Thank you all for
being here we really appreciate your

interest in this project and
our process and we're really.

Really grateful to the panelists
to participate and

give up their time to participate in
this process so they will do is each

of the panelists will introduce themselves
I'll have a few introductory slides and.

Then they'll they'll sort of sit up here
so they can see in their their back to

the screen and
then they'll come up and talk and each

each team will talk about some slides and
their ideas and what they've learned and

then we'll open it up for the not come
back up here we'll have Q. and A.

So.

If you're not structure it's not you
have well rehearsed We'll have it

this is all new I'm Phil Harrison
with Perkins and will.

I am Paula McAvoy with Perkins and I'll.

See Smith with eschewed in this ripple
Sandy Cooper Collins Cooper Caruso

joke reckon Lord X.X. and part of
the next Sergeant Miller whole scene.

Because I am Mike Joshua Gasman
with Laurette Sergeant.

JOHN McFARLANE with working buildings on
this project though I'm serving is that

donors rep for the can do to fund and
Howard want to tell you just a little bit

about what the can do to fund hoping
to accomplish out of this and

you are actually all a shining example
of part of that that we're trying to

accomplish which is changing the industry
and educating all of all of you and

everybody else who's not in this room
about what's possible and actually

I had lunch today with with Z. and
we were talking about what's possible and

he had a great sort of analogy of when
Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile

nobody thought that was possible until
he did it and then after he did it.

They did it again three weeks later and
did it again a little bit later.

It's been broken ever since so what
we're going to do here is we're going to

break that barrier that says we can't
do a living building in the southeast.

That's nonsense we can work and
show the world that we can and and

part of this whole team here is going to
educate everybody you know here elsewhere

that it is possible and so that's that's
what it can be just open to see is this

project not duplicated but
replicated and little bits and

pieces of it showing up in every project
that you design from this point forward so

thank you.

Mark is not quite as long I'm
going back I'm done now that's a.

Good strategy Chris great with Collins
Cooper cruciate constable Cruz he is cute

in his report the comment that this team.

Needed.

It was.

OK but you want to introduce yourself
else I'll start with that yeah I'm a I'm

very jel and from Georgia Tech facilities
design and construction on the associate

director design tonight John because Jay
was a project manager couldn't be here so

I'm sort of filling that gap but something
with Johnson is what we're going to be

doing at Georgia Tech now as well which
is to take all of these great ideas we've

been listening to for the past few months
and begin to incorporate them in all of

our projects across campus
living building or not.

So here's sort of the agenda what
we're going to talk about but

I was directed by our office
of sustainability that

a little public service announcement
this is a zero waste event so

please put everything in the green
compost bins that you see up top and

outside saying Who's your food
waste paper cups sugarcane plates

wooden cutlery and
napkins and I do and here.

Now I need to give this back to him.

So a little bit about the Living
Building Challenge how many of you have

not heard of the Living Building Challenge
so everybody's heard of it in some

degree how many people have worked on
the Living Building Challenge project.

A couple people very good.

So you'll learn a little bit
more about it this evening there

are no requirements that we must
fulfill and we are pursuing

a Living Building Challenge three
point zero full certification and

it's this really a holistic integrated
approach to planning design

construction operations maintenance
the whole package of ownership and

they have a seven petal structure with
twenty imperatives there's an organization

called the International Living future
Institute I left high and there.

A gentleman by the neighbor
of Jason McLennan was sort of

the idea person behind it and
Jason is actually on our team and

as a coach an advisor to the entire
team so you guys can sit there or

your neck will hurt after a while
you're looking over your shoulder.

So Jason and one of his colleagues Mona
Lemoine have been participating in this

process and they've been hired by the can
do to fund to assist the donor and

the designing and
owner team throughout this process so we

did an ideas competition maybe Kara will
talk a little bit a bit about this but

it was pretty holistic where we had.

Two sets of workshops
which is fairly unique for

Georgia Tech used to be doing or
a few An R.P. we shortlist and select But

what we did here we did in our OF Q We
shortlisted to five teams those five

teams interviewed with our planning and
design commission last December and

then we we weren't done yet
so then we shortlisted.

That the three and those three teams who
are here today participated in this ideas

competition which base it was a three
month process we had to touch point

workshops where we spent an entire day
we had sixteen people from Georgia Tech

in each of the offices of
the design teams all day once in

January once in February and
then the interviews were in March and

you'll see some images
from those workshops.

But we also which was fairly
unique to Georgia Tech and

probably most universities we had
concurrently to this there's a studio

in the College of Architecture
the Portman prize jury and

there are thirty four graduate students
doing this design competition and

they are doing the same program
that we are moving forward with and

all thirty four of those students were
engaged in the process at the workshops

and they got to observe the interviews
which is a really unique opportunity for

students.

Just kind of a summary of what Howard
just said I won't hang on it too long but

during this whole process it was very
integrate it with Georgia Tech and

also our donor Candido that
we made these selections

you know we received actually
seventeen qualification packages from

interested architects and
we have to whittle it down

which is always a daunting process because
there were a lot of great submittals But

when we went through it we stayed very
consistent I think with the selections

as we went through this process you can
see it started back in the fall and

the architects of course were notified
in December that they had to start

working on this job and I know I saw
sort of a panic look in their faces

because in March they were going to have
to present to us plus we were going to be

doing this really unusual thing
which is to sit in their offices and

watch them work for
sixteen hours with each of the firms but

we really couldn't engage
with them that much so they.

I mean they wanted to of course we wanted
to tell them things but we could so

that we would be fair to all the teams so
there was it was kind of a cool process

going to the next slide so this just for
people's interest is a long range

schedule you can see we're at
the April time frame right now and

this project is going to take a little
bit longer than a typical process

because we want to be very diligent
with how we go through the steps so

if it was a typical process this time
probably would get compressed but

notice there's people march and

at the bottom you see March twenty
twenty which is a way out but

a living building for those of you
that know this has to be occupied for

at least a year to make sure that we're
meeting all the criteria before we can get

that actual full certification so
this is a it's a tentative schedule but

we're pretty much on track with this and
hopefully you can see by January

of two thousand and nineteen will actually
start moving people into the building.

Things here so
part of the ideas competition

we had asked all the teams to
do develop boards and models and

that's what you see that's exhibited
that outside in the atrium and

that was very purposeful because one of
our objectives as well as can deed is was

outreach how do we let other people know
about what we're doing and how to as

John said earlier how do we replicate
this effort in this region and

just through the process you just see
by this map the impact it has had

more than nationally it's actually
internationally because McLendon design

their person is in Vancouver so
we've crossed the border for

now maybe they'll be a wall there
a year from now I don't know but but

then the impact is pretty
darn significant and

I I was in Boston recently in talking
to some architect friends and

they knew about what we were doing
at Georgia Tech so it's really.

Pretty remarkable the impact
that we've had this for.

So just a little bit about our process so
you see this black circle and

part of this idea is competition was
we did not have a specific site but

we put together this development plan that
we knew that there would be a series of

dominoes that we need to take place and

with the ideas we provide
a vicinity which is about an eight

acre portion of campus and you see there
are several things we have to demolish

a building we're going to
build a new police facility.

You know get rid of the surface parking
lot and then construct the building

project as well as the eco commons so we
had done it several years ago when we did

the engineer bio systems building which is
right there we developed the sector plan

which at this is just a partial look at
it but we looked at one hundred acres of

campus and the campus for a sense of scale
we have four hundred acres so we looked at

about twenty five percent of the campus
and included in that is this sector so

those of you familiar with the campus
there are state there's ten street and

coal drive and first drive so you can see
that we're thinking about a building and

the eco Commons this is a parking
structure a new police precinct that we

hope to will go through selection pretty
soon we just did a solicitation for

them for that project.

So there are a lot of site variables
that we have to consider when

deciding this building and
it's sort of interesting because we don't

you know most owners will say here's
the site and we'll be interested to hear

what the design teams have to say later
on about not having a specific site but

let the process guide them in where
a building should be sited and

there were different solutions it wasn't
a one size fits all but certainly a number

of issues that need to be considered and
the eco comments those of you who group.

MILLER If you go on the Georgia Tech
website under the landscape master plan

the idea is that used to be streams
that roam the campus and we

wanted to visually expose the streams so
that they become educational research and

recreational amenities to the campus.

We did these workshops and it was
interesting when you know we the first one

was at Perkins and will and
I think it was all new for

everybody and I think all the teams
wanted to do a presentation and

they're wanting to get feedback from us
and we just sat there stone faced and

then they realized they just needed
to work and then they worked and

we observed how they worked and it was
really a pretty special opportunity.

As I said we had to touch points and
they would just work and

we had four students at each one of these
workshops throughout the process and

there was a lot of material as you can see
that was generated by all the teams and

very thoughtful analysis.

Of just everything that's involved to
do a living building in this climate

the board I can Sergeant Miller Hall.

And you know Jose this individual at
the top is a landscape architect he

was actually two teams so
that was have a unique perspective and

he managed the professionalism
very very well and

you know here you see they sort of
broke out into little teams and

were sitting there with them just
observing what they had to say and

from Georgia Tech we had Steve Swat
there E.V.P. for admin and

finance we had senior leadership from
capital planning space management and

facilities design and
construction landscape architects

architects mechanical engineers
representatives from can data and

most of the morning was there and several
students four students at each one.

And Michael Gambon was a little surprised
by that photo op right there so

Michael's a professor in
the College of Architecture but.

Each team talked about a process and
how they arrived at their ideas and

how those ideas then formulated
into what you see out

in the atrium there into
an architectural expression

as it relates to the Living Building
Challenge this was a very helpful placard

that we had been we were at
Cooper Chris's office they had.

So we knew who was who the.

Incredible team of folks.

And a lot of thought leaders a lot
of different tools that were used to

communicate ideas.

And then after each workshop
the core team of Georgia Tech and

the computer reps we would caucus so
that we would

have a unified voice after each set of
workshops or each series of workshops and

we communicate in writing to the three
teams our observations because we weren't

talking during the workshops but we heard
some things that we felt were important to

clarify so John to conjure who's
our project manager would put all

that gather all these thoughts put it
in writing and it was really good.

At least I thought it was pretty good then

I had mentioned earlier the College of
Architecture has a design studio so

several of us sat in on the design review
of Georgia Tech we have a planning and

design Commission which are xterm will
architects landscape architects and

planners that come to campus once a
quarter for two days and they're involved

in the architect selection process and
I'm going design review process so

here you can see some of our
members there Frank Carmen.

