The Envision Energy Headquarters, designed by AECOM, is located in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, China. Envision Energy is the leading Chinese wind turbine manufacturer that emphasizes in research, development, manufacturing, sales and maintenance. The new 3-story 3,000 square meter facility is a mixed use, multi-layered space which includes program of offices, dining facilities, galleries and exhibition spaces, an employee recreation lounge with karaoke room, theater, gym, massage room and game room. The facility supports all employees from skilled laborers to executive directors and encompasses the attitiude of the company, celebrating wind energy as the fastest growing clean alternative energy solution. The architects were asked to design the facility to express this technology.
Walk into the cafeteria at the Googleplex and you are nudged into the “right” choice. Sweets? Color-coded red and placed on the bottom shelf to make them just a bit harder to reach. “Instead of that chocolate bar, sir, wouldn’t you much rather consume this oh-so-conveniently-located apple? It’s good for you! Look, we labelled it green!”
Like the Google cafeteria guides you to take responsibility of your health, Google wants to transform the construction industry to take responsibility of the “health” of its buildings. They have been leveraging for transparency in the content of building materials, so that, like consumers who read what’s in a Snickers bar before eating it, they’ll know the “ingredients” of materials to choose the greenest, what they call “healthiest,” options.[2]
These examples illustrate the trend of “medicalization” in our increasingly health-obsessed society: when ordinary problems (such as construction, productivity, etc.) are defined and understood in medical terms. In their book Imperfect Health, Borasi and Zardini argue that through this process, architecture and design has been mistakenly burdened with the normalizing, moralistic function of “curing” the human body. [3]
While I find the idea that design should “force” healthiness somewhat paternalistic and ultimately limited, I don’t think this “medicalized” language is all bad – especially if we can use it in new and revitalizing ways. Allow me to prescribe two examples: the most popular and the (potentially) most ambitious urban renewal projects in New York City today, the High Line and the Delancey Underground (or the Low Line).
More on “curative” spaces after the break. (Trust me, it’s good for you.)
Perkins+Will‘s VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre in Vancouver, BC is designed to meet the Living Building Challenge, the most rigorous set of requirements of sustainability. Formally and functionally, it encompasses the goals of environmentally and socially conscious design. The building is an undulating landscape of interior and exterior spaces rising from ground to roof level and providing a vast surface area on which vegetation could grow, thus reoccupying the land on which the building sits with the landscape. The building also features numerous passive and active systems that reuse the site’s renewable resources and the building’s own waste.
More photos after the break, including a video about the project!
Studio E Architectsfaced a compelling challenge when designing the first phase UC Davis West Village, which opened last October in California’s upper Central Valley. Experiencing moderate winters, warm summers, prevailing winds and moderate rainfall within the heart of former agricultural fields, the new addition to UC Davis was to be a net-zero facility. Serving as the largest of its kind and a model for campus communities and environmentally conscious urbanism. That is sustainable and community oriented. The program required 123 units of student apartments in one, two and three-bedroom configurations, 45,000 square feet of ground level commercial space all of which would emulate the central park space in downtown Davis and become the heart of West Village.
Follow us after the break to see the sustainable solutions that Studio E Architects came up with!
Oasia Downtown, designed by WOHA, sets out to create an alternative imagery for commercial high-rise developments. It combines innovative ways to intensify land use with a tropical approach that showcases a perforated, permeable, furry, verdant tower of green in the heart of Singapore’s Central Business District (CBD). More images and architects’ description after the break.
Understanding that environmental responsibility is an integral part of design excellence, Perkins + Will’s new Atlantic office, known as 1315 Peachtree, serves as an example on how current technologies can be used to achieve LEED Platinum Certification, meet the 2030 Challenge and help reduce toxic materials from our building products.
1315 Peachtree is an adaptive reuse of a 1985 office structure transformed into a high performance civic-focused building. Located in the heart of Midtown Atlanta across from the High Museum of Art, the new building continues to house the Peachtree Branch of the Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library and introduces a new street-level tenant space occupied by the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA). The Perkins+Will Atlanta office occupies the top four floors with office space for up to 240 employees. Continue reading for more information on the highest LEED score building in the Northern Hemisphere.
After Mayor Bloomberg, Cornell President Skorton and Technion President Lavie announced Cornell’s victory over Stanford to build an eleven acre state-of-the-art tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City, the team has now tackled their next step in choosing six high-profile architecture firms competing to design the schools first academic facility.
SOL Austin - Solutions Oriented Living – is a model development of a sustainable community that integrates social, economic and ecological components to create a “holistic community”. The project was a result of a partnership between KRDB Architects, Beck-Reit contractors, the Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation (GNDC) and the Austin Housing Finance Corporation. The medium density, single-family in-fill project in central east Austin, just three miles from downtown incorporates a significant portion of low-income and affordable housing, sustainable practices and consideration for the kind of future that developments like this can create.
