In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a generic architecture to provide a collective solution for power-aware routing to a wide range of problems in wireless sensor network environments. Power aware-routing is integral to the solutions proposed for a variety of wireless sensor network problems. This can lead to challenging technical problems and deployment barriers when attempting to integrate the proposed solutions. We have identified coupling between sources and sinks as the main factor for different desing choices for a range of problems. We developed a core-based hierarchical routing framework and protocol for efficient power-aware routing that is used to decouple the sources from sinks. We show the efficiency of our approach via simulation.