Warren bird's back there landscape
architect Scott Jones from facilities

design and construction
Dennis Creech from south face.

Marilyn was on the jury the jury chair but
theirs and

all the students was really
pretty darn engaging effort and.

Yes and the students were
pretty darn remarkable and

what we learned and also so from can data.

There as well.

And then at the interviews usually the
interviews are pretty tightly controlled

in a small room at the global learning
center here we did it in a seventy

five seat case study classroom
to your classroom and

just and
we filled up all the seats in there.

So you're seeing our planning design
commission the upper left the members

there and some other individuals and
then a bunch of the students who are there

observing this effort and then these
are just some final renderings that

Lord Miller whole team had put
together and I'm sure you'll see more

of those in a moment so again that's sort
of the vicinity that we're working with so

we next week we'll actually have our
kickoff meeting for the project it's not

designed we have a conceptual program of
about forty two thousand square feet and

eighteen point four million dollars so

about four hundred fifty dollars a square
foot is what we're budgeting right now for

as a state cost imitation.

But with that I will so
one of the things so

this side I stole from one of
the team from what I can sergeant and

this is from ashtray and there are other
zones around the globe that have similar

climate and humid as Georgia so

not only will what we do be transportable
in our region of the United States but

other regions around the world.

With that I'll turn it over.

To these guys help.

All right B. or.

For whatever reason we are always first so
we're the first touch point where

the first interview the first
today I'm not sure why that is so

proper I'd do something
anyway whatever and and so

we're not going to repeat
the presentations we did we don't time for

that but really what we want to talk about
some of the lessons that we learned so

Perkins will worked with integral group
engineers mechanical ethical plumbing

engineers and well to be more structural
engineers and bio habitats out of

New Mexico and also along engineers for
civil locally so we were a relatively

tight team most of our team from Perkins
will work from Atlanta we had one expert

from our San Francisco office who had been
involved in two living buildings on in

the Pacific Northwest so
we're relatively tight team the.

The process really was different than
anything we've ever done before and

I think it's you know credit goes to
indeed and Georgia Tech there were and

their advisors to make something happen
fundamentally different and even I think

for people who had been involved in living
buildings before it was very different

than experience because of the touch
points because the expectations because of

the transparency of the expectations
because things like we knew with the was

going to be we mean a lot of the variables
were taken out of the equation and

I'm struck a little bit when I walk out
and in the exhibit Maybe you feel this way

too that the three teams actually ended
up with some fairly similar concepts and

maybe that's one of the things we could
talk about in our discussion today

the thing that I find most
challenging about the process

of living buildings is you have to hold so
many different things in your head at

the same time on the one hand it's an
extremely analytical in engineering heavy

scientific process it's also very
aspirational process of this and

the attributes of
the Living Building Challenge had to

do with just sort of
goals strategic goals and

then there's also a whole poetic layer and
I think that our progress.

It was made harder because normally
architecture sort of starts with poetry

and ends up with a specific engineering
concept and in this process it was

a lot of these things in parallel so
we actually used a.

This is basically how we came to
our design was through these four

main pillars and I'm just going to briefly
go through a couple of lessons learned for

us in this process.

Knowing what you were designing to was a
was a key issue and so we had to basically

engineer the building at the beginning and
come up with the the use in the demand and

the energy profile at the very outset and
and engineers and

architects knowing how to speak in terms
of energy use intensity is a relatively

new thing I would say that probably one
percent of our architects out in the world

are less even though it is much less
know what the correct units to use for

it is and so our team actually started out
by agreeing what units are we using and

what calculations are we're going to
use because sometimes when you look at

insulation which is this diagram they
switch to metric in the software is

written that way so there was some really
basic learning about what are we talking

about what does it mean to design
a twenty eight kilobit to per square foot

per year project in Georgia so just
the basic nomenclature was a fundamental

issue to get to and so
there's basically learning at that level.

We learned that the site has a lot of sun
and it turned out that the sun didn't

really change much about the project so
these diagrams are are pretty but

they they don't change much
other than we basically and

I think all the teams to this realize
you're better off putting up just in case

of a tree grows next to you but that's
about as sophisticated as it got I think

there was this site is actually quite
a dense sparsely populated site so

there's not tall buildings around in that
sort of thing so it wasn't a major factor

but we did learn the word insulation
which I did not before know before and.

Used I thought that's what you put in the
cavity wall that's made out of fiberglass

and like that just a.

Wee but we designed the systems and
so this was our diagram for

our energy systems and this was very
early on this was a whole half a day

design Charette mapping out the mechanical
systems the whole flow of how it will

work door I'm not going to go through it
all but basically on this project and all

three teams came up with this our energy
source was the sun no one proposed wind or

some other alternative so you had to
design one hundred percent by the sun and

you to figure out how to make the sun
provide all the energy needed

in our case we had a hybrid system of P.V.
electric and P.V.

thermal and so you see this up here I
won't go through all the details and

our basic strategy was to decouple
dehumidification from heating and

cooling so
I won't go in a more detail than that but

that knowledge that most buildings
are super cooled to dehumidify and

we're wasting energy to make buildings
dry and so we make them too cold and

then we actually have to heat them
back up again so it's a very very this

building we're in right now it
is heated it's cool that way

right now it's wasting energy and so that

basic model of decoupling dehumidification
something I think we learned.

Water was also extremely important
in shaping the building and

the other good news here in Georgia is we
have a lot of water it's different than

designing a living building in California
in some ways we even have too much water

because a living building has to deal
with all of its own water on site and

so we didn't have a water problem
this just shows again the use profile

of the strategies to get there and then we
had a similar sort of a diagram where we

mapped out all of the flows of water again
all the water comes from one place it

comes from the rain and then after that
it gets goes through different places and

then potentially gets reused now
probably the trickiest thing in Georgia

was black water we price spent more
time dealing with onsite sewage

issues than anything else and
more time talking about different.

It's a toilet fixtures whether we
would use composting toilets or

not I don't know that that was the best
use of our time necessarily but

there was quite a lot of debate people
somehow get really passionate when you

start talking about how they're
going to use the toilet and

go figure but you'll see when I get to the
site that this shaped everything else so

it was this was a very engineering
thing centric mindset and

this was really early on this happened
in for us in December January timeframe.

The other thing was materials we early on
had to talk about materials and materials

are relatively easy to talk about from
I think from the Red List and point

of how you keep toxins out of buildings is
something we put a lot of work into and

feel quite knowledgeable in it but the
tricky thing had to do with carbon and and

how you sourced the stuff that
you put into your buildings and

in particular we spent a lot
of time on structure and

with Walter be more did a lot of
analysis around life cycle analysis.

Of what is going to go
into the building and

it's complicated because
Georgia has laws that F.S.E.

wood is basically not a thing in
Georgia or it's illegal to put F.S.E.

or it's the governor doesn't
like as he will put it that way.

And so that's a problem and so as a result
there's not a great industry that's

providing this so where do you source
the wood the closest place you can get and

we spent time on the phone dealing with
these guys and it's not like the best

use of an architect's time but
calling around you know to

you can get them in Arkansas you can get
them in québec is that close enough and

how is that going to add up to our total
calculation it's a whole different notion

of design process we ended up
doing these analysis which.

Are which look at all
the different metrics and

this is the work of all the more and

came up with a nail laminated system that
the approach of using that the cheapest

most easily easily read a readily
available material that was assembled by

hand locally and so
it's in a way going back to construction

techniques which existed in warehouses
around Georgia hundreds of years ago.

A hundred fifty years ago where bringing
back old construction techniques and so

we were proposing it all would structure
and this is what it looks like since

there that's what it looks like
on the inside of the structure.

See it later on.

And then the site was a very
very it took a lot of time and

us you know the whole question of.

The vicinity issue I think that was a bit
of a curveball for us at least I think we

again spent a lot of time debating
upon where we put the building and

I was interested to see that most of the
teams ended up putting the building where

the master plan showed the building on the
corner and even the tech to their credit

the whole way through said you really
got to challenge the master plan but

the there's the eco Commons concept is
a very very powerful one and I think a lot

of us at least we were sort of treated
that with quite a bit of respect and

the thing about the eco Commons plan is
it's driven by gravity it's driven by

you know water goes downhill you can't
really change that on this site and and

so that really limited our ability
to you know use the corner or

this mid block section it didn't make
sense to put the building in the center of

the eco Commons at least and
so we spent a lot

of time looking at two schemes we ended up
making a choice early on which turned out

to be perhaps a bit of a mistake was to
develop a single scheme and we felt that

a living building needed to be fully fully
vetted all way through in every little

detail because we had to provide a cost
estimate in a bin model of the stuff and

we wanted to go deep into a single scheme
and and you see that the other teams

either looked at two or three schemes so
this is showing our site plan I won't

go into all the specifics but a few things
we thought about this is now going away

from the scientific towards the
aspirational is is how the site flows how

the site what shapes the site and we spend
a lot of time just on basic principle so

universal access was a major driver and
that really defined our site plan

we wanted to be able to get from
this point to this point anyone.

Without having to go up a ramp.

Of any sort so that drove that's
why there's the Serpentina

route through the center of our site it's
less than five percent it's not a ramp

it's the most accessible way possible and

universal design is a is a core principle
of the living room challenge we also.

Cited the floors in such a way that we
carefully think about entrances and

on both sides of the building making the
building on grade on different levels and

so there was quite that affected the floor
to floor heights and our structural

system which actually ended up having
much lower floor to floor heights than

a typical building because we don't have
any ceilings and so those two decisions

of how you got in and out of the building
and how successful or or major factors.

The site also has to do a lot of
work on and quicker at a time just

getting close to.

The this is just showing
that the slope and

you'll see some of these concepts later
on these cross sections to recite and

then this the site has to do a lot of work
and especially with regard to urban AG is

a major having on site or
scale jumped urban agriculture

on the site is a major piece because it's
a calculation on the density the site and

and where you put it so you end up needing
to have a lot of farm like stuff and

fortunately the Living Building allows you
to have sort of semi farm light stuff and

so in this case you can have a pollinator
metter meadow which is creating honey in

our case we use the street facade to try
to reduce the amount of treated areas so

that we would always have sunshine in
the front of the building and we carried

the idea of the garden up onto the roof
for this low section of the of the project

over here and then there were actual
farm areas berries there were integrated

into it there was reforestation the forest
and then there was the storm water so

by the time you have all those things and

then last of all the black water system by
the time each of these working portions of

the site are considered every
bit of the site is used just to.

