We are pleased to announce the University of Massachusetts, Amherst CNS Research & Education Greenhouse, has earned LEED® Gold Certification established by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) verified the certification. LEED is the nation’s preeminent program for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.
The Research and Education Greenhouse is a state-of-the-art facility for plant research and botany education. It sits at the northwest corner of the University campus, at the edge of a cluster of laboratories housing the department of plant, soil and insect sciences. The Greenhouse facility is both a greenhouse and a research laboratory.
The University began in the 1860s as a land-grant agricultural school on 300 acres in rural central Massachusetts. Despite dramatic growth and changes over the years, the University retains strong connections to its roots. The campus has an eclectic mix of modern architecture embedded in a bucolic setting. Views of the rolling hills, farms and woods of western Massachusetts are visible from many parts of campus, including the Greenhouse.
The siting, forms and detailing of the Greenhouse echo the rich interaction between the modern campus and the deep, historical context of the surrounding farmland. In essence, the Greenhouse is a modern reinterpretation of the New England barn.
We designed the Greenhouse in response to the USGBC’s efforts to promote and encourage the design, construction and operation of high-performance sustainable buildings. The Greenhouse replaces a cluster of obsolete and contaminated existing greenhouses (the site was considered a Brownfield). The Greenhouse has access to campus bus, bicycle and pedestrian routes. Additionally, the site design maximizes open space, minimizes impervious paving and uses native and adapted plants to eliminate irrigation. Other sustainable features include a passive stormwater retention system, sustainably harvested wood, a “heat wheel” energy recovery system (labs) and an evaporative cooling system (greenhouse).
The new Greenhouse provides state-of-the-art spaces for plant experimentation and sophisticated automated systems to control natural and artificial lighting, temperature, humidity, irrigation and fertilization to maximize research capability.
The project exemplified design excellence and will receive a Design Award from the Boston Society of Architects. The BSA will announce the tier of the awards at the annual Gala tonight.
Related Links:
Project Page
UMass Greenhouse Receives Honors
PAYETTE Projects on YouTube
We are honored to share PAYETTE has received two 2026 Green Good Design Awards from The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies—Land’s Sake Farm and The Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard.
“Green GOOD DESIGN identifies and emphasizes the world’s most important examples of sustainable design and works to develop a public awareness program that informs the general public about which global companies are doing the best job in ecological and sustainable design for our world. Architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning projects, as well as product, packaging, and graphic design projects from over 30 nations were honored with the 2026 Green GOOD DESIGN Award.”
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