We are pleased to announce that our Iowa City Studio renovation is now Living Building Challenge® Core certified through Living Future. This certification required a design that prioritized ecological impact, wellness, and equity, and the final construction passed rigorous audits to prove real-world performance.
The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy that pushes design beyond sustainability, encouraging development of places that have a net positive effect on the surrounding environment and people. The challenge is organized by “petals” that each correspond to different tenets of sustainable design and positive impact. You can read more about the challenge on our learning center.
When we set out to renovate our Iowa City Studio, we knew we would pursue this certification. Starting with this goal in mind helped us immensely in meeting specification and documentation requirements. Striving for certification helped keep the design and construction teams accountable and ultimately led us to several innovative design decisions.
Reuse was a priority, with 100% of ceiling tiles and doors and 99% of glass being reused from the previous office space. A new all-electric Variable Refrigerant Flow system led to a 41% energy reduction from an office of similar size. Additionally, nearly 90% of new wood products were locally sourced ash lumber harvested within 10 miles of the site. You can read about these improvements and more on the project page.
We thank Living Future for their collaboration with us in this certification process, and we hope our office can serve as a touchstone for our future sustainable projects.