Every bit of the site area which is very
very different than a typical site I mean

the biggest thing on a typical site
might be storm water detention but

none of these other things
are are part of the actual operations

of the building the sewage system in this
particular case the idea of subsurface

infiltration is I mentioned earlier
that there's actually too much water so

one of the things you have to
do is recharge the aquifer and

so this is using the meadow area
which is a good soil type for

infiltration of water back into the ground
this is where the black water is and

we were thinking of of State Street
a sort of a utility type street.

And then hard skate materials.

Back to materials concrete
is a no no because it's got

Portland cement which is high and
embodied energy so

we were seeking ways to both work
with the Georgia Tech masterplan but

also use complimentary materials granite
Kabul in this case actually using

concrete that was recovered from
on site and cutting it up into.

Them and then the last pieces
just on aspirations and

sort of more into poetry we went a bit
further on the whole the feel and

the idea of the project and
this is George's quality and

hence meant program to serve
learn sustain which we sort of.

Matched to indeed a Georgia Tech and the
International Living futures Institute and

that sort of drove sort of a series of
metaphors that define the project and

it going back to the first things on the
on the sun in the water we thought of this

building as a collector and it was
literally collecting energy and water and

that and that defined this whole space
I'll show you a second in the basement

of the lower level we called the engine
room because we had all these big tanks

that collected water or sewage or
different other things and then we want to

connect people in pollinate all this will
become more clear later but we got into

designing what this would actually look
like and this was the brand identity for

the project and we carried the whole
poetry of this because part of the living.

Building is not just technical it's
aspirational How are you going to inspire

the people to come into your building so

this became an identity we named
the building and the Center for

the environment which we made
up it wasn't that fancy but

anyway we actually spent time thinking
about this sort of thing so and

then I'll just quickly flip
through this actually and.

Show you this is the basement level the
engine room where I said there's a lot of

tanks and
we use that as also the bike storage and

so that bike commuters could enter
office state three here the main level

it was interesting to see of several
people split the building into two and

I think that was partly because
of the size of the program and so

you have a basically a shorter span thirty
foot span here and a free span space for

the event space that's was one
of the reasons to do that but

also somewhat different uses.

Upper Levels and then in our case we had
an outdoor classroom space that connected

at the roof level to that garden space.

Solar roof which we call the solar
collector a long section for

the building go quickly and

play a video instead of showing you
these because it sort of says it all.

Over the.

Last.

Test in my computers.

OK.

This didn't play in the interview
by the way the music.

I don't I've never actually
heard this music before.

And this sort of this is just two minutes
but it sums up most of what I just

said.

That was job suggest there was a lot of
work in a lot of different directions and

then settling on a.

And then this just tries to explain

it.

Quite a lot of time researching the
materials on the outside of the building

is a combination of a wood slat
system is what looks like wood and

using a brick material that's
made out of reclaimed.

Porcelain that's used to make
toilets by the Toto company.

White brick.

And.

A lot about I didn't talk so much about
the indoor outdoor experience but.

There's quite a few spaces in the building
where we're sort of inside or outside

the building had an extra hot heat
that it could use in the wintertime so

all of the outdoor spaces we're going
to also have radiant heated spaces so

all these terrorist spaces the space
between the roof area to create a sort of

a third domain for the building for
outdoor teaching or occupying a building

we also had extra heat so we came up
with a really simple and cheap and

funny coffee maker so we had a very
very special solar coffee maker So

anyway that's a wrap it up there and see.

Mr

Goodrich.

Yeah I think

so.

Right away it's amazing so
I'm from New Orleans and

the thing worth doing is worth
overdoing that's our motto So

that's been certainly our experience here
and my colleagues from colleagues Cooper

crew see will be joining us in
the conversation afterwards.

So our team was.

We our team consisted of three
architectural teams to three

different mechanical engineering firms
each bringing different expertise and

national local landscape firm.

Local structural and so on a local cost
accounting and each of these people

put in I think we did the accounting well
over four thousand five hundred hours

pursuing this project this competition
because people just got so passionate and

excited and it really is exhilarating and
what we all said was you know to work for

a client that sets the bar this high is
sort of the highest thing you can do as

a design professional and it's kind of
why we go to school why we work hard.

If you have your smartphone you
can please if you have a Q.R.

reader please feel free to take a snapshot
of that this is actually a Q.R.

code I can do this which will take
you to our website because we had

such a huge team and were spread over time
in space the only way to make this work

was to use the latest tools that we could
so we communicated quickly messaging using

slack and then we set up a Web site we
called the hive for capturing everything

that we had learned and formatting it and
making that available because that's what

will accelerate this transition is if we
can share and learn and make that happen.

Quickly and there is for those of you
struggling there is the web address.

So what's interesting about the Living
Will the challenge is it's absolutely

imperative that you learn from the site
you take your cue from the site and

what was so great about this competition
again was it said somewhere in this eight

acres is is is are places for buildings
and we're only planning on building

one building on this but you tell us we've
had a master plan but you tell us what

the potentials of the site were that's
telling you where the building should be.

And we take that as the key to
ultimate performance is this

code I love from Louis Schwartzberg
about that beauty is nature's tool for

survival because we will protect
what we fall in love with and so

that's our challenge as architects
to make buildings that beautiful and

to connect people through nature into
the beauty of the natural environment so

they care enough about it
to begin protecting it and.

So taking that analysis because Living
Building Challenge tell its take tells you

to set the way back machine to what was
the site before human habitation and

can you to what extent can you get
back to those flows of water soil

biological materials and so

on so this was the site a transect through
that site this is what it is today

it's all been filled in parking there
is of course the pipes underneath it.

And how could we without setting
the way back machine and

all putting on hoop skirts or
whatever it is into some form or

time how can we have habitation that the
intensity of the Georgia Tech campus and

yet also restoring the full
ecological flows so we did

as all the teams did amazing analyses and
that's all available on the website and

I'm hoping that our our fellow firms
will also make that amazing video and

the other analyses that went into
this on that everything from three D.

simulations of air flow and different
times of the year hydrological analyses

understanding that this site was in
fact not not really a battlefield it was

the place where the two armies stood
apart because nature always bats last and

being in a ravine was a lousy place
to build your own bank meant.

And one.

The lessons that we took from all this is
that the future is crowd sourced and so

what we wanted to do was use that idea and
so we sent people home over Christmas with

what we called the party pack where
the goal was here's the site and here

all the characteristics you have access to
all of the hydrological analyses and so

on we want everyone we want the structural
engineer we want the mechanical engineer

we want that cost history the cost
estimate or came up with a great party for

building so
we had fifty two different parties and

you can see them here arranged out and
this process then we realized we

started out sort of thinking that these
were to be organized were architects and

actually we organize them by their
specialty apology This is a bar

this is a courtyard this is a kick to bar
this is a village and then the more we

looked at that the more we realised that
actually they were manifesting themselves

as characteristics of the site and once we
clustered them and we looked at what were

the best ideas from each approach
to those aspects of that part

of the site we realised that we
could also look at those forms and

see through parametric modeling how each
of those buildings might perform in terms

of energy in terms of water terms of
airflow natural ventilation but then

combining these together we came up with
five major themes which were advanced of

the course of a month one was a building
that was glued onto the new parking deck

to be which we realised that waste water
treatment it could be the coolest thing if

you was the organizing principle
behind a building what if as you walk

through a building it had to be so

beautiful that the waste water
treatment was the central.

Element of beauty within the building what
would it mean to be a building parked

amongst the trees what about a courtyard
What about crossing the street

which is sort of slated for closure anyway
and yet maybe it's too good to close

what would it be to be we had a scheme
we called Snakes on a plane which was

which was a snaking building form that
followed this natural topography and

so organizing those in that way capturing
the notion of beauty behind each of those.

Seems the major party ideas and

now how can these how will these actually
work well it's time to get out the revenue

figure out how much will they really
cost to the plans make sense and so

on each of those schemes got developed to
a certain stage and then we looked at each

of the schemes and said evaluate them for
energy performance for phase ability to

what extent is it depend on other projects
and then based on that picked two schemes

to advance into different parts of
the site and bank and crossing in parallel

much as Phil mentioned there was
all this work on how shall we.

We need the kit of parts for understanding
any projects going to have to

make decisions about what are the building
systems you know should we be using what

should be of using steel should be reusing
concrete where are we going to get those

materials from how can we provide great
comfort great occupant health and great

air quality great daylight and so on what
are the tools that we can use in those how

do we make the water systems work how
we deal with the dam toilets so on and

then how do we approach have an approach
to regenerative landscapes that is one

that we can be replicated because the key
goals here were a replicable solution

one that it's not just in this one off
fancy building that we kind of stand funny

on and it works and isn't that wonderful
but instead it's a building you can go you

know we could build every building this
way so one example of that analysis was

to do using inside our revenue models we
picked a hypothetical bar a building that

we knew worked and we use that to really
drive all of the structural systems and

explorations and
the materials and so on and

looked at what's the physical weight
how much does your building weigh in.

And how much does your building cost and
so on the doing full carbon accounting and

then again when we got to the question of
materials these questions are too hard and

you can go spiral down too many

dead ends if you try to answer
every question yourself so

again taking our philosophy that
the future is crowd sourced you know there

already are Living Building Challenge
projects out there that have figured out.

Materials that meet the strict
stringent standards and

some of them to publish that some of them
were like people we knew the Soviets here

in this drawer here in their file system
but it's just too much work to take it so

our research fellow took
all of that information and

built her way of doing it the easiest way
to organize it was she built a website and

she built a website said she drew a simple
by hand saying here's a five hundred mile

radius and here's a thousand mile radius
or fifty her kilometers whatever it is and

she said I said there must be two out
there that let you draw that for you and

we'll let you search tools and so
on so this website is now available

everyone can have it it's free and in fact
we're working with a conversation to make

it freely available to everyone so
that people can find materials

that are regionally sourced that
meet those stringent criteria.

