By: Johnny Hartsfield

Garrett and Dustin Moon of Portland, Oregon (although they are really from my home state of Washington) are building what promises to be one of the first Living Buildings in the country.  GreenFab highlighted their project, The Commons, back in April to share with you what very few people are attempting to do in this country when LEED is not enough. 

The Commons is “designed to reach beyond today’s highest green building standards and become the first U.S. home to meet the Living Building Challenge.  The Commons will generate all its own energy without fossil fuels, reclaim all its water, be free of unhealthy materials and be a place of beauty and community.”

Hot off the press, Garrett has just published a paper, Sustainable Architecture: an overview of equitable and efficient spaces that helps to identify and explain sustainable design processes and applications.  The document is half a survey of sustainability and its applications and half a case study of their project, The Commons.  This is a MUST READ!

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By: Johnny Hartsfield

Here is our first installment in an ongoing series of case studies that GreenFab will be conducting to highlight truley sustainable projects. Each of these case studies will be organized around a set of nine Sustainable Design Systems that we have created to measure sustainability.

INTRODUCTION - Genzyme, one of the world’s foremost biotechnology companies, has just completed their world headquarters, Genzyme Center , in Cambridge, MA. This building was designed and constructed to be one of the most environmentally responsible office buildings ever built in the United States. To help guide these goals, Genzyme pursued the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System and achieved a PLATINUM rating under LEED 2.0.

Genzyme had sustainable goals across five broad areas: sustainable site planning, safeguarding water and water efficiency, energy efficiency and renewable energy, conservation of materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. As for being employee-friendly, the space combines a collaborative work environment with a green-centric focus providing approximately 900 employees with an ideal work experience.

Continue reading to see Genzyme Center’s sustainable features organized within GreenFab’s Sustainable Design Systems .

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By: Johnny Hartsfield

GreenFab understands that sustainable design and development is difficult to define.  With respect to the great work done by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system and Cascadia’s Living Building Challenge, we have defined our own meaning of sustainable development as: development that makes strides towards creating functional sustainable design systems.

We have created a set of nine SUSTAINABLE DESIGN SYSTEMS that we will use in a series of case studies to promote and highlight what we believe are truly sustainable projects.  The projects in each case study will be measured against these systems to better understand design intent and function.  Our ultimate goal is to bring great projects to you and make sustainable design more understandable.

Our first case study is coming soon so continue reading to learn about how each sustainable design system is measured.  GreenFab also incorporates these measurement tools into each of our own development projects to better inform our process.

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