“Inside the New Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music”

That level of craft and storytelling comes to bear in the halls and gallery spaces of the Bruce Springsteen Center; the facility's ground floor features rotating exhibits devoted to different periods and traditions of American music, as well as the 241-seat auditorium, while the second floor houses the musician's archives and gallery spaces devoted to Springsteen and the E-Street Band. Meanwhile, a Dedicated Outdoor Air System (DOAS) optimizes ventilation and humidity control-both critical for large theaters and archival collections-while minimizing energy usage.

But the building also tells stories that are embedded in the fabric of its making. The Center's New Jersey-based construction manager, Torcon, provided 100 percent unionized labor for the project, which was important both to Springsteen and the Board of Directors, vice-chaired by Springsteen's long-time manager John Landau. The team also pursued LEED v.4's Social Equity Pilot credit, which encourages supply chain transparency. According to Charlene Chai, senior associate with CookFox, the three materials used to meet the credit were a bio-based wallpaper derived from sugarcane, FSC-certified end grain flooring in the theater, and GreenTag -certified sealer for the decking. She calls this version of the credit "a relatively small lift," but "it gets you thinking about what it means to be specifying products with supply chains in mind. It's a good first step."