Project Description
FROM THE AIA:
This building sets a new threshold for environmental design in a multi-story office building. The designers have created a demonstration that a six-story building can achieve net-zero energy with a low life-cycle impact. There is was a rigorous material assessment and careful attention to water collection and use. It is a good “urban citizen”; the building addresses the sidewalk. It invites visitors and the project included the restoration of a public park adjacent to the building. The sustainable strategies were clearly synthesized. The interiors are inviting and warm. If a net-zero office building can be built in Seattle, one of America’s cloudiest cities, then one can be built anywhere in the nation.
JURY COMMENTS:
This building sets a new threshold for environmental design in a multi-story office building. The designers have created a demonstration that a six-story building can achieve net-zero energy with a low life-cycle impact. There is was a rigorous material assessment and careful attention to water collection and use. It is a good “urban citizen”; the building addresses the sidewalk. It invites visitors and the project included the restoration of a public park adjacent to the building. The sustainable strategies were clearly synthesized. The interiors are inviting and warm. If a net-zero office building can be built in Seattle, one of America’s cloudiest cities, then one can be built anywhere in the nation.
BY THE NUMBERS:
- Estimated % of occupants using public transit/cycling/walking: 75%
- Daylighting at levels that allow lights to be off before nightfall: 82%
- Lighting power density (watts per square-foot): 0.40 watts/sf
- Outdoor views: 100%
- Reduction of regulated potable water: 48%
- Total EUI (kBtu per square-foot per year): 12
- Net EUI (kBtu per square-foot per year): 0
- Percent Reduction from National Median EUI for Building Type: 83%Â
Technoform Glass Insulation North America, Inc., (TGI NA) is helping the Bullitt Center achieve its net-zero energy goals and to become the first commercial office building to earn Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification. Located in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, the $18.5 million project opened on Earth Day, April 22, 2013 and intends to have the building last until 2263.
“The greenest commercial building in the world,” boasts the Bullitt Center’s website. Through the International Living Future Institute, LBC certification poses the most rigorous performance standards across the globe. Validation includes submitting 12 months of post-occupancy data to demonstrate annual operations for net-zero energy and water, plus a zero carbon footprint. Along with performance, LBC also requires a building to be useful, healthy and beautiful.
The six-story, 52,000-square-foot, Class A office building’s unusually tall 14-foot floor-to-floor heights are matched with equally impressive floor-to-ceiling operable window systems. These spacious, daylit areas provide expansive views of the downtown skyline and connect the building’s occupants with their surrounding environment.