7 Questions Answered by Miller Hull’s Living Building Challenge Services Director

This Q&A is a postscript to the Institute’s webinar on regenerative design, “Bringing the Living Building Challenge into Practice,” held on June 27, 2023.  In this webinar, which is a dynamic extension of a new Ecotone Publishing book, Challenge & Change: Miller Hull’s Living Building Practice, we explore why and how the Miller Hull Partnership has become one of the world’s most prolific design firms.

Challenge & Change, the Member webinar, and this Trim Tab Q&A are designed to evoke further discussion about “How we tap into the ethos of the Living Building Challenge to create regenerative buildings and communities that are resilient, healthy, and equitable.” The backdrop is the firm’s extensive portfolio of Living Building Challenge projects. In this post, Ecotone’s Editor-in-Chief, Michael Berrisford, picks up the discussion with Miller Hull’s Chris Hellstern, AIA, LFA, Associate, and Living Building Challenge Services Director, about his experiences and thoughts on bringing regenerative design more deeply into all of our work.  

Michael Berrisford: Chris, tell us a little bit about what led to you becoming Miller Hull’s Living Building Challenge Services Director.

Chris Hellstern: While I heard about the Living Building Challenge when it was first released in 2006, my real introduction came with Jason McLennan’s call to action to adopt it during the 2009 Living Future UnConference in Seattle. Immediately following that conference, a colleague of mine and I decided we needed to take his charge to heart and try to turn this into a real project—not just another case study reporting that these buildings were possible. 

We coincidentally found a client in the Bertschi School in Seattle. They were looking to expand their campus with a new science building and had heard of the Living Building Challenge. We took that inspiration and created a full design and construction team that offered to design a Living Building for the Bertschi School pro bono. After a lot of work from the dedicated team and support from a great client who recognized the value of this type of project for generations of their students to come, we certified their project as the world’s fourth Living Building back in 2012. 

Once I had completed my first Living Building project, I was committed. I wanted to find the next one, realizing that not only were these buildings possible, but that they were necessary and needed now. That led me to Miller Hull who pioneered the Living Building Challenge (LBC) in their own way with the world-changing Bullitt Center. Miller Hull’s practice evolved from completing that project and further solidified their commitment to sustainability. They see the value in designing Living Buildings and that commitment is one of the critical pieces that make it possible for us to achieve the six LBC certifications we have to date. 

Miller Hull recognized the expertise I had gained with the Bertschi Living Building, and together with their commitment to continue these projects, we were able to create this specialty title for the sustainability director position I now hold. And at Miller Hull, I’m luckily not the only full-time sustainability director; alongside our department head , Jim Hanford—a long-time Principal and energy expert, —and Jay Hindmarsh—a fellow director bringing his own LBC experience. Together, the three of us, for our 120-person firm, get to touch every project in the office, helping to shift them as far into regenerative design as we can.

While Miller Hull is one of the best firms to be a part of because of our commitment and experience with sustainability, the task of achieving LBC is not easy as every project has its own circumstances and of course we want to see more building achieving this. It takes all of us who work in sustainability across this industry, pushing and supporting each other.  

How has Miller Hull’s practice and culture come to align, support, and encourage client goals?

Fortunately, we often have very good clients who want to pursue a high level of sustainability. Clients come to us because of our portfolio of high-performing built projects and our excellent team of consultants in fields ranging from mechanical engineering to biophilic design. One of our goals is to align our clients’ sustainability values with what impacts are possible for their project.

We start with the values and performance targets that our clients have and find ways to build synergies from there. Often, our clients will have commendable and audacious goals to meet climate targets, and our job is to help connect the dots for how their project can help meet those goals. For clients that do not come with these goals, we work to show them what is possible for their projects in terms of regenerative design. It is a process we enjoy immensely because it also helps us get to know our clients and build our relationship on our shared values and mission. When we include a diverse group of project stakeholders in this process, we gain even more richness for opportunities to solve project challenges and design buildings that best respond to a particular community and their needs. 

Can you give us a few of your favorite examples of how Imperatives of the Living Building Challenge translated into architectural responses? 

With seven Living Building Challenge projects over the years and working with so many experts to help us find these solutions, choosing a few to highlight is certainly difficult. 

Urban Agriculture – With every Living Building, our teams have always taken a unique approach to this Imperative, helping the Institute to expand the recognized opportunities to achieve it. On the Loom House project, our landscape architect looked to the site ecology and what naturally grows under the tall conifer canopies throughout the island to develop a mycological foraging forest. We inoculated nurse logs with mushrooms to provide agriculture the homeowners could use. The home also included some more traditional vegetable and fruit gardens, as well. In support of the equity intent of LBC, some of these gardens are open to the neighborhood.

