FastCo

Decatur Island Battery Energy Storage System

Decatur Island, WA, USA

This design approach rethinks the way buildings are put together, targeting large-scale atmospheric carbon reductions because it provides an incentive to build carbon-balanced buildings whose components sequester more carbon over their lifecycle than they emit.

Honorable Mention

This uplifting, restorative environment empowers patients to take active ownership of their mental and behavioral health wellness journey while maintaining a safe and secure environment for themselves and their caregiving staff.

Honorable Mention

Carbon-Balanced Buildings

This project in Vancouver, BC combines affordable rental homes, short-term transitional housing, and an evidence-based withdrawal management center with inpatient and outpatient care to simultaneously address multiple social issues with a comprehensive approach backed by the community.

Orange County Sanitation District Headquarters

OneHaven

Carbon-Balanced Buildings

Honorable Mention

Saving Main Street

honorable mention

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Fountain Valley, CA, USA

honorable mention

Lyons, NJ, USA

Finalist

Integrated Health and Social Housing at 1636 Clark Drive

honorable mention

Honorable mention in the General Excellence category.

Honorable mention in Health & Wellness and Spaces, Places, and Cities categories.

Best World Changing Ideas North America; General Excellence; and Spaces, Places, and Cities.

Honorable Mention

OneHaven

Orange County Sanitation District Headquarters

Across the U.S., 161 rural hospitals have closed since 2005 and more than 600 more are vulnerable to closure. In an effort to reverse the devastating impacts of these trends, a design team partnered with the hospital and community development agency in the small town of Haxtun, Colorado, to address the multiple issues of health, wellness, economics and design to create an environment that offers a unique and positive community identity and helps improve the quality of life in rural towns throughout the country. The team’s solution — a mixed-use destination with health and wellness as the foundation — serves to generate the population density needed to create an enlivened town center which, in turn, is the key to fostering economic and social wellbeing.

Decatur Island Battery Energy Storage System

Honorable mention in the Energy category.

Honorable mention in both the Health & Wellness and Spaces, Places, and Cities categories.

Integrated Health and Social Housing at 1636 Clark Drive

honorable mention

Finalist

Looking to extend the life of undersea cables, save money for residents and improve grid reliability, this energy provider looked to the sky for a solution. Specifically, this rare application of a battery energy storage system in an island setting enables the community to time-shift energy from a solar array. This lowers peak demands on mainland energy sources and promotes energy independence with the capacity to store enough renewable energy to power the remote, rugged island for up to 8 hours.

Saving Main Street

Finalist in three categories:

honorable mention

Honorable mention in the Spaces, Places, and Cities category.

This public agency project in Fountain Valley, California demonstrates that a building can actually sequester more carbon than is emitted — thus overcoming the environmental ‘price’ of its making due to the carbon emissions associated with raw material extraction, transport, manufacturing, installation and end-of-life disposal.