Enter today! BD+C's 75 Top Building Products for 2024

The team of Clark/McCarthy, HKS Architects, and Wingler & Sharp are collaborating on the design of a new naval hospital at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. The $451 million project is the largest so far awarded by the U.S. Navy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The 500,000-sf, 67-bed hospital, to be located on a 70-acre site, will include facilities for emergency and primary care, specialty care clinics, surgery, and intensive care. The Building Team is targeting LEED Gold.

University architects representing four prominent institutions of higher learning tell how your firm can get the inside track on major projects.

Green building initiatives are a key influencer when tenants decide to sign a commercial real estate lease, according to a survey by GE Capital Real Estate. The survey, which was conducted over the past year and included more than 2,220 office tenants in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, Spain, and Japan, shows that energy efficiency remains the No. 1 priority in most countries. Also ranking near the top: waste reduction programs and indoor air.

Blue design creates places that are not just neutral, but actually add back to the world and is the future of sustainable design and architecture, according to an interview with Paul Eagle, managing director of Perkins+Will, New York; and Janice Barnes, principal at the firm and global discipline leader for planning and strategies.

Motivated by the prospect of increased property values, reduced utility bills, and an interest in jumping on the sustainability bandwagon, a noted upturn in green building upgrades is helping designers and real estate developers stay busy while waiting for the economy to recover. In fact, many of the larger property management outfits have set up teams to undertake projects seeking LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (LEED-EBOM, also referred to as LEED-EB), a certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which will house the former president’s library and museum, plus the Bush Institute, is aiming for LEED Platinum. The 226,565-sf center, located at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, was designed by architect Robert A.M. Stern and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh.

Brazil's green building industry will expand in the coming years, spurred by construction of low-impact venues being built for the 2016 Olympics. The International Olympic Committee requires arenas built for the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro meet international standards for low-carbon emissions and energy efficiency. This has boosted local interest in developing real estate with lower environmental impact than existing buildings. The timing couldn’t be better: the Brazilian government is just beginning its long-term infrastructure expansion program.

The U.S. green building market is up 50% from 2008 to 2010—from $42 billion to $55 billion-$71 billion, according to McGraw-Hill Construction's Green Outlook 2011: Green Trends Driving Growth report. Today, a third of all new nonresidential construction is green; in five years, nonresidential green building activity is expected to triple, representing $120 billion to $145 billion in new construction.