Can natural systems inform new construction?

Most Northwest residents living in conventional homes can sail through the region’s dry summers without much heed to conservation. But for the future residents of North Portland’s Kenton Living Building, where energy and water needs are met entirely on-site, a lack of conservation could significantly rock the boat.

“Imagine heading into July with four families living in a building with no connection to city water at all and realizing that until it rains again, no more water is coming,” says Peter Wilcox, owner of Renewal Associates, a Portland-based sustainable development consulting and investment firm. Currently locked in the design and financing stage, the Kenton Living Building proposes to turn such a scenario into reality. The 4,600-square-foot, four-unit residential building with a small daycare center aims to use only captured rainwater or gray water to meet its water needs and only power generated from on-site renewable sources to meet its energy needs.

Achieving “net-zero” water and energy are just two of 16 prerequisites the Kenton project needs to reach to meet the Living Building Standard, a new green building rating system launched in November 2006 by the Cascadia Green Building Council.

“By doing a LEED Gold building (see “Breaking ground,” Feb. 2007) that is probably going to turn into a LEED Platinum building, I am realizing how mildly LEED addresses the needs of the planet,” Wilcox says, describing the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. “I immediately realized this was a chance to really do something remarkable, to try to find out what it means to be a truly sustainable building in terms of financing, constructing, designing, developing and the people that are actually using a building of this type.”

With the team of architects and engineers he’s assembled, Wilcox says the Kenton project could become the world’s first certified Living Building — but at a significant price premium. Wilcox estimates the project will cost more than twice a similar conventional construction project. Like many others pursuing the challenge, Wilcox says he’s viewing the Kenton Living Building as a demonstration project that could prove the value of high-performance, low-impact buildings in a carbon-constrained world.

The Living Building Standard is harder to achieve but easier to document than LEED certification, says Jason McLennan, Cascadia’s CEO and author of the Living Building Standard. The LEED rating system for new buildings requires projects to meet a certain number of credits during the design-build process to attain one of four ratings: Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum. Design teams can pick and choose design elements, which earn up to 69 total possible points. Alternately, the Living Building Standard requires builders to meet just 16 prerequisites, but it doesn’t prescribe how they do it. And unlike LEED, only buildings that have operated for a full year can achieve Living Building status.