In the United States, interest in environmentally responsible or "green" buildings is booming. The US Green Building Council (USGBC), launched in 1993, has more than 6,500 member organizations and nearly 4,000 buildings registered within the LEED green building rating system. The two case studies below provide examples of the new direction of the American architectural community. These projects integrate solutions to environmental issues with fundamental building design. Exciting projects from the zero energy movement, as well as studies linking green development with worker productivity and well-being, highlight the promise of the US Green Building movement.
Expressing the environmental ethic
The new California Academy of Sciences building in San Francisco, California, was designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with Gordon Chong Associates, and engineering by ARUP. The Academy's team set the goal of articulating how the new structure could express the organization's environmental ethic. The process included charting the normal patterns of energy and water use in a museum of this size. Material flows and the impact on the local ecosystems were also projected. The team then asked what would be the ultimate performance goal in different categories including net energy production, restoring the habitat footprint of the site, and producing clean water. Some of these goals will not be met, but the Academy and team have charted where the building will lie on the continuum from conventional structure to conceptual ideal. The resulting design is 450,000 square feet containing museum spaces, a rainforest exhibit, the Steinhart Aquarium, a planetarium, and offices and storage for millions of specimens. Each of these spaces has its own temperature, light, and ventilation needs. In a typical building this would result in a massively complex mechanical system - but not here.
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