Washington University in St. Louis May Sport Greenest Building in North America

June 2nd, 2009 by Jeff Kart

LEED, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, has become the alpha acronym when referring to green, or eco-friendly, buildings. The standard, from the U.S. Green Building Council, recently went 3.0.

Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, is taking the green diploma to an even higher degree. University officials are betting a new Living Learning Center will meet the Living Building Challenge, the world’s most stringent green building rating system from the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, a chapter of the USGBC and its Canadian counterpart.

If the university succeeds, the 2,900-square-foot center would be the first structure in North America to meet the Cascadia code.

What makes it so super? The center is designed to use zero net energy and wastewater, to capture rainwater and purify it for drinking and use solar energy to pump power back into the electric grid.

There’s a lot of anticipation on campus to see if the building makes the grade. More than 60 projects have given it a try so far. The new center is due to open on May 29, 2009.

Standards for The Living Building Challenge reach beyond the coveted LEED Platinum rating, by the way.

(Image credit: Washington University. Caption: A cistern is pictured alongside the Living Learning Center before being placed underground.)

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Tags: building, Campus sustainability, Energy, LEED, living building challenge, Missouri, North America, rainwater, St. Louis, Washington University

About the Author

Jeff Kart is typing about issues in the Great Lakes, from advanced biofuels to zero-emission vehicles. Jeff is an environmental journalist and social media evangelist based in Michigan, where the summers are short, the winters are cold, and the stories are plentiful.

Andrew Winget

This standard sounds great and I’m overjoyed to hear that it’s being taken seriously by such a wide swath of the general public. I know that one of the reasons for the rather conservative LEED standards was the fear that no one would even attempt to meet them if they were set too high.

Despite this good news, however, there is a higher standard that was set out by William McDonough: Cradle to Cradle. Again, I will say that I am proud to see institutions aiming to meet 0-energy standards, but frankly there is no real victory without a Cradle-to-Cradle solution. The simple fact is that if a building in any stage of its construction, life-cycle, or disposal, uses more energy than it collects, or more materials than it can give back in its recycling, it has failed to meet the definition of sustainability.

Furthermore, the building should be well-and-elegantly-designed, and from the looks of these photos, this new center is a box with pre-fab square windows on one side: not very elegant.
Andrew Winget

This standard sounds great and I’m overjoyed to hear that it’s being taken seriously by such a wide swath of the general public. I know that one of the reasons for the rather conservative LEED standards was the fear that no one would even attempt to meet them if they were set too high.

Despite this good news, however, there is a higher standard that was set out by William McDonough: Cradle to Cradle. Again, I will say that I am proud to see institutions aiming to meet 0-energy standards, but frankly there is no real victory without a Cradle-to-Cradle solution. The simple fact is that if a building in any stage of its construction, life-cycle, or disposal, uses more energy than it collects, or more materials than it can give back in its recycling, it has failed to meet the definition of sustainability.

Furthermore, the building should be well-and-elegantly-designed, and from the looks of these photos, this new center is a box with pre-fab square windows on one side: not very elegant.
Susan Kraemer

I like One Planet Living ten easy to remember standards too. Net zero energy is so possible in so many cases that it is ridiculous to go for anything less.
Susan Kraemer

I like One Planet Living ten easy to remember standards too. Net zero energy is so possible in so many cases that it is ridiculous to go for anything less.
Susan Kraemer

I like One Planet Living ten easy to remember standards too. Net zero energy is so possible in so many cases that it is ridiculous to go for anything less.