The final big challenge point is can we
make a whole campus of living buildings

in our in our climate in our both our
meterological climate and our political

climate and what we came to the conclusion
was the answer is that with present

technologies state of the state of the
shelf not state of the art we can build

campus at the campus scale densities and
building heights and still meet the net

positive energy and that positive water
goals of the Living Building Challenge so

a trivial example that is this our first
goal was to in homage to the bullet

center we took an office building in
Seattle modeled it and met the and

match the actual observed energy use of
that office tower the bullet center and

then we said what if we just move that
to Atlanta what happens what happens if

we have the much higher densities of a
classroom what happens if we have the much

higher air flows required for a laboratory
in much higher equipment densities and

then we take the program the Georgia Tech
has given us where do we

think our buildings
are going to land up and

we came out with this answer
around a DUI of twenty two so

we said that's our target now what do
we have to work with well solar panels

we know how much energy they're given
a year and that's really easy to model and

in fact let's be conservative and use only
locally sourced solar panels and less D.

rate them a bit to account for

what if it's our certification
years the dimmest cloud is.

And so on you take this fixed amount of
energy you can get from a certain area of

solar panels you can either spread it over
really spend the one floor building or

a pretty good two floor building or
twenty two three story building

or by the time you get to a four story
building you're going to start limiting

maybe you can only be an office or
maybe a residence and so on given present

technology but this is really great
news because what is Georgia Tech most

of the of the cat classroom and laboratory
buildings are three story structures most

of the residents four story structures
there are exceptions of course but

was really inspiring about this
is that it's practical and

we can live on our budget of what falls
on the rooftop we don't have to get into

a kind of heroic thing standing all
over the rest of campus now using

the astonishing here in the audience
the detailed energy modeling Ben of.

Then went to town on our bar building and
took it to the nines instead of natural

ventilation and
if the wind blows this way and

all this is working we can get to an E.U.
I'm not a twenty two but

we can get to nineteen if we use
the really fancy a check systems but

we also developed a really economical
just tweaks to conventional H.X.

systems that we could get at any U.I.
of around twenty so

we said this is great news we can get to
lower U.I. at very affordable levels and

this will allow Living Building Challenge
style buildings to be built at

scale across campuses in the southeast
the way to explore this with work through

one of our other partner firms had an R.
and D. that developed a set of parametric

analyses you can run thousands of energy
models on thousands of building options

and then you can set parameters you
could say I want in this range with

this level of daylight in that level of
player index and you can just set in and

say of the of your two thousand
building variance these twelve work and

so doing those kinds of explorations
this is where the world's going and

this is Georgia Tech spinout company so
we got into Although

let's win the science fair with fancy
mechanical systems explorations but

what it really comes down to is that
the directions are we can either go higher

complexity and higher cost of getting
that last little bit of performance.

Or we can treat conventional systems and
work in campus environments and

get almost as close at radically
lower levels of cost and so

we prefer that you know we did lots and
lots of explorations but

in the end we're able to come down with
two systems and compare them to cost

what about water it turns out and
I think consistently with what Perkins and

we'll found water is not the problem
despite the fact you have the we all

have droughts in the southeast and periods
when we think we're running out of water

we found at least that for
a Living Building Challenge building

you know here's here's what's happened
in the sites before development standard

practice we take all that water we put
it into a big pipe and say good bye.

And instead a living building can
just peel off a little bit of it and

interesting Lee We always complain
about our hot humid climate but

it's a godsend we can suck
the water right out of the air and

instead of worrying about how do
we get rid of it let's use it and

then if we're reclaiming the rest of
the water using locally used technologies

we can make buildings that in our case
we calculated that about ten percent of

the roof area was all we needed to provide
all the water this building needed.

And that surprised landscapes
we worried about using water for

how we're going to grow all the tomatoes
in our required urban agriculture we

said maybe the problem is we're not
supposed to grow tomatoes instead

our local landscape architect said you
know there's a huge range of native plants

that all produce fruits and nuts that you
will love to eat and you plant them and

once you get them established they know
how to be drought tolerant because

they're from here and you can just pick
them at the time you need them and

so on and what's really cool about them
is because they're native the local birds

will spread them for you so you can use
this project to begin seeding the rest of

the campus with an edible landscape
that will take care of itself and

be the maintainable so
all that said we build the key

to parks now let's say ultimately we
know this is an ideas competition but

can you please prove it really works in
a really works in one at least one example

of a building and we took two so
will it fit can we afford it and can we.

Integrate it with the landscape.

And therefore it's so we thought let's
look at the crossing scheme we call

the crossing of course because we like the
only street going up this great hillside

it creates a dog which we
all love dog trots and

creates this edible landscape built across
a way of handling the storm water and

so on so here's the simplest idea of
a dog trot a way to go through and

to buildings but also because
the site was a hillside how can we to

exploit that hillside to make a really
interesting place where we're in

class comments we already have one class
comments but we said what if class Commons

instead of having this hard wall what if
you could go kind of right inside outside

what would that you know as part of
an ideas competition how can you show

how a building can really make the most of
the landscape in which it finds itself and

so this is a real imagination if
you will of the class common stair

where these landscapes are working
landscapes this is actually part of

the wastewater treatment system and it's
part of the they're going to lation system

the stack system that will then leave the
building and so you can see how this is

all organized spatially with a public
outreach education research up high.

You can flip through just
a walk through here's

sort of the view of the dolly street
dog trot things like maker spaces and

then coming from the north to
the south through that doctrine.

Into embankment this was in
a sense controversial because

the rest of this eco Commons is seen in
some sense as sacred we got interested as

a kind of how many living buildings
you could put on this eco Commons and

still have it be a great
functioning eco comments and

so we said it's worth exploring this along
this edge and see what that shows you so

there's that scheme again this notion of
separate having a separate structure here

for the large span elements of like an
auditorium and there is the building and

then this building kind of
tucked in onto that hillside so

here's now we've swung around
we're viewing towards if you will

this is first Street and this is
Hemphill coming together and here's a.

Passing And here's a relationship
to that it becomes law and

here's the flow of water.

And you can see this notion of how
ventilation would then work and

how in this case solar panels
could fit all on the roof but

we decided to carry them across and create
this somewhat generous entry area so

we can look at that as this is
the ultimate gateway to the eco Commons

the first scheme the crossing scheme
we did and all timber structure

with a metal cladding and just to be
perverse This is an all steel structure

with a wooden cladding pro showing that
you could do each and showing the cost

because this is a much more heroic
structure than the simple bar crossing we

needed the cheaper structure of steel to
make us all hit the same cost target but

our gain in an ideas competition the point
was to show the range of options not

that there's only one answer is that there
are thousands of answers that all work

here is coming through when that bar kinks
that's at that point of kicking again

a gateway into the Commons and how that
outside cladding could come inside and

kind of unify the building and then
because of this interesting hilltop you

have an opportunity for the building to
appear to be a two story building here and

to walk right out and have the grand
view of the commons we developed

a sort of a label we decided that what was
the world needed was another label a sort

of nutrition label for this building and
we said what are the key characteristics

when we're trying to compare build and
we know what the it looks pretty but

how does it what's a number that describes
things so we said well here's the E.U.

I Here's the energy here's the fraction

of the floor area that is daylight
of the course of the year here's how

light how much of the glass
faces which direction

here's steel structure in this case
would skin Here's how long it takes for

the building through its net positive
needs to pay off all the carbon it

took to make it and here is if they are
it's impacted the campus Georgia Tech as

a campus has an F A R floor area ratio
of about one so a replicable solution

needs to get pretty close to that
if it's a way to build that's

consistent with where
Georgia Tech wants to go.

So our goals of beauty and performance and
our goals of beauty and performance.

The final takeaway of all this my best
friend my newest friend in this not

over and beyond my beloved friends at cons
who careers he is our cost estimate or

Susan Smith who is like we were like this
and here she came up with parties for

the project has interesting architectural
things to say during the workshops and

she and I work like dogs all the team work
with her to squeeze out the cost to make

things fit the exciting thing is she said
I've done cost us money on whole bunch of

university projects in the Atlanta area
this is what it would cost you to make of

the mill a building and if you squeezed
it so that everybody's within thirty feet

of an operable window you get this little
cost premium These are all the extra

things we associate with living buildings
the solar panels the fancy water systems

the extra restrictions on Living Building
Challenge materials advanced tweaking or

heating ventilation air conditioning
the much more expansive landscape and

then this is the as I said what's
that thing contractor she says

that's the headache factor that
the contractor will charge you

because this is going to be a big headache
but you know the wonder isn't how it much

this costs the wonder is how cheap this
is right if we can get to a twenty

percent cost premium for buildings
that are healthy replicable great for

the people in them great for the
environment that's an amazing result and

so that's what's so hopeful about
what we've taken away from this whole

experience is the amazing optimism that
we now have for where this thing can go.

So finally our closing image is my if I
really know this thing the temple to be

say this is the the Japanese temple where
they rebuild it every twenty years they

build a new copy for eight hundred years
they've been doing this so that where

the skills get transferred even though
it's a wood building you have a new copy

every twenty years and it's built from the
trees that are grown in the forest around

it the wood then is made holy by having
been inside the holiest temple in there.

System and then they build the copy
the move the whole the artifacts and

then twenty years later they'll
build it back on that side again so

that's a replicable solution for
how to live in a landscape and

to my mind what this this is the original
example of a replicable way to live in

integrated with a landscape and I think
that the Living Building at Georgia Tech

is that next example that we need and
ultimately take inspiration from that

quote There is nothing so contagious
as an example thank you very much and

one thank

you.

Let me let me first say we are we
are incredibly humbled Having

now seen the other teams talk about
their own their workers I'm Wow Like

seriously that looks fantastic and
I feel I mean I felt great and

ordered before but now wow so.

So we showed you guys the slider ID so
I won't dwell on it but

we became interested the beginning of our
exploration about what impact this could

have on the world and this is a relatively
new way of thinking we did a project in

the Virgin Islands where we did a similar
study looking around the world at what.

What similar climates might give us but we
realized very quickly on this project that

for Atlanta that was really not a viable
alternative because in the tropics you can

draw lines across the globe for latitude
and you can very easily get climate

matches but when you start to look
at the southeastern United States

you can't draw latitude comparisons
it just doesn't work and so this type

of thinking is actually relatively new
actually only published this map and

twenty thirteenth's of this type of data
internationally is relatively new and so

we want that and we're very interested
in what what the place could be in and

what all this meant we start comparing.

Please don't mind the fun lack of
translation for her original but

short of overlapping some of
the imperatives and the petals back

to Georgia Tech's original goals and I
realized I should before I continue to go.

That's up for one second and
acknowledge the rest of our team so.

