For the sustainable home

Sustainability in roofing means the end of using products made from virgin material. Instead, the industry is moving to transferring existing waste into useable products that will continually be reprocessed and diverted from landfill sites. There are now products that have a high percentage of recycled content, some with life-long warranties.

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Jury comments - Here is a fabulous example of the reuse of a derelict building that brings life back to an abandoned area of the city. Re-use rather than tear down is the best starting point for sustainability, and the project is also targetting LEED Gold certification through high-efficiency HVAC, and electrical and water conservation.

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Jury comments - The school is an exemplary example of modest sustainable design that any small community can achieve. The interior is beautiful. Natural light enters through single-loaded corridors, clerestory windows at interior classrooms, and a narrow floor plate that strikes a good balance between active and passive solar.

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Jury comments - This is a building that makes us want to visit. It makes clever re-use of insulated precast panels integrated into the walls, and smart use of passive heating and natural ventilation that has a sense of “reclaiming lost knowledge.”

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Jury comments - A fine example of a design that preserves the historic fabric of a heritage building while maximizing its flexibility of use. It incorporates  rainwater capture and re-use, and high performance heating and cooling. Interesting interior spaces maintain the elegance of the building and make delightful use of natural light.

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The Marilyn Blusson Learning Centre

Jury comments - This simple, thoughtful building intensifies the density of the site and achieves good energy and water conservation. The design has a modest, pleasing feel, and the building is well oriented for sun and shading. The project is also innovative in its use of rainwater collecting, and use of sea water for cooling.

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Phase I "SYNERGY"

Jury comments - The project sets the future course for high density communities that are fully sustainable and designed to a central plan.  It’s a model for an industrial site that has self-sufficiency in waste and water handling, and energy generation.  The plan is so good that even public spaces feel private, and we can only hope that Dockside Green becomes the new standard for our cities.

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Earth walls dissolve building into landscape using rammedearth

The design of Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre is a specific and sustainable response to the building’s unique context-the unusual Canadian desert found in the South Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Sited adjacent to a remnant of the Great Basin Desert, of which 1,600 acres are being preserved by the Osoyoos band as a conservation area, this interpretative centre is part of a larger 200-acre master plan. (more…)

Thoughtful green restoration achieves LEED Platinum

The roof garden on the new third-storey addition is irrigated through grey water recovery

With a 65sq.m addition on the roof, and the excavation of the 74sq.m basement, the owner/builder, a green building consultant, almost doubled the floor area of this two- storey, semi-derelict 1907 property, converting it into a contemporary triplex that now houses three generations of his family within this single green restoration project. (more…)

Simplicity of design and execution make a winner

The north elevation. All windows are operable for natural ventilation

In cross-section, this two storey, 1,115 sq.m office building is a simple flat roofed rectangle, the upper level being a partial mezzanine leaving double height spaces to promote stratification of warm air. In plan the building is elongated in the east-west direction, maximizing the benefits of north and south exposure for day-lighting and passive solar heating. (more…)