Author: Jeffery L. Davis, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

FM Issue: September/October 2017

Today’s performing arts and event venues are a key element in the cultural ecosystems that are our cities and communities. Imagine a venue that actually is its own environmental ecosystem. Much like a flower that thrives within a given habitat by pulling nutrients from the soil, utilizing the sunlight for photosynthesis, and depending on the sky for rain, venues can now do the same. A flower is also a part of a larger ecosystem, playing a vital role for the benefit of the whole. The furthest reaching green building certification uses the metaphor of the flower in describing the requirements for its green building program. Each element of the certification is called a petal, and each petal represents a major part of the ecosystem, such as energy and water. The International Living Future Institute administers the Living Building Challenge.

Occupant Engagement-Behavioral Psychology

An ecosystem requires that all of the elements work together in a connected system. This means that your venue requires that the occupants be a part of that ecosystem, yes . . . even the public. Webbased apps are customized for your occupants like those provided by Sustain3, who is using a gamification process to teach and incentivize action through friendly gaming competition. Projects that reduce their loads through occupant training and adjustments to current systems can result in improvement of $20,000, as it did on one such building for Salt Lake County.

How does the Living Building Challenge compare to LEED?

LEED is an important part of the sustainable design community. The improvements in LEED v4 are raising the game again and making owners, designers, and contractors stretch for compliance. LEED is a great measurement tool for the design and construction of a building. The Living Building Challenge requires a one-year performance period and an in-person audit before granting certification. This proving period ensures that a building is performing to the level it was designed. The Living Building Challenge also raises the bar significantly in other areas, by requiring a full certification to have net-positive water and comply with a Red-List free environment. The Red List is a list of chemicals that are known to be harmful to humans.

Each area of the living building challenge requirements are called Petals, going back to the metaphor of the flower. Three of them are the Energy Petal, the Water Petal, and the Materials Petal. Projects can choose to pursue the full Living Building Challenge certification or opt to pursue one or more of the individual Petal Certifications. Just as LEED Platinum certification was difficult to achieve and had increased cost implications in the early 2000’s, the full Living Building Certification is no different. There are now 84 LEED certified performing arts centers and 58 sports venues, several of which are platinum. Just as the market transformed the ease of achieving a LEED Platinum building came within reach over a 10-year period of time, so too will full Living Building Certification become more and more achievable for performing arts and event venues.

Recently, Golden 1 Center opened in Sacramento, which was the first indoor sporting venue to achieve the LEED Platinum benchmark. Many of the sustainable features of the Golden 1 Center are in line with the LBC petal ideals. The successful efforts of the Golden 1 Center project team demonstrate that a Living Building Event Venue could be a real possibility in the near future. Living Building strategies would be unique in venue projects, as the associated design features and systems needs to balance between the inherent extremes of use during events the when the venue is idle.

Today’s Living Building

Architectural Nexus, a design firm doing work throughout the western United States with specialties in performing arts and sports venues, recently moved into their own Living Building Challenge pursuant project in Sacramento. This project looks to be the first Living Building in the state of California, and one of only a dozen or so in the world. The construction of the building was completed in late December and is now into its one year performance period. The Living Building is scheduled to produce at least 105% of the energy it uses over a one year period. The Living Building collects enough rain water to provide for all of its water needs on an annual basis, even during the recent major drought seen in California over the past several years.

Being a net-positive water building requires composting toilets and use of gray water so that the sewer connection is needed only as an emergency measure. This office building uses its generated gray water to flush the toilets and also to dispense filtered gray water to an indoor plant wall where the plants use the gray water eliminating the need for it to be disposed of through a sewer system. The building also has a filtration system installed that, when regulations allow, will be able to clean the rainwater to be used as drinking water. The building is also meeting the Red List requirements, having documented the ingredients of every building product used.

What’s more, this is not a new building. It is the retrofit of an existing building, potentially making it the first Living Building adaptive reuse project, greatly minimizing the material that would have gone to the landfill if the building had been demolished. Natural ventilation is engaged by the occupants, who are signaled by a light on the wall, to turn off the heating and cooling systems and open the windows. The building occupants are an important part of the building’s ecosystem. Architectural Nexus’ Sacramento Office is currently on track for full certification proving how these technologies can best be used and operated on future performing arts and event centers.

Decisions Decisions: What do you do for your Venue?

You may feel like something as ambitious as a regenerative building that creates its own ecosystem is just beyond your reach, but so did most Venue Projects little over a decade ago relative to achieving LEED Platinum status, although today there are many LEED Platinum buildings. In time, you too will see many Living Venues. You can, however, start today through existing building energy assessments and occupant engagement, or through choosing to participate in a Petal Certification such as Net Zero Energy. These are very feasible goals today and will save dollars from your operating budgets.

Jeffery L. Davis, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, is principal at ARCH | NEXUS in Sacramento, California.