Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the greenest project of all?
Tomorrow, the Seattle Chapter of the AIA will announce its winners of the What Makes it Green Awards. The awards celebrate the greenest projects in the Pacific Northwest (and a few overseas countries. Still not sure on how the overseas aspect works but it does).
So before they make their big announcements, I wanted to ask you, dear readers.... what do you think are the greenest buildings of the past year?
Nationally, the AIA chose Weber Thompson's headquarters and Dockside Green (for more info, click AIA tag below). Who do you think the local awards will honor?
Just for fun, I'm including some randomly chosen images of green buildings I have reported on in the past year. Let me know if you think these - or any I haven't mentioned - will be winners:
P.S. For pictures of last year's winners, click the tag 'AIA' or 'Awards' below!
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April 28th, 2009 - 08:43
The Weber Thompson building is all but guaranteed to be on the winners list, however it’s far from being the greenest.
I am impressed with the Dockside Green project.
April 28th, 2009 - 15:49
Terry Thomas seems to be performing much better than anticipated, given all of the glazing and the potential for heat loss due to the extensive natural ventilation louvers. Check out their first reported energy numbers:
http://weberthompson.typepad.com/wt_weblog/2009/04/this-week-an-award-along-with-validation.html
Very encouraging.
April 29th, 2009 - 09:21
How are these judged? I’d love to see a contest with a year of energy use numbers, construction equipment fuel use, and a list of construction materials with their embodied energy. Factoring in building use (occupancy, hours of operation) that would get at the real “green”ness of a new construction.
April 30th, 2009 - 10:57
Steve and Nate – If there were a prize for choosing the right project, you would win it. The Terry Thomas did indeed win a WMIG award. For more information on how it’s performing energy-wise, click the tag ‘Weber Thompson,’ and read Peter Greaves response regarding the building’s operation on the post ‘Photos of Terry Ave. Office Buiding.’
Matt – The judging behind these projects changes every year. Tom Paladino of Paladino & Co. and Dave Goldberg of Mithun put together the criteria this year, though I can’t find it publicly published anywhere. Judges said they were asked to put a premium on projects that respond directly to their environment, the project’s location and to projects that have data on their actual use of resources like energy.
As far as having data related to construction equipment, fuel use, etc., that topic never came up during the awards ceremony. If a project actually measured that information, it would certainly give a more comprehensive picture of a project’s “green-ness.” But because it’s a pretty rare thing to measure, might that information also put it at a disadvantage…. if no other project submitted similar information, for example? Just a thought. Incidentally, King County is asking projects to measure this information and to mitigate it. For more information on that, click the tag ‘King County.’
Thank you all for your comments!
May 8th, 2009 - 12:30
While I wouldn’t want to be called a sore loser, I entered a project into this competition that exceeds the energy savings of the semi-passive terry thomas project by 20% (according to their national AIA award numbers) and yet wasn’t included on the short list. It’s not nearly as sexy, but it’s a more efficient and healthy office space.
I’d *love* to see the energystar ratings of all of these projects. I guess our 39kBtu a sq/ft usage wasn’t low enough.
We’re continuously improving the facility, and expect much better results next year (from advanced daylighting and occupancy lighting) and should be certified LEED Platinum EB. Hopefully they’ll take a closer look next time.
May 8th, 2009 - 13:09
Well you can’t forget that AIA is above all an architects organization, not an energy organization. WMIG rewards environmentally friendly AND architectually interesting buildings. If you haven’t already, I would recommend submitting your project for an ASHRAE Technology Award. They prioritize energy efficiency and smart design above aesthetics.