Materials Petal Imperatives

The Living Building Challenge Materials Petal seeks to push the construction industry towards healthy and sustainable material production practices. The most rigorous Petal CornerStone pursued, it contains five Imperatives, each with specific and demanding requirements the Project had to achieve.

These imperatives are:

  1. Embodied Carbon Offset: reducing carbon through smart material planning and purchase of carbon emission offsets, 

  2. Red List Free Materials: vetting the ingredients of every installed material to ensure known toxins were not present,

  3. Responsible Sourcing: utilizing Living Product & Declare Product labels, and purchasing wood from low-risk sources,

  4. Living Economy Sourcing: prioritizing materials sourced from the regional economy, 

  5. Net Positive Waste: setting targets for construction waste diversion, recycling and salvage.

Discover the highlights of achieving some of these Imperatives below.

Mass Timber Framework

The hybrid mass timber structure stores carbon in its glulam Douglas fir columns and braces, dowel laminated timber panels, and the striking cedar pergola above the entry plaza. Utilizing mass timber, this Living Building reduced its embodied carbon by 35% compared to a comparable steel or concrete structure.

Removing Red Listed Materials

Red List materials contain toxic chemicals harmful to humans and the environment. CornerStone is over 90% red list compliant. Every single material in the building (1,086 total) went through an extensive vetting process to review material ingredients. Where the team wasn’t able to find red list-free materials, the team advocated to manufacturers to reduce use of red listed materials and improve ingredient transparency practices.

Upcycled Materials Salvage

With minimal processing, the steel around the feature staircase entryway, supporting some planter walls, framing of the southeast terrace gate, and even the posts supporting EV chargers and exterior signage has been ‘upcycled’ as a design detail, instead of being tossed in a landfill. CornerStone reuses over 30 salvaged materials incorporated on both exterior and interiors. Search for these medallions on materials throughout the site!