Today the California Academy of Sciences achieved a groundbreaking feat of sustainable design as the U.S. Green Building Council presented it with its second LEED Platinum certification, making it America’s first double platinum museum, and the world’s largest double platinum building. — Inhabitat

Renzo Piano recently unveiled plans for a new waterfront cultural center and urban park in Athens that includes a massive opera house and a library that is directly connected to the park by a sloping green roof. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center will also incorporate several sustainable technologies with the hope of attaining LEED Platinum certification. — Inhabitat

Whether or not the Whitney was wise to migrate, the design suggests that it has misperceived its future neighborhood, a formerly run-down area where mottled brick, painted iron, and salvaged wood are still pleasingly rough. The district’s architecture of the past decade has put a sophisticated gloss on this neighborhood’s industrial past. — New York