New Mexicans can now get highly colorful "gold-certified" "green" education-- in the newly completed Pete V. Domenici Education Building at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, NM.

If that sounds color-cockeyed, here's the scoop:

"Green" refers to the building being environmentally friendly.

The "gold certification" is a guarantee of just how green this building is-- it has been awarded the top environmental certification, LEED Gold, by the U.S. Green Building Council.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson made the announcement last month, stressing the priority his administration has given to energy efficiency. In 2006, the governor signed an executive order requiring that all state building and construction projects that were over 15000 SF in size had to meet at least LEED "Silver" standards. The new Domenici Education Center well exceeds those standards with its Gold Certification. Among the "green" features of the building are its 3 underground cisterns for harvesting rainwater for landscape irrigation.

In addition to housing the Cultural Center's various educational programs, the new building will also serve as a conference and meeting facility, and will host the Instituto Cervantes, which is a cultural and language institute administered by the Spanish government and Spanish Resource Center, an arm of both the Spanish Embassy and University of New Mexico.

Head on over and check out what a "Gold standard Green Building" looks like!

(The picture above is one I snapped of Governor Richardson at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuqurque a few months ago, when he held a meeting with concerned New Mexico horsemen regarding the future of the New Mexico State Fairgrounds, with their extensive horse facilities which are used for many horse shows, rodeos, and other equestrian events.)