You know we were teen with whole
partnership out of them out of Seattle

we were teamed with P.A. Eve who is our
mechanical engineer out of Portland

they were seen with Newcombe a boy who's
here tonight we also worked with long

engineering a bio habitats on the other
teams we're also working with Indra pro

gone and you start to see some
commonalities between these teams and

to their incredible honor didn't
amazing job of bifurcating

themselves in their offices so that we we
were working with individual teams and

there were no slip ups in terms of those
teams doing that I'm thinking about that

and looking at the similarities between
the work you might think that there

were those types of things but actually
we all came to what ended up being and

now similar conclusions without
even realizing it so it's.

News in case as well of our
structural engineer one forget them.

So in starting to look at what
makes it Lance a really unique and

special we came across affectively this
stuff through the study of an actor

architecture three things that
were of supreme Borden's porches.

Dog trots.

And treats and so there were a few other
things that went into our study but

we didn't want to go in too
far into this this tonight but

you'll start to see all this impact of.

Where we ended the starting to look at the
site in understanding what the site is and

where it came from understanding its
existing current context its future plans

understanding what Georgia Tech wanted to
do with the site with their vision is for

the site.

But also understanding where it's
been one of the things that we

were to the other teams became interested
in the history of the site and

all these store maps
labeled that ravine so

you go up to the site is not a ravine it's
quite flat right now it's a parking lot

but the idea that it was a ravine and
it had three streams force.

Streams converging on this point and

you can start to see in the section how
radically different the site is and and

how altered it is and what we can do
to try to restore that without actually

coming in with a bulldozer and rebuilding
of ravine which was now the realistic nor

practical nor
necessarily even the right idea so and

working very closely with Andrew
post on one of the things that

we wanted to do was understand
the site from their perspective and

we let that inform where we might want on
the site to put the building a series of

studies of entropy on did looking at the
site respecting the master plan comment

the idea of a large open space but then
seeing how that might want to morph and

how that might evolve as it goes and
then what it might take then to integrate

that with universal design across the site
and how all those pieces may come together

finally yielding this would starts
to look at what ultimately becomes

the obvious building Pad based
on the study which looks like

Georgia Tech did a great job because
that's right where the master plan won and

put it.

And then the sort of more
final iteration where.

We ended up looking actually through
the process really it five schemes

we used we used letters for our own.

So the first one we called a second one B.
and so on.

But what you start to see is similarly to

the other teams we wanted to
explore the entire site and

see what the options were and
see what the possibilities really were.

C. was of great interest to us this
idea of what would happen if you used

a living building as we started calling it
the limitation a little bit you know with

a parking deck slated on the master plan
to go behind it what we could do with that

as a as the barrier is the transition
zone between the eco Commons and

the and that parking deck.

The bridge trust slash bridge with.

Dalmiya running through the building and
then

the scheme easy which we are interested
in as well and seeing what might happen

if you approach the site just from
the other side to see what might happen.

We then went back and
looked at thirty six other possibilities

because we wanted to make sure we
didn't leave anything unturned.

The worst thing you could possibly
do is go down the road and

then have someone say Well
did you study that it's a.

New i forgot to do something so.

In the end we actually end settled on
developing two schemes the porch and

the dog trot and we'll see those develop
well but more in the second to those.

But this is as a as Phil was saying
this is a very engineering and

technically focused process so

in addition to being front loaded with
where on the buildings you want to put

your site it's also front loaded with Will
Do we have enough water it's front loaded

with can we produce enough electricity how
do we manage those things at the same time

working with our habitat started to look
at how big does a sister need to be and

what does that mean on the site how much
collection area do you need on the roof.

And then the age old question
what kind of toilets do you want.

And so we actually spent much like the
other teams a lot of time talking about

the difference between composting toilets
and wastewater treatment on the site and

the trick here is that actually in
this climate with this collection we

had the same challenge with both solutions
and that is that in both conditions

you have water that you are not using that
has to be infiltrated back into the site

and so you can see here that even
though the pieces of the pie or

the plies themselves I'm sorry
with composting toilets and

water towards where we're treating the
water on site the pile is different but

ultimately the same challenges there.

And so we actually decided that we wanted
to work with wastewater systems on site

because we saw it as an opportunity to
move the industry forward on the southeast

building Dennis I see has
composting toilets in it it's been

permitted in the city of Atlanta we wanted
to try to break new ground with a complete

on site wastewater treatment so we'll see
how that goes moving forward we know we do

have accomplished into it as a fallback
if we need to but we want to treat it as.

Looking at human habitation health and
happiness to get to be aggressive U.I.

targets that we're talking
about you know we can't be

in seventy degrees in fifty
percent humidity all the time and

we understand that there are a lot of
things that make people comfortable.

You've got humidity you've got air
movement you've got radiant radiation or

radiant heat coming
from different sources.

As well as your clothing level and
your activity level and so

how do you put all these things together
to make sure people are comfortable in

your building understanding that
the object is comfort the object is not

seventy degrees and
fifty percent relative humidity.

So engineers have a way
of calculating comfort.

I can't read that I'm only an architect.

So but
at the end of the day what this is below

what this is really about is about
taking a traditional comfort zone.

Which is mandated which is
shown here in yellow and

the real trick is that that yellow comfort
zone that's the Georgia Tech yellow book

standard for building design so
part of this is saying Hey guys sorry

we've got to we've got to find a new way
to approach some of these problems and so

the challenge now using adaptive comfort
in these other ideas is that you can now

expand your comfort zone substantially as
long as you meet these other criteria as

long as you have air movement as long
as you're controlling humidity etc.

So.
The other thing we were very interested in

was what can we do to create
a naturally ventilated building and

the thing about Atlanta is it a little
been wishing it's a bad rap here because

while there are beautiful days and
today is a fantastic

example where you would want to open
the windows you have pollen and

it just happens that most of the months
of the year when the weather is good for

natural ventilation the pollen is really
bad and it's getting better already but

you know things are no longer turning
yellow I think we can start to think about

washing driveways and cars and
houses and things but.

We started looking around saying well how
does nature get rid of pollen how does

how does the climate clean the air and

the answer is through rain when it rains
the pollen gets washed out of the air and

so we realized that if you took a normal.

Natural ventilation system
you could only use it about

three hundred hours a year in the city
of Atlanta without having to filter for

pollen or add some sort of
supplemental ventilation to make sure

that you could force air
through a filter etc So

what we decided to do was look at passive
downdraft towers and this became a whole

other discussion sidebar that we did went
down this passive downdraft thing and

realized that actually passive downdraft
isn't really a very good strategy in this

climate it doesn't work very well but
if you put chilled water at the top and

you allow it to condense out you can
actually start to collect conservation in

that hour and that rain would
effectively condense out the pollen and

that allows that air to come down and you
can then use that to cool your building

and voila we end up with about a thousand
hours a year so we've tripled the number

of hours that we can have natural
ventilation in the building.

We know we need to create somewhat tricity

similar This one's a little bit
more engineering and Z. is pretty

graphics about how many stories you need
relative to relative to how much P.V.

you can have but effectively we came to
say conclusion three stories is about.

Right.

In terms of materiality you know.

Removing barriers to systemic
change is really the goal here and

how do we do that and.

That finding solutions to that is
something we're going to look at moving

forward and we will definitely look
at all of the resources available and

thank you the for some of the.

Resources that that you
guys are making public and

I think there are a number of other firms
around the country as well making a lot of

this data public the idea here is not
to create proprietary information but

just to make it public to transform.

The strength of the building
industry as far as we possibly can.

So.

Every.

So we were really intrigued
by the ideas competition and

we did we did go the other route than
the bill did we did help to schemes we

actually had a whole lot more and
finally ran out of time said

there's about the most we could do the
porch was something that we really really

got excited about a lot
of the Lapid it once but

what's you know what's amazing
about it is the way that kind of.

Form fits into the the climatic landscape
of this area and what it could mean for

building it it's something that grounds
buildings in the southeast almost every

great building in the Southeast has
a porch in it could be very you know very

useful to onsite in a very low tech tool
it's a very replicable tools that we say

doesn't require high engineering
towards accomplish it

it also sort of creates this connection to
the outside frames of using the outside so

we felt there's a lot of poetics
that are associated with it so

as we get began to sort of think about
the how might they sort of work onsite

relationship there to the eco comments
where you know we became millionaires with

the the street sort of pedestrian
connection right now it's a street but

it has it with where the parking deck
is going to be in the future there

it has a real ability to
be a major pedestrian.

In action on the site course it gives us
a beautiful West Basin which is which is

exactly what you want right
every sustainable building.

A little better OK.

So you know sort of
develop this diagram and

really I guess in a way what we
noticed while we really like

the nanotechnology building support
a full building along State Street it is

it's really not the best public face of
the building it has a mechanical noise

issue State Street is sort of
developed as a vehicular street so

we really thought of sort of thought about
that is creating a little bit of a barrier

what that is allowed us to create a zone
of space sort of between the two and

to be able to develop as ports or so
on the western side of the building so

that was kind of our point of departure
this is that diagram again you kind of get

the sense of it there.

But again you sort of with that with the
program elements of the building you're

able to sort of develop this this kind of
armature that we connected the rest of

the building to creating student
spaces there in the middle creating

the collaboration spaces that now look out
on the pedestrian way connect to the eco

Commons and then really sort of try to
celebrate this pedestrian thoroughfare

that we saw as a great opportunity
on site down the road.

Looking at it from the landscape point of
view we really I guess are pro-choice we

felt was very integrated I'm sure
everybody you know proposed an integrated

design approach and

I know everybody did do that but I have to
say we started with the site I don't think

we ever had more than three conversations
with involving our landscape architect and

they didn't go too far without talking to
us so there really was a lot of back and

forth about how to unit the building
into the natural landscape one of

the most I think important things that
we really felt about the site was this

this dark green zone that you see that's
sort of the the vestige of the site that

hasn't been changed that much that's may
not be absolutely native soils there but

they're very very close to it
there's some of the old growth trees

it's the it's part of the site that
sort of connects most effectively to.

History and

we felt that that was almost one of
the strongest features the trees that

Josh were mentioned as one of the sort of
defining features of the Atlanta area so

all the schemes really kind of treat that
almost as a as a as an architectural

element to the way we approached it as we
sort of settled into this final corner

landscape we were really interested in
those other schemes in fact the embankment

one we were extremely interested in at
one point and then sort of we came to

the conclusion that the feeling was that
it owned eco comments a little too much so

we found that this corner site was
probably the right level of deferential

quality that it was connected to the eco
Commons could connect could make

a case with it but at the same time didn't
own it and that's kind of where we were we

took off looking at the rest of the site
there are sort of other natural habitats

depending on grade depending on water they
make a lot of sense so we felt like what

you really are trying to do is kind
of restore that in a logical fashion.

