PROJECT Heifer International Headquarters
CITY Little Rock, Ark.
ARCHITECT Polk Stanley Rowland Curzon Porter Architects
New headquarters for Heifer International are a study in brownfield regeneration. Given a 22-acre former industrial site adjacent to the Clinton Presidential Library, the design team created a high-performance office building in equilibrium with the surrounding environment. Local resources infuse the 94,000-square-foot project: Factories down the street milled the structural steel and aluminum curtainwall system; a regional forest yielded the timber roof planks; and brick from the warehouses that existed on the site before were crushed to make porous parking surface and site fill.
The building’s slim, elongated crescent shape admits ample daylight throughout the work spaces. Exterior overhangs and vertical fins limit solar heat gain, and the roof is angled to optimize a future photovoltaic array. Trumpeting smart water management, a 42,000-gallon water tower wrapped with a fire stair and enclosed behind a glass façade collects runoff from the 30,000-square-foot roof. This water, along with graywater from sinks, is reused in toilets and the cooling tower. Low-flow fixtures and the city’s first waterless urinals conserve additional water.
PROJECT Global Ecology Research Center
CITY Stanford, Calif.
ARCHITECT EHDD Architects
Ample natural light and ventilation coupled with a radiant cooling system preserve the comfort of the 11,000-square-foot Global Ecology Research Center at Stanford University. At night, sprinklers spray a thin film of water over the roof, where it cools to around 65 degrees and runs to a 12,000-gallon chiller tank. The cooled water then circulates throughout the building during the day, absorbing interior heat. Although the project was not submitted for LEED certification, juror John Quale says, “We appreciated the independent thinking.”
PROJECT Whitney Water Purification Facility
CITY New Haven, Conn.
ARCHITECT Steven Holl Architects
The Whitney Water Purification Facility reinvents a typically industrial process as an operational landscape with a public park and educational facilities. Reservoirs are buried beneath a 30,000-square-foot green roof that blends with surrounding wetlands and meadows. A 360-foot-long, sculptural stainless steel building beckons visitors with an exhibition lobby, lecture hall, and conference rooms. Occupied spaces are naturally ventilated, but the utility and water treatment areas have separate, closed HVAC systems. Eighty-eight geothermal wells heat and cool the facility.
PROJECT Artists for Humanity EpiCenter
CITY Boston
ARCHITECT Arrowstreet
With four floors devoted to the cultivation of young, inner-city artists, the 23,500-square-foot LEED Platinum Artists for Humanity EpiCenter embodies the idealistic values of the organization that inhabits it. Natural light penetrates deep into the open studio interiors. A 49-kW photovoltaic array covers the roof. Betting on the success of natural ventilation techniques and the endurance of the young artists, the client and designers decided to forgo air conditioning altogether. Juror Traci Rider says, “This project is not just about design and environmental sustainability, but reaching cultural sustainability.”
PROJECT Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse
CITY Eugene, Ore.
ARCHITECT Morphosis and DLR Group
Competing goals of stringent security, public accessibility, and environmental responsibility find a studied compromise in the architecture of the 267,000-square-foot, LEED Gold Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse. Two main volumes house government offices, public court services, six courtrooms, and judges’ chambers and libraries. Blast-proof subterranean parking reduces surface area and storm runoff. The daylighting strategy includes a central courtyard and clerestory windows. Thrifty plumbing fixtures and marginal irrigation needs reduce the building’s water consumption by around 40 percent.
PROJECT Willingboro Master Plan and Public Library
CITY Willingboro, N.J.
ARCHITECT Croxton Collaborative Architects
Aiming to revive an abandoned and polluted 1950s shopping plaza, Croxton Collaborative Architects developed a sustainable master plan anchored by public amenities. The 45,000- square-foot Willingboro Public Library springs from the original foundation and steel structure of a former Woolworth’s store, setting a precedent for recycling other defunct plaza buildings. The architects punched new apertures in the brick box, allowing natural light to wash the interior via clerestory glazing, windows on three sides, and funnel-shaped skylights aligned on a true north-south axis to prolong in. infiltration.
PROJECT Government Canyon Visitor Center
CITY Helotes, Texas
ARCHITECT Lake|Flato Architects
Hell-bent on demonstrating sustainable water practices, the Government Canyon Visitor Center captures all roof runoff in ground cisterns that double as seats and native grass planters along the public entryway. A solar-powered pump lifts stored water into elevated holding tanks, providing a gravity-powered stream to low-flow plumbing fixtures and a drip irrigation system for the native landscaping. Pedestrian walkways hover several inches off the ground to preserve the delicate flora and soil of the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone.
PROJECT Sidwell Friends Middle School
CITY Washington, D.C.
ARCHITECT KieranTimberlake Associates
The energy invested in the sustainable renovation and expansion of the Sidwell Friends Middle School has the exciting potential to ripple out beyond the carefully planned site. The LEED Platinum project doubles the school’s size to 72,000 square feet with new daylit music and art studios, science and computer labs, and library. The car park has been tucked beneath a rain-absorbing green roof. Reclaimed building materials include exterior siding made from 100-year-old western red cedar wine barrels and greenheart flooring from pilings in the Baltimore Harbor.
PROJECT Hawaii Gateway Energy Center
CITY Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
ARCHITECT Ferraro Choi and Associates
Perched on the rocky Kona Coast of Hawaii’s Big Island, the Hawaii Gateway Energy Center dramatically flaunts the 20-kW photovoltaic array that provides all of its power. Yet the 3,600- square-foot building, designed to support energy research and education, also exhibits a wealth of passive design strategies. Warm air rises along a plenum beneath the copper roof and exits through a row of chimney stacks. Fresh outside air is cooled by passing across coils filled with seawater. Condensation from the cooling coils is harvested and recycled for toilets and irrigation.
PROJECT Z6 House
CITY Santa Monica, Calif.
ARCHITECT Livinghomes, Ray Kappe Architects
As the only residential project selected by the jury, the LEED for Homes (Version 1) Platinum–rated Z6 House picks up where the midcentury Case Study Houses left off. The 2,500-square-foot house is composed of 11 prefabricated modules and, according to the architects, prefabrication reduced construction waste by 90 percent, compared with a conventional stick-built home. Glazing accounts for nearly 75 percent of the wall surfaces to encourage daylighting; a solar hot water collector powers a radiant heating system; and a small photovoltaic array provides over half of the home’s energy.
