The Bullitt Center in Seattle has been chosen as the world’s best sustainable building in 2013.
World Architectural News picked the building as the best example of green design. You can read the whole story here.
Here’s a key quote from the story:
“This building really sets the debate about how to design buildings to be truly sustainable and make the lowest possible impact.”
The Bullitt Center is the first leasable market rate commercial structure that meets the targets of the Living Building Challenge to the Net Zero Energy standard, including adhering to the omission of all toxic chemicals that appear on the prohibited red list and also ensuring “One hundred percent of the project’s energy needs must be supplied by on-site renewable energy on a net annual basis.”
The center is a net-zero building, which means is generates as much power as it uses every year.
The concepts used in the Bullitt Center tie into what Washington state is pushing toward: buildings that cost less to heat, cool and operate.
A view of the Bullitt Center’s roofline, from the ground. Photo by Benjamin Benschneider
Capital Budget Chair Hans Dunshee (D-Snohomish) has been promoting fundamental shifts in how the state looks at paying for all the schools, universities, prisons and other state buildings that it constructs. One of the biggest shifts is looking at the total lifetime costs of a building rather than simply the cost of construction.
Year after year, taxpayers must pay for electricity, heating, maintenance and repairs on a facility. Shocking fact: those costs, over the life of the building, are roughly equal to the cost of actually constructing the building in the first place.
Net-zero buildings like the Bullitt Center prove you save a lot of money with smart design.
For a long time it was a great victory to simply reduce the cost of electricity, heating and cooling for our public buildings.
Now it’s possible to design homes that are so energy efficient, you could heat them with a candle.
The same design innovations and technology is available for larger buildings, and when you couple that efficiency with solar panels on the roof and other ideas, it’s within our reach to design and build a building that generates as much power as it uses.
Is this hard to do? Yes. But scientists and forward-thinking people are showing that you can do this using off-the-shelf technology. This could radically transform how Washington state constructs future schools, universities and other buildings.
It’s exciting to see architects, scientists, tech companies and contractors working together to see what’s possible today—and what might be possible tomorrow.