Net Positive Water – Still one of my favorite examples of making an LBC Imperative a visible and interactive part of a building, the Bertschi School’s highlight of the water process is inspirational and functional. Responding to a student’s idea to have a “river flowing in the classroom,” our team exposed the rainwater collection with a glass-covered runnel that winds through the classroom and fills cisterns in the floor and garden. For the grey water treatment, students can see water they send down the sinks brought to the interior green wall of plants where they naturally uptake and treat the water in a closed-loop process. All of this allows students to participate in the hydrologic cycle and natural processes that LBC endeavors to protect.

Net Positive Carbon – I am going to talk briefly about two projects here to show the flexibility that design solutions can have with LBC Imperatives. First, with Loom House, our client took to heart the elimination of combustion sources. Although there are exceptions for fireplaces in residences within the LBC, our team sought to decommission the existing fireplace in the home’s renovation. Architecturally, we wanted to keep the design and massing of the original stone fireplace and chimney but the clients did not intend to build fires anymore. We worked closely with our interior designer, her lighting designer and our contracting team to pull off a new type of hearth. We carefully sealed the old chimney and inserted an LED sculptural element that mimics the color and flicker of a flame. This application brings the hygge and seeming warmth of a hearth without the harmful emissions.

Sometimes the idea of meeting net zero energy on a tenant improvement can seem impossible because of ownership complications. But on Miller Hull’s San Diego office tenant improvement, we were able to work with the building owner to allow the installation of our PV system on the building’s roof. With the owner now invested in the ideas of net positive energy, he was excited to support adding renewables on his roof. From an educational perspective, closely monitoring our operational energy use provided an opportunity for our own staff to understand how their choices throughout the day impacted energy demand, which led them to optimize their behavior in order to be more energy efficient. This process has helped us as designers in talking with our clients about the intricacies of energy saving in our buildings. 

Red List – Often the most infamous Imperative from the LBC, the Red List effort is an important part of all our work—from Living Buildings to those projects that don’t even pursue a certification. My favorite part of the Red List is not an architectural response but rather a process. Since beginning work with the Red List back in 2009, we have seen the materials market respond and evolve. Designers around the world now know chemicals of concern to avoid and how to ask manufacturers for safer alternatives. 

Manufacturers worldwide have responded with transparency documents and the invention of safer products. We have seen laws created and major public awareness to protect the public from some of these Red List chemicals. While we all have a long way to go to achieve the ideal conditions the Materials Petal seeks, the improvement over the years of this work has been noticeable and meaningful throughout our industry.  

What advice do you have for junior/emerging design practitioners wanting to bring LBC into projects?

My suggestion would be to always ask what is possible. This was a simple revelation that started from my very first LBC project at the Bertschi School back in 2009. No matter your seniority or role, your contributions are important and can help shape the direction of a project. Sometimes, something as seemingly simple as your passion about a subject like sustainability, equity, or embodied carbon can be the spark that others need to follow your lead. Don’t be afraid to ask how your project can be better or approach a design challenge in a new way. Find ways to align your client’s goals with something from the Living Building Challenge and use that as a gateway to making a bigger sustainability commitment.

If you need more support for your interests, look at becoming Living Future Accredited (LFA) to gain more expertise about the LBC and its intent. And when you earn your LFA credential, it will help you be more recognized with your LBC expertise.  

How do you get owners to overcome the obstacle of higher first costs for design and construction?

This ongoing struggle requires us all to reframe our thinking in terms of value.Our capitalistic economy does not yet recognize the true value of regenerative design—from the human health benefits, to the social equity improvements, and even the ecosystem services. We have to start thinking holistically and presenting that data to our clients. One way Miller Hull does this is through our Gap Analysis process which attempts to quantify some of these values for clients. We look at the savings in emissions avoided or costs of water saved, for example. 

I want to also acknowledge that every one of our Living Building projects has been budget challenged—just like any other project we’ve designed. I’m sure you all can identify with that too. But what is different about LBC project budgets is that our clients maintain the values of the Challenge they committed to at the outset. They inherently know the many values of regenerative design and instead of cutting their renewable energy system or water treatment capabilities, they make other shifts in priorities. Sometimes our buildings don’t need to be quite as big as our clients first think. Sometimes our buildings won’t have the exterior cladding material first dreamed of in a sketch. Instead, we find ways to save the parts of the building that support occupant health, connect with our community, and reduce our emissions. These decisions are truly what will build the long-term value—far beyond the monetary—for our clients and communities, for generations to come. 

