Not only is the $24.1 million residence hall at Mount Holyoke the first new dormitory built on campus in more than 40 years, it’s also the greenest. Related Links: Best Of 2009 The new, sustainable home for 176 students at the South Hadley, Mass. institution was awarded a LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. “The main goal was just to get it certified, then the college wanted us to push for Silver since we had the funds,” says Stephen Killian, director of operations for New York-based Barr & Barr, general contractor on the project. “With some fine

New York Law School, founded in 1891, has become an integral part of the fabric of TriBeCa, an already well-developed part of Manhattan. So when it decided to undergo an expansion program, space was going to be an issue. Related Links: Best Of 2009 To address that, Detroit-based SmithGroup, Inc. with BKSK Architects, New York, designed the school’s new 209,000-sq-ft academic building to fit into a tight L-shaped site, placing five stories above and four levels below grade to house classrooms – including Socratic-form classrooms that required custom-built tables – as well as a 300-seat auditorium, a library, dining spaces

A $680 million phase of the massive, 13-year expansion of the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn was completed in February, increasing the plant capacity by 50 percent and improved wastewater treatment processing. Related Links: Best Of 2009 Newtown Creek is the largest of New York City’s 14 wastewater treatment plants serving over 1 million residents. Constructed in 1967, the plant was designed to treat 310 million gallons per day (mgd). The expansion, begun in 1998, will expand plant capacity to 700 mgd and bring Newtown Creek into com-pliance with the Federal Clean Water Act. This project phase,

Oceana’s new space in the old McGraw-Hill Building in Midtown Manhattan, completed in August, was built to bring its high-end seafood experience to a wider audience from its former location on E. 54th St. The new 15,000-sq-ft space, designed by Morris Nathanson Design, Pawtucket, R.I., includes a 150-seat private dining room that’s flexible enough to be divided into three separate sections, a raw bar and another 25-seat dining room. For the kitchen staff there is a private, six-person Chef’s room inside the kitchen, as well as walk-in and dry storage spaces, offices, and prep-cooking areas. The dining areas, finished with

The Otisville community wanted a new elementary school, and in September 2008, students from kindergarten to fifth grade began learning in the $39.5 million Otisville Elementary School. Related Links: Best Of 2009 “The thing that is so exciting is this is the first time our district has a building designed [specifically] for an elementary school,” says Martha Murray, superintendent of schools for the Minisink Valley Central School District in Slate Hill, N.Y.” Minisink’s other elementary school was a retrofit. The new school needed to serve the needs of children spanning a six-year age range and provide after-hours community meeting space.

Yale University’s Art + Architecture Building, captured headlines when it opened in 1963 in downtown New Haven, Conn. The fortress-like, 114,000-sq ft cast-in-place concrete structure was one of the world’s most iconic, Modernistic buildings ever built as a school of architecture. Related Links: Best Of 2009 But over the years a fire and unsympathetic patchwork renovations destroyed legendary designer and then-Yale architecture school dean Paul Rudolph’s original vision. A fast-track $126 million renovation, restoration and construction project has restored the building, rededicated as Paul Rudolph Hall, to its original landmark status. Besides the 46-year-old building, the project included construction of

A challenging $7 million project to renovate and restore The Emerson, in Manhattan’s Clinton Urban Renewal Area, proved more difficult than expected. The Emerson was constructed in 1915 as a model tenement building, providing safe and healthy apartments for families and the working poor. William Emerson, an architect and prominent proponent of housing reform, designed the seven-story building with 63 apartments, a grocery, public showers and other social services. Related Links: Best Of 2009 Plans to demolish the dilapidated, vandalized and pigeon infested property at 53rd Street and Eleventh Avenue marshaled the building’s remaining tenants to organize a tenant association

Skanska USA was out to prove a point when it fit-out its new Manhattan offices. It wanted to show clients it could build a LEED Platinum office at a reasonable premium and produce long-term energy savings. And it managed to mark the feat in the landmark, 102-story Empire State Building. The $4.6 million effort cost $210,000 more than a typical Class A office fit-out, a premium of less than 5%. And since opening the 24,400-sq-ft 32nd-florr office last year, Skanska’s energy expenses dropped 46%, which, extrapolated over the 15-year lease, would produce savings topping $550,000. All of that complemented earning

The Firefighter’s Memorial Park is a tribute to the North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue firefighters fallen in the line of duty, and it’s not just a memorial: appropriately enough, the park, opened this August, is full of water. Related Links: Best Of 2009 Union City, N.J. Mayor Brian Stack decided to use the state Green Acre funds to build a free municipal pool. The city picked an old Masonic temple which, at the time, served as a community recreational center that was underused and falling apart, according to John Capazzi, principal of RSC Architects, designers of the project. What

For Bijou Properties, the adaptive reuse of dilapidated urban properties is perhaps the ultimate form of recycling. The firm’s latest project, Garden Street Lofts, converted a circa-1919 Hostess coconut-processing warehouse in Hoboken, NJ, into state-of-the-art green condominiums. The $16.9 million project expects to be certified as one of New Jersey’s first LEED Silver residential buildings. Related Links: Best Of 2009 “We thought a LEED building would not only be great for the environment but would also attract buyers,” says Dave Gaber, Bijou director. The project, helmed by Union City, N.J.-based Del-Sano Contracting, integrates the five-story, 42,888-sq-ft structural steel, concrete and