The AIA's Top Ten Green Projects for 2001

On Monday, April 23, The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) announced the winners of the Top Ten Green Projects initiative at the Forum 2001 Conference in Washington, D.C. Winners were selected for their success in the integration of architecture, technology, and natural systems. Contact information and more details on the projects can be found at

www.aia.org/pia/cote/topten/. Winning entries are profiled in alphabetical order below:

ABN-AMRO Bank

World Headquarters

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP

This headquarters complex, designed as the head office of one of the world’s leading banks, includes an innovative double-skin curtain wall, automated blinds, heat recovery system, modern digital climate regulators and lighting controls, and a radiant cooling ceiling. The complex includes two office towers and a courtyard building with large assembly spaces.

Adeline Street Urban Salvage Project

Berkeley, California

Leger Wanaselja Architecture

This remodel and addition to a 100-year-old house and adjacent shop in Berkeley, California was the highest vote-winner of all the projects. The existing buildings were not simply renovated—they were salvaged and recombined with discarded auto parts and recycled materials to create a modern, sun-filled architecture that uses a minimum of new material. Urban density is increased by jacking up the one-and-a-half story house and building a commercial space below, creating a compound of two street- level commercial spaces with two residential units above.

BigHorn Home Improvement Center

Silverthorne, Colorado

Marketplace Architects

One of the first examples in the United States of integrated daylighting and natural ventilation cooling systems in a retail space, this facility was selected for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab Exemplary Building Program. It is the state’s first commercial building to have a standing-seam roof-integrated PV system and the first retail center in Colorado to have a net metering agreement allowing for the sale of excess electricity back to the utility. Existing wetlands were expanded and incorporated into the on-site stormwater system.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Headquarters

Annapolis, Maryland

Architects: SmithGroup

The CBF’s new headquarters is the first LEED™ Platinum Building. Built on the footprint of an old community poolhouse, the building includes parking underneath to further minimize site disturbance. Aggressive energy conservation and sustainable building strategies have been applied to virtually every aspect of materials, systems, manufacturing, maintenance, and construction, advancing a “whole building” design that minimizes consumption, long-term costs, and maintenance.

Denver REI Flagship

Denver, Colorado

Mithun Architects + Designers + Planners

The adaptive reuse of the threatened historic landmark 1901 Denver Tramway Powerhouse Building for an outdoor equipment cooperative demonstrates that meeting strict U.S. Department of the Interior guidelines need not be inconsistent with green design. The project was designed to an energy consumption target set at 30% below Colorado’s energy code requirements. It is located on a major bike trail and a bus line, and provides less parking then comparable retail locations. Approximately half the on-site parking introduced was provided in an underground parking garage, with native Colorado landscape above, to reduce impervious surfaces and the heat island effect.

Montgomery Campus,

California College of Arts & Crafts

San Francisco, California

Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects

This project converts a Greyhound Bus maintenance facility, designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill in 1951, into a solar-heated, multidisciplinary educational environment for a progressive art and design college. A solar-heated hydronic system heats the 51,000 ft

² (4,750 m

²) open studios, allowing retention of existing glazing and maximizing daylight access.

Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise

Creve Coeur, Missouri

Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc. (HOK)

The Nidus Center is an incubator laboratory for new technology at the Monsanto Campus in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Designed on a fast-track, and delivered using a design-build methodology, the facility is located on a site where native landscaping is irrigated by rainwater collection cisterns. Energy requirements were reduced through the use of architectural sun screens, specialty glazing, light shelves, skylights, and sloped ceilings that provide appropriate level and quality of light daylighting with efficient direct-indirect lighting fixtures and HVAC systems. Efficient laboratory equipment is enhanced by advanced heat recovery from ventilation systems.

PNC Firstside Center

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

L. D. Astorino Companies

Reclaiming a brownfield site and bringing renewed life to a corner of the city’s central business district, the Firstside Center provides office space for 1,800 employees of the financial services company. Environmental concerns were addressed at every level of planning, design, and construction, making this the largest LEED-certified building and the first to receive certification under LEED 2.0. No workstations are more than 60 feet (18 m) from daylight.

Sleeping Lady Conference and Retreat Center

Leavenworth, Washington

Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects

The collaborative commitment of the client, the design team, and the construction team toward environmental stewardship and energy and resource efficiency mandated at the outset of project planning is manifest throughout this Bullitt Foundation facility. Overall operating efficiency is based on minimal development and investments in building envelopes, heat recovery ventilation systems, efficient lighting, and diligent management. The cabins are built in part from old cabins on the site, and no trees were removed in the construction of the center.

Zion National Park Visitor Center

Springdale, Utah

National Park Service – Denver Service Center

As a primary component of the Zion Canyon Transportation System, this low-energy sustainable facility is the entry to a transit- and pedestrian-centered visitor experience, providing park information, interpretation, and trip planning assistance. Consisting of indoor and outdoor spaces for visitor services, this facility creates a setting to promote and interpret park resources and agency conservation values. In creating the Zion National Park Visitor Center, the National Park Service (NPS), working with DOE’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), has complemented Zion’s natural beauty.