World's first K-12 school to achieve both LEED for Schools Platinum and WELL Platinum

The famed Griffith Observatory, located in the heart of the Hollywood hills, receives close to two million visitors every year and has appeared in such films as the classic “Rebel Without a Cause” and the not-so-classic “Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.” Complete with a solar telescope and a 12-inch refracting telescope, multiple scientific exhibits, and one of the world...

The team behind the new Holyoke (Mass.) Health Center was aiming for more than the renovation of a single building—they were hoping to revive an entire community. Holyoke's central business district was built in the 19th century as part of a planned industrial town, but over the years it had fallen into disrepair.

The Old Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C., completed in 1867, houses two Smithsonian Institution museums—the National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum. Collections include portraits of all U.S. presidents, along with paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings of numerous historic figures from American history, and the works of more than 7,000 American artists.

Insulated metal panels, or IMPs, have been a popular exterior wall cladding choice for more than 30 years. These sandwich panels are composed of liquid insulating foam, such as polyurethane, injected between two aluminum or steel metal face panels to form a solid, monolithic unit. The result is a lightweight, highly insulated (R-14 to R-30, depending on the thickness of the panel) exterior clad...

Historic restoration and preservation efforts are accelerating throughout the U.S., thanks in part to available tax credits, awards programs, and green building trends. While these projects entail many different building components and systems, façade restoration—as the public face of these older structures—is a key focus. Earn 1.0 AIA learning unit by taking this free course from Building Design+Construction.

It was supposed to be the perfect new office. In July 2003, Two Rivers Marketing Group of Des Moines, Iowa, began working with Shiffler Associates Architects on a 14,000-sf building to house their rapidly growing marketing firm. Over the next six months they put together an innovative program that drew on unprecedented amounts of employee feedback.

Sustainability and energy efficiency depend not only on the overall design but also on the building's enclosure system. Whether it's via better air-infiltration control, thermal insulation, and moisture control, or more advanced strategies such as active façades with automated shading and venting or novel enclosure types such as double walls, Building Teams are delivering more efficient, better performing, and healthier building enclosures.

Sectioning off large open spaces without making everything feel closed off was the challenge faced by two very different projects—one an upscale food market in Napa Valley, the other a corporate office in Southern California. Movable glass wall systems proved to be the solution in both projects.