W Santa Fe, Courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners Architects

Richard Meier’s office recently shared with us renderings and drawings for his latest work – two new W Hotels. These projects mark a first for Meier within the hospitality industry in Latin-America, which are located in Mexico City and on the Riviera Maya with completion dates scheduled for 2013 and 2014. The hotels, W Santa Fe and the W Retreat Kanai, are the first collaboration between Starwood and Meier who will be assisted by Migdal Arquitectos. Further details, drawings, and renderings following the break.

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© Shai Gil Photography

This two-storey 50,000 sqf building is a new civic focal point, housing a library, art gallery, event spaces, meeting rooms and a café. Both levels of the structure are interconnected visually as well as by a grade stair case. The public spaces, including the community hall, multiple galleries, community rooms and library circulation desk occupy the main level, while the quiet and secure functions, such as the children’s library, quiet study and administrative offices, are situated on the second level, overlooking many of the double height spaces below.

More on the Montrose Cultural Centre after the break!

Architect: Teeple Architects
Location: 103 Avenune, Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada
Principal in Charge: Stephen Teeple (OAA, FRAIC )
Project Team: Martin Baron, Cheryl Atkinson, Eddie Lee, Jacqueline Wiles
Structural Engineer: KTA Structural Engineers Ltd.
Mechanical Engineer: Hemisphere Engineering Inc.
Electrical Engineer: Beaubien Glover Maskell Engineering
Civil Engineer: MMM Group
LEED Consultant: Enermodal Engineering Ltd.
Landscape Architect: Scatliffe+Miller+Murray Inc.
Cost Consultant: BTY Group
Contractor: Wright Construction Western Inc.
Project Area: 60,000 sqf
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Shai Gil Photography

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© Rainer Viertlboeck

Where does your State rank among the USGBC’s Top 10? Comparing LEED-certified commercial and institutional green buildings per capita within the United States the District of Columbia turned in the highest per capita/per person ratio of 25.15 square feet.   Commercial office type and for-profit organization owner type where the most common, as was Chicago and Washington DC for the most represented cities on the list.

Following are the top ten LEED states per capita:

1. Nevada: 10.92 sf
2. New Mexico: 6.35 sf
3. New Hampshire: 4.49 sf
4. Oregon: 4.07 sf
5. South Carolina: 3.19 sf
6. Washington: 3.16 sf
7. Illinois: 3.09 sf
8. Arkansas: 2.9 sf
9.Colorado: 2.85 sf
10. Minnesota: 2.77 sf

“Using per capita, versus the more traditional numbers of projects, or pure square footage, is a reminder to all of us that the people who live and work, learn and play in buildings should be what we care about most. 2010 was a difficult year for most of the building industry, but in many areas, the hunger for sustainable development kept the markets moving,” shared Scot Horst, USGBC SVP of LEED.

For the full report click here.

© Anne Garrison

Designed by Safdie Rabines Architects, the Robert Paine Scripps Forum for Science, Society and the Environment is an oceanfront conference center that plays host to scientists from around the world studying the oceans, earth, and marine life. The project features an approximately 300-person flexible auditorium space, four oceanfront meeting rooms of varying sizes, a graduate student lounge, a catering kitchen, and a restaurant.

Project description, images, and drawings after the break.

Architects: Safdie Rabines Architects
Location: UCSD La Jolla, California, USA
MEP Engineer: Integrated Engineering
Structural Engineer: Flores Lund Consultants
Civil Engineer: Fuscoe Engineering
Landscape Architect: Aerea Studio
Acoustic Consultant: Dohn and Associates
Contractor/Builder: Jaynes Corporation, General Contractors
Project Area: 15,000 sqf
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Anne Garrison, David Hewitt Anne Garrison Architectural Photography

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© Timothy Hursley

This new high school for the Louisiana Department of Education Recovery School District was part of a post-Katrina “quick start” construction program to accelerate the replacement of five damaged schools within an extremely aggressive timeline (6 months for design and 20 months for construction) while a new comprehensive masterplan for the New Orleans school system was underway.

L.B. Landry High School occupies an important place in the city’s history – part of the reason for its accelerated rebuilding. The school was founded in 1938 as the first public high school on the west bank of the city that African-American residents could attend and only the second black high school established in Orleans Parish.

Follow the break for more photographs and drawing of Eskew+Dumez+Ripple’s design for the L.B. Landry High School.

Architects: Eskew+Dumez+Ripple
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Contractor: Satterfield & Pontikes Construction Group, LLC
Architect of Record: Eskew+Dumez+Ripple
Associate Architect for Programming: SHW Group
Structural/Civil Engineers: Schrenk & Peterson Consulting Engineers, Inc.
Geotechnical Engineers: Eustis Engineering Company
MEP Engineers: Moses Engineers
Landscape Architects: Daly Sublette Landscape Architects, Inc.
Food Service Consultant: Futch Design Associates
Acoustical/Audio-Visual: Gracenote Consulting
Estimator: Pro-Serv Estimating
Client: Louisiana Recovery School District
Project Area: 236,000 sqf
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: Timothy Hursley

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© Spillman Farmer Architects

Architects: Spillman Farmer Architects
Location: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
Project area: 42,000 sqm
Photographs: Courtesy of Spillman Farmer Architects read more »

California Academy of Sciences / Renzo Piano

In ArchDaily, we have been featuring some really great projects with LEED certification, like the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Renzo Piano’s California Academy of Sciences, AMD’s Lone Star Campus, and the City Center of Las Vegas. More recently, we had an excellent discussion on an article featuring an interview of the Chicago Tribune with Frank Gehry, where he basically dismissed LEED and its efforts to make our built environment more eco-friendly.

