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Understanding the Living Building Challenge

The Living Building Challenge is the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard. It calls for the creation of building projects that operate as cleanly, beautifully and efficiently as nature’s architecture. Understanding the Living Building Challenge provides an in-depth overview of the program. The workshop will provide a deep exploration of two projects pursuing the program (Smith College and Williams College). Attendees will identify the key components of the Living Building Challenge and discuss the rationale for restorative design principles.

The Living Building Challenge: Two Northeast Regional Case Studies

This session will delve into two wide-ranging case studies representing the few Northeast LBC projects (only 50 active LBD nationwide). The Smith College Bechtel Environmental Classroom field station building is on track to receive full certification by early 2014. The Kellogg House at Williams College, a repurposed and expanded historic building, currently in construction (Fall 2013).

Deep Energy Retrofits: Full Value Proposition

This session will explore the actual performance over the past few years of 2 completed Deep Energy Retrofits in Massachusetts which successfully achieved the ACI Thousand Homes Challenge in 2011-12. From the combined perspective of a builder and an architect experienced with a variety of strategies for achieving energy efficient homes, we will compare the approaches in these two cases with other building techniques and programs such as Energy Star, Energy Plus, Net Zero, and Passive House.