September 19, 2008
  Harley Ellis Devereaux Opens Integrated, Green Office in Los Angeles
Harley Ellis Devereaux designed their new 35,000-square-foot, $4 million office space in downtown Los Angeles’ financial district with an open layout of connecting “ribbons” to promote communication among the firm’s design studios. The office, located on the fourth and fifth floors of a 50-story tower, accommodates 125 people and is designated according to LEED®-CI (Commercial Interiors) with the expectation of achieving Silver status.

Fourth and Madison Tower: The Sleeper Hit
A few simple elements lead to serious sustainability
ZGF’s Fourth and Madison Tower in Seattle is on pace today to meet the 2030 Challenge, even though it was designed before this pledge for a carbon neutral built environment existed. The building uses a handful of material, systems, and site orientation features to reduce its fossil fuel emissions by half.

Wee Fit: Prefab Construction for Small (and Not so Small) Spaces
It has been about six years since Alchemy Architects constructed its first weeHouse, an ultrapragmatic architectural solution for a client on a $45,000 budget. (Yes, you read that right.) The sleek, contemporary home in Pepin, Wisc., turned out to be a harbinger of a customized prefab practice model that the architects have refined to a tee (or is that a wee?).

Respond to NAAB Student Performance Criteria Survey by September 30 
The National Architectural Accrediting Board is seeking input from AIA members to inform its deliberations on the 34 Student Performance Criteria that compose Condition 13 in the 2004 Conditions for Accreditation. The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete, and the results will be shared with the NAAB’s Accreditation Review Conference participants in October, as well as on the NAAB Web site. The survey will be accessible until September 30. The Student Performance Criteria are available from the following Web site from NAAB. Access the link for the survey here.

 

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Welcome to the Practice Zone
This is the home of the weekly Best Practices column, news of tips and tools that you can use in your day-to-day practice and case studies illustrating “how-tos” and “lessons learned” for all stages of practice. The Practice Zone also features reports of research in architecture and related fields.