Our own Kirk Gastinger will be the featured speaker at a AIA Eastern Oklahoma Committee on the Environment event next week. Kirk will be speaking to the group on February 16th in Tulsa, Oklahoma about how to "Enjoy your environment." For more information, you can visit the event's website.

Thanks to John Price for putting this together.

Net-Zero Site Energy — A building that produces and exports at least as much renewable energy as the total energy it imports and uses in a year, when accounted for at the site. The measurement time frame is annual.

Net-Zero Source Energy — A building that produces and exports at least as much renewable energy as the total energy it imports and uses in a year, when accounted for at the source. "Source energy" refers to the primary energy required to generate and deliver the energy to the site. To calculate a building's total source energy, imported and exported energy is multiplied by the appropriate site-to-source conversion multipliers.

Net-Zero Energy Costs — A building where the amount of money a utility pays the building's owner for the renewable energy the building exports to the grid is at least equal to the amount the owner pays the utility for the energy services and energy used over the year.

Net-Zero Energy Emissions — A building that produces and exports at least as much emissions-free renewable energy as it imports and uses from emission-producing energy sources annually. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides are common emissions that NZEBs offset.

Today is Gastinger Walker Harden Architects' 29th birthday! For a trip down memory lane, click "Read More" to see one our our principals referencing Miami Vice in regards to architecture. Oh, you know you're curious!

Congratulations to Gnorton the Garden Gnome for being the Juror's Favorite in this year's Kansas City Canstruction contest benefiting Harvesters Community Food Network. Click "Read More" for more info and our movie of Gnorton being canstructed!

Gastinger Walker Harden Architects is in the process of wrapping up the construction documents on its first “net zero” energy building for UMB Bank. On sunny days it will send excess electricity back into the utility grid banking that power which will offset what the need on gray days or on ones where the demand is more power than the solar panels can make. When you look at the overall energy bill on an annual basis, the bill will be "net zero”. Click "Read More" for additional information and renderings.

For the tenth year in a row, Gastinger Walker Harden Architects participated in the We Care event benefiting local children from the Boys and Girls Clubs in the Kansas City Area. This year the event was held at the Thornberry Center in Kansas City Missouri. The day of seasonal celebration includes a variety of craft stations where children create holiday gifts that can be given to family and friends. Click "Read More" for the rest of the article.

With the temperatures dropping, it's really nice that we have a brand new sweater to wear. Thanks to our friends at the Kansas City Art Institute, we'll can make all the sweaters we want.

Gastinger Walker Harden Architects is pleased to annouce that in conjunction with JE Dunn, we have been awarded the design/build contract for the renovation of Building 465 at Ft. Leavenworth. Building 465 is the Fort's former prison and is being renovated into a new education facility. The $15 million project is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2011.

Cottey College, a women's college located in Nevada, Missouri, has selected Gastinger Walker Harden Architects to design their new fine arts instructional building. This new building will be about 10,000 sf will hold a varity of classes including ceramics, painting, photography, design, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Click "Read More" for the rest of the article.

Gastinger Walker Harden Architects is pleased to announce that we have been awarded a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) by the General Services Administration (GSA) - Public Buildings Service (PBS) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The BPA contract is for Construction Management as Advisor services (Under Multiple Award Schedule SIN 871-7) for Region 4 Southeast, Region 5 Great Lakes, Region 6 Heartland and Region 7 Greater Southwest. The dark blue in the map below is the geographical zone in which we have the contract. We will be performing these services from our team offices in Kansas City, Chicago, Fort Worth, Houston and Tampa.

Services we will perform under this contract include Project Management, Construction Management during the Design, Procurement and Construction phases, Commissioning Agent, Testing, Claims Resolution and Post Occupancy Evaluation.

The contract (GS10F-09-LP-A-0009) runs from 2009-2014. To learn more about our work with the GSA and other government agencies, you can visit our new website, GWHAGovernmentSolutions.com.

Last month our own Joel Marquart was featured on "Water, Water Everywhere" with Dr. Deb O'Bannon, a weekly interview show on KCMO Talk Radio 710. The focus of the interview was about the Lake Lenexa Dam & Spillway just east of K-7 in Lenexa. Joel talked about the unique architectural aspects of the spillway and the role it plays in controlling rain runoff and how it is part of Lenexa's Rain to Recreation Program.  To see photos of the project you can visit our work section. To listen to the interview, click "Read More."

For the past eight weeks, we have been participating in the Green Commute Challenge, a program sponsored by the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC). The contest encouraged commuters to use alternate forms of transportation to get to and from work — such as carpooling, biking, riding the bus and walking — and to find other ways to reduce miles driven, like telecommuting or staying in for lunch. Points were awarded for each work-related round trip a person had that didn't involve driving in a car by yourself. Click "Read More" to find out how we did.

The Richard Bolling Federal Building was awarded a GSA Design Excellence Award Citation for Modernization. The internationally recognized Design Excellence Program represents "the best of the best" and embodies GSA's goals to create superior workplaces, develop creative solutions, and provide the best value for the federal government and the taxpayers. Click "Read More" for the rest of the article.

At the end of 2008, our Chicago office made a donation to Ms. Vilcins' 6th grade class to help them make videos to raise awareness about their community's littering problem. The donation was through an organization called Donor's Choose. Click "Read More" for additional photos and info.