The Family School is a "community of learners." Classes are composed of multiple ages and parents are active in the classroom. Each student's day is split between home schooling and coursework led by professional APS staff. Their parents may elect to participate in the classroom with their child. Monthly, parents are asked to attend workshops at the school to provide academic support for their home schooling efforts.

Energy conservation is a priority and the school building committee requested alternative methods of heating and cooling. This is accomplished with the use of a ground source heat pump well field. Using the school as a teaching tool, the landscaped courtyard provides four separate plant biomes indicative of habitats found throughout the state, incorporating the use of on-site storm water quantity and quality control. Recycling and composting areas are also incorporated into the campus.

For more, read the full 12-page case study.

The Boston Children's Museum expansion and renovation was designed to enhance the building's connections to its urban waterfront site, guided by a desire to build environmental education opportunities into the design. From the adaptive reuse of the onsite 19th-century wool warehouse and industrial site to the new graywater storage system and green roof, the museum has become an environmental teaching tool for its young audience, in addition to becoming the first LEED-certified museum in Boston.

The museum is a private, nonprofit, educational institution founded in 1913 by a group of teachers. Its mission is to help children understand and enjoy the world through hands-on engagement and learning by experience. The museum features exhibits on science, culture, environmental awareness, health and fitness, and the arts.

For more, read the full 12-page case study.

We've received some comments about the recent decision to highlight the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation case study in our email bulletin. As the BuildingGreen case study manager, I chose to highlight this case study for one reason: many people have recently spent time in a synagogue for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The issue at hand here is that this building uses 50 kBtu/sf while the CBECS 2003 average for religious worship buildings is 43 kBtu/sf. There are definitely higher-performing synagogues and other places of worship around the world - many of which were built hundreds or thousands of years ago - but in order to achieve our goals such the 2030 Challenge we need to look at the highest and lowest performing buildings, and everything between.

While readers may not agree with all of the choices made for this building, I hope that the simple act of featuring the case study will invoke reflection. What is this building used for? What is the occupancy schedule? What are the most important sustainability issues in my area, and how can we get the word out? Implementing green strategies at your church, synagogue, mosque, etc. could be the most effective way to get out the word in your community. If you have something to say, please say it.

In his post Tough Choices on the AIA Top Ten Jury our President Nadav Malin addressed questions about energy performance of the AIA Top Ten Awards from this year, including this building. The way I see it, the conversation that resulted from this year's Top Ten Awards was more useful than it would have been if the ten highest performing buildings in the US and the world had been chosen.

Home on the Range is an office building shared by two nonprofit organizations: Northern Plains Resource Council and Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC). Formerly an uninsulated concrete block grocery store with few windows, the building was renovated to house energy-efficient, daylit offices. Northern Plains organizes Montana citizens to protect the region's water quality, family farms and ranches, and unique quality of life. Northern Plains is a member of WORC, which is a regional network of seven grassroots community organizations.

Read the full 12-page case study.

"Apparently an error in construction," the story says. Indeed.

Improper construction methods are believed to be the reason [for the] building collapse in Shanghai, according to a report from the investigation team. The investigation team's report said that workers dug an underground garage on one side of the building while on the other side earth was heaped up to 10 meters high, which was apparently an error in construction, according to a report on eastday.com, Shanghai's official news website. "Any construction company with common sense would not make such a mistake," said an expert from the investigation team.

Here's a terrific photo series with additional details. Seriously, hit that link and take a look.

This building actively failed what may be the primary passive survivability test — staying upright.

BuildingGreen's Michael Wentz has been coordinating for some time with DOE on case studies of the green rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas, which had 90% of its buildings destroyed by a tornado in 2007. He described the work in a blog post here last year. Then, in a congressional address last February, President Obama cited Greensburg as "a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community," to which Michael added, "they are also a leader in green building including initiatives to work green building strategies into their building codes."

A compelling hour-long documentary about what happened in Greensburg and the community's subsequent decision-making process in the wake of the two-mile-wide, F5 tornado is available to watch over the web.