Read on for photos, plans and more information about this project, considered for the AIA 2011 Design Awards in Urban Design.
The Sustainable Cities Symposium, put on by the faculty of environmental design, in partnership with the Development Studies program, at the University of Calgary, will explore global challenges and opportunities in addressing sustainable development. It will provide insights into planning and design solutions in different cities and serve as platform for discussions, experience sharing and networking. Economic growth, environmental protection, and social equity dominate the global discourse with people being at the center of our vision of a more sustainable world. The event takes place on March 14 and goes from 5:30pm-8:00pm. For more information, please visit here.
LivingHomeshas just announced the launch of their first well-designed, affordable and sustainable prefabricated home known as C6. Starting at $179,000, the home is nearly half the cost of most other LivingHomes models and includes 34 tons of carbon offsets. It is the first to achieve LEED® Platinum and feature Cradle-to-Cradle inspired materials.
C6 was designed by the architects of LivingHomes in collaboration with Make It Right, a nonprofit founded by Brad Pitt and renowned architect William McDonough to build 150 Cradle to Cradle inspired LEED Platinum homes in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. A portion of the proceeds from each C6 will help support the efforts of Make It Right. Continue reading for more.
Wolf House Productions and Gabriel Pascariu shared with us their first prize winning proposal in the ‘Dnieper Pearls’ international urban planning competition in Kiev. THE BLUE LINE aims at providing a sustainable development framework for the Kiev islands as well as an infrastructural backbone for the future urban development of the entire metropolis. Their design suggests a paradigm shift: from large scale urban and infrastructure projects (specific to Ukrainian urban planning) to a more fluid and efficient place-making driven urbanism. More images and architects’ description after the break.
In reference to Living Steel‘s 3rd International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Housing, Glen Murcuttdiscusses his ideas surrounding the issue of sustainability. He emphasizes the strategies employed by the top contenders such as the planning of orientation, thermal performance, and human effort in addition to other variables involved in sustainable architecture. One particular method that Murcutt stresses is using materials that can dissolve back into the earth, citing earth walls as an excellent medium to build with and their inherent thermal mass qualities. Each team was invited to present their ideas in person, a variation from previous years which Murcutt believes led to the highest quality of work and diversity of the competition series.
The fundamental concern that guided the decision process from the start was how to produce a solution that is environmentally responsible, functional, cost effective and iconic. The circular shape of the building aims at giving a positive response to all of the above.The proposal by MOOV not only preserves the locations and offers living conditions to its dwellers, but also enhances the actual natural conditions, by regenerating the plot. More images and architects’ description after the break.
This unique landscape and future landmark for the city of Qingdao, China is a first place project, submitted by the Los Angeles office of HKS Architects, for the design of the Conservatory by the Office of 2014 Qingdao World Horticultural Expo Executive Committee. The winning proposal was selected from an international selection of projects and was shared with us by HKS. Read on for more after the break.
Serie Architects‘ proposal was recently selected as the design for the 2012 Olympic Pavilion for BMW following a sustainable design competition. Their cutting-edge design will represent a significant architectural addition to the Olympic Park, while reflecting the company’s deep commitment to sustainability. BMW’s pavilion, which has a floor space of 800m2, will be built on an elevated site above the Waterworks River, situated between the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatics Center. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Just last week, Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn enacted 29 new recommendations of the Green Codes Task Force that will provide the proper foundation for New York to meet the aggressive PlanNYC Goals for 2030. The impact of these new codes is estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent; lower the energy costs for lighting by 10 percent; save 30 billion gallons of water through better plumbing regulations; treat 15 million gallons of toxic construction water; recycle 100,000 tons of asphalt; and save $400 million in overall energy costs. The implementation of such codes is the result of the formation of the NYC Green Codes Task Force, an organization led by Urban Green Council, that proposed over 100 recommendations in 2010 to address a wide range of sustainable issues; and, in the two years since that report, the Mayor’s Office and City Council have made 29 of those recommendations law, and are currently working to codify 8 others.
More about the new building codes after the break.
European Union Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard urges world leaders attending the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro this June to double the share of renewable energy they use by 2030 and give all citizens access to sustainable power.
The Preservation Green Lab at the National Trust for Historic Preservation has recently published their study The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse. Resolving many conflicted arguments, this study confirms that reusing and retrofitting existing buildings with an average level of energy performance almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and more energy-efficient new construction. The research provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the potential environmental impact reductions associated with building reuse. The Preservation Green Lab utilizes Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology to compare reuse and renovations with new construction over the course of a 75-year life span. Continue reading for more.