Now we may continue with the discussion, after a new study released by Environment and Human Health, Inc. says that the voluntary rating system falsely presents its projects as bastions of health and safety, when it actually allows for all sorts of harmful stuff, whether pesticides in tap water or formaldehyde-laden particleboard.

You can read the complete article at Fast Company and of course, share your opinion with us.

CityCenter Crystals Veer Aria and Harmon

With over 16,797,000 square feet (1,560,500 m2), the recently opened City Center Las Vegas has become one of the largest LEED certified projects in the world. The project included some of the world’s largest firms: Pelli Clarke Pelli, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Helmut Jahn, RV Architecture LLC led by Rafael Viñoly, Foster + Partners, Studio Daniel Libeskind, David Rockwell and Rockwell Group, and Gensler.

City Center

Inside the complex we find several towers, with hotels, casino and residences, from which the Mandarin Oriental, ARIA Resort’s hotel tower, ARIA’s convention center and theater, Vdara Hotel & Spa, Crystals and Veer towers have received LEED Gold certification.

More photos and information about each building after the break.

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LEED Platinum: Water+Life Museum Campus / Hemet, California / Lehrer + Gangi Design + Build (image courtesy Benny Chan w/ Fotoworks)

Over the past decade, sustainable design has been transformed from a fringe movement to big business. However, given the sheer scale of the environmental damage caused by the built environment, it’s clear that far more must be done. To prevent future catastrophes, the industry must both scale up its green initiatives and increase their effectiveness.

On the quantity front, the entity most responsible for the explosion of green building is LEED. Developed in 2000 by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), the voluntary project rating system has won over the industry by providing both a convenient set of guidelines for sustainable practices and a clear marketing incentive for designers and firms to go green (or at least appear to).

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© Zane Williams

Architects: Richard Wittschiebe Hand
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Client: Fred Berg & Carol Richard
Mechanical Engineer/ LEED Coordinator: Fred Berg
Structural Engineer: Diana Quinn, PE
Landscape Architect: Lisa J. Geer, ASLA
Project Area: 250.8 sqm
Budget: $500,000
Project Year: 2009
Photo Credits: Zane Williams

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Technology company Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD) new “Lone Star” campus – located at 7171 Southwest Parkway in Austin – has been awarded LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, making it the largest LEED-certified corporate campus in Texas. The $190 million, 870,000-square-foot campus opened in January 2008 on a 59-acre tract in south Austin. Project elements include four four-story office buildings, three recessed parking garages and the Lone Star building, which features an employee fitness center, cafeteria, gourmet coffee bar, casual meeting space, outdoor decks and a gaming center with table tennis, billiards tables and video game consoles.

Austin-based Graeber, Simmons & Cowan served as the lead architect; Texas-based TBG Partners provided programming, site planning and landscape architecture services; Austin-based Paul Koehler Brown and Austin-based Jaster-Quintanilla served as the structural engineers; Austin-based Michael E. James &Associates served as the civil engineer; and Dallas-based Austin Commercial served as the general contractor.

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The last 2 times I went to San Francisco, I saw the progress of the new California Academy of Sciences building, by italian architect Renzo Piano. It was amazing to see how the 2.5 acre green roof took shape. The building is now complete, it was opened to public yesterday.

The building recovers two and mixes it with a whole new structure, which is actually very transparent, connecting it visually with the Golden Park, away from the old conception of dark museums. Shade will be provided by a canopy that goes around the bulding, with solar panels on it.

Sustainability was a key aspect of the design, as this project is one of the ten pilot “green building” projects of the San Francisco Department of Environment, aiming to get platinum LEED certification. Actually, the building will consume 30-35% less energy than required by code.

The project conserves two limestone walls from the previous building (1934), and houses a planetarium, a rain forest habitat and an aquarium, and several exhibition spaces to house the several Academy collections.

The planetarium and the bubble that contains the rain forest habitat are the two big spheres that shape the green roof. The roof becomes a landscape with California native species, that won´t need extra maitenance or water, attracting local species to occupy it. Thus, the green roof won´t be fully accesible to visitors, who can only walk through a small path.

All the pictures on this post are © Tim Griffith. Check out his website for great architecture photography.

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Architects: wHY Architecture
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Client: Grand Rapids Art Museum
Area: 125.000sqf
Construction start: 2004
Completion: 2007
General contractors: Rockford / Pepper Construction
Concrete contractor: Grand River Construction
Structural Engineer: Dewhurst Macfarlane and Partners
Environmental Engineer: Atelier Ten / Design Plus, Inc.
Lighting Consultant: Isometrix Lighting + Design
Curtain Wall Consultant: W.J. Higgins & Associates
Landscape Design: Design Plus
Photos: Steve Hall, Scott McDonald & Chris Barret

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