Tell us more about “Regenerative Gap Analysis” and an example of a project that engaged in the Living Building Challenge as a result of your process with the client.

One of our most recent projects that has yet to certify, but is designed to meet the full Living Building Challenge—the Port of Seattle Maritime Incubation Center— is a great example. The Port has a set of environmental goals with an overall intent to simply be, “The greenest Port in North America.” While this goal may be broad, it is exactly the same forward-thinking intent of the Living Building Challenge. 

Our team worked to show alignment between the Port’s aspiration and the world’s most rigorous, performance-based building certification program. We used our Regenerative Gap Analysis to show not only how the Imperatives of net positive water and energy align with Port’s goals for building performance, but how they would also save operational expenses and avoid risk over time. This analysis, along with our education session on the LBC, helped the Port to clearly see how the Certification aligns perfectly with the goals of their project and sustainability mission of the organization. 

Where can readers dig a little deeper into the details of  Miller Hull’s Living Building practice, principles, processes, and projects?

Our latest Ecotone book release is Challenge & Change which details our path through pioneering the Living Building Challenge among new building types and integrating regenerative design throughout our practice. What I like about this book is not only the architectural details that are provided for the projects, but what we hope will be insights into the process that readers can build on to accomplish their own Living Buildings. 

Once you do a Living Building, you realize that we have the architectural and engineering solutions to build these projects now. Often, the bigger challenge is the process and helping people understand that these buildings are possible. Miller Hull also recognizes that in order for sustainability to advance at the scale and pace we need, a less siloed approach is required. Sourcing other expertise helps us improve our work, and we want it all to be shared with the industry to inform who we can. We value what we learn from so many of our peer firms and industry experts working toward regenerative design. We see that Challenge & Change is one of the extensions of this.  

Chris and Michael’s conversation reveals a glimpse at the genuine regenerative design mindset behind the Living Building Challenge. To dig into approaches and solutions that will benefit your work pick up a copy of Challenge & Change: Miller Hull’s Living Building Practice by Mary Adam Thomas. It’s a practical, beautiful, and inspirational resource for AEC professionals, academic audiences, and anyone interested in a holistic design culture dedicated to creating regenerative buildings and communities that are sustainable, healthy, and equitable.

Editor’s Notes: Membership comes with many benefits including discounts on books. Proceeds from publications re-circulate to support and renew the programs, research, education, and advocacy of the ILFI non-profit organization. Ecotone offers a full suite of publishing services for books and corporate reports. For more information, you are invited to contact Ecotone’s Editor-in-Chief at ecotone@living-future.org.

Editor’s note: Don’t miss the 40% discount offer for this series at the bottom of this post!

The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) is excited to share the consolidation of seven Ecotone book titles under one umbrella – the new Living Building Challenge Book Series. Here’s a quick overview of the series and how we envision it as a solution for anyone interested in being part of the greenest buildings for a healthy world.

WHAT

The Living Building Challenge Book Series is a collection of seven (and counting) deep-dive case studies that explore the behind-the-scenes stories of project design and construction for projects pursuing the Living Building Challenge (LBC). Each book combines project-specific details, lessons learned, and innovative solutions derived from the teams who made these projects a reality.   

WHO

Created to address the growing public and stakeholder appetite for expert information about Living Building projects, the LBC Series combines key information and design solutions with interjections from design teams, key stakeholders, and building owners about how these structures came to life—from bold concept to thriving occupancy.

WHEN

In 2013, ILFI’s Ecotone Publishing launched the Living Building Challenge Book Series to address the ever-growing need for expert information about designing and constructing the greenest, most restorative buildings in the world. Each year the series covers new Living Building Challenge projects in different regions with varying typologies, revealing exciting innovations connected to Place, Water, Energy, Health + Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty. 

WHY

This book series presents expert resources and solutions for avoiding aspects of “re-inventing the wheel.” Each publication provides key insights, valuable lessons, expert working designs, including materials and product solutions for addressing the Challenge’s performance areas: Place, Water, Energy, Health + Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty. Simply put, the series is packed with resources and advanced knowledge that can save teams time and money throughout the planning, designing, materials procurement, and construction phases of any project. 

WHERE

To date, the books feature projects in Pittsburgh, Seattle, Oregon, the Chesapeake Bay, British Columbia, Seattle again, plus the first Living Certified Building in California. And coming soon, a new title featuring the story of a 500-year building – location TBA…! 

