Tag Archives: living buildings

21-story First Hill ‘Living Building’ up for design review

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Seattle’s streamlined design review process seems destined to keep the city’s “stay home” population entertained. There is another comment deadline on a central city project up for administrative review this week.

Today is the final day for comment on the proposed 21-story, super-green “Living Building” apartment tower being planned for the corner of Madison and 9th where the Quarter Lounge, George’s Delicatessen, and the former home of Lotus Asian Kitchen stand.

CHS wrote about the project from developers Sustainable Living Innovations and architect CollinsWoerman last in February as it was geared up for a postponed design review. Continue reading →

Design review: First Hill ‘Living Building’ will climb 21 stories and be constructed like LEGO, piece by piece

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CollinsWoerman’s designs for 901 Madison

Madison Street’s next contribution to Seattle’s ultra-green Living Building program could be a 21-story apartment tower set to rise in unique fashion on First Hill. The development takes its first bow in front of the East Design Review Board Wednesday night.

Plans for the 901 Madison project detail a more than 170-unit building — around 45 of those units will be affordable using two housing programs, MFTE and Mandatory Housing Affordability — with new street level retail, and, yes, even though it will be super green, underground parking for 40 vehicles.

Developers Sustainable Living Innovations and architect CollinsWoerman plan to make use of the city’s Living Building incentive program that will allow two additional floors of height in exchange for meeting ecologically friendly building standards. The two floors, by the way, would boost the total units in the building by about 12%

The building is planned to generate 105% of the power it uses through a mixture of wastewater heat recovery (using the heat from hot water that goes down the drain), efficient heat pumps, and solar panels. They are also exploring the idea of using wastewater heat from nearby buildings. Continue reading →

As Hill’s Bullitt Center continues to stand alone, Seattle looks to open up Living Building program

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We’re in the middle of a construction boom and the city is as green as they come but Seattle’s program designed to foster showcases of environmental best practices only has one true Living Building to show for it. But a new package of changes to city codes could result in more buildings like Capitol Hill’s Bullitt Center finally sprouting up around Seattle.

“The large amount of construction we’re seeing in the city right now and strong commitment from not only builders and architects in the community… it’s surprising we haven’t seen more Living Buildings in the program,” City Council Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee chair Rob Johnson said last week as the group passed legislation hoped to kickstart the program.

Many of the proposed changes are technical adjustments to better align city laws with recent changes in state laws or to streamline city buildings codes. A few are also designed to make buildings more energy efficient generally, such as requiring high-efficiency heaters, or making buildings ready for solar panels.

But a number of them are designed to make Living Buildings like the Bullitt Center more feasible. Continue reading →