Green Is Good
During construction of Nixon Peabody’s new office space in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center, corner office placement was the least of the firm’s concerns.
Construction debris had to be accounted for and recycled, painters were limited to low- or no-emission pigments, and designers worked to source eco-friendly materials like post-agricultural recycled wood flooring, low-flow water faucets, and countertops made from recycled bottles and glass chips.
The firm worked with international design company Gensler to ensure that the entire four-floor office was planned to follow the exacting standards of environmentally sustainable design established by the U.S. Green Building Council. It is now waiting on LEED certification—short for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design—through the council.
Taking a green approach to architecture may have added a bit of extra time and expense to the project, but Nixon Peabody partner Jeffrey Lesk says it expresses the firm’s commitment to the environment and to sustainable design and development practices.
And that just might translate into a more tangible type of green. Not only does the office show the community that the firm is taking a leadership position with regard to the environment, but it “gives us credibility” with clients, he says. “We can talk about it not just academically, but also from the perspective of what we went through.”
