2019 COTE Top Ten

Congratulations to the 2019 winners of the COTE Top Ten awards program for sustainable design excellence. The winning projects not only met the AIA Committee on the Environment’s rigorous criteria for social, economic, and ecological value but also demonstrated that good design is more than just pretty looking buildings.

Many of the winning projects live on university campuses, which are the some of the best places to serve as living laboratories, and range from brownfield development to historic preservation. Some projects such as the Frick Environmental Center and Oregon Zoo Education Center offer their visitors active learning opportunities about the environment while others such as Lakeside Senior Apartments and St. Patrtick’s Cathedral offer comfort to the community. A high school in Kenya is less about high-performance technology but more about “respecting the beauty of place and people by providing design that is simple, durable, and of its place.” A waste management facility in Seattle is unobstrusively elegant and not afraid to showcase its functions. Let’s continue to create beautiful and meaningful architecture while we strive to create the best sustainable buildings.

Integrated, performance-based thinking guided major architectural decision including the customized skylights running the length of the building and sinuous roof monitors animate the roofline and improve daylight quality at the Amherst College New Science Center. (Photo courtesy Payette/AIA)

The Amherst College New Science Center provides state-of-the-art facilities and a flexible space to support the college’s science programs and students through the next century while reducing energy usage by 76 percent compared with a typical research building.

Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, United States
Architect: Payette

The Commons’ roof at Amherst College New Science Center monitors integrate architectural and mechanical elements that provide an overall comfort conditioning solution: chilled beams, radiant slabs, acoustic baffles, and a photovoltaic array. (Photo courtesy Payette/AIA)

The Asilong Christian High School – this is the story of a community imagining a different future for itself, beginning with seeking peace in the region through access to clean water and then enhancing educational opportunities for the primary school graduates.

Location: Asilong, West Pokot, Kenya
Architect: BNIM

The Asilong Christian High School’s building design focuses on flexibility and durability while responding to local conditions related to water scarcity, harsh sun, acoustic disruptions, local labor opportunities, community input, and construction innovation for the region. (Photo courtesy BNIM/AIA)

The Asilong Christian High School’s simple and flexible spaces are framed by local materials crafted and installed by the local community members. (Photo courtesy BNIM/AIA)

The Daniels Building at One Spadina Crescent, University of Toronto, embodies a holistic approach to sustainable design and strove to distinguish itself in its renovation in utilization efficiency, energy/water/material efficiency, properly insulated building fabric, indoor environmental quality, landscape, and urbanity.

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Architect: NADAAA with Adamson Associates Architects and ERA Architects

The renovation and expansion of One Spadina Crescent for the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design (DFALD) embodies a holistic approach to sustainable design. (Photo courtesy NADAAA with Adamson Associates Architects and ERA Architects/AIA)

The project objectives were twofold: (1) rehabilitate the landscape, historic Knox College architecture, and urban significance of Spadina Crescent (2) demonstrate DFALD’s objective of overt sustainability through the deployment of materials and systems to accommodate a program for studio space, workshops, classrooms, offices, a library, a cafe, a gallery, an auditorium, a Living Lab, a Fab Lab, a public amphitheater, and an event terrace. (Photo courtesy NADAAA with Adamson Associates Architects and ERA Architects/AIA)

The Frick Environmental Center, a living learning center for experiential environmental education and exemplifies principles of equity, experiential learning, and public engagement. (2019 COTE Top Ten Plus honoree – project team gathered exemplary performance data and post occupancy lessons.)

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
LEED: Platinum
Living Building: Certified

The LEED Platinum and Living Building-certified Frick Environmental Center demonstrates the conservancy’s mission to restore the Pittsburgh’s deteriorating parks and reestablish a cycle of stewardship. (Photo courtesy Bohlin Cywinski Jackson/AIA)

Biophilic design strategies used throughout the Frick Environmental Center both beckon and shelter, gently nudging park visitors from the adjacent neighborhoods toward the heart of the wooded park beyond. (Photo courtesy Bohlin Cywinski Jackson/AIA)

The Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex leverages passive elements to reduce energy demand and employs high-tech energy recovery systems to further reduce energy use at this Northeastern University cutting-edge research facility.

Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Architect: Payette
LEED: Gold

The building form of Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex is intrinsically linked with high performance architecture through parametric design and energy modeling to achieve an integrated design. (Photo courtesy Payette/AIA)

The Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex is organized as a community of faculty neighborhoods surrounding the atrium, replete with nooks and lounges for informal conversation. (Photo courtesy Payette/AIA)

The Lakeside Senior Apartments provides 92 permanently affordable homes for low-income and special-needs, formerly homeless seniors, many of whom had been displaced by rising Bay Area housing costs.

Location: Oakland, California, United States
Architect: David Baker Architects
LEED: Platinum

Lakeside Senior Apartments’ building design begins with a tight envelope and massing articulation that responds to orientation; and care was taken to step the building massing down toward the lake, emphasizing the proximity to this wonderful urban resource and protecting neighbors’ light and views. (Photo courtesy David Baker Architects/AIA)

The community room at Lakeside Senior Apartments opens widely to the central courtyard, creating a flexible indoor-outdoor gathering space. (Photo courtesy David Baker Architects/AIA)

The North Transfer Station replaces an out-of-date waste facility with one that was larger and more efficient while meeting the demands of two abutting residential communities.

Location: Seattle, Washington, United States
Architect: Mahlum Architects
LEED: Gold

The new facility at the North Transfer Station generates 68 percent fewer CO2 emissions than the average U.S. building of a similar type, just shy of the 2015 70 percent reduction target set by the 2030 Challenge. (Photo courtesy Mahlum Architects/AIA)

The North Transfer Station can process up to 750 tons of waste, recycling, and compost per day from both commercial and self-haulers. (Photo courtesy Mahlum Architects/AIA)

The Oregon Zoo Education Center provides a home base for thousands of children who participate in camps and classes annually and serves as a regional hub, expanding the zoo’s youth programs through collaborations with U.S. Fish and Wildlife and other partners.

Location: Portland, Oregon, United States
Architect: Opsis Architecture
LEED: Platinum

The Oregon Zoo Education Center creates dialogue between the built and natural environment, with each interior space offering a corresponding visible and connected outdoor space. (Photo courtesy Opsis Architecture/AIA)

The Oregon Zoo Education Center’s sustainable elements, including solar panels, native plants, bird-safe windows, and rain gardens, are designed to educate the public. (Photo courtesy Opsis Architecture/AIA)

St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a prominent 1870s religious landmark by James Renwick Jr., which was last renovated in 1949, achieved a 29 percent reduction in annual energy use and stabilized significant historic fabric while each year welcoming 5 million-plus visitors.

Location: New York, New York, United States
Architect: Murphy Burnham & Buttrick Architects

St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s design solutions combined stringent conservation methods, ten geothermal wells, fully integrated new mechanical systems, and strategic architectural interventions to enhance worship and functionality. (Photo courtesy MBB/AIA)

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is a successful example of integrating sustainable strategies with restoration of a historical building. (Photo courtesy MBB/AIA)

The Tashjian Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center is a multi-functional public education facility that provides learning opportunities for children and adults about the lives of bees and other pollinators, their agricultural and ecological importance, and the essential, fascinating, and delicious ways our human lives intersect with theirs.

Location: Chaska, Minnesota, United States
Architect: MSR Design