More good news for Seattlites; our South Lake Union Discovery Center earned an AIA/COTE Green Design award! One of ten awards given out this year, the Center is a model of green and modular thinking. I love the design, and how amazing is it to be able to reuse these modules! Just unbolt and go, like an upscale shipping container, to any site you like. I read somewhere that an UW arch studio workshopped different ways to use them next and one group suggested upending them, transforming the horizontal into vertical! Just like playing with Legos back in the day! Congratulations to all... From GreenSource:

“For moving purposes, Miller Hull’s team carefully determined the maximum dimensions allowed on the roadways to the most likely new locations, arriving at a 40-by-73-foot optimum bay size. Working with engineer Jay Taylor of Magnusson Klemencic Associates, the team chose a simple structural system of quadrilateral steel bents that could be fabricated offsite. With gluelam purlins supporting the roof, the bents create a clear-span structure in which a service corridor of restrooms, a catering kitchen, and a sales office sit “a bit like a mobile home” inside. The glass front slopes inward beneath deep overhangs, giving the building the feel of an oversized screened porch. The resulting quartet of modules easily bolts together at three joints to create an 11,000-square-foot building. Splice plates “zipper” the floor seams while the gaps in the standing-seam metal roof panels are bridged by a simple cap flashing. Mechanical units bolt to the top with minimal ducting routed under the bents.”

read the rest after the jump...

Original source: (incli)NATION