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Design: WHY Architecture/Design + Contract: Construction Manager. Budget: $59,000,000. Supervision: Roger Rehkopf and Shane Napper. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is the first newly built, Gold LEED certified art museum in the world. Its modest 135,000 square feet includes gallery and exhibition space, a family learning center, gift shop, auditorium and café. Perhaps its most unique features, however, are the sustainable design specifications. Lead gift donor Peter M. Wege insisted upon the $60 million building’s LEED certification status to ensure that the design would both celebrate and respect the environment. Sustainable design elements can be found in everything from the strategy to carefully bring natural light and fresh air inside the facility to the building’s small footprint connects the building to a protected green space in the heart of urban Grand Rapids. An extensive water reclamation process vastly reduces consumption from the City’s resources. In all, the construction project recycled 32,840.3 tons of waste, which is an astounding 88.31 percent of the total.