So looking at the mechanical diagram
solid just doing a little detail.

Think we're probably time so
we will do a vector we using the thermal

comfort that I was talking about before
we divided the building effectively into

three different zones a modestly condition
they fit what condition they're not at

a sort of intermediate zone and so
the idea was that the middle with.

The atrium space the double
height would be predominantly

based would be heating only the classroom
buildings would be sort of in

classroom pieces of the building
the labs would be more treated and

then the auditorium would be the most
treated because it has the most

challenging criteria in terms of loading
numbers of people once it serves and

we did feel that it's a term that I
think I first heard from Dennis but

this is the state of the shelf kind of
technologies things that are replicable

things that are not at the crazy high
price point that are put together

normal technologies that are put together
in a much smarter way and that was

generally the sort of thing that we used
for a mechanical approach to the project.

And the sort of.

Screwed up text kind of an isometric
drawing about really just thinking about.

The holistic systems of how
you deal with the rainwater.

Was an important part of the project and
we felt needed to be sort of a story told

that was visible to the outside from
a kind of head to head agogic viewpoint.

And these are just a couple
images again you know.

Say the use of sort of the steel
columns they're trying to really be

minimal with the.

Suggesting how minimal the use of
materials are you don't need any more

materials than you actually need was one
of the things that we really tried to

kind of embrace throughout the process.

And the notion of the transparency
through the through the interior spaces

the connections the we felt that this
is very important that this building

be a place a laboratory for great ideas to
happen in the future and to provide those

kinds of connections to the outside and
those places for Cap collaboration and

possibility was something that really
drove a lot of our interior thinking.

And again this is that view of
the of the western portion and

we did spend a lot of time talking about
what do you do when the sun is low there

what we actually have an idea and
you can kind of make it out in

there a little bit but it's a notion
of sort of the glass electrical for

magic glass that would change the science
that you could actually shade that

I don't know why we would want to
anything other than a western portions or

that wraps around it makes a great space
and we actually think it would work and

you know if you could solve a Westport
you can solve a lot of things.

So we also looked at the bridge try was
started out as a dark try to Cambridge and

we eventually thought
it was a bird strike.

It's just something we were really engaged
with we like the idea of being able to

pass to the building of students who
are on campus not even having to go into

the building to kind of get the experience
of the building felt it felt like just

something that was right to us and also
with Dolly street being right there and

becoming a pedestrian when
it felt fairly natural

just a couple images of that
sort of sort of concept.

Where you can see how it would be

connected one of the things that we
thought was fabulous about the scheme is

that it actually bridge over down the
street and it landed on the natural knoll

it got a little closer to the economy
as we didn't think it owned it but

we do feel like it connected to it and
gave you the opportunity to almost zero.

To look at so it was something that we
thought was different a different set of

ideas that we could explore.

Sort of the diagram there again you get
the pedestrian the street right through

the middle the building views into that
school student collaboration space there

in the middle so again if you can even if
you're not it related to the building you

experience what's in there
in your treat in Brockport.

A similar kind of landscape
diagram not vastly different.

About the campus edges really
belonging to the campus but

the rest of that trying to be returned
as much to sort of the natural state.

Mechanical system this was a little
different not not vastly different but

it in uses the downdraft chimneys.

Patent still pending on that.

But we thought that that was a really
neat idea it was something that could

could makes it probably would
make sense a classroom but for

the sort of the temperature higher
temperature swing spaces the student area

there in the middle perhaps could be
a strategy that could be employed to

expand that window of natural ventilation.

Sort of a little different strategy
there on the on the landscape but

the notion that as you walk through
the building you see experience sort of

the rain gardens and you really see this
as you work your way through the building.

And into your views this connection that's
the pedestrian action right through

underneath a building with a bridge
over the top that lands on the knoll.

And just a view of that.

So as any good engineer would do we
did try to analyze to see schemes and

talk about them as ideas because there's
there's never a right answer there's

there's always you know pros and cons with
everything that you do but we felt that

there were really good aspects about
both and we really wanted to talk about

it sir from that level I won't bore you
with that but we did kind of go through

a rigorous process surprisingly we found
that the scheme performed very similar

from an energy point of view I would have
thought maybe that the Western did not but

with the with the roof and with the deep
setback it had less surface area it seems

to have balanced out in
kind of a surprising way.

I'll just let you read this.

There were a couple pounds.

Immediately because don't get on
the slides with the remote I don't have

the time to share.

This one of course we what we did
you know like about is that we

felt like it would be could to have one
scheme that was oriented the way you

should orient the building along
gated around the proper access but

it was it was actually very interesting to
find out that pending on the other things

he did it didn't have anywhere near
as large an impact as one would have

thought it would have had and I guess
probably came to the same conclusion.

He says the pollen fill.

It does have a higher skin area ratio.

But that.

Is our.

I guess we'll start down discussion.

Thank.

You.

But.

Wow pretty darn good stuff let's give
these guys another round of applause

hope of.

As you can imagine you know these
are just Cliff Notes version

of three months of engagement
that the teams did and

they had two hours to present an hour to
have to present than thirty minutes for Q.

and A And
that's a sort of take several months and

four thousand hours in some
cases of information and

consolidated it was a remarkable
feat in doing that yet again for

today I really commend you all you
know as an architect is really

I think we're all fairly uniquely
lucky because I don't know of

any other profession where you would
see something like this event tonight

where the three teams who participated
in the process of competitive process

would come together in a very collegial
and professional environment.

And really have mutual respect for
one another so

it's it really is pretty neat In fact
we're going to be doing it again.

Thank you.

And what was interesting after we
conducted the three interviews

we deliberated for an hour and
a half whatever and or

two hours it was really really hard and

John to conjurers not here
tonight had to have the.

Responsibility of contacting
all three teens and

it's always a difficult thing because
all three are extraordinary We learn so

much from from each of them and the
relationships are really pretty special.

You know but when we when we first
shortlisted from in December from five to

three we had all three teams come into the
room together to debrief them collectively

which was fairly unique and I think it
was either said well can we all introduce

ourselves to one another and we did and
it was really pretty special so I'll just

ask a couple questions to get it started
we have a couple of mikes around the room.

So one simple question and
I think it's pretty evident that all

three teams are really deeply committed
to environmental stewardship and

sustainability in doing the right thing
and really raising the bar and and

we're delighted to have learned and gone
through this journey with each of you but

how challenging was it to not have a site.

Well.

I did to this earlier I think we all
three teams price spent a lot of time

on on the site issues and

obviously some you know fifty schemes
some of the slides and so it was it

time issue more than a challenging
issue I think actually the site.

Having the conversations around which
site to use or which part of the site

forced us to think about the relationship
between site and building and I think.

Three teams clearly took that opportunity
even though we kind of ended up in some

similar places that exercise I think was a
was a positive one I take it so much that.

For me the dynamic that I
saw that was a challenge was

the tension between wanting to be
completely site responsive and

yet one of the goals of this competition
was to be completely replicable and so

the dynamic there is if you build
the box well boxes can go anywhere and

on the other hand you know the artistry
that L B C asks you to do is to really.

We live such a separated life from nature
and we pretend we can just mow it down and

shape it and so on and so the idea of
making a building that responds to all

the things that the site offers is very
very attractive the black hole is that it

sucks you down a roll of well that's nice
but that only works because you have that

one little site and therefore it's it
can't be used what would you guess but

I mean I think that's exactly the same
kinds of questions we had to our best of

our abilities we tried to draw out a
Georgia Tech with their preferred site was

they they did a terrific job of
stone merrily answering anything.

So we we were we spent time well did you

did you check out their body language
how they moved on that what.

I swear.

They were YOU THINK YOU DID like that
what not but it allowed us to I thought

was great about it was it it forced
us to look at different areas that

offer different opportunities and
different ideas some of which came back

around to the original site we actually
didn't think the masterplan site

course we wanted to go off the beaten
path and go off the reservation but

after we worked and worked it it
started to make a lot more sense but

a lot of the ideas that we found on the
other locations came back in to the design

is pretty cool yeah I actually think
it helped us relative to site and

building integration I think the idea
of being able to effectively master

plan conceptually all seven and a half
acres instead of worrying about just one.

More of it whether it's an acre site or
two acre site whatever it happens to be

allowed us a certain freedom because
we could then draw our own site down so

if we needed to as you say on one of
our schemes sort of take over the hill

to make the site mapping
work as you go down and

keep it all under five percent we had
freedom to do that it was the challenge on

fixed budget was keeping our landscape
architects from reimplementing

the entire eight acre You mean
the same landscape architect.

And so we sort of find you can draw that
plant here is the actual boundary were our

cost estimate is taking responsibility and
I think before the site was even announced

or the location was announced Bruce had
the idea of you know what if it's not even

on that site at all but if we moved it to
the east side of the interstate because it

was going to be the first living building
in the southeast and that would have so

much visibility and we thought you
know it's a completely different thing

we actually thought that maybe the site
was to not challenging enough and

in many ways the Living Building Challenge
many of you know

include scale jumping up or Ginny's but
none of us I don't think use scale jumping

because we didn't have to we had plenty of
space and so the real challenge was a cost

issue as you said Zeke not using too much
of the site because and you couldn't prove

it was affordable so in a way this site
could have easily handled three or

four or five living buildings
as I think in May So.

Well the good thing is this will not be
the last building Georgia tech designs and

builds so we will have other opportunities
that will be more challenging.

So lucky for

everybody who's interested can say it's
not challenging is it we're not doing.

It so the other question I'll ask sort
of turn it over to the audience and

folks here you know obviously
all the teams put in

a extraordinary amount of time
researching and preparing and

gathering data how do you think
this process the ideas competition

will impact the D.N.A. of you individually
and collectively affirms and I suspect.

I'm assuming everybody in your firms and
all the teams knew about this project so.

Maybe just sort of talk about how you
think this will impact your work going

forward for other clients Yes Not so

much the competition aspect of it but
the requirements of the project itself and

of the Living Building Challenge You
really can't unknow who are on learn what

we've learned through through the process
about healthy available healthy and

available materials here in the southeast.

