New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced the winners of the Governors Island design competition.

International design firm West 8 was one of five finalists chosen by the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation in January 2007 and will now lead the team of Rogers Marvel Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Quennell Rothschild and SMWM Architects to bring its winning design to fruition.

“We are proud to have been chosen to design new parkland and open space in New York. These spaces will be places where New Yorkers and others will experience a completely new set of captivating and unique recreational, cultural and educational opportunities,” said Adriaan Geuze, principal, West 8.

Upon completion in June 2008, the area will comprise 90 acres of parkland, including a two-mile Great Promenade along the water, a forty-acre park on the southern half of the Island and an improved park design within the northern Historic District.

“West 8’s design approach and extensive experience in creating great civic spaces will help create a park for the 21st century,” said Dan Doctoroff, chairman of GIPEC. “Their idea to recycle materials from demolished buildings is an innovative solution that will re-use building materials, keep tons of additional materials out of landfills, and create a sustainable park for New York.”

A new housing facility on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, The Lee, is attempting to change the luxury concept of green housing by making it available to low-income populations.

When complete, The Lee will be the first LEED-Silver supportive housing complex in New York City and will house a mix of special needs and low-income working adults as well as young adults aging out of foster care and at risk of homelessness.

The 99,000-sq-ft project at 133 Pitt Street is being developed by Common Ground Communities and designed by Kiss + Cathcart Architects. Donna Walcavage Landscape Architecture is designing the landscaping and gardens for the project and Goldman Copeland Associates is the engineer of record.

“Two hundred and sixty three people, all of them homeless or at risk of homelessness, will be given ‘the gift of home’ through the development of this Common Ground Community project,” said Colin Cathcart, principal of Kiss + Cathcart Architects. “This design is a demonstration to the building community that ‘low-cost’ social housing can be very green, and a very good investment in the neighborhood, at little or no added construction cost.”

The building will have a three-story base facing Houston Street, which will consist of brick with an insulated cavity, similar to adjacent buildings along the street, explained Sayaka Akayama, project manager at Kiss + Cathcart Architects. The upper portion will have an exterior insulation and finish system, which will create a tightly insulated—and very efficient—building envelope.

Interior finishes were chosen to bring residents the highest level of indoor environmental quality, incorporating natural daylight, natural ventilation, low-VOC materials and resident-controlled temperature and lighting.

Energy Star appliances will be placed in kitchens, lighting will be energy-saving fluorescent and all bathroom fixtures will include dual-flush toilets and aerated showerheads and faucets.

Residents will also benefit from community gardens and green space. The project will feature a green roof, a public entry garden, a residents’ rear garden, a roof deck for residents, and planter boxes on roof terraces, explained Terry Johnson, project landscape architect at Donna Walcavage Landscape Architecture.

The landscaping is also being designed with sustainability in mind. The green roof is slated to absorb rainwater and help to insulate spaces below, pavers will allow rainwater infiltration to soil and will have high levels of solar reflectance, plants with good drought tolerance will be selected to lessen irrigation needs and residents will have access to bicycle storage, Johnson explained.

Kiss + Cathcart Architects confirmed the project is on schedule for a March 2009 completion.

Designs for Wall Street Place in downtown Norwalk, Connecticut have recently been released and the area will soon be home to a sustainable, historically sensitive new project.

Wall Street Place will consist of three phases with completion of the final phase by 2014. The estimated total cost for the entire project is between $150 and $180 million dollars.

“We started out with a large piece of predominately vacant land. We wanted the new development to fit into the context of the existing, and one way to do that was to ensure that the parcel of land itself fit with the fabric of the existing. We added new streets to the design to break up the plot into smaller blocks, to better fit with the context and scale that was present,” he said.

Materials chosen for the exteriors—brick on the upper levels and other stone materials—will further help tie the project into the existing buildings adjacent to the site.

Residents will be able to enjoy a number of green features, including a bicycle room and bicycle racks, Energy Star appliances and lighting fixtures, bamboo flooring and efficient plumbing fixtures that will save water, explained Vincent Astaria, project manager at POKO Partners.

In addition to sustainable amenities within the individual homes, the development will offer a number of unique green features, such as a below-grade automated parking structure that will mechanically whisk a user’s vehicle to a parking spot entirely underground. The project will also include Low-E double-paned window glazing to minimize heat transfer, and the use of cogeneration to reuse wasted combustion energy from boilers for use as electricity, explained Astaria.

The developers hope to seek a LEED-Silver certification.