The new City Hall in Orinda, Cal. is touting green building benefits in hopes to achieve Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The facility highlights cork floor tiles, ceiling fans and bathroom partitions made of recycled yogurt containers. More importantly though, they highlight the signs telling building occupants to open windows when air-cooling systems have been shut off.

According to reports from the San Francisco Chronicle, these are just a few of the features that are part an aggressive plan to make the 14,000-square-foot structure the first City Hall in California to win the coveted Gold rating.

Additional features to this building include: solar panels to collect energy; metal sunscreens to shield offices from the heat of the sun; high ceiling fans; conference tables made out of sunflower seed hulls; waterless urinals; lighting sensors; etc.

To read details about this facility, click here for the full article.