Phipps Conservatory Earns Living Building Challenge

Phipps Conservatory boasts the title of “most energy efficient conservatory in the world”, and their ongoing commitment to sustainability is evidenced by their most recent project, the Center for Sustainable Landscapes (CSL). This project recently became the 7th certified International Living Building Institute’s Living Building Challenge (LBC) project, a set of design and construction guidelines promoting restorative design and endorsing buildings that generate all their own energy with renewable resources, are informed by their eco-region and capture and treat all their own water.

7group facilitated several integrative design charrettes involving a wide-range of project team and owner representatives (bottom left image) to develop the site and building design. Using the ATHENA® Impact Estimator for Buildings, 7group prepared models to assess different options for all major building assemblies and optimized materials choices in the pursuit of LBC. Energy modeling, daylighting analysis, and measurement and verification are technical services employed in 7group’s efforts towards making CSL among the first buildings to meet LBC, a goal beyond LEED Platinum certification.

As the centerpiece of Phipps Conservatory’s expansion project, CSL is designed to maximize efficiency and sustainability. To learn more about the strategies and technologies engaged that are expected to help CSL meet and exceed its LBC and net-zero energy goals, please visit the CSL webpage. This project and its design process are also highlighted in several videos by 7group partner Tom Keiter, including Performance by Design, Phipps Conservatory: Sustainable Building and The Evolving Green Story of Phipps: A Living Building Takes Shape, which can be found at the link above and in 7group’s video resources.