Living building challenge

[edit] The Living Building Challenge (LBC) is the built environment's most challenging and rigorous building certification scheme, a green building philosophy and advocacy programme.

It calls for the creation of building projects of all scales that operate as cleanly, beautifully and efficiently as nature's architecture.

To be certified under the Challenge, projects must meet a series of ambitious performance requirements, including net zero energy, waste and water, over a minimum of 12 months of continuous occupancy.

The Challenge is comprised of seven performance areas, or ‘Petals’: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity and Beauty. Petals are subdivided into a total of twenty Imperatives, each of which focuses on a specific sphere of influence. This compilation of Imperatives can be applied to almost every conceivable typology, or project type, be it a building (renovation of an existing structure, or new construction), infrastructure, landscape or community development.

Flagship buildings to LBC standards include the Bullitt Centre in Seattle and the CIRS Building at University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

In 2013 a UK Living Building Challenge collaborative was formed through Martin Brown @fairsnape and Green Vision at Leeds Sustainability Institute. The UK collaborative is currently creating the UK Overlay to the Standard, discussing potential UK accreditation for projects with clients and promoting the Living Building Challenge through a number of programmes.

This article was created by --Fairsnape 09:45, 8 August 2013 (BST)

[edit] External references

• LBC: http://living-future.org/lbc
• Fairsnape: http://fairsnape.com/?s=living+building+challenge
• LSI: www.ckehub.org/greenvision
• Bullitt Centre: http://bullittcenter.org/
• CIRS: http://cirs.ubc.ca/