HOW

Fascinating and groundbreaking, each book contributes real solutions to the emerging body of knowledge about Living Building Challenge projects around the world. Plus, use our Bundle + Save discount—get 40% off your order when you buy three or more titles! Visit the Ecotone Bookstore and order your set of Living Building resources today!

Give the gift of knowledge and inspiration to your valued employees and customers. We are offering discounts of 25% to 50% off bulk purchases of Ecotone books to companies and organizations who are interested in giving the holiday gift of an Ecotone book.

Visit the Ecotone Bookstore to browse our selection of titles then contact Michael Berrisford at ecotone@living-future.org for a quote, or to find out more about how you can get a great deal on a thoughtful gift and lasting resource for your colleagues. 

Details: Discounts contingent upon availability and quantity ordered. / US-only. / Shipping not incl. / Order deadline: 11/30/2020

Editor’s note: Michael Berrisford is the publisher of ILFI’s publishing label, Ecotone. Here he shares what makes our latest release, Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building, so special. (Available September 15, pre-order your copy now for a 20% discount. Or, receive a free copy when you register for ILFI’s Zero Carbon Conference by September 9.)

The Arch Nexus Sacramento (SAC) office is California’s first Living Certified building, the 19th Living project worldwide, and the only adaptive reuse building to achieve Living Certification in the Living Building Challenge. Impressive, especially in a state that is one of the most environmentally progressive in the nation, touting a deep green state-wide building energy code (see California Energy Commission’s Title 24) and new 2020 net-zero mandate for residential construction, to be followed in 2030 for new commercial construction. 

The Arch Nexus SAC regenerative retrofit is so much more than a shiny solar-powered, high-performance brick and mortar landmark adorned to garner “oohs” and “ahhs.” Nor is Arch Nexus SAC a green technology showcase trimmed out with futuristic tech, instantly iconic for its statuesque architecture and stately skyline posture. While it does have numerous verdant features such as the biophilic-inspired daylighting plan and living wall, robust solar capability, composting toilets, and right-sized cisterns, in actuality, Arch Nexus SAC’s shine comes from its undeniable success as a smart, practical, fully-functioning Living Building that has been bootstrapped from its humble industrial origins as a 1950s-era warehouse. 

Further, the building and its owner/occupants are notable for meeting timely objectives linked to the proliferation of crises facing California. Through this building, and pretty much every action they take these days, they are responding positively to the consequences of climate change such as recurrent droughts, intense wildfires, increasing extreme temperatures, and power grid insecurity–all the while connecting to the social fabric of their local community. 

The Arch Nexus office in Sacramento is a people-driven, thoughtfully designed building transformed from traditional building stock to an architectural gem that impressively reduces its carbon footprint. It generates energy and collects water like one of nature’s systems and provides a healthy and engaging physical workplace environment for its knowledgeable and creative occupants. Working-class building retrofits like the Arch Nexus SAC office transformation represent a viable–and now proven–opportunity for addressing climate change. 

Read all about it in our latest Ecotone title, Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building and learn Petal by Petal how every design decision made by Arch Nexus puts people and planet first. Available September 15, pre-order your advance copy now!

Register for our Zero Carbon Conference (October 7-8, completely online) by September 9 and receive a free copy of Regenerative Retrofit!

Ecotone Publishing’s Editor Michael Berrisford sat down (virtually) to talk with architect, author, and father, Jason F. McLennan about his thoughts on how “love” can nourish the built and natural environments, address climate change, right social injustices, and heal the planet.

Michael Berrisford (MB): What inspired you to create the book LOVE+GREEN BUILDING: You and Me and the Beautiful Planet?

Jason F. McLennan (JFM): I like the idea of reaching out to people of all ages about the kind of work we do as architects, engineers, design practitioners, and environmental advocates. I think there is a genuine benefit that comes from talking openly about why we need to care for and love the natural world. And, I believe that presenting these interconnections in a book with expressive illustrations is a perfect way to bring a thoughtful message to a wider audience.

MB: Who do you want to reach with LOVE+GREEN BUILDING?

JFM: This book is really intended for people in the green building industry plus the many others who share a similar concern and passion about the inexorable interconnection between the natural and man-made environments. I want to reach out to these individuals with love and gratitude for their dedication to a regenerative and healthy world. I hope that they will be inspired to champion this book for their families, friends, and business associates to help explain more completely why they think and why they do what they do in support of our planet. I hope readers find that this book captures their imagination and aptly expresses their concerns in an affirming and positive way.

