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Designing & Building with FSC Award

D&B LogoForest Stewardship Council Announces Winner of the Second Annual Designing & Building with FSC Award

North Cascades Environmental Learning Center in Washington State Advances Responsible Forest Management through Notable Use of FSC-certified Wood Building Products

Washington, DC, November 2, 2006-The Forest Stewardship Council-US (FSC-US) has announced that HKP Architects, based in Mount Vernon, Washington, will receive the second annual Designing & Building with FSC Award for their work on the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center in Diablo Lake, Washington. The Designing and Building with FSC Award recognizes building projects that have furthered responsible forest management through their use of FSC-certified wood products. The award will be presented in a reception at the U.S. Green Building Council’s “GreenBuild” Conference and Expo in Denver, CO, on November 15, 2006.

Completed in 2005, North Cascades Environmental Learning Center is a partnership between Seattle City Light, the National Park Service and North Cascades Institute. The Center is a campus for field classes, and being located adjacent to mountain areas and two lakes, provides access to abundant wilderness. The Center features an administration building, lodges, classrooms, a library, staff housing, and amphitheater and a dock. Trails from the Center lead to outdoor learning shelters and into the back country of North Cascades National Park. The heavy timber and wood framed building project comprised more than 38,000 square feet.

Project entries were judged, by an independent selection panel, on the use of wood, inclusion of FSC- certified wood products, efforts to incorporate certified forest products market transformation, overall wood design, and appropriate wood use. The North Cascades Environmental Learning Center is being recognized for its outstanding accomplishments in each of these areas. The winning design team felt that the use of FSC-certified wood was a critical part of the Center, as it is located on a pristine wooded site and the owners wanted the Center to be a facility that could demonstrate the greatest stewardship toward natural resources. Wood was featured as the main building material for the project, and an incredible 84% of the total wood (by cost) used in was FSC-certified. FSC-certified products included custom casework, dimensional lumber, glulam beams and columns, cedar siding and trim, decking, exterior sheathing, doors and flooring.

Roger Dower, president of FSC-US, stated that, “the Designing & Building with FSC Award was created to recognize companies that help to transform building markets and promote conservation through their responsible consumption. We are delighted that such a unique project like the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center chose to ‘walk the talk’ of sustainability and feature FSC- certified products so prominently in the design of their building. They clearly find great value, and comfort, in knowing that their use of wood products helped to conserve the very environment that is the focus of their own educational mission.”

Russ Weiser of HKP architects stated that, “we wanted to construct the buildings for the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center with wood because of its natural beauty, and because it is a fitting material for the wooded location in the North Cascades National Park. We were striving for the utmost in sustainability for the Learning Center buildings, so FSC-certified wood was a perfect material. Not only is it low in embodied energy and available locally, but also grown and harvested in an environmentally responsible way.”

Seattle City Light has applied for certification of this project through the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program of the U.S. Green Building Council, a national standard that recognizes achievement in sustainable building techniques. As part of the LEED program, the project may be eligible to earn the “certified wood credit” which verifies that more than 50% of the total value of all wood building materials used in the project was FSC-certified.

Living Homes, of Santa Monica, CA earned this year’s “Honorable Mention” for the Designing & Building with FSC Award for the “Glenn Residence,” a single-family home they designed in Santa Monica. The 2,500 square foot home contains a multitude of FSC-certified wood products, including western red cedar exterior and interior siding, tiger wood decking, maple millwork and doors, and Douglas fir framing lumber. In addition to the home’s great use of FSC-certified wood, it contains many other “green” building features which earned the project a LEED Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council – the first Platinum certified house in the U.S.

Melissa Mizell, a designer with Gensler, served on this year’s selection committee for the Designing & Building Award. She stated that, “I found the stories behind each project encouraging in how new markets were affected by the teams' goal to use FSC-certified wood. The beauty goes beyond the surface of the photographs of the buildings; the heart and soul of both the winning and honorable mention projects was using wood with consideration for both environmental and social impacts. It is immediately apparent that sustainable principles were integral to the design process.”

This award was open to owners, architects, interior designers, general contractors, builders, consultants or other professionals. Projects could be any building type, including commercial, institutional, mixed-use, or residential. To submit a project, it must have used a significant amount (at least 50% of the new wood by cost) of FSC-certified wood and been completed during or since 2003. The selection committee, developed by Forest Products Solutions, a green building consulting firm based in Portland, OR, consisted of representatives from architectural firms WBA Architects and Gensler, the Natural Step building group, the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, forest products manufacturers Panel Source International and VT Industries, eco-structure magazine, and Goldman Sachs (last year’s award winner).

About FSC

Forest certification enables consumers to make informed choices when selecting wood and other forest products. The Forest Stewardship Council, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, is the global and national leader in the independent certification of forests managed to exemplary standards covering environmental, social and economic issues. FSC promotes responsible forest management by through a third-party certification program that is used as a market-based tool for ensuring that the world's forests are protected for future generations. There are currently more than 67 million acres of FSC- certified forestland in North America and nearly 200 million acres globally. Further information about FSC-US can be found at www.fscus.org.

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