The Living Building Challenge is generally considered one of the top green building certification programs in terms of both prestige and rigor. In short, that’s why Mahlum Architects chose to follow that path for its new office in inner Southeast Portland.

Now, Mahlum selected for its new home an existing warehouse that had been converted into office space. There was no chance for the project team to obtain full Living Building certification from the International Living Future Institute.

However, one of the challenge’s seven “petals” – materials – appeared to be within reach. That is where Mahlum chose to focus.

“Petal certification has been around since the beginning of the standard, but it’s allowed (the ILFI) to scale the program,” said Jay Hindmarsh, a Seattle-based Mahlum associate principal and head of the Living Building Challenge portion of the renovation, which covered a 7,500-square-foot office space. “The materials petal is insanely difficult, but for Mahlum it was a way for us to embrace our values around walking the talk. We’ve been advocating for our clients about better materials and lower-carbon materials, and we looked at each other and said our new space should be beautiful but also should be super healthy and have a low-carbon footprint.”

Mahlum’s new space is located in the Custom Blocks‘ south building, at 1380 S.E. Ninth Ave. The single-level building was at one time a metal stamping shop, but was gutted, renovated and seismically retrofitted.

“We were trying to find a place in Portland that would allow us to be near clients and the community,” Hindmarsh said. “The interesting thing about the space is that it had just fairly recently gotten a core and shell upgrade, but in a lot of ways there was a great historic shell there, and it was interesting to see a space where we could envision quantifying all materials we were bringing in.”

The space could not be retrofitted to achieve net-zero energy or water use. But that wasn’t a problem for either Mahlum.

“The most sustainable buildings are the ones that are already built,” Hindmarsh said, paraphrasing Carl Elefante, a past American Institute of Architects president. “Aside from cost issues, clearly we were going to be renovating a space. This concept of net-zero material impacts is where a renovation typology suits itself to the materials petal. We’re not touching the enclosure, so there was a chance for us to not focus on new construction type components and try to promote investment in local economy.”

Slightly more than 50 percent of the products came from within 500 kilometers of the site, with some of the biggest gains coming from sourcing wood salvaged from the existing building. Also, by working with Salvage Works, a Portland supplier of reclaimed wood products, the project team used lumber originally used to build Fort Vancouver to create wall cladding, display cases and more. Such accents complement the existing heavy timber in the former warehouse, as well as a host of Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood products sourced by another Portland firm, Sustainable Northwest Wood. The latter were mainly plywood and lumber used to frame the new space.

“There’s a threshold for salvage products and we vastly exceeded that,” Hindmarsh said. “This embraces the philosophy of not having superfluous materials. Materials should be true to themselves, especially with the Living Building Challenge. If you’re adding in and designing in things that need to be vetted you’re making things hard for yourself.”

Working under Living Building Challenge version 3.1, Mahlum staff vetted over 350 products and materials for red list compliance. One that fit the bill was EcoSmart drywall manufactured by USG, which is known for its popular Sheetrock brand.

“We had never used this one, as it has just come on the market,” Hindmarsh said. “But it lists a 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions for the drywall, and it’s also made in Rainier (Oregon), so it was win-win for all.”

Portland’s Quartertwenty crafted custom workstations to serve Mahlum’s 50-plus employees in the new office.

“We had to catalog all the pieces of wood and steel, the nuts and bolts, the coating on the steel, the weight,” Hindmarsh said. “And getting that done was a huge lift. We were able to get something that met all our design and ergonomic needs and ended up being LBC compliant.”

Finally, waste diversion is required for certification; debris can’t simply be carted to the landfill. In the end, however, the project team managed to recycle close to 95 percent of waste materials generated on site.

General contractor Perlo Construction finished the project last year. Mahlum moved in this past November, and petal certification was achieved on March 17.

It was a very valuable learning experience for the Mahlum team, Hindmarsh said.

“I think my recommendation would be do your homework and understand what it will take,” he said. “It is a great opportunity for architecture firms and design firms to really put their process in a petri dish and look at it and their materials library and reflect on their practices.”

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Amid efforts at the federal level to repeal and roll back environmentally conscious regulations, some builders are continuing to strive to exceed them.

One is Green Hammer Inc. The design-build firm, based in the Pearl District, has built a portfolio of buildings with performance greater than required by current building codes for Oregon and beyond.

The firm’s latest project in this vein is Tillamook Row, a multifamily development at 20 N.E. Tillamook St., in Portland’s Eliot neighborhood. Crews are building 16 townhomes ranging from 750-square-foot studios to 1,320-square-foot, four-bedroom units.

Five structures will wrap around a central courtyard, and have roofs covered with photovoltaic panels. Combined, those panels will provide up to 82 kilowatts of energy per hour. The aim is for Tillamook Row to become the first net-zero-energy multifamily project in Portland to offer units for rent, Green Hammer design team manager Erica Dunn said.

