Rainwater Collection and Use at the Bullitt Center

Posted by Nina Smith-Gardiner, AIA, LEED AP and Rob Pena, Associate Professor at the University of Washington on Wed, Aug 08, 2012 at 7:48 PM

In natural systems there‘s no such thing as waste: what dies or is discarded in one place becomes food or shelter someplace else. The intent of the Living Building Challenge’s Water Petal is to redefine our thinking about “waste” and to realign how we use water. This Petal isn’t about doing less bad but about…

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Ground Source Heat Pumps at the Bullitt Center

Posted by Nina Smith-Gardiner, AIA, LEED AP on Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 7:49 PM

All of the energy used at the Bullitt Center will be generated onsite as required by the Living Building Challenge, which prohibits combustion of fossil fuels to heat, cool or power the building. Solar thermal heating is inadequate during most of our cloudy winter days, and there simply isn’t enough wind available to reliably produce…

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The Curtain Wall System at the Bullitt Center

Posted by Nina Smith-Gardiner, AIA, LEED AP on Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 7:50 PM

One of the ways to achieve an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) of only 16 kBtu/ft2 is to design an amazing building envelope.  Energy Use Intensity is calculated by taking the total energy the building will use for one year and dividing it by the total enclosed floor space of the building.  A typical office building…

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Composting Toilets at the Bullitt Center

Posted by Nina Smith-Gardiner, AIA, LEED AP on Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 7:53 PM

The Living Building Challenge requires all water to be harvested and treated on site.  To meet the Challenge with respect to management of human waste on site, the Bullitt Center team is using Phoenix Composting Toilets from Advanced Composting Systems of Whitefish, Montana. This system uses a small amount of water and compost is the…

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