maya stone

photo credit:Grant Mudford

A commitment to minimizing the project’s ecological footprint informed all aspects of the home’s design. The project team used the phrase “six zeroes” to describe the goals of the project: zero waste, zero energy, zero water, zero carbon, zero emissions, and zero ignorance.

The design maximizes the opportunities of the mild, marine climate with a passive cooling strategy using cross-ventilation and a thermal chimney. A 2.4-kilowatt photovoltaic array and a solar hot-water collector take advantage of the sunny location, as does the daylighting strategy for the interior.

To create flexible interior spaces, all bedrooms have moveable wall partitions that can be opened to common areas for more space. Large exterior doors and large expanses of glass connect the inside to the outside, allowing the living space to expand to the outdoors. (via Z6 House/The American Institute of Architects :: Top Ten Green Projects)

Photo credit: © Paul Warchol

This project was designed to demonstrate today’s best green design and watershed management practices. The design fuses the architecture of the water purification plant with the landscape to form a public park. The landscape design also enlarged and augmented the existing wetlands—used by migrating birds—with indigenous species. Natural habitats were preserved in the landscape to maintain biodiversity. Skylights in the green roof bring daylight to the treatment plant below. The below-grade location of the process spaces, the insulation value of the green roof, the thermal mass of the extensive concrete tanks and walls, and a ground-source heating and cooling system minimize the project’s energy consumption. Materials were selected for their durability in addition to recycled content, rapidly renewable content, and low chemical emissions. All regularly occupied spaces are daylit and naturally ventilated via operable windows. (via Whitney Water Purification Facility / The American Institute of Architects :: Top Ten Green Projects)

Through careful siting, materials selection, analysis, and design of building systems, the structure outwardly expresses the principles of green design. Because it serves as a teaching tool, the building makes many of its green building strategies apparent to visitors. The north wall at the main entrance to the building is clad in shingles cut from reclaimed tires gathered from local sources where they had been discarded. Operable windows provide natural ventilation to the main activity space, encouraging occupants to think about their own comfort and the environmental impacts of heating and cooling. South-facing windows provide passive solar gain in the winter, lowering heating costs. Overall, the building was designed to be resource and energy efficient, both from a first-cost standpoint and from an operational one, due to the tight budgetary constraints of this small environmental center. (via Pocono Environmental Education and Visitor Center(Pocono Environmental Education Center) :: The American Institute of Architects :: Top Ten Green Projects)

The new town center weaves together oak woodlands, playing fields, and new buildings into a civic center that meets the town’s goals to compliment the natural beauty of the landscape in the greenest way possible. The seismically unsafe, old town center was deconstructed; materials from the buildings were reused as beams, paneling, countertops, and structural fill. The new buildings are 20% smaller. The exterior siding and louvers are salvaged wood, and the wood flooring is local eucalyptus. The concrete mix is 70% slag. These and other measures reduced construction carbon emissions by 32%. Proper building orientation, daylighting, natural ventilation, sunshades, and thermal mass reduced overall energy use and allowed for smaller mechanical systems. Small, efficient air-conditioning units pre-cool make-up air and eliminate the need for full air conditioning. The 76 kW photovoltaic system supplies 40% of the electricity used by the building; nonrenewable energy costs are reduced by 51% and operating carbon is reduced by 76.2 tons per year. A section of buried creek, now exposed to daylight, defines the fourth side of the town center courtyard. The abandoned culvert will become a cistern for storing 40,000 gallons of rainwater. (via The American Institute of Architects :: Top Ten Green Projects)