NEWSWEEK recently released the 2010 list of America’s Best High Schools, naming four Katy ISD high schools among top 1,622 schools in the nation. The four Katy ISD high schools ranked this year are: Cinco Ranch High School (No. 478), Seven Lakes High School (No. 689), Taylor High School (No. 982) and Katy High School (No. 1387).

The schools listed in the America’s Best High Schools 2010 report represent only six percent of all American public high schools. Rankings are determined by a combination of the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge (AICE) tests given at the schools, compared to the number of graduating seniors.

Click here to see the full list of NEWSWEEK’s America’s Best High Schools.

Cross Creek's innovative site design and integrated natural systems are setting a standard for community developers all over the U.S.  Sustainable landscape architecture means "Listening to the Land", which is precisely how the Cross Creek Team approached this project from the beginning. The following story was published in the December issue of EcoStructure Magazine:

The sustainability movement is turning U.S. building-design norms on their head, in ways that go beyond LEED ratings and net zero energy buildings. The most fundamental principals of landscape architecture and site design—analyzing the site and environment to holistically integrate it with development—are beginning to resonate with developers, investors, and corporate users like never before. Why is the U.S. real estate industry now warming up to ideas long practiced in Europe and Asia? Because it simply has become cheaper and smarter to do so.

Several factors driving this trend are embodied in a growing number of projects completed or under way across the United States. First, the sustainability movement has created a demand-premium for eco-conscious space. Not only are LEED-rated structures leasing and selling faster, but so are facilities with sustainable features that extend outside the building such as heat-absorbing green roofs, water-cleansing bioswales, creek-side parks that previously might have been buried under culverts, and other techniques that turn natural systems into project amenities.

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