Last summer, it was the ceramic rod curtain wall.  Now, it’s the lighting system.  Various green aspects of the New York Times Building continue to make high profile news and it’s only been a year since the modern building opened.  Here’s the deal: The Times Company installed Lutron’s Quantum solution, a total light management system that includes daylight, occupant, target set point, time clock, and emergency lighting controls.  Although the building was originally designed to use approximately 1.28 watts per sf of lighting power, with the Lutron technology, it’s actually using only 0.38 watts per sf of lighting power — a 70% reduction in lighting use.  That means, based on New York City electric rates, they’re saving ~$315,500 and preventing the emission of 1,250 metric tons of CO2 annually.  These are some serious numbers.  Here’s where they recognized the most in terms of lighting energy savings:

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Rødovre, an independent municipality of Denmark, was looking for a new residential tower and MVRDV, with co-architect ADEPT, rose to the challenge.  On Monday, it was announced that their "Sky Village" concept won a design challenge to create the next Rødovre skyscraper.  The 116 meter (~381 foot) tower will feature apartments, retail, offices, an hotel, as well as a public park and plaza.  The architects’ contemporary design is based on a flexible grid of boxes, or "pixels," which are ~646 square feet each and arranged around the building’s central core. 

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Developer Tameer Holding has another iconic tower in the works for Dubai called Anara Tower.  Designed by Atkins, the 600 meter (~1969 feet) tower won’t be as tall as the world’s tallest tower, Burj Dubai, which is ~707 meter (~2,320 feet), but it’s not too far behind.  With 125 stories, Anara will have office space, 300 residential apartments, 250 hotel keys, and all sorts of other luxury amenities, such as pools, shops, and sky gardens every 27 floors. The design was inspired by the minaret, tall spires near Muslim mosques, with a purpose of being instantly recognizable worldwide. 

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The Lucida, located in New York City’s Upper East Side, is the first LEED condominium building in the neighborhood.  If the Upper East Side wasn’t rich enough for your taste, this building certainly adds to the allure.  With 110 units, the smallest of which appears to be around 2,000 square feet, this building is certainly not for the average buyer, but it is beautiful. 

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If you live in LA, you’ve probably heard about Evo and the rest of the newly planted green buildings in the South Park neighborhood (official referred to as "South").  Evo is expected to receive LEED Silver certification, joining its neighbors Luma and Elleven — California’s first LEED Gold condos.  At some point, we’ll take the opportunity to talk about both Elleven and Luma as well, but since Newsday published these pictures of the model unit in Evo, we thought it’d be fun to take a look inside. 

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