BEHNISCH DOUBLE-WALL FACADE The twelve-story Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, located at the University of Toronto's St. George campus, is a high-performance building that achieves impressive levels of energy efficiency and — with airy, light-filled spaces throughout — attention to occupant comfort. The building responds intelligently to its climate and orientation with an enclosure system that presents an open face to the campus and adapts to changing environmental conditions. At the same time, it strikes a balance between automated and individually controlled devices. — Published 2010.0505
	AIA TOP GREEN BUILDINGS 2010 A boxy new house stands on stilts in the Katrina-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Its form may be distinctly contemporary, but the home has ties to its place: filigree railings recall the ornamental ironwork of the French Quarter, and a linear plan evokes some sense of the regional shotgun house vernacular. — Published 2010.0428
	HEADING FOR NET-ZERO Some projects come along at pivotal moments. Such was the case for the Rose House in Portland, Oregon, a compact home that served as a laboratory for energy-efficient residential design in 2004, and ended up setting the bar as the first house in the state designed to achieve zero net energy use. — Published 2010.0421
	BURJ KHALIFA In 2007, several records fell as the Burj Dubai skyscraper climbed above that city-state's skyline. In May 2007, the Burj surpassed the height of the tallest building in the United States, the Sears Tower (recently renamed the Willis Tower), designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in the 1970s. SOM's Adrian Smith designed the Burj in the early years of the new millennium, but by the time the new skyscraper zoomed past Sears (at 1,450 feet, or 442 meters), Smith had left SOM to start his own firm. — Published 2010.0421
	PETER BOHLIN - AIA GOLD MEDAL On New York's Fifth Avenue, people approach the Apple Store's glass cube, often first walk around it, then enter and descend by the glass stairs to the below-ground showroom. This store is not only the icon for Apple Inc., but also an exemplar of the architecture of Peter Bohlin: it is an original statement, powerful yet minimalist, that enhances its surroundings and respects the human scale while creating an invigorating sense of movement, pulling in shoppers and spectators in staggering numbers, 24 hours a day. — Published 2010.0414
	2010 BREEAM AWARDS When leaders in Milton Keynes, England, sought a new recreation center in the Central Bletchley district, they had many goals: an iconic presence on the outside, countless fitness and sports facilities on the inside, and a building that could catalyze an overall regeneration of the town. But the overriding goal — one that tied together all these disparate parts — was to make the new Bletchley Leisure Center a state-of-the-art sustainable building. — Published 2010.0414
	GREEN GAS STATION? The irony of a LEED-certified gas station includes the fact that U.S. gas stations each currently deliver, on average, about 850,000 gallons of fossil fuel per year, representing about 8,200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per gas station annually — not to mention the wide range of environmental impacts along the overall petroleum production chain. This station is a beautiful structure — but how green can it be? Does a greenwashing project like this — however elegantly designed as a structure — deserve coverage in a professional architecture magazine? What about the designers of such a project? Author Philip Jodidio discusses the broader context below. Comment online. — Editor — Published 2010.0407
	NEW YORK AIA AWARDS 2010 Thirty feet above street level, a narrow new park winds through a former industrial area on the West Side of Manhattan, near the Hudson River. This unexpected urban oasis is the High Line, a series of grasses and shrubs, walkways and benches, created atop a defunct elevated freight railway. — Published 2010.0331
	HOUSING ON RUE DES VIGNOLES Eden Bio can be difficult to find. One might think it would be hard to conceal almost 100 new public housing units in this part of Paris's 20th arrondissement, but local architect Édouard François has managed to do so, inserting rows of low-rise apartments, duplexes, and small houses into the middle of a city block while presenting a minimal, modest face to the street on three sides. — Published 2010.0317
	GSA'S GREEN OFFICE BUILDINGS Kevin Kampschroer was recently named the permanent director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings in the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). Here's some of his perspective on green building, as shared with Congress in testimony on converting federal buildings across the country into higher-performing, more-efficient green buildings. — Editor — Published 2010.0303

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