Horizon at Playa Vista, a modern urban office development encompassing 466,000 square feet of space in the east end of Playa Vista, has been awarded Gold LEED Core & Shell (CS) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, making it the first ground-up office building construction in Los Angeles to achieve the distinction in this category. Horizon at Playa Vista was developed by Lincoln Property Company and ASB Real Estate Investments, and currently consists of two, five-story buildings surrounded by pedestrian pathways and open courtyard spaces. The buildings incorporate a number of modern aspects, including a progressive contemporary design by renowned architecture firm Johnson Fain and state-of-the-art workplace technology. The building is located in the burgeoning community of Playa Vista. Today, more than 6,500 people live in Playa Vista, the first mixed-use community to be built in West Los Angeles in the last 50 years. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the U.S. Green Building Council’s primary rating system for designing and constructing the world’s greenest, most energy-efficient and high-performing buildings. The LEED Core & Shell category is typically reserved for those projects where the developer does not control all aspects of the building’s design and construction. There is an understanding that some tenant-related systems are not determined by the building owner. LEED Certification of Horizon at Playa Vista was based on a number of green measures taken to reduce the project’s impact on the environment and prevent global climate change. These measures include: a sustainable site, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources and indoor environmental quality.
