Building Re-Skinning Award Winners Announced

Zerofootprint has announced the five winners of its international Re-Skinning Awards, which recognize retrofits in five building categories that result in extraordinary environmental performance (see BuildingGreen.com July 2009). Entries were judged on the quality of re-skinning (changing the building envelope), overall energy efficiency, design aesthetics, return on investment, scalability, use of information technologies, and the social benefits of the retrofits. The awards will become an annual event, and Zerofootprint has also announced the ZEROprize, to be awarded to the first team to retrofit an older, high-rise, concrete building and achieve net-zero carbon, water, and energy use. The winners of the Re-Skinning Awards are:

• Small/Medium Commercial: Aidlin Darling Architects won in this category for its retrofit of an early 20th century industrial building in San Francisco. A new double-skin façade allows new windows to be hidden behind a perforated metal screen, maintaining the historic industrial look of the building while allowing daylight to the interior.

• Large Commercial: SparkasseVorderpfalz, a regional bank in Ludwigshafen, Germany, was refurbished over three years by a team led by Thiemo Ebbert and Rudolf Evers. The retrofit included improvement of the structural elements of the building and addition of secondary glazing, all without disturbing day-to-day operations in the bank. The building now uses 64% less energy than it did before the renovations.

• Small Residential: the Now House in Toronto, Canada, designed by Work Worth Doing Studio and Lorraine Gauthier, is a demonstration of a process for upgrading existing homes to net-zero-energy performance.

• Large Residential: DahmArchitekten and GESOBAU AG retrofitted 538 of 15,000 residential units built in Berlin in the 1960s. A combination of building envelope upgrades, heating and hot water system conversions, and tenant education led to 70% energy savings. The remaining units will be renovated by 2015.

• Future of Re-Skinning: Laboratory for Visionary Architecture won in this category for its proposal to re-skin the University of Technology Sydney Tower. The skin would contain building-integrated photovoltaic cells, collect rainwater, and improve daylight distribution in the building. Developed as a system, the skin could be used on buildings elsewhere.

– Allyson Wendt

For more information:

Zerofootprint Re-Skinning Competition

thezeroprize.com