In celebration of Earth Day 2006, April 22, the AIA and its Committee on the Environment announce their selection of the top 10 examples of green design that protects and enhances the environment. These projects address significant environmental challenges with designs that integrate architecture, technology, and natural systems. This year’s Top Ten range in scope from a single-family home for the architects themselves to a large corporate headquarters. Interestingly, two are tied to nature preserves and two offer shelter to animals, while the human clientele served by these projects include fledgling nurses, aging Sisters, and elementary school kids.

The eighth annual AIA/COTE initiative was developed in partnership with cosponsors U.S. EPA’s Energy Star® program and the National Building Museum. Hosting the submission and judging forms was BuildingGreen Inc. The projects and their architects will be honored in June at the AIA National Convention in Los Angeles and on May 3 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

The COTE Top Ten jurors—Kevin Burke AIA, William McDonough + Partners; David Miller, FAIA, The Miller/Hull Partnership; World Green Buildings Council Acting President Kath Williams, PhD, Kath Williams + Associates; Kevin Hydes, PE, Stantec Inc.; Catriona Campbell Winter, The Clark Construction Group; and AIA President-elect RK Stewart, FAIA, Gensler—considered 10 metrics for each project:

1. Sustainable Design Intent & Innovation
2. Regional/Community Design & Connectivity
3. Land Use & Site Ecology
4. Bioclimatic Design
5. Light & Air
6. Water Cycle
7. Energy Flows & Energy Future
8. Materials & Construction
9. Long Life, Loose Fit
10. Collective Wisdom & Feedback Loops.

This year’s Top Ten Green Buildings are:

Alberici Corporation Headquarters, Overland, Mo., by Mackey Mitchell Architects
This adaptive reuse of an existing manufacturing plant into a corporate headquarters for one of St. Louis’ oldest and largest construction companies mandated inclusion of an open office environment, structured parking, training rooms, exercise facilities, and dining facilities. When company growth led to the decision to move, the CEO requested to be in a place that “fosters teamwork and creativity.” Fitting the bill was a 13.6-acre brownfield site with a 1950s office building and 150,000-square-foot former metal manufacturing facility. With 70- and 90-foot clear-span bays and at 505 feet long, it was a “cathedral of steel.” The interiors are organized around three large atria and receive abundant light, fresh air, and views to the outdoors. In addition to visually uniting the two floors, the atriums act as thermal flues to induce ventilation. The open plan environment fosters teamwork and collaboration, while affording 90 percent of building occupants direct views to the outdoors. The project achieved LEED™ Platinum level certification from the USGBC, with 60 of 69 points, the highest total ever.

The Animal Foundation Dog Adoption Park, Las Vegas, by Tate Snyder Kimsey Architects
Driven by a need to expand its operations, the Animal Foundation is developing plans to create a regional animal campus to take care of the animal sheltering and adoption needs for Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, and surrounding Clark County. The project's first phase was this dog adoption park, which consists of “dog bungalows” containing 12 kennels each, outdoor runs, and a visitation room. The architects arranged the bungalows in a park-like setting shaded by freestanding canopies supporting photovoltaic panels. The goals for the dog adoption park were to create a dignified way of presenting animals to the adopting public and use sustainable strategies in the design of this complex, with the intention of achieving a USGBC LEED Platinum certification. Given southern Nevada’s climate, the design team identified reducing the cooling load and water use as the two major areas of focus. The demands of proper canine husbandry led to unexpected synergies between the health needs of the dogs and reductions in energy and water use. Canines thrive in natural daylight and fresh air; consequently, the bungalow’s form and orientation are governed by daylighting and wind-powered ventilation.

Ballard Library and Neighborhood Service Center, Seattle, by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
This project consists of a 15,000-square-foot library, 3,600-square-foot neighborhood service center, and 18,000 square feet of below-grade parking. Its district, rapidly becoming the civic core of the neighborhood, is easily accessible for pedestrians, bicycles, and public transit. A pedestrian zoning overlay was recently adopted to promote development of this nature. The public nature of this building dictated a collaborative process among the architect, Seattle Public Library, Neighborhood Service Center, community, and various user groups. The building itself represents a powerful civic face along a pedestrian corridor. The main entry, pulled back from the street, makes a deep front porch, joining the library and the service center under a large canopy. A gently curving roof, planted with sedums and grasses, absorbs water, thus reducing runoff. A periscope and observation deck invite visitors to engage in the green roof’s ecology above the street. The architect maximized the use of varying intensities of natural light, while metered, photovoltaic glass panels shade the center’s lobby and demonstrate the effectiveness of photovoltaics in the Pacific Northwest.

Ben Franklin Elementary School, Kirkland, Wash., by Mahlum Architects
The architects designed this new, 56,000-square-foot elementary school to connect students directly with the environment in which they live. The school replaces an existing facility on a narrow 10-acre north-south site. The surrounding residential neighborhood, interlaced with equestrian trails, horse paddocks, and forested lands, includes a mature stand of Douglas fir that covers the northern third of the property. This rich natural setting and a requirement to maintain operation of the existing school during construction led to the new facility’s location at the center of the site, embracing the woods. Inside, the school’s 450 students in grades K-6 participate in small learning communities formed by clusters of four naturally ventilated and daylighted classrooms around a multi-purpose activity area. Stacked within two-story wings that extend towards the woods, these communities link integrally with views and access to nature beyond.

