This is the new Santa Fe County Maintenance facility that won design awards. The County staff call it the “Moon Base” as it looks like an advanced, high-tech research facility with its dark glass, corrugated steel siding, concrete trumb walls, and modern, modular look. The problem is that whoever gave it the design awards didn’t talk to the people who occupy the buildings, because according to the occupants the buildings are total failures. The passive solar is apparently very passive as it heats the building in the summer, but not in the winter.  The swamp coolers turn the building into a swamp instead of cooling it, and the pipes simply freeze in the winter because the buildings don’t get enough heat. Every office has a stand alone fan and space heater and one staff member told us that by the end of the day everyone is worn out and grumpy from dealing with over-heating in summer or freezing in winter. While the buildings have an interesting design, they give passive solar, green, leed, sustainable architecture a really bad name.