Bullitt Center

Bullitt Center. Image: Helen Pineo, 2019

The Bullitt Center office building in Seattle, USA pioneered deep green design methods that pushed the boundaries of sustainable architecture. Owned and operated by the Bullitt Foundation, the building is described by Robert Peña and colleagues as catalysing ‘a shift in outlook from the notion of buildings as machines for living to that of buildings as living systems’ (1). Collaborating with the city and a local university, the Bullitt Center project led to a new Living Building Pilot Programme in Seattle and detailed post-occupancy evaluation data to continually improve the functioning of the building for people and the planet.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(2)

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Park 20|20

Park 20|20. Image: Delta Development 4

Park 20|20 is the first Cradle-to-Cradle ® (C2C) urban development project in the Netherlands, trailblazing design approaches that minimise resource consumption and support human health. The C2C approach is manifest in Park 20|20 through circular design, material health, and design for disassembly. The site includes an office tower, high density offices, hotel tower, athletic facilities, childcare facilities, greenhouses, and 9 hectares of public open space. The design is intended to create a closed-loop system where waste, energy and water are modelled after natural ecosystems.

As the first full-service C2C office park in the world, the development has pioneered business and legal models to support the transition from linear to circular economies. Known as a circular economy business model (CEBM), this approach seeks to ‘reduce resource use and waste within production, but also to extend product life cycles and employ strategies that allow the consumer to do more than buy, use and dispose.’(1) The project has also demonstrated the financial value of sustainable and healthy building design.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case study was written by Elizabeth Cooper and Helen Pineo.

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What you think you know about the Code for Sustainable Homes is probably wrong

When was the last time you read up on the Code for Sustainable Homes? A few years ago? Never? There is a lot of bad information floating around the planning world about how England is going to reduce carbon emissions through the Code for Sustainable Homes. For the uninitiated, the Code (for short) is a sustainable building standard for new homes and most planners (and planning inspectors) hold a lot of misconceptions about it.

Misconceptions abound because reducing carbon emissions from buildings costs money and everybody has something to say about it. But also because it’s a very technical area and not many planners have the background or time to question the information they receive on this topic.

There are a few key facts that you should know and share with your planner friends: Continue reading “What you think you know about the Code for Sustainable Homes is probably wrong”