February 16, 2012

Living buildings: Can Bullitt inspire more?

Rendering courtesy of Miller Hull Partnership [enlarge]

The Bullitt Center will have an “irresistible” stairway designed to encourage people to walk rather than take the elevator. Schuchart is the general contractor.

With construction of the Bullitt Center well under way, people are starting to ask whether “living buildings” make sense for commercial developers.

The Bullitt project team spoke at NAIOP's meeting yesterday, and said the nonprofit Bullitt Foundation will share the information it has gleaned from the Capitol Hill project in an effort to help others save money if they want to do a living building.

The 52,000-square-foot project is at 1501 E. Madison St. It is billed by Bullitt as the greenest commercial building in the world. The total cost will be $30 million, which works out to about $577 a square foot.

Point32 is the foundation's development partner. Chris Faul of Point 32 said the price tag reflects the costs associated with developing the first mid-rise commercial building to meet the rigorous standards of the Living Building Challenge.

Faul said the hard costs — construction alone — work out to approximately $360 a foot. One construction industry expert who didn't want to be named said his “wet finger in the wind” estimate to build a traditional office of the same scope would be roughly half that figure.

The cost of a living building can be offset by significant reductions in heating and electric bills, Faul said. The building will be 75 percent more efficient that a standard building of its size.

Excess energy will be fed into the power grid in the summer, and the building will draw from the grid in the winter. Ultimately, the goal is for Bullitt Center to be a net-zero energy user.

Living buildings must generate all the energy they need through renewable resources, and provide and treat all the water they use. Other goals are to use building materials that are locally sourced and free of toxins, such as formaldehyde and cadmium.

“We had to prove these were not in our space,” said Joe David of Point32. That was tricky because it is hard to know the contents of building products. To overcome this, the team developed a process for vetting materials.

Once informed of the Living Building Challenge's strict criteria, some manufacturers have re-formulated products to reduce negative impacts on human health and the environment, Faul said.

“The challenge is really moving mountains,” said architect Brian Court of The Miller Hull Partnership, which designed the center.

The project will have solar and geo-thermal power, and is expected to have an “energy use intensity” or EUI of 15. A building built to meet the current code would have an EUI of 52.

Achieving such a reduction involved a series of many little steps, not a couple of big ones, Court said. “Everything has been accounted for, from the garage door opener to the microwaves to the ceiling fans.”

It is critical to attract environmentally conscious tenants to the six-story building, and encourage them to change their behavior. The building has what Court called an “irresistible” stairway, with views of the downtown skyline and mountains, to discourage elevator use.

One key to lowering energy use is the curtain wall, which was designed by the German company Schuco. Shipping the system from Europe wouldn't be sustainable, so the team worked with Goldfinch Brothers, a Snohomish County glazing company. Goldfinch obtained the engineering rights from Schuco to manufacture the systems domestically.

In seeking local sources of drywall, the team realized that the gypsum came from Mexico. Further research showed they could get drywall made with gypsum from Alberta.

Lagging for the foundation came from salvaged lumber provided by Rhine Demolition. The lagging came from the Huling Brothers dealership that was deconstructed in West Seattle. Faul said the team thinks the planks were floor boards or joists from the car dealership.

Making information about the project available to the public after work is completed will help reduce the cost of future projects, Faul said. He said team members also are working closely with public agencies to identify existing codes that are barriers to advanced sustainability.

The Bullitt Foundation will occupy half of one floor, and other project team members will take space. About 60 percent of the space has been spoken for. The building will be marketed this spring at market rates.

Bullitt Center will be finished in November.

Related Stories:

• Bullitt rebuilding Capitol Hill park  01-09-2012
  
• Bullitt starts ‘living building'  07-27-2011
  
• A final design for new Bullitt HQ  05-10-2011