Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Chipolte Gurnee Store Awarded LEED Platinum


Chipolte Mexican Grill based out of Denver just received LEED Platinum Certification under the USGBC"s LEED for Retail Pilot Program announced on Chain Leader, a press release publishing site focusing on Restaurant industry. Here it's bringing into focus the movement towards Greening the retail / hospitality sector. See the link to the article is below after the text. When I lived in Denver in the late 90's, I often visited their restaurants which were always really funky, interestingly detailed spaces. They used lots of corrugated metal, natural finished wood and stained concrete floors, simple lighting and cheerful graphics. There was an emphasis on handmade and craft oriented design build process on those original stores. I haven't seen new ones in a while. Look for future posts on the store design where I will dig a little deeper.

Apparently they've gone a big more modern and glassy in the current stores with the photo above from the Gurnee, Ill store. I'm not so sure of the viability of all that glass, it must take lots of air conditioning to cool and heating unless it's all triple insulated glazing units. Which I will check on.

http://www.chainleader.com/article/CA6669931.html?industryid=47554

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