Bank of America has received highest honors for completing its new building in midtown Manhattan: platinum LEED certification. As reported by Time in an article "Bank of America Building: A New Green Standard?" by Jeffrey Kluger, LEED platinum may just be the icing on the cake. The new building hosts a multitude of green features, possibly making it the first project of this magnitude to go beyond hipness into the stratosphere of true enc-consciousness.

Much remains to be seen as to how a building of this size will perform in 10, 50, or a hundred years. But the facts are startling: the new building is 55 stories high, making it the second tallest in NYC, and it will host over 8,000 occupants. Among other green wonders, it has a ventilation system that constantly monitors chemicals in the air, dispersing extra oxygen where needed and responding to abrasive fumes from cleaning chemicals or cigarettes.

Lights near windows are programmed to dim during the day and increase in brightness as natural light fades. There is an advanced water-saving system that cools ice during the night, when NYC's power grid is least pressured, for delivery during the following day. Al Gore has already secured an office in the building (-- not a joke. He really is one of a handful of celebrity tenants to claim space in the new building.)

From numbers perspective, particularly concerning the cleaning industry, the waterless urinals are a point of pride with the building's main architect, Richard Cook. Cook claims the waterless urinals will save an additional 3 million gallons of water a year -- "That's about 2,920 miles of one-liter water bottles laid end to end," he says.

Whatever the concerns about the new BOA building's authenticity, be sure of one thing -- it has set a new standard for large buildings.