The water isn't an issue whether it's
a different kind of issue that everyone

expects what we can do with our resources
what we can do with our building systems

and what's responsible for you know many
of us do a lot of work in the education

and institutional sectors and they have
a responsibility to the public to families

to children to the communities and
now that we know how to do this and

what it takes it would be irresponsible
for us to try to do something less.

You know coming from the Perkins and will
team we we approach this because we did

have so many internal team members and
we had very few outside consultants and we

thought it was where an interdisciplinary
firm this is how we work but really when

you get to the intensity that this this
competition brought to the project

it's like we address competitions
that we do where you have that effort

you have that big push everybody comes
together at the beginning of it and

then you get a normal project and it's
like well OK we'll bring the engineer and

you know maybe a month from now
maybe a little bit later and

I think this is really emphasizes the
importance of getting those connections

early so that you do have
the landscaper and the cost estimate or

you know working at the very beginning
of it one of our energy modelers kind of

right at the point of tears the morning
of the pitch and he said this is

in school how they said real projects
were happening and no project ever.

Her workout before is actually.

I think I'd I'd echo what Paula
said you know architects I think

historically have brought in their
consultants when we're ready for

them to come to our office and
what this showed us is that one there

unbelievably brilliant minds out there
that we really don't tap into very well.

And the input that they offer can
be transformative to the design for

an architect.

I see some structural
engineer shaking their heads.

But it's true in though our firm has
been committed to sustainability for

a long time this really did I think
opened everybody's eyes to the importance

of trying to get more people around
the table early and to try and

sustain that conversation to where what
would normally be the evolution and and

rollout of the design really ends up being
a more thoughtful and informed decision it

may not change necessarily the design that
that you come up with but it certainly.

Lets you know why you're doing something
I think to a degree that right now

we haven't done I wanted to speak also to
the competition how this is different from

other cars with this that different from
over the next how is this competition

different from other competitions and

it's that we were fortunate to be
in a three way competition for

an Art Museum in Greenwich Connecticut but
it was all just a design competition and

we were to come up with two to each
team was to do two designs but

just to knock that selection panel
socks off with how beautiful it was and

it had to be functional in the sense of
from a space planning perspective but

when I tried to kind
of you know my way and

they said no it's tour of the it's too
early it's too early we have to win

the job by just engaging them
on the beauty of it and.

You know what will this.

Sustainability later and so the good
news is we won that the bad news is

that the client by then is in love with a
particular building form and so on and so

the nice thing was that because this
there were harms were set up in this way

it meant that it had to
work mechanically and

also it had to work from cost and
I don't know how serious y'all took it but

we took the costing way seriously
as if they would check our work and

it was for in the model you
had to turn in the model and

it was very it was very refreshing because
normally the whole thing as well they'll

fall in there with how beautiful it is and
they'll go find some extra money and

when they said no no then it's not
replicable doesn't matter how beautiful

is if it costs any more than this
it's not a replicable solution and

that was a great inforce or
that made everyone involved get

excited the other thing it did was we used
it internally was we did in winning that

competition fair museum there were the
kind of the four golden children who do

really beautiful renderings who got
to kind of drive that process and

we said and they had the ending enmity

of everyone else who didn't get
to be with the cool kids and

instead we said no on this one anyone who
wants to build time to this project and

by doing that it really was kind of
transformative within our firm in so

there was no jealousy which is actually
something that happens in public places

and firms that sudden like to maybe open
up we have there's a microphone here and

maybe if someone can run this one

Michael Campbell in the back
when you want to run the supply.

Yeah Yeahs this way but

if you can hear.

Is a song great.

Forgive me if I'm repeating this but
there's one more competition that unfolds

Friday and Saturday in the College of
Architecture which is the Portman prize.

Which has tracked the Living Building
Challenge at the same time so

we have a group of students who are
working on that I want to make sure that

you all knew you were invited it's
in the him and research building.

The home of architecture program but
my question to the panel is

what would you change or where do you
see the real sticking points now in this

Living Building Challenge three
point zero I think everyone here

is either familiar with it many of
us are super familiar with it now so

having been through this exercise maybe
you could talk constructively critically

a little bit about what
you've learned along the way.

It if you like if you'd like to I
think Michael the one of the things

about the Living Building Challenge is
that it continues to raise the bar and

they continue to make it more and more
difficult and you see that with lead and

other other systems as well but
things that in the earlier versions of

the Living Building Challenge could easily
get exemption for are all of a sudden

No Can you got to you got to make this
work are our part of the whole who

can be here tonight are renovating
their office right now and they are.

Going to Living Building Challenge
certify their office space and one of

the challenges for having is you know as
the designers of the board Center they had

metal studs in the building and they got
metal studs that met the Red List and

everything worked well the new version
of Living Building Challenge has removed

certain exemptions on certain
chemicals and the galvanising and

a lot of metal studs has hexavalent
chromium in it which is now no longer

extended even in small quantities so they
can't get metal studs for their office.

So it is continuing to make
it more challenging and

it was a challenge to begin with and
it's and they continue to raise the bar

we had a couple of discussions and during
our process about whether they may have.

They may be raising the bar faster than
industry keep up right there doing this

and the industry is doing this and so
how do you start to close that gap I'm.

Just following up on that a little bit but
some of the things that changed between

version two in version three
are like the equity paddle and.

When we were going through it
we said we had a chart up or

we were documenting how we were meeting
all of the pedals all the imperatives and

we're putting stickers on it and you know
there were a couple of imperatives where

we just do a dollar sign and stack up
there because it was the thing that you

made a donation to or you offset something
or you made a payment or things like that

and I know that there probably in version
three as placeholders just because

they are so different than Version two
was and maybe it is you know market

transformation they know that this is
an issue we don't know how to fix it yet

we don't know how to address it but
at least it's starting the conversation so

right now if it says make a donation and
that's you know part of the equity then

they're people until it's putting it out
there and you know if you don't see it

you don't see Leave talking about that
too self-referential at the moment but

they sort of had to do that so the declare
a label it is part of their system or

you know they'll sell you a wildlife
preserve that they may you know it's all

in a little Jess but that's but

that's a reality where the market is and I
think maybe becoming more flexible we for

instance we're looking at Habitat exchange
and wondering why you know it could

if there was more a flexible framework
Georgia Tech could have its own habitat

exchange as opposed to paying you know
someone fifteen thousand dollars and

it's someplace you never have any
personal connection to we did

an exploration of the idea of connecting
this landscape of Georgia Tech

to a damaged and
being restored landscape in Guatemala.

And a lot of base charity that
restores forests there and

it turns out it's the habitat of a bird
migrates between these two sites and so

the thought is we're actually
connected and the notion that we could

make that connection sort of real
with something we were proposed.

Pushing on I'm going to say that to
me the standard is very rigorous

in some areas and wildly kind of strangely
easy in other areas meaning you're within

thirty feet of an operable window done
right well wait a second you know not all

thirty feet of an operable window is
going to give you great daylight use so

on and in without getting it's kind
of nitpicky as the we used all

the tools you use on THE LEAD building to
kind of figure out they live autonomy and

so on the other one that I think is
the ultimate challenge where I think

things will have to go is we did a survey
of our thirty one story office tower

we had we got one of those pieces of
equipment can actually measure Vo sees and

there's all this great research
about below sea levels and

packed in your productivity and mental
function within hours of exposure not long

term cancer risk and she kind of
went to every floor receptionist and

sort of said I'm looking for
a job you have a new job and

washer was there she was sampling
the air at every floor right and.

And we found this phenomenal range
floor to floor in one building with one

mechanical system in the actual air
quality and that's due to how the building

is occupied and now it's not yet part of
it's sort of living building the bomb

of existing building operation maintenance
How do we make of that the crap

we're bringing into our buildings isn't
going to kind of totally defeat the kind

of quality of indoor environment we're
trying to achieve so I think that that's

the next frontier but when we're according
to some other questions raise your hand so

we know where the questions are so Dan can
grab the mike in the but I have a question

about this living building chant challenge
as I see you what you're doing is bringing

nature as it is into the building
do you think about biomimicry

where you take chance late the adaptations
of biology into architectural solutions.

Even to say too much other than yes I was
actually part of the mechanical system and

one of our strategies was making
a building breed like an insect which

is to say that insects breathe throughout
their entire surface area they don't go.

Bretheren mouth and so we talked about
all the different technologies that would

enable that kind of level of micro and yet
still doing energy recovery on the air and

so we think that that notion of finding
all the ways of mimicking at different

scales what's happening inside
a building are pretty cool I know that.

As well I think you use this is the logo
for Living Building Challenge it's

a flower of the idea of the metaphor of
a flower transforms into a building so

those are part of the challenges so
I think where were we were most interested

in it is where it has substance where
you are actually mimicking the processes

sometimes you see it sort of become more
of a graphic representation and while that

could be interesting that really
wasn't where we were so interesting.

Question.

So my name is James actually work for the
International of ing future Institute so

I kind of snuck in and I did appreciate
the feedback and commentary to do

everything OK so far no to absolutely get
a rule of I've actually never seen a group

of architects speak so positively about
the Living Building Challenge before.

It's great.

So I just want to make
one comment I actually

got interested in the Living Building
Challenge because of a similar project at

the University of Washington
the bullet center.

And so to encourage all of you you know at
the university as the project develops to

continue to engage the students I was
student at the University of Washington

it was sort of our senior thesis project
and that's how I actually started working

four years ago at the institute So
what you guys are doing I think is really

incredible specially how
you're gauging the students.

We're also teaching a workshop on the
Living Building Challenge on Friday here

in Atlanta that's why I'm down here if
anybody's interested to get more details

to get more discussion about how
the program could be improved or

modified the question I had is because
I actually have worked on a lot

of projects in the south
in the southeast for

the Living Building Challenge and
it can be really challenging.

And I've gone into a lot of meetings
with a lot of architects and

engineers that say Well James you know
you just can't do it here the Pollin

the humidity the culture and that's one
of the reasons I think this is such

an exciting project to find a new
type new new way of building for

the South so I was curious and
in some of you kind of touched on how your

projects explored new features or
new strategies.

Overcome some of those play space
challenges so I was just curious if we

could tease more of those out and
how those could be applied to

all the buildings that come after this so
I think yes.

No question the Living Building Challenge
has been thought of as a Cascadia region

thing for some time and
that's a very positive thing and.

This is been a lead down for

a long time but
I think that's already changed I think.