Net zero certification is granted by the International Living Future Institute, a nonprofit that also oversees the Living Building Challenge. To gain certification, a structure (or group of structures) must produce more electricity over the course of a year than it consumes.

“I always say any building could be net zero if you just have a big enough place to put a solar array,” Green Hammer project manager Mike Liggett said. “You could have a really inefficient building with a big plot of land next to it with a solar array, but really, the trick is reducing the need for energy. That is first and foremost.”

For Tillamook Row, the solar energy component is just the beginning of that effort.

“A lot of reduction is in the design and the envelope,” Liggett said. “This has a super-insulated envelope that’s also airtight. And then we also use high-efficiency mechanical systems to ventilate the air and bring fresh, clean air into the units. Primarily by limiting the air infiltration you can get and provide a robust insulated layer, and that’s how we reduce the demand for energy.”

Even Energy Star appliances and LED lighting make a difference, he added.

Tillamook Row will have a 2,000-square-foot common house open to all tenants for shared meals, exercise and other gatherings. On-site parking will include electric vehicle charging stations, a storage building and an additional bike garage.

There will even be a trio of 1,200-gallon capacity cisterns that will collect rainwater to support maintenance of the central courtyard and landscaping.

“There’s enough water storage there to service the courtyard during the summer months and the dry season,” Liggett said. “Primarily it’s a gravity system, so it doesn’t require pumps or other such things that require energy.”

Plus, the Tillamook Row structures are being built to Passive House standards, which are meant to produce superior indoor air quality and greatly reduced heating and cooling needs. Typically, a house meeting those standards consumes around 70 percent less energy than a standard single-family home.

Green Hammer has already successfully completed a Living Building project in Southern Oregon. As such, the contractor generally chooses to use only building materials that would be acceptable within the Living Building Challenge, Liggett noted.

“We absolutely do use the healthiest materials we possibly can,” he said. “People don’t really think about their indoor air quality that much, but they should.”

Developer BCMC Properties is already growing its reputation for engaging in sustainable projects, and Tillamook Row is a huge step in that direction. Crews are quickly approaching the finish line for the project.

“We are getting close, although we’re at the point where we’re fine-tuning all the little bits and pieces,” Dunn said. “So we’re looking to be done by end of August, middle of September.”

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Prior to the Great Recession, Portland was the “shining hill that everyone wanted to be” when it comes to sustainability and green building, according to New Buildings Institute project manager and architect Webly Bowles. But that has changed, she said.

“People were coming here to see how we were doing things,” she said. “And now we’re just falling back into the status quo. So we want to inspire our design community to get back to that.”

The inaugural Sustainable Building Week, planned for this fall, was born out of organizers’ desire to restore Portland’s reputation as a green industry leader. And with construction booming here and the rest of the country, Bowles said, the need to further emphasize sustainability became even clearer. So she and like-minded Portland design professionals put their heads together and came up with a series of educational events.

Starting Oct. 8, panel discussions, lectures, building tours, design slams (challenges), open houses and more will take place in Portland – all in the name of promoting green building practices in the local market. These events will be hosted by a wide range of design professionals and professional organizations, including the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), the U.S. Green Building Council, the AIA (American Institute of Architects) Portland Committee on the Environment, the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild, Portland State University and many others.

“I am one of those people who came here searching for sustainability,” said Reilly Loveland, a project manager with the New Buildings Institute.

Loveland came to Portland after working in Seattle and Los Angeles. Seattle actually provides a model for Portland to follow, she said.

“In LA it never felt coordinated and wasn’t hitting home,” she said. “In Portland it’s really institutionalized, but the actual execution in terms of buildings is kind of lacking. We’re passionate and invigorated here, so we thought why not bring everyone together to have a positive event and really push that.”

Terry Campbell is the director of business development for Sustainable Northwest Wood and the chairman of the International Living Future Institute’s Portland Collaborative. He played a big role in organizing the first Sustainable Building Week.

“We’re called a collaborative, yet when I took over as chair I found we didn’t collaborate with other professional organizations,” he said. “Portland’s been usurped in the ILFI realm, and for me the term collaborative meant we needed to start reaching across and building bigger momentum. In 2000 through about 2005 it was easy, it was new and it was innovative. That’s not the case anymore.”

The ILFI Portland Collaborative will present an Oct. 9 workshop geared to guide builders through the various areas of the public process through which all projects must pass. In other words, the workshop will touch on everything from legislation that affects the industry to permitting, public outreach and navigation of the local bureaucracy.

“We’re going to basically have a teach-in where we spend 45 minutes getting people connected to various things,” Campbell said.

Another unique event will be a green building slam presented by the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild on Oct. 12. This will feature 10 separate presentations, each just 10 minutes in length. They will spotlight 10 different innovative green building projects.

Sustainable Building Week is so new that organizers are still fleshing out the complete lineup.

“We’re really excited about this,” Bowles said.

To check out a lineup of events and venues, visit .

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