Buildings as Flowers

Jason McLellen, the CEO of the Cascadia Green Building Council, the governing body for LEED in the area, gave a low level talk at Green Fest this past weekend on Living Building.

His talk began somewhat unexpectedly for a talk related to the building industry, even at a sustainability conference. Buildings inspired by flowers, with the measures as the petals that make up the structure of both. However, as he went through the mostly familiar concepts, I found his metaphor surprisingly relevant and strong.

The initial concept came from the core idea that a flower is rooted to a specific location, like a building. It depends on that environment and is specialized to function there. That was broken into 3 categories, namely that a living building:
- generates all of its own energy with renewable resources - captures and treats all of its water on site - uses resources efficiently, and for maximum beauty

The six petals further disseminate this into "prerequisites" vs. "credits" as in LEED. You must have them all, partial credit does not a living building make.
Site - No undeveloped or sensitive land. In other words, only redevelopment (just my style!)
Energy - "Net Zero Energy," or produce as much or more energy than you use. Hard, but very possible already with readily available technology. And, refer to the Amery Lovins lecture on just how easy it really can be.
Materials - Do not use anything with toxic chemicals on the "red list". You'd be surprised what is allowed by code that just plain should not be where we spend most of our time.
Water - "Net Zero Water," or 100% captured and reused water. This is a tough one, but simple (very simple) greywater and blackwater treatment has been used for decades so nothing new, just a higher standard for what is already becoming the new "oil". (Water as the basis for conflict from scarcity from overuse and mismanagement). The biggest challenge here is antiquated municipal code.
Indoor - Mostly related to ventilation, a much ignored part of building design.
Beauty - As they say, "mandating beauty is, by definition, an impossible task," yet this may be one of the important aspects by creating a space for life. Whether work, school, home or other... every building is a habitat for us to really live.