U.S. Green Building Council Announces 2021 LEED Homes Awards Recipients

July 18, 2021

Today, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced the recipients of its annual LEED Homes Awards, which celebrate green residential projects, developers and builders using LEED to improve quality of life for residents, reduce a building’s impact on the environment and create healthier and more resilient communities.

Recipients represent multifamily, single family and affordable housing projects from around the world.

“The LEED standard continues to help buildings become sustainable and healthier for occupants, and plays an even more important role when it’s applied to our personal spaces — our homes,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO, USGBC. “We are seeing more and more homeowners and builders pursue LEED, and USGBC aspires to make every home a LEED certified home.”

This year’s LEED Homes Award recipients include the following:

Outstanding Single Family Project

YY House (LEED Platinum | Mandaue City, Philippines): Being the first LEED for Homes Certified Project in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia Region, this project has gone to great lengths to design and build according to LEED standards, attaining Platinum certification. This will become a template of sorts to other projects in the area and an inspiration to break other barriers in promoting local green building initiatives.

L’Avenir Townhomes (LEED Platinum | Fort Collins, Colo.): L’Avenir Townhomes, a three-story, four-unit townhome style condominium project designed and modeled to surpass Net Zero Energy in Old Town Fort Collins, Colo. Formerly an auto garage from the 1970s, the site was a small, non-conforming, 4,600 sq ft vacant urban infill lot. Prior to construction in 2019, two orphan petroleum tanks were successfully removed and the site mitigated. L’Avenir, which means “the Future” in French, was created out of the idea that architecture can and should be regenerative.

Cal Guerxo (LEED Platinum | Bresca, Lleida, Spain): Cal Guerxo is a case study for how renovation projects can reach net positive targets and how reducing negative impacts can make positive contributions. The project is net positive for carbon, water, and energy. Last year, Cal Guerxo also certified LEED Platinum, achieving the second-highest score in Europe in 2020 with perfect water, energy and material scorecards.

Outstanding Multifamily Project

Chloe on Madison (LEED Platinum | Seattle): This eight-story LEED Multifamily Platinum certified building includes residential, retail and restaurant space. Adjacent to one of the most sustainable buildings in the world, the Bullitt Center, the project aims to create a building that not only meets the requirements of LEED, but also suits the energetic, environmentally conscious Capitol Hill neighborhood. Staying true to its health and wellness experience, the project is a “walker’s paradise,” boasting a 99 out of 100 Walk Score with excellent transit and “very Bikeable” designations.

Reed College Trillium Residence Hall (LEED Platinum | Portland, Ore.): Reed College, a small liberal arts school in Portland, Ore., was seeking a solution to increased demand for on-campus student housing, which was driven, in part, by rising rental costs in the Portland area. The college lacked sufficient on-campus housing to support all students who desired to live in the residence halls. Reed’s newest and largest residence hall, Trillium, aims to help solve the housing crunch, and bring 180 first-year students together in a vibrant, socially active environment.

Llum (LEED Gold | Curitiba, Parana, Brazil): Located in Curitiba, southern Brazil, Llum is a 20-story multifamily residential project with 15 “suspended homes,” designed to provide families with the comforts of a single family residence and the convenience of an apartment building. Laguna, its developer and builder, has always seen LEED as an outcome, not as a goal. According to Gabriel Raad, the company’s CEO, “if you build a really comfortable, excellent building, then one of the natural outcomes is LEED.”

Outstanding Affordable Project

649 Lofts (LEED Gold | Los Angeles): This seven‐story project serves both housing and needs for the city’s Skid Row homeless community, an economically disadvantaged area in the heart of Los Angeles. The project includes 55 unites of permanent supportive housing as week as the Joshua House Health Center, which provide health services to the community and helping up to 7,000 patients per year.

Energy Square (LEED Platinum | Kingston, N.Y.): RUPCO’s Energy Square (E2) addresses neighborhood blight at a shuttered former bowling alley in the city of Kingston’s core to answer specific community needs and provide safe, sustainable and net-zero-energy affordable housing in a new zero-net energy structure. It is a transformative project in Midtown Kingston as the first Zero Net Energy (ZNE) affordable housing project in upstate New York. With the project construction completed in June 2020 and fully occupied by November 2020, the residents’ electricity needs are met through a 300 KW on site solar array while heating and cooling needs are met through a geothermal system.

Cincinnati Scholar House (LEED Platinum | Cincinnati): The Cincinnati Scholar House is a unique 44-unit LEED Platinum affordable housing development that provides subsidized housing and support services for low-income single parents pursuing a college degree. The Scholar House model aims to remove the barriers that often prevent low-income single parents from pursuing post-secondary education, and in doing so, aims to break the cycle of poverty and help families achieve economic self-sufficiency. It does this by co-locating numerous support services, chief among them a high-quality early childhood education center and helping subsidize rent to ensure that families pay no more than 30% of their income toward rent and utilities.

Outstanding Developer

DePaul (Rochester, N.Y.): DePaul, a progressive, private nonprofit organization committed to providing quality services including assisted living services for seniors, residential and support services to persons with mental illness, addiction prevention and support services, vocational programs as well as affordable housing. DePaul assists individuals in achieving their optimum level of independence and success in the environment of their choice, while remaining sensitive to assessed community needs and available resources.

Project of the Year

In its third year, the project of the year category was publicly voted on and the LEED Homes Project of the Year recipient is Llum in Curitba, Brazil. This project is also the recipient of the Multi-Family Project of the Year. Cincinnati Scholar Houseand Qianhai Kerry Centre Bayview A1-2-3received honorable mentions in this category.

2021 LEED Homes Power Builders include the following:

USGBC also recognizes “LEED Homes Power Builders,” an elite group of developers and builders who have exhibited an outstanding commitment to LEED and the residential green building movement. This year’s LEED Homes Power Builders are developers and builders that have LEED-certified 75 percent of their homes/unit count built in 2020. Homes at any LEED certification level are eligible for consideration.