The Green Imperative

A look back at pivotal sustainable projects reveals the outsize role of nonprofit and public-sector clients in driving change in the building industry.

- Deane Madsen

The United Nations’ latest climate change report, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in October, has given renewed urgency to the task of designing sustainably. The report, which warns of alarming climate transformations even for a smaller global temperature rise than previously predicted, confirms that we must make widespread changes to the construction and maintenance of buildings—which accounted for 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, as of 2009—if we are to have any recognizable future.

The role of clients in providing the impetus for such changes—forming design briefs and hiring innovative designers—is often understated. Yet as the following three nonprofit and public-sector client examples suggest, those at the top can empower architects to make choices with global and generational impact, provided they embrace sustainable goals of substance.

Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh specializes in botanical education with a focus on human and environmental well-being. Its 1893 Lord & Burnham conservatory was conceived as a refuge from the industrial city. A century later, Phipps transformed a brownfield site into its Center for Sustainable Landscapes (it opened in 2012), one of the greenest buildings anywhere, earning the highest-available certifications from four independent bodies: the Living Building Challenge; LEED; WELL Building; and SITES, the ecosystem-oriented framework.