Philadelphia Forensic Center, Philadelphia, by the Croxton Collaborative Architects PC, with associate architect Cecil Baker Associates
This new forensics science center for the Philadelphia Police Department is both a state-of-the-art forensics laboratory facility and a demonstration project for green design. The rigorous program includes a firearms unit, with a shooting range for ballistics analysis; a crime-scene unit for gathering evidence; and chemistry, criminalistics, and DNA laboratories. The building is housed in a former 1929 concrete-frame, brick-infill K-12 school building on a site that had been abandoned for many years. The architects incorporated myriad sustainable features, including: precise mapping and load separation of areas requiring 100 percent outside air to minimize mechanical loads, envelope upgrades resulting in a super-insulated building, “clean” products and finishes resulting in vastly improved indoor air quality, deep daylighting achieved by ceiling configurations, a rooftop photovoltaic array providing 15 kW, and primary access to all mechanical and infrastructure systems outside of lab areas. The project also substantially increases pervious areas of the site, with vegetated swales providing bioremediation of runoff and reduction of input into city sewers.

The Renovation of the Motherhouse, Monroe, Mich., by Susan Maxman and Partners
When the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, recognized that their order was diminishing, they asked the design team to embark on a collaborative, long-range planning process to determine the best way to achieve an ecologically sustainable 21st century community on their 280-acre site in southern Michigan. Many of the 1930s structures on their property are historically significant, so any proposed rehabilitation required review by the State Historic Preservation Office. A number of the Sisters require some assistance, and those needs were not being met in the current facility, which was originally designed for dormitory-style living for young women, not for frail elderly residents. The design team met the complex programmatic challenge by designing 380,000 square feet of construction that used the existing structures to best meet the owner’s very specific housing, long-term care, and spiritual needs while achieving sustainable and preservation goals, especially incorporation of daylight, views, and natural ventilation. The team also succeeded in making this austere former convent into a warm and friendly home, with a strong focus on nature and the surrounding site.

School of Nursing and Student Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, by BNIM Architects
This new building offers a pedagogical model of wellness, comfort, flexibility, environmental stewardship, and fiscal responsibility. It is another step in the direction of healthy, environmentally responsible actions that the university began with changes to facilities operations to reduce the use of energy, polluting chemicals, cleaning agents, potable water, and other resources. The architects adapted the program to accommodate the need for study and support spaces by the unusually high percentage of graduate students in the program. Flexible building elements, such as raised floor and demountable partitions, allowed for revisions to the interior design to accommodate the higher population mandated by the state government during the design process. As a facility that teaches health-care professionals, the building was designed as a healthy indoor environment: all major spaces have operable windows, views to the outside, and daylight as an ambient light source. Interior meeting rooms and workspaces open onto three atriums that provide controlled diffuse daylight.

Solar Umbrella, Venice, Calif., by Pugh + Scarpa
Nestled in a neighborhood of single- and two-story bungalows, the Solar Umbrella Residence boldly establishes a precedent for the next generation of California Modern architecture for this architect couple and their six-year-old son. The architects used Paul Rudolph's 1953 Umbrella House as inspiration for a contemporary reinvention of the solar canopy. Taking advantage of the unusual through lot, the addition shifts the residence 180 degrees from its original north orientation toward the south and rich Southern California sunlight. Conceived as a solar canopy, 89 amorphous silicon solar panels protect the body of the building from thermal heat gain. This solar skin absorbs and transforms the light into usable energy, providing the residence with 95 percent of its electricity. The existing 1923 600-square-foot structure was retained and remodeled, and, even though the completed structure is three times its original size, the net increase in lot coverage is less than 400 square feet.

Westcave Preserve: Warren Skaaren Environmental Learning Center, Dripping Springs, Tex., by Jackson & McElhaney
This 30-acre nature preserve and canyon 28 miles northwest of Austin expanded its community programs by building a new “wilderness classroom” and providing a meeting place for walking tours to a nearby waterfall and grotto. The goal of the project was “to foster the respect and stewardship of the natural environment, provide environmental education, and preserve this sanctuary into the future.” The architects conceived the building as a “three-dimensional textbook” and framework for analogies between building materials and systems and how they mimic or model natural systems. For instance, water quality and water cycles are demonstrated through a rainwater collection and filtration system, while a wetland and self-composting toilets wastewater systems show recycling of materials in nature. Sustainable energy systems, including a photovoltaic array, ground source heat pumps, and daylighting are integrated into the building. An exhibit embedded into the terrazzo floor illustrates the enigmatic relationship between the Fibonacci Series, golden rectangle, logarithmic curve, and the form of a 90-million-year-old ammonite.

World Birding Center, Mission, Tex., by Lake/Flato
Texas’ Lower Rio Grande Valley, one of the richest bird habitats in the world, over the past century has seen suburban and agricultural developments so severely affect the landscape that only 5 percent of the native scrub habitat currently remains. Through a joint effort of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the local communities, the World Birding Center was established to “significantly increase the appreciation, understanding, and conservation of birds and wildlife habitat.” The World Birding Center headquarters site forms a gateway out of disturbed land and sits adjacent to more then 1,700 acres of remnant native habitat that is being reclaimed and established as a habitat preserve. Through the process of “right sizing,” the architects reduced the building’s original program for 20,000 square feet down to 13,000. The plan specified that all landscaping use only native plants and incorporated a 47,000-gallon rainwater system—integrating rainwater guzzlers, natural pools, and water seeps—to provide much-needed water for birds and butterflies.

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