The sustainability of a building really comes down to a snug, well-designed envelope. The walls, windows, doors, roof and floor are what prevent cold air from escaping the building in the summer and warm air from escaping the building in the winter. A good envelope has a high thermal resistance, or R-value. This equals sustained low energy usage and low energy bills.

Ecobatts are an environmentally friendly replacement to traditional fiberglass insulation. With an R-19 value, they are part of the Amazing Space wall system that, when fully assembled, will provide a snug R-30 building envelope. 

The bats are made of sand and recycled bottle glass that form a glass mineral wool. The mottled brown color reflects their undyed, natural origins. Even the binder is a renewable, bio-based material that is petroleum and formaldehyde-free.
On the interior of the walls, plastic is used before the sheet rock is installed to create a moisture barrier between the exterior wall and the interior of the building. The insulation is naturally mold-resistant and water doesn’t hurt it. The walls are designed to be water-proof, but anything can happen over time. Proactively designing a wall system with strong integrity against the elements is designing a building with a long life-span that is easy and economical to maintain.

After all, the enclosing of a building is really what sets a “building” apart from pavilions, porches, and other open-air structures.

The last of the Structural Insulated Panels are placed.

Plastic over the window and door openings allows the building space to be heated so work can continue throughout the winter.

Cracks such as these will be caulked and sealed around the entire building to provide the R-30 insulating value. SystemWorks is commissioning the building to ensure details like these are addressed during construction.

The rhythm of the exposed trusses, and the natural daylight that will come through the upper clearstory window are starting to define the natural patterns and biophilic elements integrated throughout the spaces.

At a recent Amazing Space presentation, a guest asked me what was in our contract with our general contractor to ensure that our Living Building Challenge goals are being met, and what the repercussions would be if the challenge wasn’t met.

As the project owner, our priorities are:

1. Respect and integrate the Living Building Challenge throughout all aspects of the project. Achieve as many imperatives as the design team, construction team, and owner find feasible.
2. All project team members are focused on quality customer service and high quality interactions.
3. Nature and respect for the environment is held in the highest regard when making decisions.
4. Be a true community project, by this community, for this community.

The Living Building Challenge provides a comprehensive framework for helping us meet those priorities. Our general contractor, Ryan Companies, and many of the larger subcontractors, were brought on as partners early in the process so they understood and took ownership of the standards set by the LBC. Products were preselected by the design team. We meet weekly, and sometimes daily, to address concerns/issues in a timely manner. There are a number of obvious places that may make it difficult to meet the challenge. A few that we are aware of:

1. Our specification manual is 2.75” thick and details every single product and material used in the construction process. Given the thousands of materials used, and the need to review every product down to the chemical composition, a “standard” material may have slipped through the cracks (as the project manager, I haven’t read the whole thing yet).
2. Our budget is limited. As part of this project, we allocated $1.4 million for sustainable and appropriate materials, above and beyond a “standard” construction product. Spending more than that would not be financially prudent, and a key part of organizational sustainability is financial.
3. The long term performance of the project, from water usage calculations to energy usage calculations, from indoor air quality to annual rainfall, is based on estimated projections. They have been independently looked at, tested, and modeled, but they are just projections for a unique, ultra-sustainable, leading edge building. How the community uses the interactive space and how the weather shifts in the coming years will provide valuable information on how good our models were for the next project.

Ultimately, we would like the word “standard” to not have to be used when discussing building materials or stormwater management practices. The sustainable thing to do will have become the standard thing to do.  Building practices and material sources aren’t truly sustainable yet. Regardless of whether we meet all twenty imperatives of the Living Building Challenge, the framework set by the challenge and our early adoption will ensure that the building is as integrated and sustainable as possible, and that it will provide a valuable resource for architects, developers, contractors, and others for years into the future.