Your earlier question I think that's
at least in our firm's mind and

I think the whole panel of your we don't
see this as all that difficult I think

that some the strategies will be different
mainly because it's hotter in water but

besides that.

Maybe some of the building industry
in code officials issues so

there's probably the three pillars
you know advocacy and water and

then available products but I actually
think it's quite a doable project and

again I get so they can do it but.

It should be really easy.

To do we know that so.

They want one of the interesting things
that we really came across is that it's

not just it's not really just a design
exercise it's going to require a lot

on the construction side and frankly
it requires a lot on the other side

they're very significant participants in
the process and I think Georgia Tech has

recognized that they are going to
change some things that they do they

are looking for what things make sense
going forward but it is an organiser.

It is a deep change to come out of this.

You know I think looking at Israel's
it was interesting too because

we were able to find a lot of things that
we didn't know were out there as much

as they are out there if see what is
of course the big obstacle here because

there's an executive order
against it pretty much and

then there's no availability of it
because we don't have any of a C four so

what do you do that in you know we were
looking at what else is F. A C. certified

as far as what is concern so then you
start finding the reclaimed materials and

you know the sink or
logs that we thought were so terrific and.

You know Doug was going to buy how many
truckloads of wood that he is a good thing

we told you not to buy that would you know
it was already to buy twenty two thousand

dollars worth of the logs from
the bottom of the Mississippi.

Some other questions.

That is.

There is a creature a south facing
a quick comment and then a question

in your work is brilliant so
this comments not directed at you but

will make you will adopt you as an Atlanta
I just want to make the comment that.

For many years we've been trying to
demonstrate that the talent pool here

in Atlanta around innovative design and
construction engineering

is deep as anywhere in the country and
I think this panel illustrates that point

better than anything we can say thanks

Living Building Challenge encourages
what's called scale jumping.

Curious what each of
the teams thought of that and

what the opportunities might be for that.

So.

One of the things that we looked at
scaled up the opportunities throughout

the process but one of the things that
we kept coming back to was that all.

The mandate from George
attack was to fully certified

the Project for
the available construction.

And so the idea of skilled
jumping sort of working within

the rules of the competition doesn't mean
that it really when we get to it we might

not change this but the idea of saying
well what happens if we put the P.V.

panel on top of the parking deck for
example and on the scheme where we had our

building in front of the parking that we
looked at it could be generating power and

charge cars were all there in the deck and
he could we find some synergy there and

the the what we sort of discovered was
that if we did that we'd have to allocate

the P.V. costs to the parking decks as
effectively removing it from our project

available funds and
then we wouldn't have it for whatever

else we were doing with it in this case we
were collecting water on that surface for

drinking and so we did we would have had
to had another roof surface then and

so we sort of shied away
from them in the end

you know sort of within the definition
rules in this competition and

project we didn't think it was
feasible to rely on another

project a future project that may or
may not go forward to solve something

that was that was ours to solve so the
easy example if that is at Emory is you

know they have an amazing the water hub
for doing wastewater treatment and it's

like they're building it right next door
why don't we just use it and the answer

this is sort of the kind of the little
Gaussian pill box constructed around this

con around this con competition was
a replicable solution shouldn't

take too much advantage of an unusual
thing that's happening right next to or

or something else about the context so
because of that you

know that's an example of one that would
be natural to jump at scale there but

we were we kind of stuck our
toe in the water where we.

We were interested in that campuses
universities are many many campuses

have chilled water and so we explored
a strategy where we kind of took

advantage of the chilled water loop we had
to give back the water that the chilled

water was using to do the chilling as well
as provide the electricity for it and so

on in our share so we thought that that is
replicable in the sense of it's actually

a common condition to have a campus that
has a chilled water so we looked at that

little notion of it but again given
the dynamic of have a project that can

be certifiable and replicable because
what if you know if this is a model for

you know how a commercial you know
mixed use building might get developed

you know will not every one is going
to have eight hundred thousand gallons

a day water treatment facility
building built next door so

are they going to cow look askance at and
so that was kind of given the rules

of the competition it kind of actually
put a limitation of skills on

mother questions one up here in
the front to appear in the front and

then we'll.

Have these over here.

I this is less York from the C.D.C..

I would like to hear you guys
talk about advice you would give

other potential clients about how we
could get ready to do something like this

as obviously you guys had great teams but
part of your team was your funder and

also Georgia Tech so let us know what
we can do to be ready for you guys.

Start up by getting the gentleman
from the island to come over and

do the seminar at the C.D.C.
that makes a lot of sense and so.

It's you know I mean personally as you're
the federal government you have more money

than everyone together you know.

We've already heard Georgia Tech talking
about how they envision adopting.

Attributes on all of
their projects because

many of the things as we have also.

Are actually relatively easily done and
aren't the twenty percent

premium items and to me that be the way to
start is is an institution like a C.D.C.

or campus can just say you know
material help has to happen for

the water components there's absolutely
no reason why you wouldn't do these they

don't necessarily cause or many of them
don't whereas maybe you're not going to

power all of your buildings one hundred
percent by people takes right now but

you can certainly prepare for that so I To
me it seems like an institutional plan

to move in that direction would start
by education training and then a.

Lot hanging fruit strategy and then and
then I'd honestly think there's

most of this is quite achievable
with no cost increase.

Questions I think there's a big advocacy
issue too don't know if you hard but

the Senate just passed a bill today that
would pretty much take all of the twenty

thirty emission requirements
out of federal buildings so

everything that went into effect with.

Energy.

Independence and
Security that is gone now from that so

it's a huge step backwards that was
signed by President Bush you know and

we've come so far we thought and
now it's got it so talking you know him or

he had a big advocacy program about
the water we know there's advocacy around

materials and I think that's the important
thing having those leadership projects so

that you can engage the officials so
that they can see that it works and

then being the example for other people
my favorite Amory Lovins quote is

if it exists it must be possible and
this project can be that

case you know in addition to doing that
laying the groundwork by showing that it

actually exists already and we know what
it costs and by being transparent about

that we can make it possible for
others questions over here.

Have a question in the probably
perfect we'll have a people here also.

While leaving building
Have you saw the D.V.D..

People these are.

People.

Who think the sustainability.

Will help our Earth Day coming up soon I
don't think Earth curlier what they were

here was not right it's really him and
sustainability so

all humans are like the sort of
presentation about temperature control.

So we can only guess you to this seventy
two degree of a perfect temperature which

is as happy as sixty eight
as happy as seventy five me.

So all humans evolve with
the condition we seek for

short term comfort often bad for
long term help us.

So in the design of have you thought
of that through the little C.D.C.

always go for the prevention there
are things I'm not sure we want the bend

the truth upon the new Miltie they're
not bad for you you need to grieve for

your skin will they tease.

For example.

That's my question whether if you saw the
bit you would consider as a medic that.

One of the topics that we looked at
a lot was the micro biome it's a really

interesting area and there are a lot of
definitive results that don't agree with

each other like some definitive results DO
THAT point out that as you know we are I

think eighty percent of the number of
cells in our body are not human cells

right there are the other things that
live in us by by cell count right so

we're really just this thing
that walks our mitochondria and

all the other things that live in
our gut around and they thank us for

the ride we're just beginning
to understand that right and

we're just beginning
understand how complicated.

And variable human experience is and what
it takes to provide for health I think

the best thing we can do and what torches
and other an accolade responses show

is there are these elements that provide
for a variety and allow people to move.

These different conditions according
to what's appropriate right and

so if the twentieth century was about
providing the uniform standard condition

thirty foot candles.

Seventy degrees fifty percent
relative humidity twenty four seven

the twenty first century will
be about really reimagining

you know this access to variety it's
part of what will keep us awake

it's part of what will keep us healthy and
so the best thing we can do in buildings

is make them responsive invariable and
I think that you know some of

your work you were talking about
exactly that idea and I don't.

I do I do think that is very much it I
mean part of being alive is that it's not

the same temperature the same day the same
class I mean it's different every day in

kind of hermetically sealed ourselves
in our office buildings and

I think to change that paradigm is
something we really want to do it's

who we were we toured the bullets and

when we were working on this project
with Miller Hall and they have an X.

basically it's a quasi enclosed fire
stair that is the way you go and

get up and down the building that you have
an elevator but he barely find it but

it's it's not the same temperature
every day so the winter it's colder

it's not too cold but it's colder in
summer it's a little bit warmer but

it makes you sort of experience that on
a daily basis it's just there's a certain

amount of poetics in that and I'd like to
see more of our stuff get back to that

I think at the end of the day and
some other people to this earlier

there is a cultural fundamental
cultural shift that has to happen and

in order for that for these types of
strategies to be accepted right and

they have to do in part with you know you
don't wear a tie when it's eighty degrees

out but it goes much beyond that it goes
to how we work it goes to our daily habits

it goes to how we get from place to place
B. from our air conditioned house to our

air conditioned car to our air conditioned
office and how we break that cycle as well

so and you know Georgia Tech is a great
partner to try to break through

some of those cultural barriers one
last question here thank you and

then I hear the presentation
correctly that in the atrium areas.

In a pretty highly glazed building
that you had heating only for

space conditioning and that is
something that all the teams consider.

We did look at yes that's correct
that's what we were we were looking at

the idea was that those were
the centers of the building they were.

They were larger volume and so

we're trying with radiant heating you're
trying to in the winter you're trying to

keep people comfortable relative
to your stratifying air so

they're comfortable bottom right in your
as you go up to the air can get warmer and

that's OK in the summer you start
to look at that ceiling fans

air movement and you're talking about
proper shading and other things to to keep

the space comfortable and again the spaces
based on our models could be and

not to go too far into the dark but you
could be in the low eighty's easily and

as long as you have adequate air
movement you'll be comfortable and

so again it's about breaking through this
idea that you have to that you can't be

comfortable if you're seventy five degrees
now they're saying you know we did

a carbon neutral energy solutions lab over
an hour north of a research area campus

it has a high base space it is not
condition we have radiant heating and

it's ventilated and
I've been in there in the summers when

it's ninety five degrees outside and
it's about seventy degrees inside and

we started with the premise that we would
not do we would not condition the air but

if it didn't work then we could always
add the air conditioning and it's worked.

So I'd like to you know
thank George a tech and

the continue to fund I want to thank all
of the participants and all of you who

come here to listen to these conversations
and the entire collective group of

folks for your willingness to share
your experiences and your ideas and

lessons learned as we collectively try
to make the world a better place and

very specifically in Atlanta Georgia and
thank you all so.

Thank you.