Sustainability at ARO
Leadership in Sustainable Design
We create architecture that sustains people and the environment alike. Our research and design in the field of urban climate change adaptation has been internationally recognized as a new paradigm for a beneficial relationship between cities and their surrounding waters.
In “A New Urban Ground,” commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art in New York, our Rising Currents proposal, with DLANDstudio, was a prescient pre-Superstorm Sandy effort to safeguard lower Manhattan from the effects of rising sea levels and storm surges. We created ecological infrastructure to also address the immediate challenge of polluted stormwater runoff into the harbor.
We work with clients and industry leaders to confirm project-specific goals that minimize environmental impacts and support human health. This includes: performance goals to reduce energy and carbon emissions and responsibly manage water use; design decisions in selecting sustainable materials and ensuring proper ventilation; and considerations for acoustics, daylight, and access to nature.
We have worked within sustainability targets like Passive House and WELL, and most of ARO’s recent and current projects target LEED, including a new Education and Welcome Center at The Green-Wood Cemetery and a new building for Rice University’s School of Business, both targeting LEED-Gold certification. We have also implemented innovative approaches to improve energy efficiency, such as an ultra-low energy and low-cost housing prototype certified Passive House in Syracuse, NY, and a new primary and high school building in Downtown Brooklyn, the first NYC public school designed to Passive House standards.
From coast to coast, ARO has designed public and educational buildings with mass timber. Our hybrid mass timber structure for The University of Washington’s Milgard Hall in Tacoma, WA reduced the building’s embodied carbon by over 70% compared to steel and concrete systems. In the northeast, our Frederic Church Center for Art and Landscape at the Olana State Historic Site is the first public building designed with mass timber in New York State. At Harvard Medical School, our glazed mass timber skylight roof is enclosing a former courtyard into collaboration space.
We design to support the full social, economic, and environmental wellbeing of communities and we take our responsibility as designers and educators seriously in shaping resilient, inclusive, equitable spaces.
