ST. LOUIS – Gray Design Group has won two awards for its architectural and interior design work on Elsevier Inc.’s new three-story, 152,000-square-foot office building in the Riverport Business Park.  

The LEED Silver-certified Elsevier headquarters facility was selected from more than 2,500 projects as a Green Building of America award-winning project and will be featured in the upcoming Midwest Real Estate & Construction Review’s Green Success Stories edition. The issue showcases the region’s most important, innovative or unique sustainable facilities, both new and renovated. 

In addition, the Concrete Council recently recognized Gray Design Group’s Elsevier project as a 2009 Quality Concrete Award winner. Winners were presented with their awards at a formal dinner on Nov. 12, and the projects will be featured in the upcoming issue of Construction News & Real Estate. Gray found ways to use concrete to meet or exceed the functional and aesthetic properties of brick on the façade and structural steel bracing on the interior, as well as for pavers on the dining patio. 

Principal Toby Heddinghaus led Gray’s team on the project. Gray achieved enough points for Silver certification under the LEED for New Construction green building rating system by conserving water and increasing energy efficiency while providing an appealing contemporary and upscale design. Using a significant quantity of regional materials and successfully diverting nearly all of the construction waste from landfills provided LEED credits that set this large building apart from the rest. Elsevier’s products are showcased amongst a 1½-story granite-clad water feature located at the building’s grand central staircase and the thru-lobby, which features suspended acrylic canopies with indirect lighting complemented by stainless steel and back-painted glass clad elevators. The modern canopy-style lighting concepts extend into the full-service cafeteria, which has open ceilings and exposed duct work.