Design, What's Up
August 11, 2011
By David Foster
Long before transforming into Los Angeles’ first LEED CI Platinum building, our showroom had a past. Located in Culver City, the building began its life as a cloth diaper manufacturer in the mid 1950’s. As the area changed and manufacturing left, the building lay unused until a becoming a warehouse for mens’ suits in the 1980s.
When Herman Miller purchased the building in 2007, the there were few people who questioned the decision. In order to meet our environmental standards, both the structure and the interior required extensive renovation. Design by TVS Design, 20 percent of all materials used were made with 500 miles of the site, and 85 percent of all construction was recycle and diverted from the landfill. These, among many other efforts, resulted in the building being honored with LEED Gold certification and the interiors with Platinum–the first, and still only, Platinum commercial interior in LA.
Better World, Design, Products
June 15, 2010
By Martin Flaherty
Building green is a significant way to create a better world and ecoScorecard is a tool that improves the process. ecoScorecard is a free, web-based technology platform that gives product manufacturers the ability to provide environmental information and sustainability documentation about products for LEED and other third-party rating systems. It takes the hours, weeks, and sometimes months out of the documentation process.
Herman Miller is the first major contract furniture manufacturer to incorporate ecoScorecard into its product catalog. Its goal is to improve the time it takes to deliver environmental documentation to end users such as building owners, architects, designers, and product specifiers.
Like most of the business world, we see Herman Miller as a leader in sustainable business practices. It recognizes that ecoScorecard can help all manufacturers make the documentation process easier. In fact, the company is working with us to get other firms in the commercial interiors market to use the platform. And this isn’t about just Herman Miller or a competitive advantage. Its President and CEO, Brian Walker, and Environmental team all want the hassle of the documentation process to become a thing of the past for the entire building industry.
This summer and fall, we’ll be visiting architecture and design firms to share more information about the benefits of ecoScorecard. Send us an e-mail if you’d like to know more about these events.
Better World, Design
May 5, 2010
By Bill Holm
Here are 10 buildings that make you want to cheer—for their beauty as well as sustainability. And they are winners in American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2010 COTE Top Ten Green Projects. Check these out and learn about the best in green design solutions.
355 11th Street (Aidlin Darling Design) San Francisco: Reuse of a historic industrial building; Califoria’s first LEED Gold Building.
Homer Science & Student Life Center (Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects) Atherton, CA: Natural ventilation, daylighting, a green roof, solar panels, and a virtual dashboard that shows energy and water consumption in real time; LEED Platinum.
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia: The country’s first LEED certified project and the world’s largest LEED Platinum project.
Kroon Hall, (Centerbrook Architects and Planners; Hopkins Architects), Yale University, New Haven, CT: Replaces a brownfield with a net zero energy building.
Manassas Park Elementary School + Pre-K (VMDO Architects, P.C.) Manassas Park, VA: The building is a teaching tool; its sustainable design is integrated with the curriculum.
Manitoba Hydro Place (Smith Carter Architects and Engineers; Kuwabara Payne Mckenna Blumberg Architects) Winnipeg, MB: A “living building” that dynamically responds to the local climate (b-r-r-r).
Omega Center for Sustainable Living (BNIM Architects) Rhinebeck, NY: Environmental education facility and a net zero energy system, featuring natural wastewater treatment.
Special No. 9 House (KieranTimberlake) New Orleans: Affordable housing with customizable, sustainable options for the devastated Lower Ninth ward.
Twelve West (ZGF Architects LLP) Portland, OR: ZGF’s office is a living lab of urban sustainability; expected to earn LEED Platinum.
Watsonville Water Resource Center (WRNS Studio LLP) Watsonville, CA: A functional, educational, and visual extension of the water recycling plant it supports.
Better World, Design, Technology
October 30, 2009
By Bill Holm
Note: This is the second in a series. To read the first post, see “Getting Buildings and People In Sync.”
The nutshell idea for Programmable Environments (PE) is to use technology to fill new or existing buildings with intelligence. The building becomes a digital network so that permanent fixtures become adaptable. You can make them do exactly what you need them to do at any moment, change them instantly, and gather real time information about how they are used.
And it’s easy. Here’s the story:
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Better World, Design, What's Up
September 18, 2009
By Randall Braaksma
LEED is the U.S.’s most recognized seal of approval for green buildings. But LEED certifies a building’s performance based on what goes into it, not on how it actually performs once it’s built. So how is measurement changing LEED?
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Better World
April 27, 2009
By Randall Braaksma
How do you build so you blend in with a field? And why bother? Because when you take stewardship seriously, you don’t build an office building in the country without grappling with what it will do to the land.
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