As green building technologies advance at monumental pace, architects around the world are following suit, offering progressively innovative interpretations of sustainable trends. Practices like AD100 firm Lake|Flato are leading the charge with comprehensive design philosophies that go beyond LEED certification to answer fundamental questions about how and why we build responsibly. The Texas-based firm perhaps best exemplifies this in its design for the Dixon Water Foundation, the first Living Building Project in the Lone Star State. Inspired by the work of Lake|Flato, among others, we decided it was just the right time to take a look at the firms making waves in eco-friendly architecture in the U.S. and abroad. AD is naming six new and notable projects that are exemplary for their innovative designs and singular dedication to building for a better, more sustainable world.

Dixon Water Foundation, Decatur, Texas, by Lake|Flato

Named to the AIA Committee on the Environment’s top ten list earlier this year, Lake|Flato’s Dixon Water Foundation is notable for both its mission—to promote watershed health through sustainable land management—and its rank as the first living building in Texas.

Nanjing Green Lighthouse, Nanjing, China, by Archiland

Archiland’s Nanjing Green Lighthouse building makes this list for both its net-zero energy status—meaning that its renewable energy output negates its energy consumed—and its role as an exemplar for future Chinese green design.

Hanover Olympic building, Los Angeles, by TCA Architects

For the Hanover development group’s latest residential project in Los Angeles, local firm TCA Architects designed a series of solar-powered apartments built with sustainable materials like recycled glass and reclaimed wood. The building is L.A.’s first net-zero residential space, and actually sends power back to the city’s utility grid.

Oasia Downtown Hotel, Singapore, by WOHA

Celebrated advocates for green cities, Singapore-based firm WOHA practices exactly this in the just-completed Oasia Downtown Hotel. The 27-floor structure is covered with plantings and boasts a 1,100 percent Green Plot Ratio, a measure the firm uses to evaluate the environmental returns of its work.

Environmental Learning Center, Amsterdam, by Bureau SLA

In Amsterdam’s Environmental Learning Center, Dutch architecture firm Bureau SLA created a sleek showcase for the best in green design. With visible solar panels, a Trombe heating and cooling system, and bird houses aplenty, the net-zero energy building embodies the center’s mission to make sustainability easily visible and accessible to visitors.

Kathleen Grimm School for Leadership and Sustainability, Staten Island, New York, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Long known for being first in the architecture world, SOM does it again with its design for the first net-zero public school in New York City. The Staten Island institution boasts a large solar-paneled canopy roof and consumes half the power of a typical city public school.