Northglenn, a Denver suburb, opens a net zero, all-electric city hall with a mass timber structure

Northglenn, Colo., a Denver suburb, has opened the new Northglenn City Hall—a net zero, fully electric building with a mass timber structure. The 32,600-sf, $33.7 million building houses 60 city staffers. Designed by Anderson Mason Dale Architects, Northglenn City Hall is set to become the first municipal building in Colorado, and one of the first in the country, to achieve the Core certification: a green building rating system overseen by the International Living Future Institute.

Mass Timber

5 lessons in water mitigation for mass timber projects

Sustainability leaders from Skanska, RDH, and Polygon share five tips for successful water mitigation in mass timber construction.

Office Buildings

Fact sheet outlines benefits, challenges of thermal energy storage for commercial buildings

A U.S. Dept. of Energy document discusses the benefits and challenges of thermal energy storage for commercial buildings. The document explains how the various types of thermal energy storage technologies work, where their installation is most beneficial, and some practical considerations around installations.

Industrial Facilities

UK-based tire company plans to build the first carbon-neutral tire factory in the U.S.

ENSO, a U.K.-based company that makes tires for electric vehicles, has announced plans to build the first carbon-neutral tire factory in the U.S. The $500 million ENSO technology campus will be powered entirely by renewable energy. The first-of-its-kind tire factory aims to be carbon neutral without purchased offsets, using carbon-neutral raw materials and building materials.

HDR | Sep 15, 2014

Sustainability rating systems: Are they doomed?

None of the hundreds of existing green building rating systems is perfect. Some of them are too documentation-heavy. Some increase short-term project cost. Some aren’t rigorous enough or include contentious issues, writes HDR's Michaella Wittmann.

Sep 12, 2014

Armstrong first in Pennsylvania to earn LEED Platinum recertification from USGBC

The Armstrong facility is the first building in Pennsylvania and among only 17 buildings globally to achieve recertification at the highest level possible under USGBC’s LEED-EBOM program.

Skanska | Sep 7, 2014

USGBC + American Chemistry Council: Unlikely partners in green building

In this new partnership, LEED will benefit from the materials expertise of ACC and its member companies. We believe this has the potential to be transformational, writes Skanska USA's President and CEO Michael McNally.

Tesoro Corporation headquarters in San Antonio, TX, a LEED-certified building. P

Sep 3, 2014

New designation launched to streamline LEED review process

The LEED Proven Provider designation is designed to minimize the need for additional work during the project review process.

Sep 2, 2014

Judson University’s Harm A. Weber Academic Center resembles copper, but its sustainability efforts are pure gold

The building’s custom-fabricated wall panels look like copper, but are actually flat metal sheets coated with Valspar’s signature Fluropon Copper Penny coating.

Bill O'Keeffe | Aug 25, 2014

Glazing plays key role in reinventing stairway design

Within the architectural community, a movement called "active design" seeks to convert barren and unappealing stairwells originally conceived as emergency contingencies into well-designed architectural focal points. SPONSORED CONTENT

Whole Foods is among the grocery companies recently using Green Globes certifica

Jul 25, 2014

Grocery stores choosing Green Globes for building sustainability certification

The Green Building Initiative (GBI) has announced a wave of Green Globes certifications for new grocery stores, including New Seasons Markets, Whole Foods, Price Chopper, Aldi’s, Harris Teeter, Wegmans, and Publix.

Jul 17, 2014

A harmful trade-off many U.S. green buildings make

The Urban Green Council addresses a concern that many "green" buildings in the U.S. have: poor insulation.

The complex is envisioned with public garden space. Renderings courtesy of April

Jul 16, 2014

Check out this tree-like skyscraper concept for vertical farming

Aprilli Design Studio has stepped forward with a new idea for a vertical farm, which is intended to resemble a giant tree. It uses lightweight decks as outdoor growing space, adding up to about 25 acres of space.

All photos: Harunori Noda / courtesy CTBUH

Jul 10, 2014

BioSkin 'vertical sprinkler' named top technical innovation in high-rise design

BioSkin, a system of water-filled ceramic pipes that cools the exterior surface of buildings and their surrounding micro-climates, has won the 2014 Tall Building Innovation Award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.