Design from the Inside Out

You are about to see a snapshot of twenty-first-century interiors: they are kind to their occupants and the earth equally, in addition to being beautiful. They represent a series of sophisticated decisions that involve a strong relationship to the architecture that defines them, as well as careful choices of materials and furnishings. Winners of the inaugural IIDA/Metropolis Smart Environments Awards in 2006, these six projects seamlessly connect many interrelated design decisions—everything from responsible building sites to nontoxic finishes. Individually these projects tell an incomplete story; but taken together they reveal the essential and inevitable connections between the outside and the inside worlds. Sunlight in our rooms is as important to our well-being as it is outdoors, and so is clean air. Interior design centered on these basic human needs is ultimately smart design.

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Winners of the inaugural IIDA/Metropolis Smart Environments Awards are:

Skin and Bones
Winka Dubbeldam balances substance and style beyond
a dazzling glass curtain wall in a New York loft.

Organic Barn Raising
For a Slow Food restaurant in San Francisco, Cass Calder Smith deploys recycled materials for durability with a popular appeal.

The Green Urban Office
With natural lighting and amenities for transportation, HOK’s downtown Toronto studios set the gold standard for office interiors.

Platinum Effort
For Interface’s Atlanta showroom, TVS Interiors achieves LEED’s highest rating by undertaking a rigorous predesign process.

Object Lesson
The circumvention of SOM’s daylighting scheme for Bank of America shows that user education is essential to sustainable design.

Seminar in the Woods
Daylighting, natural ventilation, energy efficiency, and clean materials rule in classrooms for the Evergreen State College by Mahlum Architects.