It’s alive! – Making Buildings More Like Ecosystems

A certified “living building” would interact with its surroundings in a benign, even beneficial, way. The specific requirements depend on the kind of project, but buildings can earn credit by supporting urban agriculture, encouraging car-free living, capturing rainfall for water, and using salvaged building materials. There is a “red list” of prohibited toxic materials, and no combustion is permitted to produce the building’s energy — generally energy must be solar, wind, or geothermal. The projects must be net zero energy, but some are trying to generate more energy than they consume — one aspires to produce three times as much as it uses.

In this sense, the buildings aim not only to minimize the negative effects of the built environment, but to convert them into positive influences, just as rain forests, as carbon sinks, are beneficial for the planet.

Brukman likens a living building to a flower: “A flower is rooted in place, but it collects all its own water for use and reuse, it operates efficiently, and it’s beautiful.”

By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow

Full Story: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/06/13/its_alive/?page=full