On Monday, in Seattle, there was a groundbreaking for the first of 12 livable buildings to be completed here. This six-story building is being billed as the greenest commercial building on earth. It will be the largest net-zero energy and net-zero water building ever built.The Bullitt Center will be sporting some of the following features:
- All energy will be produced by solar power
- Most lighting will be from natural daylight
- All water will be captured from rainwater and stored in a cistern to be used in toilets and/or sterilized to be used for drinking water and other potable water
- All wastewater and sewage will be collected. The water will be sterilized and the sewage will be collected for composting (the building will not be hooked up to the sewer)
- There will be no parking in the building, only bike racks
- Common building materials that contain PVC plastics, mercury, cadmium and about 360 other substances considered hazardous won’t be used
- Has "irresistible" stairs to reduce elevator usage (see image)
- Uses geothermal heating and cooling
Image courtesy of The Seattle Times (click to see more features of the building).
4 comments:
Very cool indeed. I wonder how the initial building costs and annual costs to run/maintain/repair/etc are compared to a "normal" building of similar size. It would be fantastic if the yearly expenses were low enough to entice others from a pure cost savings standpoint to build similar buildings.
Don't know about the cost, but there won't be a water, power or sewage bill since the building provides it's own on all three. Very neat.
The Heifer project building here in Little Rock is very similar. I don't think they have zero sewage, but know the grey water and rain water is all recycled into a really cool system that is beautiful to look at too.
I love the "irresistible stairs". When I was in South America we stayed with a friend in the city. He lived on the 5th floor of an apartment. There were no elevators. None. It was unheard of and when I (the American) asked why I was told it would be wasteful and unnessary! The staircase was concrete and outside. If it was raining, you got wet. Amazing. They also don't use dryers--too wasteful! Love it!
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