This week 20,000 green building professionals are descending on Chicago for the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual Greenbuild conference. The show is at the new McCormick Place West building, which is expected to earn a LEED® certification. We won’t focus on detailed conference coverage - Inhabitat has proved a good resource for this in the past - but here’s a shout-out to all our out-of-town readers dropping in this week.

Chicago Green Homes (CGH) is the city’s green certification program for small residential projects. Most of the concepts are similar to LEED®, but whereas LEED® is fairly performance-based, requiring a certain amount of research and calculation to demonstrate compliance with each credit, Chicago Green Homes is more prescriptive, which is easy for small projects to use.

Location.
2900 W. Ferdinand, Chicago, IL 60612 Map
Owner
Christy Webber Landscapes
Here’s a brief update on the latest component in Christy Webber’s Greenworks project. A 67′ tower is being constructed within the on-site detention pond to house two Aerotecture wind turbines with a total electrical output of 2 kW. The simple but interesting structure is constructed entirely from [...]

Location
1244 N. Clybourn, Chicago, IL 60610 Map
Owner
Mercy Housing Lakefront
Architect
Murphy/Jahn Architects
Near North SRO is a 5-story, 96 unit single room occupancy that will be home to those on the CHA waiting list or at risk of homelessness. The average unit is only 300 square feet, but like many modern SROs, includes a private kitchen and bath. [...]

Location
4000 W. Lake, Chicago, IL 60624 Map
Owner
Bethel New Life
Architect
Farr Associates
Image ©Farr Associates | Architecture | Planning | Preservation, Chicago, IL
Bethel Center is 23,000 sf, 2-story commercial center comprised of storefront retail spaces, a daycare center, an employment center, and a community computer lab. The building has a direct connection to the adjacent Lake & Pulaski [...]

Location
10204 S. Central Park, Chicago, IL 60655 Map
Owner
St. Xavier University
Architect
Solomon Cordwell Buenz
Rubloff Hall is a new 5-story, 37,000 sf residence hall on the campus of St. Xavier University seeking LEED® Silver certification. The 26 unit, 87 bed building is opening to students this month and is the third of a series of similar dormitories recently [...]