Crystal Island: OK, we know, it is another Foster project. But this one is more equal than others for Crystal Island will be the largest building in the world when completed. Crystal Island’s vital statistics are, well, huge. The volcano-shaped superstructure will be 1,500 foot tall with 26,909,776 foot squared of floor space, that’s enough room to house 30,000 people. As you would expect from a Foster + Partners project, the self-contained city within a city has energy conservation and eco-friendly energy management at the very heart of the design. Crystal Island will generate low carbon energy from solar arrays and wind turbines located on the building with vast atriums to regulate the internal air temperature during the extremes of the Russian summer and winter.

BMW Welt: The BMW Welt in Munich is one of the finest examples to date of German engineering at it’s best. The standout feature of the 785,000 square foot BMW Welt is without doubt the 157 foot wide Double Cone, which provides support for the roof (in a rather stunning manner). On the roof of the building there is a large photovoltaic array, also made in Germany by Solarwatt, to produce a minimum of 824kWp. The designers also installed a network of steel panels on the roof that helps to heat the building via solar gain. Solar gain is also encouraged through the materials on the external facade of the structure. It is somewhat ironic that a car manufacturer should spend so much on a building project like this, but if this is in any way demonstrative of where BMW are going with their vehicles then there is hope.

• Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, New York
• India Tower, Mumbai
• Residence Antilia, Mumbai
• Burj al-Taqa, UAE
• San Francisco Civic Tower, SF
• Masdar, Abu Dhabi
• Khanty Mansiysk Tower, Siberia
• Transbay Tower, SF
• CH2, Melbourne
• 30 The Bond, Sydney
• Cor, Miami
• DuBiotech, Dubai
• Clinton Presidential Library, Little Rock

This list has been severely abridged. To read the full list, view the original post at it’s source:
15 of The Greenest Buildings in The World (GeekAbout)