Colorado Sustainable Design Awards: quest for sustainability yields 'inspiring acts of frugality'.

• Author: Radoff, Josh
• Position: CSDA

If you scan this year's CSDA winners, you might see a theme that, in many ways, reflects a larger trend that is gripping the world in various forms and in various places, which is that of responding to the call for belt-tightening by Doing More With Less. After three years of economic downturn, it doesn't matter if you're Greece, the Tea Party or the Other 90 percent, because Doing More With More doesn't seem to be in the cards.

For those of us in the world of sustainability, the former has always been the mantra. Environmentalism falls flat if it translates into a personal austerity plan of sweaters, dim rooms and meager living. The success of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and green building should be attributed to the emphasis on not just resource conservation ("Less"), but also on delivering ("More") in the form of daylight, views, healthier air, controllability, thermal comfort, connected community, local economy, etc.

These values can be seen in this year's winners, the best of which are affordable housing projects, a nonprofit office building and public K-12 schools. Missing from the ranks of the winners (except perhaps in the single-family residential category) are anything that smacks of luxury green or excessive spending on big mechanical and renewable energy systems to mitigate poor design.

In the multifamily residential category, we had three extremely impressive entries, two from Denver Housing Authority, and one from Metro West Housing Authority in Lakewood.

All have achieved or are targeting LEED Platinum ratings, and each are pushing the envelope in terms of what can be achieved in terms of dramatic energy and water reduction, creating internal and neighborhood community, addressing healthy food issues, and interweaving art and texture, all the while creating extremely high standards for affordable housing and affordable living.

"And in the commercial category, two very surprising winners. The first- place winner here was the 45,000-square-foot headquarters building for Total Community Options (TCO) Foundation, a nonprofit that provides support and funding for essential services for seniors.

This project is part of the broader Lowry Air Force Base Redevelopment and excels by embracing the basics of passive design and the use of natural systems: proper orientation, thoughtful window-to-wall ratio, operable windows and natural ventilation, native landscape and pervious hardscape, all yielding extremely...