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Since taking on the Living Building Challenge, the team planning a yoga and wellness center project in Southeast Portland has learned the stringent green building certification is aptly named.

“It’s a huge challenge at every level,” said Jan Fillinger, an architect with the Portland-based design-build firm Green Hammer.

Portland yoga studio Yoga Union hired Green Hammer to renovate a former industrial building on Southeast 50^th Avenue to replace the business’ current location a few blocks away. Along with a large yoga studio and meeting space, plans for Yoga Union’s new 10,000-square-foot headquarters include a café and wellness center with massage therapy, acupuncture, naturopathy and other services.

Construction is slated to begin in November and wrap up in June 2014.

Where the $1.5 million project gets complicated is the Yoga Union owners’ desire to meet the tough sustainability requirements for the Living Building Challenge, said Alex Boetzel, Green Hammer’s chief innovation officer. Creating an extremely green building for Yoga Union fits perfectly with the ideals of the business, but every part of the process of planning the project has been more time consuming, including scrutinizing every material that will go into the building, he said.

The Living Building Challenge certification, launched in 2006, is administered by the International Living Building Institute, which has a Portland office. Unlike the more prevalent Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building certification, the Living Building Challenge is based on performance, Boetzel said. Once the Yoga Union project is complete, it will have to meet strict sustainability goals during its first year of use to earn the certification, he said.

Todd Vogt, co-owner of Yoga Union, said the business is taking on the green certification because they feel it’s the right thing to do. The yoga studio is still hoping to raise $150,000 in donations and will rely on volunteer support to complete the project, he said.

“We see it as a leap of faith to some extent. We believe it will pay itself back. We think that following these ideals can be an economical decision,” Vogt said. “We’ve got tremendous support in our community that we feel confident pursuing this.”

Among the most stringent Living Building Challenge requirements are net-zero energy and water consumption and zero waste, Boetzel said. The Yoga Union project will focus on three of seven requirements, referred to as “petals,” to achieve a certification called Petal Recognition, he said. To meet the three requirements, the Yoga Union project will focus on using locally sourced materials, providing equal access to the building, ensuring it’s aesthetically pleasing and including an educational component, Boetzel said.

Only three buildings in the country have achieved the full Living Building Challenge certification, according to the International Living Building Institute. The Painters Hall Cafe in Salem is one of two projects that have received Petal Recognition.

The trickiest part of the Yoga Union project will be finding non-toxic and locally sourced building materials, Boetzel said. Living Building Challenge bans the use of products that contain polyvinyl, or PVC, flame retardants and other potentially harmful components, he said.

Fillinger said when he’s investigated essential building elements like electrical wiring he’s found it’s near impossible to find products that don’t contain PVC.

“All of the materials that we use for this project have to meet very specific requirements,” he said. “In some cases, it’s not possible to meet those requirements.”

It’s been so tough to find building materials that meet the Living Building Challenge requirements that Green Hammer has hired an intern to help with the research, Fillinger said. Still, some exceptions will have to be made to meet building code, Boetzel said.

The definition of locally produced building materials is also stricter than LEED, Boetzel said. Materials have to be produced even closer to the build site than LEED guidelines, he said.

“That in itself is a challenge, is getting components that were made locally,” Boetzel said. “They don’t exist anymore.”

Although the project won’t completely meet the requirements for full Living Building Challenge certification, it will meet as many as possible, Boetzel said. This includes reusing an existing building and growing food for the café on a rooftop garden. A bioswale in the parking lot will collect rainwater and all of lumber pulled from the existing building in the renovation will be repurposed into benches, tables and other furniture.

The project has been an eye-opener for project manager Michael Vogt of Portland-based Pacific Northwest CM, a consulting and project management firm. Michael Vogt, who is Todd Vogt’s uncle, said he’s worked in construction for the past 45 years, but this is the first project he’s done aiming for sustainability.

“The focus is always, ‘How cheaply can you get it up?’ ” he said. “That wasn’t the focus. It was building it correctly.”

The Yoga Union project will set the standard for others, he said.

“We hope to have this documented, that the story is there for everybody,” he said. “We become ambassadors of the Living Building Challenge.”