By Russell Fortmeyer

Melbourne’s Council House 2 is as much a political act as it is architecture. You don’t build what is widely considered Australia’s most sustainable building, routinely lavished with international awards and praise, and not expect at least some criticism, some hand-wringing, and perhaps some latent jealousy from designers, builders, and developers not involved in the project.

By Sarah Amelar

Sited on a steep hillside overlooking the Mediterranean, the American University of Beirut (AUB)’s 73-acre main campus is so lush it’s called “The Garden of Beirut.” AUB’s original historic section, dating back to the 19th century, meanders across the hilltop, while its later, lower section extends down to the Corniche, the Lebanese capital’s grand waterfront boulevard.

By David R. Macaulay

So confident were the developers of obtaining LEED Platinum certification for Dockside Green, a mixed-use development in Victoria, British Columbia, that the company agreed to pay the city a $1 million penalty if they didn’t achieve it. So far, so good. Last July, the initial phase, called “Synergy,” consisting of four detached residential buildings totaling 93 condominiums, received LEED Platinum certification for new construction through the Canada Green Building Council with a record-setting 63 points.

Dockside Green rests on 15 acres of former industrial land on Victoria’s inner harbor. The development includes residential, live/work, retail, office, light-industrial, public amenities, and cultural venues. Once completed, it will comprise 26 buildings, totaling 1.3 million square feet, and serve as home to 2,500 people in three neighborhoods.

This was the first program I’ve seen in which you can tell that someone approached the building with sustainability in mind,” says Scott Shell, of EHDD Architecture, in reference to the client’s concept document for the Department of Global Ecology, a new arm of the Washington, D.C. –based Carnegie Institution. Located alongside the venerable Department of Plant Biology on a 7.4-acre site leased from Stanford University, Global Ecology has 50 researchers and staff who study planetary systems, especially the changes, including those affecting climate and biodiversity. “We’re concerned about humanity’s effect on the planet,” says director Chris Field, “particularly regarding energy use.” That concern came through loud and clear in their priorities for the facility.

Rather than clearing a mature oak forest from the site to create a one-story structure, the designers chose to tuck the building into a previously paved utility area at the back of the property, creating a new core for the campus. A two-story building better accommodated the area’s smaller size, and the narrow, 40-foot-wide plan facilitated daylighting.

By Joann Gonchar

The Queens Botanical Garden (QBG) may not be as well known or as large as its counterparts in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but a new visitor and administrative center should raise the garden’s profile, especially as an institution focused on environmental stewardship. The 16,000-square-foot center, completed in September 2007, is part of an approximately $22-million infrastructure and landscape project. The building is on track to receive LEED Platinum certification and will likely be the first publicly funded capital project in New York City to achieve this status.

Joel Krueger, AIA, hates it when people call the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center one of the greenest buildings in the world. To be fair, the project embodies the modern environmental movement’s conception of green: the net-zero-energy, carbon-neutral project earned 61 points, a new record, in the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system. But compare the Legacy Center to the original “Leopold shack” and there’s no contest, says Krueger, who served as the Legacy Center’s project manager for Kubala Washatko Architects. The shack, located near Baraboo, Wisconsin, began life as a chicken coop. Using found materials, the Leopold family turned it into a rustic getaway and a home base for ecological research and land restoration. Daylit and naturally ventilated, the shack used no electricity or potable water. More important, though, it helped give birth to a new understanding of environmental ethics. In it, Aldo Leopold wrote A Sand County Almanac and developed his so-called land ethic, which holds that “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

The goal for the Legacy Center was “to place the land ethic in the 21st century,” says Buddy Huffaker, executive director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation, which occupies the new building. “Aldo set the bar for us.” The $4-million, 12,000-square-foot Legacy Center is located about one mile from the preserved shack, on land where Leopold died fighting a brush fire in 1948. The main building houses offices and meeting rooms, a library, and space to exhibit Leopold’s writings and other artifacts. Smaller buildings hold a workshop and a three-season lecture hall.