Three PNC Plaza

Photo © Bruce Damonte

Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group claims more green buildings than any other company in the world. Nationwide it has about 160 LEED projects, with several major ones on its home turf, including Three PNC Plaza (background), a glass-clad, 23-story mixed-use building by Gensler. When it opened in 2009, it was the first tower completed in the downtown core in more than two decades. The building has three programmatic elements'a hotel, condominiums, and office space'with separate but interconnected lobbies. It overlooks Market Square (foreground), a recently renovated public space surrounded by restaurants and retail that was the home of some of the city's early civic buildings, including the first Allegheny County Courthouse and the first jail.

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Joann Gonchar, FAIA, LEED AP, is deputy editor at Architectural Record. She joined RECORD in 2006, after working for eight years at its sister publication, Engineering News-Record. Before starting her career as a journalist, Joann worked for several architecture firms and spent three years in Kobe, Japan, with the firm Team Zoo, Atelier Iruka. She earned a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University. She is licensed to practice architecture in New York State.