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This month, RECORD dives into the complex challenges of sustainable building through multiple perspectives, from envelope-pushing projects to practitioners who are moving the needle to material and technical innovations that promise industry-wide change.
Photo © Kendall McCaugherty
NASA Aerospace Communications Facility.
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Winthrop Center
By Joann Gonchar, FAIA
Photo courtesy of Millennium Partners
A number of tenants have leased multiple floors, connecting them with communicating stairs, including one office by IA Interior Architects.
At 691 feet and 53 stories, Winthrop Center, a recently completed glassy mixed-use tower in Boston, developed by Millennium Partners and designed by Handel Architects, is now the tallest in the downtown core. It surpasses—though by just a few feet—the height of an earlier collaboration between the developer and Handel, Millennium Tower, a nearby condo building completed in 2016.
Energy Advancement and Innovation Center
Photo © Michael Moran
Energy Advancement and Innovation Center.
Standing at the gateway to the Ohio State University’s (OSU) nascent Carmenton campus, the 64,000-square-foot Energy Advancement and Innovation Center (EAIC) is about one-fifth the size of a neighboring research building, but “it can hold its own on the site,” says Brendan Flaherty, a senior project manager with the institution’s facilities, design, and construction group. For starters, the luminous structure of glass, polycarbonate, and precast concrete significantly departs from the campus vernacular of brick rectangular buildings, he points out.
NASA Aerospace Communications Facility
By Katharine Logan
Photo © Kendall McCaugherty
Layers of scrawled mathematical equations embellish the NASA Aerospace Communications Facility’s precast facade.
The success of transformative programs currently under development at NASA, such as the Artemis mission to establish a long-term human presence on the moon and the Advanced Air Mobility project to integrate electric air taxis and drones into America’s airspace, will depend on breakthroughs in the technology of communication. To support the necessary innovations, NASA’s Glenn Research Center, in Cleveland, has brought together 25 research labs from across its campus in a dedicated state-of-the-art Aerospace Communications Facility. Designed by Ross Barney Architects and completed in late 2023, the 54,000-square-foot, $40.5 million building integrates stringent programmatic and budgetary requirements with the desire for supportive daylit workspaces and the need to meet ambitious sustainability targets.
Building Electrification Charges Forward
By Matthew Marani
Photo by Sundry Photography, Shutterstock.
Berkeley, California, with downtown Oakland in the distance.
America’s cities and states are increasingly turning toward building electrification as a tool to further decarbonization goals. According to the EPA, building operations account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption and approximately 30 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions. Switching over to equipment such as induction stovetops and heat pumps, coupled with the use of renewable energy and efficiency measures, could bring those numbers closer to zero. In the last year, in a riposte to the growing upswell, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill to block the Consumer Product Safety Commission from using federal funds to ban gas stoves, and litigation has turned the courtroom into a battleground in the race to decarbonize.
Sustainable Quarrying
By Matthew Marani
Photo © Franken-Schotter
A renaturalized quarry.
At first glance, stone quarrying appears to be a messy business. Great mounds of earth are excavated and massive blocks of limestone, marble, sandstone, and nearly every other type of stone under the sun are carved and carted off for dressing and further finishing. But, once all that dust settles, the harvest and use of natural stone is an environmentally low-impact proposition when compared to manufacturing building materials like concrete and steel, among others, owing to fewer steps in transportation and production. Quarriers and fabricators, both stateside and around the world, are implementing additional practices and strategies to reduce their environmental impact even more.
Structural Stone
By Matthew Marani
Photo © Olivier Mathiotte
Saint Dizier Market Hall.
Load-bearing masonry isn’t exactly novel—stereotomic construction spans continents, cultures, and epochs. Despite stone’s ubiquity—throughout history and as a resource—steel and reinforced concrete have supplanted it as go-to structural systems, largely relegating the natural material to the task of facade cladding. That shift has had severe environmental implications—the production of steel and concrete produce over 15 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions annually.
David Lake and Ted Flato in Conversation
By Joann Gonchar, FAIA
Photos © Josh Huskin
Lake (left) and Flato (right) started their practice in 1984. Harold Simmons Park, in Dallas, is set to start construction next year.
David Lake and Ted Flato founded Lake | Flato Architects in 1984 in San Antonio. They started their practice designing ranch houses in Texas, but in the intervening decades have created a diverse portfolio that includes schools, workplaces, and mixed-used developments spread throughout the country. The duo, whose projects are characterized by an attention to craft and a respect for nature, are the joint recipients of the 2024 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Known for ultra-high-performing buildings, Lake | Flato has earned 15 AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Awards—more than any other firm—and it achieved the first Living Building certification in Texas. RECORD deputy editor Joann Gonchar spoke with Flato and Lake about their design philosophy and approach to practice.
Book Excerpt: 'The Future is A Journey to The Past'
Photo © Iago Corazzo
TECLA—a portmanteau of the words technology and clay—is a 3D-printed housing prototype (left). The dwelling unit, developed by MCA in collaboration with the World’s Advanced Saving Project, can be erected in 72 hours by extruding and layering mud in sinusoidal forms.
Mario Cucinella is founder of Milan- and Bologna-based Mario Cucinella Architects (MCA), as well as the SOS School of Sustainability. In his most recent book, the Italian designer has compiled an architectural autobiography of 10 travel stories, spanning from Iran and China to Ireland and the Maghreb, that offer lessons on how architecture can learn from the natural world. “They are not nostalgic tales,” he says, “but the discovery of a past in which to seek lots of information that can help us in our journey to the future.” Following is an excerpt from the preface.
