Lecture: Living Building Challenge – Jason McLennan, Melbourne School of Design

Melbourne School of Design Lecture

Living Building Challenge – Jason McLennan

What is the Living Building Challenge?

The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, advocacy tool, and certification program that addresses development on all scales and defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today. The Challenge acts to diminish the gap between current limits and ideal solutions and is comprised of seven performance areas, or ‘Petals’: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity and Beauty. Petals are subdivided into a total of twenty Imperatives, each of which focuses on a specific sphere of influence. Living Building Challenge certification is based on actual, rather than modeled, or anticipated, performance. Therefore, projects must be operational for at least twelve consecutive months prior to evaluation.

By identifying an ideal and positioning that ideal as an indicator of success, the Challenge inspires project teams to reach decisions based on restorative principles instead of searching for ‘least common denominator’ solutions. The Challenge is not a checklist of best practices, rather it leads teams to embrace regional solutions and respond to a number of variables, including climate factors and cultural characteristics.

The Challenge provides a platform for creative and ambitious individuals to respond in the myriad ways needed to bring about transformative change. In the words of one enthusiast, ‘It’s about knowing where we really want to go, and realizing we’re closer than we thought’.

Jason McLennan is a nationally recognized leader in the sustainable building industry. He is the founder of the Living Building Challenge, an international green building program, and co-creator of Pharos, the most advanced building material rating system in North America. Jason is known as an international thought leader in the green architecture movement and has lectured on sustainability across the US and Canada. His work in the sustainable design field has been published or reviewed in dozens of journals, magazines conference proceedings and books including Architecture, Architectural Record, Dwell, Plenty, Metropolis, NY Times, The Globe andMail, The World and I, Ecostructure and Environmental Design and Construction Magazine. He is the author of three books: The Philosophy of Sustainable Design,The Dumb Architect’s Guide to Glazing Selection and The Ecological Engineer. The Philosophy of Sustainable Design is currently used as a textbook in over 40 universities and colleges and is distributed widely throughout Europe and North America.

He is a former Principal at BNIM Architects, one of the founders of the green design movement in the United States, where he worked on many of the leading high performance projects in the country including LEED Platinum, Gold and zero energy projects. At BNIM he created the building science team known as Elements, which set new standards for energy and resource efficiency on many of its projects in various building types. Jason also founded Ecotone Publishing (now a program of the International Living Future Institute), the only dedicated green building publisher in North America. Jason was recently named one of the top 40 under 40 most influential individuals in the design and construction field by Building Design and Construction magazine.

Date: 7pm, Monday 7 November 2020

Venue: Prince Philip Theatre, Ground Floor, Architecture Building, University of Melbourne

Free EntryRegistrations here

Presented by the Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning, University of Melbourne

Post lecture Reception 8:30pm in Wunderlich Gallery

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