The Pharos Project is a project of the Healthy Building Network. HBN is:

In Vermont:
Melissa Coffin, Bill Walsh

In California:
Tom Lent

In Washington, DC:
Larry Kilroy, Sarah Gilberg, Sarah Pickell, Susan Sabella

In Maine:
Jim Vallette

DISPATCHES FROM THE FUTURE – BUILDINGS THAT GIVE BACK & THE END OF PVC

“Imagine a future where what we build is another part of nature,” neatly sums up the regenerative aspirations of many at the Living Future UnConference last week in Seattle. This annual gathering of building professionals exploring the Living Building Challenge ranged widely over the leading edge of green building design, technologies and activism.

Citing the tremendous purchasing power now wielded by the green building movement, Cascadia ED, Jason McLennan, opened the conference with a strong challenge to the audience to be bold and flex that power for transformation in the industry by taking a united step together on all projects, not just their Living Building Challenge projects. As a first step he called on all firms to just say ‘no’ to specifying PVC backing in carpet anywhere.

The Pharos Project was there joining session topics ranging from water treatment using biomimicry to the role of green building in ending homelessness. Robin Guenther, a principal at Perkins + Will, and I engaged in a lively discussion with the audience on radical transparency and how to use tools like the Pharos Project and the Perkins+Will Precautionary List of chemicals to get carcinogens and reproductive toxicants out of our buildings and our bodies.

Robin’s colleague at Perkins + Will, Amanda Sturgeon, raised the challenge to move from toxic materials to those that actually restore the environment, describing a project in Sudbury, Ontario that used limestone surfacing elements to help reverse the acidification of a lake that had been devastated by nickel mining.

Can we transform our industry so that what we build becomes a regenerative part of nature that heals instead of a source of cancer to be cured? With tools like the Pharos Project working hand-in-hand with the Living Building Challenge, we think we can.

Tom Lent is a researcher with the Pharos Project and the policy director of the Healthy Building Network.

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