William McDonough + Partners (WM+P) is celebrating its Honorable Mention Award from AIA Virginia for our design for NASA Sustainability Base. The award for “the first space station on Earth” will officially be presented on Friday, Nov. 9 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
NASA Sustainability Base, located inside the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, is named for the first off-planet human outpost on the moon, Tranquility Base. Designed to become “native to place,” the building and landscape capitalize on the natural resources and landscape of their location and blend seamlessly with the contextual environment and culture.
“William McDonough + Partners’ design for NASA Sustainability Base is a combination of innovative design and cutting-edge technology,” said Alastair Reilly, Partner, William McDonough + Partners. “It goes beyond LEED Platinum in its pursuit of Cradle to Cradle solutions, while fostering collaboration and supporting health and well-being.”
The collaboration with WM+P and NASA led to an Earth-based, space-age facility which merges their expertise in aeronautics and space exploration with the built environment. The form of Sustainability Base seeks to evoke both the wonder and vision of space travel on Earth. Inspired by the wind tunnels of the NASA Ames Campus and images of NASA satellites, the exoskeleton provides tangible performance benefits in addition to demonstrating the building’s metabolisms of energy, water and materials.
Read more about the building design here.