Previous coverage in Environmental Building News:
Kansas Town Rebuilding as the Greenest in America
First U.S. City Resolves to Build LEED Platinum

The EcoDorm at Warren Wilson College houses 36 students who are interested in environmental responsibility and want to live with like-minded students. The co-ed dormitory is one of a series of four dorms surrounding a common lawn.

Warren Wilson College is an independent, accredited, four-year liberal arts college in rural North Carolina. The school's mission statement includes a dedication to environmental responsibility, and environmental literacy plays a significant role in the curriculum.

Read the full 12-page case study.

The Lacks Cancer Center, the only dedicated comprehensive cancer center in western Michigan, supports all components of cancer care, including inpatient and outpatient care and traditional and complementary therapies.

The building houses 42 private patient rooms, expansion space for 42 additional rooms, family hospitality spaces, treatment spaces, surgical suites, outpatient services, healing gardens, sheltered promenades, a chapel, and a resource library.

Read the full 12-page case study.

The University of Denver's College of Law houses one of the nation's top environmental and natural resource law programs. The first LEED-certified law school in the nation, the facility offered the College an opportunity to design a building consistent with its mission: a green facility that reduces environmental impact and prioritizes occupant safety. The new 210,000 ft2, four-floor facility, constructed on a former parking lot, includes a library, large lecture halls, training courtrooms, a dining hall, and faculty offices.

Read the full 12-page case study.

Recently, I broke one of my long-standing rules and blogged about something BuildingGreen-related at my own blog. My Costanzian fears were indeed warranted, and I've been egged on to cross-post it to the Live blog. Here she is, warts and all: my unvarnished opinion on the very best parts of the BuildingGreen product GreenBuildingAdvisor.com./BF

I don't often blog about worky stuff here, but decided this week that my "Worlds Will Collide!" fears are probably completely unwarranted. Besides, I'm working on some cool stuff these days. And finally, when my wife asks me, "What have you been doing?," when I come to bed at an obscene hour, I have an acceptable answer: "Changing the world, baby. Changing the world."

BuildingGreen launched a new property several months ago, GreenBuildingAdvisor.com (GBA). Now, this was in process as I came into the company in September 2008 and involved a whole lot of organization and reorganization to get the team in place for even content production, but I can't get into much of that here. What I *CAN* get into are what I think are the absolute coolest content areas on this Drupal-based site.

Green Basics

It's really important to come at a new field with a common vocabulary. Think of this as a vocab-building primer of terms and concepts bandied about in Green but seldom explained or contextualized. Click anywhere on that page and you get access to detail diagrams and explanations of key concepts and terms. I subscribe to a couple of building magazines and use their sites a lot. NOTHING is as good as this, period.

Green Homes

Now, case studies are not something new for BuildingGreen given the popularity of the High Performance Buildings Database, but there's one aspect in the corresponding Green Homes feature area that stands out: these pictures are gorgeous and inspiring. Sure, I can look up a product if I hear about and learn enough to put it in myself... but watching it get installed? Or seeing it in a context that gives me another product idea?? Reading about the compromises that lead to selection of that product in tandem with another? That's pretty awesome.

Product Guide

The Product Guide is some content syndication from GreenSpec, another key BuildingGreen property that provides a ready-to-use index of green products, manufacturers, and product categories. They sum it up on the GBA page with this: "Product manufacturers can not buy their way on to this list." These are a true best-of and where I first turned for ideas when we did our kitchen remodel this year.

Summary

Now, I know I've probably alienated some portion of the site that's behind the payed membership wall (oh yeah, some of this content is part of a paid GBA Pro membership that gets you even more like CAD Details & whatnot), but these are the stand-outs from my perspective and key to what makes this site a truly amazing asset. At the time of this writing, you can get a 10-day trial to the premium GBA Pro content - the energy savings I've realized alone have outvalued the cost of this annual or monthly membership - or be a lurker for a while before you take the plunge. Personally, I'm probably not renewing some of those magazines whose sites I use in favor of this totally righteous tool.