The World Architecture News (WAN) recently announced that Perkins+Will’s VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Centre was named its Most Sustainable Building of the Year for 2014. This LEED-NC Platinum certified project was also the first building in Canada to apply for the Living Building Challenge. Inspired by natural forms and organized into a petal-like floor plan, the building uses on-site, renewable sources to achieve net-zero energy on an annual basis and treats 100 per cent of its blackwater in an on-site bioreactor – the first of its kind in Vancouver.
The jury awarded the Visitor Centre its top honour based on the project’s holistic approach and exceptionally high building standards. The jurors were also “impressed by the centre as a design for the future that can be learnt from and used as a strategy for future sustainable building around the globe.”
The Visitor Centre previously won the top WAN Engineering Award in 2012, which honoured the project’s innovation and craftsmanship with wood.
The World Architecture News launched in 2005 and is now the world’s leading supplier of news to the global architectural community. This past year saw the level of entries rise to over 1,500 outstanding projects, making the WAN AWARDS the largest architectural awards program worldwide.
To read all about the Visitor Centre’s win, please click here
For more information, visit http://perkinswill.com/