Award of Excellence: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Campus

In keeping with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation mission to “help all people live healthy and productive lives”, the new Iris Campus in Uptown Seattle was created with an outdoor work environment that displays a true intersection of everyday function and global ambition.

The project has earned the distinction of being the largest LEED Platinum non-profit campus in the world. CMS worked with Gustafson Guthrie Nichol to create a living water feature system that is largely covered with aquatic plants that help naturally maintain water quality, along with a UV water sterilization treatment system. Additionally, rainwater is captured and filtered through the buildings’ green roofs and directed from the pavement into an underground cistern that keeps the water featured replenished and is also used for occasional landscape irrigation. Read more about this innovative campus here: http://www.asla.org/2014awards/577.html