分水岭Moment: Seattle Office Building Project Exceeds Toughest Environmental Design Standards

Design standards for water and energy efficiency are becoming more stringent in many parts of the world—and few regions can beat Seattle for ambition in green and sustainable building design.

Yet even in this sophisticated real estate market,分水岭— a 72,000-square-foot, seven-story commercial office building for which WSP USA provided mechanical-electrical-plumbing (MEP) engineering, as well as lighting and sustainability design — stands out for its high standards.

WSP’s MEP, Built Ecology and lighting teams collaborated with architect Weber Thompson to design and engineer Watershed to meet two of the most challenging green building standards in the world: The International Living Future Institute’s生活建筑挑战（LBC）和西雅图市Living Building Pilotprogram.

“在一个非常关心可持续性的城市中，分水岭为绿色建筑设计和开发设定了标准金博宝怎么注册，同时为未来的租户和周边社区创造价值，”开发商Hess Callahan Gray的合伙人Joanna Callahan说。according to theSeattle Daily Journal of Commerce。

材料“花瓣”

For the WSP professionals working on Watershed, the project represented an exciting challenge and career milestone.

“There aren’t a lot of people who’ve been able to deliver on Living Building Challenge projects,” said Chester Thompson, WSP senior architectural lighting designer. “Architecturally speaking, the standard’s requirements are far ahead of what is being done internationally with regard to energy savings and water conservation.”

The building boasts 25 percent less energy usage than code baselines, a cutting-edge stormwater retention and treatment system, castellated steel beams, a bicycle locker room and showers and other green features. And to meet the Living Building Challenge’s requirement for materials—known as a “petal”—required extraordinary diligence by the WSP team.

“We had to dig into all the materials and products used on the project and make sure everything was sustainably sourced and nothing was on the so-called ‘red list’ of toxic or ecologically harmful materials, many of which are still widely used in construction,” said Zach Stevens, WSP lead sustainability consultant.

Thompson and Stevens corresponded extensively with vendors and manufacturers to vet materials. While time consuming, this level of engagement helped spread awareness in the industry.

史蒂文斯说：“作为一家公司，我们正在努力转移该行业，提高人们对这些类型的材料仍然有多普遍的认识，并证明对环保，可持续的替代方案有需求。”

对于照明系统，满足材料花瓣需要寻找“约70％原本指定的照明固定装置”的替代方案。照明在流域中起着特别重要的功能：引起人们对某些尖端特征的关注，例如外部生物测定植物的种植者，不仅可以对待现场雨水，而且还对待相邻的极光桥的径流。

他补充说：“设计照明以帮助讲述这个故事是设计挑战中最有趣的部分之一。”

热浪的舒适

严格的标准还要求WSP团队对能源和用水的使用进行更深入的建模。

“For Watershed, we had to model and analyze to much a higher degree of certainty than is typical even with a LEED project,” Stevens said. “We ran sensitivity analyses for occupancy schedules, temperature set points and many other factors.

To reduce cooling demand on warm days — a concern underscored by last summer’s heat wave in the Pacific Northwest — the building features electrochromic glazing.

史蒂文斯说：“通过电致色素玻璃，传感器检测到何时太阳在立面上，并使用电流使着色变暗。”“这可以大大减少空间中的冷却负载，并且在视觉上对乘员来说也更舒适。

Those occupants of the office building include staff of Weber Thompson, whose leadership was so happy with the building’s breakthrough environmental features that they leased an entire floor.

WSP的订婚并没有随着占用而告终。

史蒂文斯说：“对于西雅图生活建筑飞行员计划，我们必须监视和报告能源性能和节水数据，直到2022年9月，这是在达到85％的占用率一年后的一年。”

As other cities and builders push the boundaries of what’s possible in low-carbon, water-efficient buildings, Stevens and Thompson look forward to building on the success of Watershed to engage with other developers and design teams in designing buildings for a low-carbon future.

史蒂文斯说：“通过建立的生态团队，我们正在增强使用数据和分析来推动设计决策并与建筑所有者进行投资组合规模合作的能力。”

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