"Overlooking the Arkansas River in suburban Little Rock, Winrock International's new headquarters is 'an abstraction of the traditional Arkansas dogtrot,' says Kenneth Drucker, HOK New York's project designer. "Its signature feature, a gull-wing roof, not only keeps the sun at bay, it collects rainwater—an integrated solution that resulted from a collaborative and tightly managed design and construction process."

Winrock is a nonprofit organization that supports sustainable development all over the world. "Given the organization's mission, making its new building green was a given. ...Winrock's board established two key goals fro the project: that it would achieve a LEED® Silver rating and that it would do that without costing any more than a comparable conventional building in Little Rock. 'We wanted to be able to tell people who come in and are impressed that it is something they can afford,' says Frank Tugwell, Winrock's president."

"The team's solution to the less-than-optimal orientation was an oversize roof, which shades the building through most of its occupied hours. Some large trees were preserved nearby, helping to shade the building when the sun is low in the sky. The narrow plan that was dictated by the site's constraints helps with daylighting. Nearly all the regularly occupied spaces are fully lit during the day, so the lights don't need to be on."

"Winrock's new headquarters has generated a lot of excitement in the community. Together with two other LEED buildings, the Clinton Presidential Library and the headquarters for Heifer Project International, this project has put Little Rock on the map as a green building tour destination."

Source: "Non-Profit's Mission Accomplished," GreenSource, June 2006. Read the story (begins on p. 62).