Administration, Maintenance and Operations Facility in South Bend achieves LEED Platinum

The Emil ‘Lucky’ Reznik Administration, Maintenance & Operations Facility has been certified LEED Platinum for New Construction by the USGBC.
RNL, in association with Forum Architects of South Bend, Indiana, and Maintenance Design Group, designed the Reznik Facility for the South Bend Public Transportation Corp.
The facility achieved 52 LEED points, including those for site selection, energy, materials and resources and innovation. At 164,200 sf, the facility is designed to embody the natural connection between sustainability and public transportation.
To compliment the many sustainable features in the Reznik Facility and to promote facility and community education, a digital display inside the lobby provides up-to-date information about the amount of energy the building is creating from its 92 kW photovoltaic roof panels. The system also tracks the amount of potable water saved from water-reducing lavatory fixtures and the facility’s recycled-water bus wash system, as well as the amount of storm water that has been detained on site. BD+C

Architect Zaha Hadid is in high demand these days, designing projects in Hong Kong, Milan, and Seoul, not to mention the London Aquatics Center, the swimming arena for the 2012 Olympics. But one of the firm’s smaller clients, the city of Elk Grove, Calif., recently conjured far different kinds of aquatic life when members of the City Council and the public chose words like “squid,” “octopus,” and “starfish” to describe the latest renderings for a proposed civic center.

| Apr 5, 2011

Are architects falling behind on BIM?

A study by the National Building Specification arm of RIBA Enterprises showed that 43% of architects and others in the industry had still not heard of BIM, let alone started using it. It also found that of the 13% of respondents who were using BIM only a third thought they would be using it for most of their projects in a year’s time.