Living Building Challenge Series: An Introduction

In December 2016, Feldman Architecture pledged to the AIA 2030 Commitment and created an Action Plan as a road map to designing carbon neutral buildings by the year 2030. In our Action Plan, originally published in 2018 and updated annually, our studio selected a series of goals to focus our sustainability initiatives around over the next 3-5 years, one of them being designing and building a Living Building Challenge certified project. 

The Living Building Challenge is an ever-evolving certification program enacted by the International Living Future Institute. The program is considered the world’s most rigorous proven performance standard for buildings. The regenerative design framework aims to create spaces that, like a flower, give more than they take – connecting occupants to light, air, food, nature, and community. LBC certified buildings are self-sufficient and remain within the resource limits of their site and create a positive impact on the human and natural systems that interact with them.

The Living Building Challenge consists of seven performance categories, or “Petals”: place, water, energy, health + happiness, materials, equity, and beauty. Based on the building’s performance in these categories, 3 certification pathways are available to pursue, Living Building Certification, Petal Certification, and Zero Energy Certification.  

Feldman Architecture is excited to announce that as of this summer, Curveball will be our first project to attempt to achieve a Living Building Challenge certification. Situated in the Santa Lucia Preserve, a 20,000 acre land trust, the design for Curveball prioritizes sustainability, flexible spaces, and connection to the outdoors, artfully placing two gently curved forms on an open pad within a grove of oaks folded into a steep site. The design respects the existing landscape, and orients public and private spaces towards both distant views, as well as intimate moments with dense tree canopies.

Prioritizing fire resiliency and sustainability, our design envelops the building in durable, low-maintenance modular weathering steel panels and aluminum windows. The eroded material aesthetic reinforces the conceptual merging of architecture and landscape, and a green roof seamlessly emerges the structure from the hillside.  

With Curveball, we aim to achieve full Living Building Challenge certification, however, as this is our first attempt at working within the constraints of this rigorous program, we may pursue a Petal or CORE certification. At this point in the process, the potential challenges include access to solar energy in a densely treed site, access to water, and materials selection – the design may not include any redlist items.  

We are fortunate to be embarking on this certification process with a group of extremely talented consultants, listed below. We look forward to sharing our progress along the way, highlighting our challenges and successes with our community. We hope our journey encourages others to engage with regenerative design, as well as to crowdsource best practices in the certification process.  

Landscape Architect: MFLA
Structural Engineer: Daedalus Structural Engineering
General Contractor: RJL Construction
Mechanical and Energy Consultants: Positive Energy 
Civil Engineer: L&S Engineering
Surveyor: Whitson Engineers
Geotechnical Engineer: Haro Kasunich & Associates
Sustainability Consultant: Corey Squire, Department of Sustainability
LBC Consultant: Phaedra Svec, McLennan Design
Water Systems Consultant: WaterSprout
Planting Advisor: RANA  

Spring 2020 Sustainability Updates: Notes from Carbon Positive 20, and AIA 2030 Commitment Reporting

Our sustainability committee is off to a productive and eventful 2020! Last week, FA Associate Ben Welty attended the Carbon Positive ’20 conference in LA, organized by Architect Magazine and Architecture 2030, meeting with some of the top studios and professionals in the nation to discuss reducing and offsetting carbon in the design world. Below, find some nuggets of wisdom from Ben – who made sure to keep us updated back in San Francisco on lessons learned.

  • The original goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 is too late. If we don’t zero out our carbon emissions by 2040 and avoid a 1.5C increase in average global temperatures, we will experience a climate change that is irreversible.
  • Everybody here knows we can accomplish our goals. And we’re intent to go back to our communities with this shared knowledge and make a difference. Fortunately, the design and construction industry still has the power to affect change. We drive policy decisions, advancements in technology, and public awareness.
  • The production of Cement (the binding agent in concrete) accounts for 8% of total global emissions. Steel production accounts for 7%. China has poured more concrete in the last four years than the U.S. did in the 20th century. Alternative production methods will be key to us reaching our goals. 
  • While we’re trying to eliminate fossil fuel use in the building industry-we’re still using fossil fuel-based products (rigid insulation) to reduce our reliance on coal and natural gas. Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) is essentially the same material we legislated out of the food packaging industry 30 years ago.
  • Hemp seems poised to play a big part in reducing our CO2 emissions moving forward as states continue to loosen hemp regulations.
  • Women accounted for roughly 40% of newly licensed architects in 2019. 50% of this conference’s speakers are women, and by my estimation at least 50% of the attendees are women. So while still
    underrepresented in the field their contributions in battling the global climate crisis outweighs their male counterparts.


On another note, it’s been 3 years since Feldman Architecture first committed to the 2030Challenge– joining more than 1,000 firms across the nation in a pledge to create only carbon-neutral buildings by 2030. This January, our firm was the first to report our annual progress on carbon neutrality to the AIA 2030 Commitment Design Data Exchange (DDx), enabling others to learn from our work. We hope that in sharing our processes and challenges, we can encourage transparency and prioritize leadership in reducing our carbon footprint. Stay tuned for our annual detailed report on our 2030 Action Plan, to be published soon!

Frank Lloyd Wright and the “Solar Hemicycle” (Jacobs II)

In 1943 Herbert and Katherine Jacobs, of Madison, Wisconsin, commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a home for them for the second time.  The first they had built in 1936, the design that became known as “Usonian I” (or Jacobs I), a home that featured low cost construction, an open interior plan, floor-to-ceiling living room glass, and a slab floor, as well as the first adaptation in the United States of radiant floor heating.  Today’s home styles owe much to this original concept.

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