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A new green building program aims to push the design and construction industry well beyond current best practices.
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Nancy B. Solomon, AIA

The thorniest petal

The difficulties of the Challenge vary markedly by project, depending in large part on local natural resources and codes and building program and size. But if one petal of the Challenge stands out as the most difficult, it would have to be the one pertaining to materials.

Two imperatives in particular - the "red list" and appropriate sourcing - can be difficult to satisfy. The red list specifies potentially toxic substances that must be avoided in products and finishes, even though many are still common in construction materials. The appropriate sourcing imperative limits the distance products and consultants can travel to reach the project site.

Design teams must research every product they are considering to determine if any contain forbidden substances. Typically this means calling the product supplier, who in turn must often call the manufacturer to obtain the information. But some manufacturers won't release the data, points out Minnerly, because they consider it proprietary. And many others haven't conducted chemical testing and "don't even know what's in their products," says Richard H. Iredale, a partner at Iredale Group Architecture. The firm has offices in Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, and is designing the Bateman Centre.

Specifiers also must keep tabs on shipping distances. The mileage restrictions can severely limit product options. And, needless to say, the effort required to research and track this information adds significantly to a team's workload.

Several project teams also found it hard to meet another of the materials imperatives - responsible industry, which requires that all timber be "certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), from salvaged sources, or from the intentional harvest of timber on-site for the purpose of clearing the area for construction." At least one client felt that FSC-certified wood was cost-prohibitive, and one architect reported that it was difficult to obtain FSC-certified structural lumber within the allowable distances. Many teams instead spent considerable time and energy looking for salvaged wood within the acceptable mileage range.

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The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), under construction in downtown Vancouver, will serve as a "living laboratory" for the study of building products, technologies, and systems in context. The idea for CIRS, designed by Busby Perkins+Will, was conceived about eight years ago by John Robinson, former director of the University of British Columbia's Sustainable Development Research Initiative. He was frustrated that sustainable processes were not being implemented quickly enough and envisioned a building that could operate within its own footprint.

Image: Busby Perkins+Will

 

LEED vs. the Challenge

One cannot discuss a new green building rating system without asking how it compares to LEED, which has become the most accepted system in the country, if not the world. "We fully recognize that the industry wouldn't be ready for the Challenge if it hadn't been for LEED," says Brukman. "We are tackling the same issue from different angles," she says. "While LEED is targeting incremental change, working to increasingly improve building performance above code to achieve broad market transformation, the Living Building Challenge is coming from the other side, inspiring people by identifying the ideal and seeing how close they can come to it."

The Center for Sustainable Landscapes will house the administrative staff of the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, in Pittsburgh. The project team, which includes Design Alliance Architects, is aiming to achieve Living Building status with existing and affordable technologies.

Image: Andropogon Associates/The Design Alliance

 

In practice, the most noticeable difference between LEED and the Living Building Challenge is that the former is primarily prescriptive while the latter is primarily performance-based. LEED spells out how a practitioner can accomplish its goals, while the Living Building Challenge encourages team discussion and brainstorming to develop the best strategies, no matter how unique, for the site. "The Challenge's endgame is rigid - all or nothing - but they don't care how you get there," says Minnerly.

And while practitioners generally seem to agree that LEED has established itself firmly in the market, many believe that it will gradually adopt the best ideas of the Living Building Challenge as the goals of this newer, cutting-edge rating system become more attainable. After all, notes Martin Nielsen of Vancouver-based Busby Perkins+Will, the design principal for CIRS, "the avant-garde is continually consumed by the mainstream."

Nancy B. Solomon, AIA, writes regularly about architecture, planning, and sustainable design.

 

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Originally published in Architectural Record
Originally published in October 2010

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