PORTOLA VALLEY TOWN CENTER

When Portola Valley, California sought an updated, seismically safer civic complex, the existing mid-20th-century wood-and-concrete-block campus was deconstructed and its parts repurposed, along with other salvaged components, to create a sustainable new facility on another portion of the site.

The resulting Portola Valley Town Center is targeted for LEED Platinum certification and was named one of the Top Ten Green Projects for 2009 by the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE).

POSTCARD FROM KLAMATH FALLS

Dear ArchitectureWeek,

Seeing them as pure object form in the landscape, a poignant aesthetic of contrasts entwines these manmade elements with their landscape — muscular diversion canal snaking improbably high along the canyon walls, diminished river following below — huge steel penstock tubes dropping hundreds of feet from some apparently random spot on the hillside — the two round generators themselves, framed by their own dedicated traveling crane, bridging over the outwash beneath, loud rushing to rejoin the native waters.

GREEN HOUSE IN GEORGIA

In the American South, a region that tends to laud its heritage, modern can be a hard sell. A residential client often hears neighborhood fears that a new modern dwelling will look "chilly" and won't fit in.

RainShine House by architect Robert M. Cain answers those concerns. Built near downtown Decatur, Georgia, part of metro Atlanta, the LEED Platinum-certified home is bright, welcoming, treads lightly on its site, and respects its neighbors.

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