HED Project Recognized with 2026 U.S. Local Leadership Award

Recognition tends to follow work that changes how people think about what a building can do. The H-STEM Engineering and Health Technologies Complex at Michigan Technological University is one of those projects.

The U.S. Green Building Council has named the project a recipient of a 2026 U.S. Local Leadership Award, honoring work that advances healthier, more resilient, and more sustainable communities through the built environment.

Designed by HED, the H-STEM Complex brings together disciplines that rarely share space so deliberately. Engineering, biology, and health sciences intersect in a setting shaped around visibility, flexibility, and collaboration. Labs open to view. Shared spaces invite exchange. Research becomes something you can see, not just something you read about later.

Completed in 2024, the 64,600-square-foot facility serves as a hub for interdisciplinary research and hands-on learning, supporting programs that link technology and human health. Its design reflects a larger ambition: to accelerate discovery by removing the friction between fields, and to prepare students for a future where those boundaries matter less each year.

Sustainability is not treated as an overlay but as part of the building’s logic. The project achieved LEED Gold certification and integrates strategies such as energy recovery, solar generation, and responsive building systems that adapt to occupancy and use.

The USGBC’s Local Leadership Awards recognize projects that set a higher bar for environmental performance and community impact. In that sense, this recognition speaks as much to the building’s outcomes as to its intentions.

View the full USGBC announcement here: USGBC announces 2026 U.S. Local Leadership Award recipients | U.S. Green Building Council