Here’s to a Green Year!

It’s been quite a year for green building, particularly in Seattle! Here snapshot of highlights for sustainable buildings in 2010:

Earlier this month, Seattle’s first LEED Platinum modular home was assembled – the highest level of certification on LEED’s 100-point scale. Seattle-based Greenfab built the home with shorter construction time and less waste, targeted net-zero energy and strived to achieve the goals set by the 2030 challenge, including a 60 percent fossil fuel reduction.

In June, the Bertschi School was the first building in Washington to attempt the Living Building Challenge. The school’s new Living Science Building will be net-zero energy, using solar power, and net-zero water, utilizing rainwater harvesting, a green roof and composting toilets. Once completed (targeting Jan 2011), the school will be the first to meet the Living Building standards in Washington, and the first elementary school in the world!

Seattle is also now home to two of the first Passive Houses in the country.  Passive Houses use about 75% less energy to operate compared to other new homes, as a result of super insulation.  One is a single family home built by Blackbird Builders, and the other is a small backyard cottage unit on display at the Phinney Neighborhood Center.

And, we’ll break ground for another sustainable speculative home in the Madison Valley neighborhood – next door to the acclaimed Alley House.

Here’s to a much more prosperous and environmentally productive new year!

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