The ideas competition for the design of Georgia Tech’s Living Building certainly was challenging. But Tech officials and the six architectural firms that were finalists say they gained valuable knowledge about the program. And the university already is employing a similar process as it gets going on a non-Living Building project.
The Materials Working Group for the Living Building at Georgia Tech design team is trying to figure out which materials can be used on the building. It’s by no means an easy task. Architects Ramani Koti and Alissa Kingsley report this week on the Lord Aeck Sargent blog that the Materials Petal is “as challenging, if not more, as achieving net-positive energy and net-positive water.”
The first time Barry Berlin heard of the Bullitt Center was when Diana Blank called him with an idea: How could the Kendeda Fund go about creating a Living Building on a similar scale in Atlanta? It was May 2013.
“She’s telling me about this wonderful building, and I’m pulling it up on Google just so I can see what she’s talking about,” says Berlin, longtime financial advisor and strategist to the philanthropy founded by Blank. “I asked her, ‘So you want me to see if we can build one of these here?’ And she said, ‘Do you think we can?’ And I said, ‘We’ll never know until we try.’ ”
Georgia Tech has put together an impressive portfolio of high-performing buildings. Here’s a look at the four campus buildings that have attained Platinum, LEED’s highest certification level.
A new book offers up the most complete history yet of the Living Building Challenge. The Living Building Challenge: Roots and Rise of the Worlds Greenest Standard by Mary Adam Thomas is a supportive view of the standard from inside the movement.
Even big foundations think long and hard before they give away $30 million. So it’s not surprising that The Kendeda Fund took a while to figure out that its largest grant ever would go toward a single building on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus.
Kendeda Fund Homepage