of the greatest things we did.”

Two local buildings that K.R. Montgomery and Associates designed with environmentally friendly qualities are the Eastside Elementary School and the additions and renovations to the Pendleton Community Library.

Eastside Elementary School was completed in the fall of 2005 and has several LEED aspects.