The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment has announced their top ten green projects for 2013. The structures range from schools to student housing to government office buildings. Two that I thought stood out were:
Pearl Brewery and Full Goods Warehouse in San Antonio, TX
Image: Lara Swimmer
What used to be a brownfield site is now home to a hotel, live-work spaces and restaurants. It was designed and updated by Lake|Flato Architects and Durand-Hollis Rupe Architects, who expanded the warehouse into a two-story building that now has the “state’s largest roof-mounted solar array, a 200.6kW PV system that provides 26.8 percent of the building’s power requirement.”
Image: Lake|Flato Architects
The structure has an accompanying website where visitors can learn more about this ““learning laboratory” for environmental initiatives.” I also appreciate that some of the objects salvaged during the demolition were reused and refurbished, like turning beer vats into rainwater cisterns.
Federal Center South, Building 1202 in Seattle, WA
Image: Benjamin Benschneider:OTTO
This former brownfield site is now the regional headquarters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Northwest District. ZGF Architects and Sellen Construction led the building’s integrated design team. Thanks the incorporation of active and passive systems, material and strategies “in new ways that place it within the top 1 percent of energy-efficient office buildings across the country.”
Image: Benjamin Benschneider:OTTO
Once again a team was able to make use of salvaged materials from one of the site’s former structures, this time reclaiming about “200,000 board feet of structural timber and 100,000 board feet of decking from a decommissioned, nonhistoric World War II–era warehouse on the site.”
To see all of the top ten, click here.