2011

The 2011 Design Challenge

The design site for Architecture At Zero 2011 was an industrial urban infill site in Emeryville, California. The design challenge was to create a mixed-use building or set of buildings that included 240 residential housing units, one 1200 square foot retail space and a 4000 square foot new public library branch. As part of the competition, all building designs were required to be grid-tied and reasonably demonstrate the competition’s criteria for zero net energy; that the energy use of the building(s) and its occupants be less than or equal to the energy produced by on-site renewable generation, as measured over a calendar year.

The competitors also met specific program criteria chosen from the City’s general and specific area plans, including open space requirements for the site, and the extension of the street grid into the site.

Photo courtesy of The Sherwin-Williams Company, circa 1930′s

A view of the Architecture At Zero 2011 Competition Site in Emeryville, CA. The site had been a former Sherwin-Williams paint factory for almost 100 years and was in the completion stages of site clean-up during the 2011 competition.

The competition team would like to recognize the City of Emeryville and Sherwin-Williams for their enthusiasm and cooperation in making Architecture At Zero 2011 a success.

The Architecture at Zero 2011 Jury

Susan Szenasy, Editor in Chief, Metropolis Magazine

Susan S. Szenasy is Editor in Chief of METROPOLIS, the award-winning New York City-based magazine of architecture and design. Since 1986 she has lead the magazine through decades of landmark design journalism, achieving domestic and international recognition. She is internationally recognized as an authority on sustainability and design.

Susan sits on the boards of the Council for Interior Design Accreditation, Fashion Institute of Technology’s Interior Design department, the Center for Architecture Advisory Board, and has served the Landscape Architecture Foundation board. She has been honored with two IIDA Presidential Commendations, is an honorary member of the ASLA, and the 2008 recipient of the ASID Patron’s Prize and Presidential Commendation as well as the SARA/NY medallion of honor. She has received a citation and an honorary membership from NYC AIA. Along with METROPOLIS Publisher Horace Havemeyer III, Susan was a 2007 recipient of the Civitas August Heckscher Award for Community Service and Excellence. In 2011 she won the Gene Burd Urban Journalism Award and was named a Senior Fellow by the Design Futures Council.

Susan holds an MA in Modern European History from Rutgers University, and honorary doctorates from Kendall College of Art and Design, the Art Center College of Design, and the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She lives in New York’s East Village in a small loft designed by Harry Allen, where she moved after 9/11 to reduce her ecological footprint.

Bob Berkebile, FAIA, Principal  |  BNIM Architects

Any list of accomplished, influential environmentalists and preservationists includes Bob Berkebile. Highly regarded by fellow professionals and the recipient of numerous awards, Bob has focused his career on improving the quality of life in our society with the integrity and spirit of his firm’s work.

He is a founding principal of BNIM Architects and has contributed 44 years to the architectural profession. Among his contributions to his industry, Bob is the founding chairman of the American Institute of Architects’ National Committee on the Environment (AIA / COTE) and was also instrumental in the formation of the US Green Building Council and its LEED rating system.

Bob’s work as an architect and thought leader in sustainable methodologies continue to increase the national and global momentum towards triple-bottom-line solutions in our built environments – solutions that seek to find a balance between people, planet and prosperity. In 2009, Bob received a Heinz Award from Theresa Heinz and the Heinz Family Foundation for his leadership and commitment to the environment and action towards restoring social, economic and environmental vitality to America’s communities through sustainable architecture and planning. In 2011, his firm was selected for the AIA National Architecture Firm Award, the organization’s highest honor.

Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA, Brooks + Scarpa Architecture

The work of Lawrence Scarpa has redefined the role of the architect to produce some of the most remarkable and exploratory work today. He does this, not by escaping the restrictions of practice, but by looking, questioning and reworking the very process of design and building. Each project appears as an opportunity to rethink typical processes and applications – with material, form, construction, even financing – and to subsequently redefine it to cull out its latent potentials – as Scarpa aptly describes: making the “ordinary extraordinary.” This produces entirely inventive work: it is environmentally sustainable, but not “sustainable design;” it employs new materials, digital practices and technologies, but is not “tech” or “digital;” it is socially and community conscious, but not politically correct. Rather, it is deeply rooted in conditions of the everyday, and works with our perception and preconceptions to allow us to see things in new ways.

