LIVABLE BUILDINGS AWARDS The inaugural Livable Buildings Awards spotlight buildings that excel not only in design and resource efficiency, but also in user satisfaction. Initiated in 2007 by the Center for the Built Environment (CBE) at the University of California, Berkeley, the awards program recognizes buildings that have been evaluated using CBE's Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Survey and received one of the topmost scores. — Published 2008.0312
	LEED GOLD RESURRECTION To visit the RiverEast Center in Portland, Oregon, is to stand at a major crossroads. The newly renovated former warehouse building sits along the Willamette River, just across from downtown, at the base of the Hawthorne Bridge. This location affords unobstructed views of boats and cars streaming by in the foreground with the classic downtown Portland skyline behind. The RiverEast Center also sits beside a massive freeway bridge and overpass to the west and a railroad track busy with freight and occasional passenger trains to the east. — Published 2008.0109
	ALDO LEOPOLD LEGACY CENTER "That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics." — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949 — Published 2007.1003
	PLATINUM B-SIDE Natural daylight, cooling and ventilating efficiencies, and low-impact material selections helped add up to a USGBC LEED Platinum certification for Building B of the new Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University (ASU). The first LEED Platinum building in Arizona joined the elite green ranks of fewer than 60 LEED Platinum-certified buildings worldwide. — Published 2007.0919
	HEARST TOWER Pritzker Prize laureate Norman Foster is a master of levitating buildings of dubious design, treatment, or association to the pantheon of architectural icons. The Hearst Tower in Manhattan, which he designed in collaboration with architects Adamson Associates and Gensler, is the most recent example of this resuscitation. The 42-story glass- and metal-skinned tower is characterized by a large diagonal grid, emphasized by vertically alternating recessed and projecting multistory corner triangles. — Published 2007.0523
	HOK STRAW BALE For over a decade, straw-bale construction has been growing in popularity among "alternative" house builders. The durable, low-cost, nontoxic, highly insulating, pest-resistant, and potentially structural material is especially practical in hot arid climates. It was used extensively in the treeless grasslands of the U.S. Midwest early in the 20th century. — Published 2007.0516
	LEED GOLD HOSPITAL Because of unusually strict technical, mechanical, and air quality requirements, hospitals are one of the most difficult building types to design sustainably. Yet the Providence Newberg Medical Center by Mahlum Architects has achieved a LEED Gold rating — the first hospital in the United States to do so. It is also the first U.S. hospital to acquire enough renewable electric power to meet all its needs. — Published 2007.0502
	BIG RIPPLES Magic in architecture often occurs when the client presents the architect with clear criteria and formidable challenges and when, rather than engineer around obstacles, the designer embraces the challenges as opportunities to enrich the project. Such was the case with the Heifer International Center, in Little Rock, Arkansas, designed by Polk Stanley Rowland Curzon Porter Architects. The result is a building that meets the client's needs with stellar design and an anticipated LEED-Gold rating. — Published 2007.0404
	MAYNE COURTHOUSE The new Federal Courthouse in Eugene, Oregon by Thom Mayne and his Los Angeles firm Morphosis, is in some ways an outstanding building for this small city. Mayne certainly delivers a strong dose of visual excitement. The depth of art in this architecture is more open to question. — Published 2007.0103
	PREFAB PLATINUM On a cloudy day in April 2006, a crowd of curious onlookers gathered on a hillside street in Santa Monica, California, to watch the installation of the first LivingHomes prefabricated house. Over the course of eight hours, 11 modules were hoisted by crane onto a concrete slab in a dramatic departure from traditional residential construction. — Published 2006.1206

LEED Certified page: 01 | 02 | 03 | [next]