The Siemens Group is making headlines with a major building project again. New corporate headquarters designed by Henning Larsen are to be built in Munich, while new headquarters designed by the British architects Sheppard Robson are currently also being built in Masdar City. Both new constructions are striving for top sustainability ratings.

The research and development centre of a breakfast cereal manufacturer is the first building in Switzerland to have been awarded Platinum Certification in the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system developed in America. The materials used to heat the new building, which is being built by a member of the Nestlé Group, include waste from coffee roasting.

Not very many premium properties are built in Germany without a sustainability certificate these days. This also applies to “Kö-Bogen”, a building based on the designs from Daniel Libeskind, which is currently being erected in the Dusseldorf Court Gardens. The aspiration is to achieve LEED Platinum status.

Buildings in China and Bulgaria are to be certificated according to the German DGNB standard (German quality certification for sustainable construction) soon. Also other countries decided to use the German DGNB certification, which international alignments were presented at the “Consense” conference in Stuttgart.

PLUS to DETAIL Green English issue 2-2009 | Page 9

On 4 May 2007 a tornado devastated almost 95 per cent of the small town of Greensburg in Kansas. In the reconstruction effort, the city authorities set themselves an ambitious goal: all new buildings that were publicly financed would strive to achieve LEED Platinum accreditation, the highest level within the certification system of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Manitoba Hydro Place, the new headquarters of the fourth largest energy utility in Canada, recently opened its doors in downtown Winnipeg. The 22-storey office tower with LEED Platinum target was designed by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (Toronto) with Smith Carter Architects (Winnipeg) and climate engineers Transsolar (Stuttgart).

In California, railway transportation is currently enjoying a renaissance. In order to facilitate the changeover to this still unfamiliar means of transport for Americans, a new transportation hub is being created in Anaheim. When completed in 2013, it is expected to reach the LEED Platinum Standard.

The second Consense congress of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB = Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen) takes place in Stuttgart on the 23rd and 24th of June. Among other things, the DGNB will be presenting innovations in its certification system.