The early-bird deadline for applicants to register and pay is February 27th. The deadline for final submissions is March 7th.

WMIG?, now in its second decade, aspires to “recognize the highest achievements in environmentally sustainable architecture, combining inspired design, systems analysis, and performance evaluation under the domains of Planet, People and Posterity.”

• The Planet category relates to land use, energy, water, materials and bioclimatic design;
• People considers collective wisdom and feedback, social equity, healthy human ecology and inspiration; and
• Prosperity adds criteria for value and wealth creation, durability and adaptability, and vibrant communities.

Projects must be located in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Guam/Micronesia, Hong Kong and Japan.

One unique aspect of WMIG? is that the short list of firms will be interviewed publicly by the jury during an event the morning of April 18, 2012 at Seattle City Hall, moderated by Brian Geller, Founder and Executive Director, Seattle 2030 District. (This year’s WMIG? jury consists of Amanda Sturgeon, AIA, Certification Director of the Living Building Challenge; Jason S. Twill, Senior Project Manager, Sustainability, Vulcan Inc.; and Daniel Williams FAIA, Founder DWA Design and author of Sustainable Design: Ecology, Architecture, and Planning.) The interview process provides an unusual opportunity for public discussion of projects to educate and inspire the design community.

Jury deliberation and the selection of award recipients will be made the same day and an awards reception will be held at City Hall that evening.

Among the many criteria you might select to benchmark your projects, one of the most helpful is an assessment of the qualities of award winning projects. To help you keep your eye on the prize, a new pocket-sized publication, available from NEEA’s BetterBricks, and a touring exhibition traversing the Northwest provide opportunities to see how your work matches up with the 2010 AIA Seattle Committee on the Environment (COTE) What Makes it Green? award winners. These projects exhibit the best in innovative, environmentally responsible design in the Pacific Northwest.

These projects were selected by a four member jury consisting of Bob Berkebile FAIA, founding principal, BNIM Architects; Don Horn AIA, Assistant Director, GSA Office of Federal High Performance Green Buildings, Claire Johnson, Associate Director, Atelier Ten, San Francisco, and Alex Steffen, Executive Editor, Worldchanging. Among the selected projects are King Street Station (Seattle) and Twelve | West (Portland), both by ZGF Architects; Vancouver Convention Centre West (Vancouver, BC), LMN Architects; Northwest Maritime Center (Port Townsend), The Miller Hull Partnership; and Common Ground (Lopez Island), Mithun.

Check out the exhibits in person at:

Boise, October 21 -  November 4, 2010
Integrated Design Lab | Boise
108 N 6th St. Boise, ID

Spokane, November 10 – November 24, 2010
Integrated Design Lab | Inland Northwest
412 East Spokane Falls Blvd., #239, Spokane, WA

Portland, December 1, 2010 – January 6, 2011
Portland State University
Suite 235 Shattuck Hall (Broadway & Hall St.), Portland OR

Bozeman, January 12 – January 31, 2011
Integrated Design Lab | Bozeman
Montana State University, 160 Cheever Hall, Bozeman, MT

NEEA’s BetterBricks was happy to be a major sponsor this program. This year the focus was on energy performance and water performance. For the first time, all projects were required to provide an energy consumption measure, the energy Use Index or EUI, which seems small but, in fact, is a huge step to getting all entrants to think about energy performance. In addition, the only other mandatory requirement was to describe the project team’s integrated design approach, a key process to achieve high performance buildings.

I’ll get to the award winners in a minute. First I want to share what I find stimulating about the awards process itself. To start, the jury consisted of leading sustainability experts, and not just architects. People like Bob Berkebile FAIA, Founding Principal, BNIM Architects and co-founder of COTE nationally, Don Horn AIA, Assistant Director, GSA Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings, Claire Johnson, Associate Director, Atelier Ten, San Francisco, and ALEX STEFFEN, Executive Editor, Worldchanging.  The jury was moderated by Nadav Malin, President, BuildingGreen, Executive Editor, GreenSource.

The Awards process began with the submittals but led to a public jury panel discussion that was videotaped for later posting on the AIA website, followed by a public jury interview of the finalist teams. Then the 11 finalist projects were printed on panels for public display and eventual shipment for display around the region, further extending the impact of the lessons generated by these projects. The Awards ceremony allowed a public discussion with the winning project teams and in the near future there will be a set of case studies and a small booklet and an issue of Seattle AIA Forum magazine describing the projects. So if you missed the other public opportunities you still have many options for viewing the projects. Web images and descriptions of these and all submitted projects can be found at http://wmig.aiaseattle.org/2010_gallery.

Finalists and Winners

Now for what you’ve been waiting for. The jury selected two Gold-level projects, one Silver, and two Honorable Mentions — one for Rural Housing and one for Cultural Sensitivity.

GOLD
King Street Station Rehabilitation, Seattle WA
ZGF Architects
Collaborators:  SMEP Engineer: ARUP; LEED Certification: Green Building Services, Inc.; Commissioning Agent: Keithly Barber Associates

Photo Credit: Seattle Department of Transportation; Museum of   History & Industry
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GOLD
Vancouver Convention Centre West, Vancouver Canada
Design Architect: LMN Architects. (Prime Architects: Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership & DA Architects & Planners)
Collaborators: Mechanical Engineer: Stantec Consulting; Commissioning Authority and Mechanical Commissioning Agent: KD Engineering Co.

Photo Credit:  LMN/Studio 216
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SILVER
Twelve | West
ZGF Architects
Collborators:  Gerding Edlen Development Company LLC ; Total Mechanical – M/E/P Engineers, Lighting Design

Photo Credit:  Timothy Hursley,  ZGF Architects LLP
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Honorable Mention for Rural Affordable Housing
Common Ground, A Co-op Neighborhood
Mithun
Collaborators: Lopez Community Land Trust.

Photo Credit:  Mithun, Juan Hernandez
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Honorable Mention for Cultural Sustainability
Northwest Maritime Center
The Miller|Hull Partnership
Collaborators:  Mechanical Engineering: Ecotope, Inc; Sustainability: O’Brien and Company

Photo Credit:  Nic Lehoux
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During the awards ceremony, there was an open Q&A session with project team members and the audience. Below are some of the interesting ideas from NEEA’s BetterBricks’ point of view:

- Integrated design proved to be a key process to attain high performance.

- Thermal comfort expectations can and should vary by seasons, by use and by zone.

- Green BIM tool advances are really helping.

- District-level awareness and connections are key to advanced sustainability.

- It is important to explore all the energy options early and seeing where they might work or even influence the design scheme.

- Some new products were developed or introduced into the US via some of the projects thus making it easier for future projects to take advantage of.

- It was essential to either have a client that was interested and even aggressively pushing the energy and sustainability goals or have the architect effectively convince the client of the importance.
So go check out the detailed project information at the Seattle AIA website, and look for the video trailer http://wmig.aiaseattle.org/2010_gallery.