Share this on

National Contest Honors Green Building Design

Among the winners is a building that can be moved by truck in four parts.

Mairi Beautyman -- Interior Design, 9/25/2007 12:00:00 AM

The winners of a major national green building design contest were recently announced at the West Coast Green Conference in San Francisco. The inaugural Lifecycle Building Challenge, a collaboration between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Building Materials Reuse Association, the American Institute of Architects, and West Coast Green, honors "cutting-edge green building ideas that aim to reduce environmental and energy impacts of buildings."

Recognized projects include a building, designed by David Miller, architectural designer at the Miller|Hull Partnership, that can be moved in four pieces with a truck; an adaptable mobile home unit for disaster relief and permanent use conceived by Michael Berk, a professor at the Mississippi State University School of Architecture; and furniture manufacturer Haworth’s 99 percent reuse and recycling construction program.

The contest was open to both professionals and students, and awards and cash prizes were bestowed on winners. Built and un-built projects could be submitted in three categories:

Building—an entire building from foundation to roof

Component—a single building assembly, system, or connector

Service—a tool, method, or other idea

Organizers hope to use ideas developed to slash building-related construction and demolition debris from reaching landfills—each year, this debris is estimated at more than 100 million tons.

"Reusing valuable building materials conserves resources and reduces greenhouse gas emissions," says U.S. EPA office of solid waste and emergency response assistant administrator Susan Bodine, who announced the winners. "Designing buildings for adaptability, disassembly and local reuse is an important environmental protection strategy."

The competition was sponsored by Green Building Blocks. Visit Lifecycle Building Challenge for a complete list of winners.