MB: By all accounts, the issues that you and Luis (through his illustrations) address in LOVE+GREEN BUILDING such as climate change, social equity, environmental degradation, and a pervasive disconnection from nature are threatening the future of the planet. What’s love got to do with it?

JFM: “Love” has everything to do with it.  We have all the technologies and know-how to change everything about how we can positively impact the health of our ecosystems.  Unfortunately, we have largely failed to use this knowledge and these tools to the mutual advantage of mankind and nature because of greed, laziness, ignorance, and complacency.  Love, however, is the ideal antidote for all of these failings and of our world’s problems.

MB: Your message that the world needs “a sustained awakening of the human heart” is a compelling and auspicious philosophy for moving toward positive change. How do we approach the global health pandemic, economic uncertainty, and the racial justice movement through the lens of love?   

JFM: I think the need for love and compassion is more true now than ever before.  We can better address any health pandemic and economic stability through the lens of love for our fellow beings rather than through the lens of individualism rooted in selfishness. And I believe that the current rising awareness about social justice issues is a part of this love and compassion awakening, helping us to challenge our preconceived ideas and biases and to target systemic and institutional racism and oppression.  We also need to awaken to the ways we have fostered injustices to all of nature.  That is why the awakening that I refer to has to be sustained for the benefit of all life.  We have no time to lose and our awakening has to come from the heart with love.  Once you truly open your heart, it will open to all people and all life.

LOVE+GREEN BUILDING: You and Me and the Beautiful Planet is available now at the Ecotone bookstore. Proceeds from all Ecotone books go directly to supporting ILFI programming and advocacy.

We are pleased to present an excerpt from the book Generation Green, written by ILFI’s own Michael Berrisford, about the development of the childcare centre at UniverCity, a sustainable community near Vancouver, B.C. 

“It was valuable to have little, young designers helping out.” 

JAY LIN 
Architect, HCMA

Any project with a design charrette involving preschoolers is extraordinary. Appreciating that the Living Building Challenge calls for an exceedingly holistic approach, the design team cast their net well beyond the radius of sustainable design norms to include workshops starring 3- to 5-year-olds from a neighboring [Simon Fraser University] Childcare facility, plus their families, educators and members of the design team. While engaging future occupants of a building was nothing particularly progressive, listening to, and valuing the wishes of preschoolers, certainly was. And while it has become increasingly commonplace for design teams to solicit the input of stakeholders, the fledgling insights coming from these all-ages charrettes would shape the Centre in tangible and profound ways. The design team listened intently to what the children desired for their ideal play area and several experiential and imaginative themes were revealed that involved climbing, jumping, and playing with elemental materials such as wood, water and sand.

Play and discovery is serious work. The fresh insights of the children and those of the educators astonished HCMA [the project’s architecture team]. Shared perceptions of bright, airy, voluminous space, (“climb up high”) and play elements such as the magnificent two-storey silver slide, (“I like long slides —this one’s long”, “I like this slide-it goes a little curve” and “fire breathing dragon!”), are some of the thoughts that informed the design of the Centre’s community spaces and complemented the educational programming. It was the happy job of the designers to ponder the inspirations articulated by the children (verbally, and in drawings, sketches, and models) and translate those sometimes whimsical, sometimes physical, ideas into the design.

CLIMB UP HIGH

Karen Marler recognized that some of the most powerful information for the architectural team came from yet another outside source — the care providers. HCMA actively solicited input and SFU Childcare Society leadership eagerly brought forth the elegant concepts of Transparency, Light, and Community. Patricia Frouws asked that the educators who worked with the children be consulted about the practical aspects of the facility. Faced with opportunity to weigh in on an essentially blank  slate, purposeful details meshed with holistic design in the common area layout, sightlines to washrooms, play areas, and the configuration of dynamic indoor amenities and organically-inspired outdoor space. The Centre’s loft-like mezzanine, double-height community space and expansive glazing are indoor examples where HCMA fastidiously merged the ideas of workshop participants with their own constructs, embedding sound practicalities within the refined design of the Living Building. HCMA heeded the children’s intuitive wishes and the educator’s hands-on insights, bringing opportunities for delight and discovery to the Centre—folding play and education elegantly into the overall design.

Generation Green is available for purchase from our Ecotone Bookstore, as well as many other fascinating titles including our newest release, Building Community. From now until January 31, get 20 percent off your Ecotone purchase using the code INSPIRATION20.

Cover photo courtesy of SFU Creative Services