Indian Creek Nature Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Amazing space at The Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, uses a biophilic design, which aims to nurture the innate human attraction to natural systems and processes.
Helen Sommers Building (1063 Block), Olympia, Wash.
In March 2014, the State of Washington’s Department of Enterprise Services awarded the design-build team of ZGF Architects and Sellen Construction the contract for the new 225,000 square foot Helen Sommers Building in Olympia, Wash.
Center for Sustainable Landscapes, Pittsburgh
The Center for Sustainable Landscapes is a 24,350-square-foot education, research and administration facility at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh. The design team’s challenge was to meet an unprecedented palette of green standards while creating a facility that would serve a multitude of functions and integrate with the guest experience.
San Francisco Art Institute
Located at the north edge of San Francisco Bay, the historic U.S. Army warehouse Pier 2 at Fort Mason has been transformed into a new campus for San Francisco Art Institute, creating a dynamic new hub for arts education and public engagement.
Ortlieb's Bottling House
When architecture and research firm KieranTimberlake began the search for its own building in 2013, its partners were drawn to a former bottling house in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties neighborhood. The firm saw an opportunity to both save a piece of neighborhood history and design an imaginative, ambitiously sustainable retrofit.
Georgia Tech Engineered Biosystems Building
The Engineered Biosystems Building was designed to bring together researchers from bioscience and engineering to focus on specific societal problems in a holistic manner. The purposeful and intentional interactions outside of discipline silos at the heart of the EBB are similar to those collaborations necessary to achieve a high performance building.
United States Courthouse, Los Angeles
The design of the new United States Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles is modern in spirit yet rooted in classic principles of federal architecture. It features processional steps, grand public spaces and enduring finish materials that give it a strong civic identity.
Powering an Alaska Village, Sitka, Alaska
A small island village in Alaska wanted to reduce its reliance on expensive imported fuel oil, but simply switching to all oil use electricity would tax the electrical grid. The energy-efficiency approach taken at three major renovations in Sitka eliminated the use of fuel oil and demonstrates how current building stock can continue to move toward a carbon-neutral, energy-efficient future.
Class of 1966 Environmental Center, Williamstown, Massachusetts
The Class of 1966 Environmental Center at Williams College in northwest Massachusetts marries a 225-year-old building with a contemporary addition. It is the first project in the nation seeking Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification to include a historic preservation component.
Where are They Now?
Designing a building is a tough business. Months or years can be spent on one project, and then it is on to the next one. Often, designers know how the building performed during the first year of occupancy. But how do designers capture the lessons learned over time?
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