ILFI Celebrates 50th Living Building Certification
The Miller Hull Seattle Studio Achieves Petal Certification in Place, Health & Happiness, Materials, Equity and Beauty
Seattle, March 6, 2017 /3BL Media/ - The Miller Hull Partnership in Seattle has the distinction of being the International Living Future Institute’s 50th project to be certified under the program’s ambitious and optimistic Living Building Challenge. The Living Building Challenge (LBC) is a certification program that defines the most advanced measure of sustainability—providing a framework for design, construction and the symbiotic relationship between people and all aspects of the built environment.
In 2016, Miller Hull undertook renovation of their studio in the Historic Polson Building in Pioneer Square, transforming 12,000 SF of tenant space to achieve 12 Imperatives in four LBC Petals including Place, Health & Happiness, Materials, Equity and Beauty. One of the most significant achievements is compliance with the Living Building Challenge Red List, which included custom design and local hand fabrication of furniture and furniture systems. Additionally, as part of the Place Petal requirements and in partnership with a local conservation and Land Trust organization, Miller Hull offset a portion of land to help conserve 18 acres of forest, wetlands, tideland and marine shoreline in Puget Sound.
“The Miller Hull Partnership has set an incredibly high bar with the renovation of this existing space into a beautiful, flexible open workplace that fosters collaboration and innovation, while at the same time achieving the highest environmental design standards in the world,” said Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). “They are the first architecture firm to design both a fully certified Living Building (The Bullitt Center) and a Petal Certified project.” Miller Hull is also on the design team for a project that is pursuing full Living Building Certification at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
“We were informed not only by our goals in relation to the LBC, but also by the desire to connect our interiors with nature as much as possible,” said Chris Hellstern, LFA and Living Building Challenge Services Director for The Miller Hull Partnership. “Open perimeter workstations preserve views and natural light. Existing exposed heavy timber structure and salvaged wood floors combine with a neutral color palette to ground the space in nature.”
Working within the limits of Tenant Improvement in an existing building, the project team was nonetheless able to achieve remarkable energy performance. Between lighting reduction, occupancy sensors, and new energy efficient systems, the team reduced the energy use intensity (EUI) of the space to 45 which is a 37.5% reduction over the 2030 Challenge baseline for this building type.
Other notable metrics include:
- 88% savings in lighting electricity use
- 25% savings in plug load electricity use
- 22% overall savings in electricity use
- 19% overall savings in energy use
About the International Living Future Institute
The International Living Future Institute is a hub for visionary programs. The Institute offers global strategies for lasting sustainability, partnering with local communities to create grounded and relevant solutions, including green building and infrastructure solutions on scales ranging from single room renovations to neighborhoods or whole cities. The Institute administers the Living Building Challenge, the environment’s most rigorous and ambitious performance standard. It is the parent organization for Cascadia Green Building Council, a chapter of both the United States and Canada Green Building Councils that serves Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. It is also home to Ecotone Publishing, a unique publishing house dedicated to telling the story of the green building movement's pioneering thinkers and practitioners.
About The Miller Hull Partnership
Founded in 1977, The Miller Hull Partnership is an award-winning architecture firm specializing in performance-based design for a wide range of public and private buildings that actively engage their communities through simple, innovative and authentic designs. Notable recent projects include the Bullitt Center in Seattle, the first class A commercial office building to receive full Living Building certification, along with the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry border crossing between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico–the busiest border crossing in the world. The firm has studios in both Seattle and San Diego. The Miller Hull Partnership is the recipient of the National Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects. For more information, visit http://www.millerhull.com.
Contacts:
Lisa Lilienthal, 404.661.3679
for International Living Future Institute
Wendy Abeel, 206.254.2045
for The Miller Hull Partnership
