January 2015
| Business World
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pump system that exchanges energy with the
ground. It’s a cyclical approach, where we use
the earth as a great big thermal store of en-
ergy to avoid the need for fossil fuels.”
“The idea behind the Living Building Chal-
lenge is to create buildings that are net-ze-
ro in terms of energy consumption, where
they’re producing as much energy as they
consume over the span of a year, while also
being self-sufficient in terms of water,” he
continues.”Hypothetically, it’s a building
that could almost be completely disconnect-
ed from the grid.”
“To accomplish this, we harness rainwater to
flush the toilets,” he says.”The sewage system
has a living machine in it that cleans up the
water by separating the sludge from the fil-
trated water, where the filtrated water is re-
integrated into the facility and the sludge is
used as compost for the gardens themselves.
Those are the types of initiatives at play to
put into practice what’s required for the Liv-
ing Building Challenge.”
The $40 millionCANMET Materials Tech-
nology Laboratoryproject integrates similar
design features with the aim of producing a
Stuart Hood
