going green

Northern Plains’ LEED-Certified “Home on the Range” Wins Award

By Dillon Tabish, 4-10-08

	Home on the Range. BELOW: What Home on the Range used to be.

In this golden age of green, even a dilapidated, baby-blue grocery store can become an architectural Cinderella story.

Home on the Range, the former Billings store turned headquarters for the Northern Plains Resource Council and the Western Organization of Resource Councils, was awarded the prestigious “What Makes it Green Award” by the American Institute of Architects Seattle Committee on the Environment. The award was announced April 7 at the ReGeneration Conference in Seattle and recognizes the top “green” projects in the Northwest and Pacific regions.

Architects and builders from High Plains Architects and Hardy Construction decided to reuse the 1940s concrete-block store instead of tearing it down and starting over. Builders reused 92 percent of construction waste from the landfill to create Home on the Range’s state of the art building.

“Home on the Range demonstrates that existing buildings can be reinvented into high performance green buildings,” High Plains Architects Project Manager Ed Gulick said in a statement. “The building uses only 21 percent as much energy as a conventional new building of the same size.”

“And that has vast implications for our country, which is full of existing buildings and has significant energy challenges in the near future,” added Randy Hafer, president of High Plains Architects. “We’re certainly pleased that this approach has been recognized.”

Judges in Seattle looked at how a project would benefit the site, the people who use it and the environment. Another criterion was how designs solved a unique site problem, which Home on the Range exemplified, according to a release from Home on the Range.

In 2007, Home on the Range was distinguished as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum, only the 41st building in America and the 45th in the world to receive such designation.

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