The Architecture of the City

Powerhouse at Brattorkaia will make use of solar cells, heat pumps, and sea water to become the world's most Northernmost energy-positive building. Located in downtown Trondheim, this office building was designed by Snøhetta, and received the environmental classification "Outstanding" from BREEAM NOR. It's yet another example of why Norway is such a sustainability role model and demonstrates that renewables make sense even in cold northern climes.

Beijing-based Decode Urbanism Office has designed a tower with a façade composed of multiple wind-driven generators.

Thousands of wind turbines will produce enough energy to power the entire building. At night, the diamond-shaped generators are lit with thousands of LED lights incorporated into the building envelope.

The 350-meter (1,150-foot) structure, in Taichung City, China, will house the city’s Department of Urban Development, as well as commercial activities.

The tower’s façade, inspired by the plum blossom — China and Taiwan's  national flower – reacts to changes in direction and intensity of the wind, creating a truly dynamic visual effect. Similarly, mechanical wind power generators have LEDs, illuminating the façade and producing a pulsating flow of light, whose intensity and color adjust to correspond to changes in temperature and season.

The wind harnessing capability, along with the lighting that responds to local atmospheric conditions, makes this conceptual tower a true “decoder of nature.”

Gardens by the Bay is the newest addition to Singapore's green space innovations, making this architecturally brilliant metropolis truly a “City in a Garden.”

Still a work in progress, Gardens by the Bay was named the World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival 2012. The use of innovative energy saving technologies is a noteworthy element of this unique project.

More than 217,000 plants belonging to approximately 800 species and varieties are represented in the Gardens “with the hope that it will help to promote awareness of the wonders of nature and the value of plants to Man and the environment.” In this way, visitors are instilled with new or renewed awareness of plants, while experiencing different ecosystems without disturbing original forests. Gardens by the Bay also supports the sustainability of culture through a wide array of “edutainment” available onsite — from school programs to concerts  – to further enhance an understanding of this experience...

Tonkin Zulaikha Greer collaborated with Taylor Cullity Lethlean to design The Village Centre for the National Arboretum in Canberra, Australia.

The architecture develops the long-standing tradition of significant garden buildings as transparent enclosures with dramatic internal volumes and sense of indoor-outdoor connection.

The exterior of the building is a sculptural form in the rolling topography of the site, contrasting low stone-clad wings with a high arching roof clad in weathered zinc, the form of which is inspired by the fronds of the adjoining forest of Chilean Wine Palms.

Internally, the innovative timber structure combines low environmental impact with a dramatic forest-like form, designed in a series of geometrical arcs.

The building incorporates a range of energy-saving measures, supporting the environmental value of the Arboretum as a whole, with a very low-energy envelope and structure.

NASA's new Sustainability Base was designed by William McDonough + Partners to embody the spirit of NASA while fostering collaboration, supporting health and well-being, and exceeding the requirements of LEED® Platinum.

An exoskeleton approach provides for structural stability during seismic events, facilitates glare-free daylighting and shading, natural ventilation and connection to the outdoors, and flexibility of the workspace with its column-free interior.

Atop the two-story 50,000-square-foot building is a solid-oxide fuel cell and rooftop solar arrays, supplying the building with more energy than it requires and sending surplus back to the grid at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Currently running on natural gas, the fuel cell is ready to be converted to landfill gas when a source is available...

BREEAM is the world’s foremost environmental assessment method and rating system for buildings, with 200,000 buildings certified and around a million registered for assessment since it was first launched in 1990.

The largest commercial office in Manchester has now become the highest scoring BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ building in the UK with a score of 95.32%.

Designed by 3DReid, The Co-operative Group’s new £115 million low-energy, highly sustainable headquarters brings their 3,500 staff under one roof in a spectacular 500,000 square foot building.  

The building, known as 1 Angel Square, has been designed to deliver a 50 per cent reduction in energy consumption compared to The Co-operative’s current Manchester complex and an 80 per cent reduction in carbon. This will lead to operating costs being lowered by up to 30 per cent...