What if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place?

18 Oct What if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place?

Posted at 14:39h in Green Building by admin

We were so taken by Paul McGinnis’s discussion of the Living Building Challenge that we wanted to share some excerpts from his recent post on The New York Green Advocate:

….engaging the broader building industry in the deep conversations required to truly understand how to solve problems rather than shift them…

What’s appealing about the Living Building Challenge is how much it talks about building not so much just from a structural or technical standpoint but also from a philosophical, even metaphysical standpoint. For instance the challenge is described as: “A visionary path to a restorative future” And it is “at once a philosophy, advocacy platform and certification program”. The challenge clarifies: “It defines priorities on both a technical level and as a set of core values, it is engaging the broader building industry in the deep conversations required to truly understand how to solve problems rather than shift them.”

Despite how abstract the Living Building Challenge might sound, it is definitely performance based. Thus, while having specific, measurable, technical goals, it “leads teams to embrace regional solutions and respond to a number of variables, including climate factors and cultural characteristics.”

And speaking of being performance based – The International Living Future Institute has just announced that it unveiled a Net Zero Energy Building Certification program. This new initiative will surely help foster the idea that all buildings should “perform” and be self sustainable, much like the Earthship model has tried to emphasize, and like the Passive House concept emphasizes as well.