Today is green project day at the DJC because there’s just so much to report. It’s also Earth Day and I meant to write a post about the silly earth themed product advertisements I got in my inbox, but that will just have to wait until later, while we get to what you really love…. projects!

In fact there’s so much to cover, it will be written in two posts: this one and another following it.

First we’ve got the winning project called Eco-Laboratory from the Cascadia Region Emerging Green Builder program’s Natural Talent Design Competition. The competition was open to students or anyone in their job less than five years. This year, it asked entrants to design a living building (for more on that, click here).

The winning entry was a team from Seattle’s Weber Thompson. Team members were Brian Geller, Myer Harrell, Chris Dukehart and Dan Albert. The entry, which is purely theoretical and will not be built (at least in the near future), was sited next to the 7,200-square-foot p-patch in Belltown at the corner of Elliott Avenue and Vine St.

The team used what was already on site, from the garden, to a high homeless population, to an active community, to inspire the design of the building. Judges liked that and thought it truly incorporated the idea behind a living building.

If built, the project would blend a neighborhood market, market-rate housing, basic shelter, vocational training and an educational center to teach people about sustainability. The market rate housing would subsidize social justice programs.

The building itself would use earth tubes to pull fresh air in from the garden, have concrete walls with fiber-optic aggregate to reveal the systems within and allow light to permeate inner spaces, and harness solar, wind biofuel and hydrogen fuel sources.

Geller from Weber Thompson thinks the project should be a reality in the near future. “I don’t think it’s as far out as people would think because a lot of what we’ve done is probably going to be necessary to meet the 2030 Challenge and other initiatives,” he said. The 2030 Challenge states buildings should be carbon neutral by 2030.

What do you think? Is this the future of green buildings or is it a green nightmare?

To learn more about the project, read my article in the April 22 edition of the DJC here. Or visit the company’s comprehensive page about the project here.

And be sure to read the next post about the AIA’s top ten greenest projects…..

Tags: 2030 Challenge, Emerging Green Builders, Living Building, Living Future, Natural Talent, Seattle, Weber Thompson

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Living Building, Living Future, Projects, Seattle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.