Over the last ten years, Mr. Scarpa’s firm BROOKS + SCARPA received more than 50 major design awards, notably 18 National AIA Awards, including the 2010 Architecture Firm Award, the 2011, 2006 and 2003 AIA Committee on the Environment “Top Ten Green Project” awards, 2005 Record Houses, 2003 Rudy Bruner Prize, and finalist for the World Habitat Award. In 2004 The Architectural League of New York selected him as an “Emerging Voice” in architecture and in 2009 he received The Lifetime Achievement Award from Interior Design Magazine.

He has taught and lectured at the university level at numerous schools including UCLA, University of Florida, Mississippi State University and SCI-arc. He was the 2009 E. Fay Jones Distinguished Professor, the 2008 Ruth and Norman Moore Visiting Professor at Washington University, the 2007 Eliel Saarinen Visiting Professor at the Alfred Taubman College of Architecture at the University of Michigan, 2005 University of Michigan Max Fisher Visiting Fellow, and 2004 Freidman Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.

Allison Williams, FAIA, Principal  | Perkins + Will 

Allison G. Williams is a Design Principal with Perkins+Will and Design Director for the San Francisco office. In a career spanning more than 30 years in corporate practice, Williams’ leadership in the design of large-scale civic, corporate, cultural and research facilities has influenced significant projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, nationally and internationally.

Her diverse portfolio of work includes The August Wilson Center for African American Culture (Pittsburgh PA, 2009) and CREATE (Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise) a 700,000 GSF research center for the National Research Foundation (Singapore, 2010), two prestigious commissions recently won by Perkins+Will through invited design competitions.

Williams is committed to a collaborative and intuitive design approach that seamlessly integrates aesthetics, sustainable strategies and modern technologies. A Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Williams received both her Masters of Architecture and Bachelor of Art in the Practice of Art at the University of California, Berkeley. Williams was elevated to Fellow in the American Institute of Architects in 1997. She currently sits on the Harvard Design Magazine Practitioners Board, and Public Architecture Board of Directors. Williams is the corporate leader for Perkins+Will’s Social Responsibility Initiative

Stephen Selkowitz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)

Stephen Selkowitz has 30 years of experience in the field of building energy performance, with an emphasis on research, development, and deployment of energy efficient technologies and design practices.  He is currently Head of the Building Technologies Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where his responsibilities include management and technical oversight of 80 researchers in five major research & development activities: Windows and Daylighting, Lighting Systems, Commercial Building Systems, Building Simulation Research and Demand Response Research.  Department projects range from near-term demonstrations of emerging technology to basic materials research intended to influence the next generation of building products, and include development of the new computer tools and information technologies needed to change the practice of building design and operations.

Selkowitz participates in a wide range of building industry, government, and professional activities in the US and internationally. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Fenestration Rating Council and is a Board member and co-chair of the International Alliance for Interoperability. He has been the US participant in a series of International Energy Agency collaborations on daylighting research. He is the author of over 150 publications and holds a BA in Physics from Harvard College and an MFA in Environmental Design from California Institute of the Arts.

Architecture At Zero 2011 Entry Results
The Architecture At Zero 2011 jury selected four winning entries among all submitted professional and student entries as well as one special jury recognition award.

Selected media coverage of Architecture at Zero 2011

Metropolis Magazine – Notes From Metropolis, “Steep Learning Curve” (January 2012 issue – posted online January 25, 2012
Examiner – “Architecture at Zero: striving for net zero energy buildings” (December 9, 2011)
San Francisco Chronicle - “Competition Yields Innovative Neighborhood Designs” (December 8, 2011)
PG&E Currents - “Zero Net Energy Building Designs Come Up Winners” (December 7, 2011)
PG&E Press Release - “PG&E and AIA San Francisco Announce Winners of Competition for Zero Net Energy Building Designs” (December 7, 2011)

Architecture At Zero 2011 Winners