Rackspace Converts Vacant Shopping Mall Into LEED Gold Headquarters

IT company Rackspace recently renovated an abandoned mall into their new corporate headquarters - and earned a LEED Gold rating in the process. Below are some comments from Inhabitat. You can also see more pictures at their post here.

So far, Rackspace has redesigned over 230,000 square feet within the 1.2 million square foot mall, with more development to come. During demolition, Rackspace recycled over 1,900 tons of concrete, metal, wood and other materials. At the same time, the company sent over six trailer loads of recovered building materials including doors, windows and fixtures, to Habitat for Humanity.

The redesigned interior is ultra-green, too. Showers installed inside the building encourage employees to bike or walk to work, natural lighting pours in through skylights, lighting can be controlled at individual workstations, and the company’s irrigation system only uses recycled water collected through a cistern near the main entrance. It’s a brilliant reuse for an abandoned shopping mall — now we hope that Rackspace will green up its nine data centers accordingly.

Disposable Dishes

When it comes to entertaining and special occasions, eco-minded consumers can be torn by two apparently conflicting desires: the need to be green and the easy clean-up made possible by disposable dishes. Thanks to a new innovation from VerTerra, however, that conflict can finally be put to rest.

Architecture that makes energy

The Dynamic Tower is a skyscraper that is also a wind generator.