AASHE Campus Sustainability Hub

In September 2015, the Georgia Tech Institute of Technology received a commitment for $30 million from The Kendeda Fund to building what the partners expected to become the most environmentally advanced education and research building ever constructed in the South. The partners had two shared goals: (a) demonstrate that a net-positive energy and net-positive water building can be built in a hot and humid climate, and (b) inspire change on the Georgia Tech campus and across the region’s building industry. The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design is the result of this bold effort.

The Kendeda Building has approximately 47,000 square feet of programmable space of which nearly 37,000 square feet is enclosed and conditioned space. It is a non-departmental space used for education, research, and outreach opportunities for all academic disciplines on campus. The building has two 64-person classrooms, two 24-person class labs, two 16-person class labs, a 16-person seminar room, a 24-person design studio, 176-person auditorium, rooftop apiary and pollinator garden, and an office space for co-located programs.

We accomplished the first goal of the project in 2021 when The Kendeda Building received Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification, the world’s most ambitious and holistic green building achievement. Meeting all seven LBC performance areas — Place, Water, Energy, Health + Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty — The Kendeda Building is the first LBC-certified building of its scale in the southeastern U.S., where a warm humid climate poses many challenges.

The certification from the International Living Future Institute independently verifies that The Kendeda Building is among the greenest in the world. Rather than being less bad than conventional buildings, The Kendeda Building proved over a 12-month performance period that it is regenerative. The building generated 225% of the energy needed to power all of its electrical systems from solar panels on its roof, far exceeding the 105% LBC requirement. It also collected, treated, and infiltrated 15 times the amount of water needed for building functions. The Kendeda Building truly gives back more than it takes from the environment and focuses on the health and happiness of occupants.

Georgia Tech has a responsibility to lead by example. As the first Living Building in Georgia and the 28th in the world, The Kendeda Building aligns with our long-standing vision for our campus to serve as a laboratory for innovation to inspire and develop tomorrow’s leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. In that regard, The Kendeda Building is part of Georgia Tech’s sustainability continuum. The Kendeda Building is an ongoing program, with a Director charged with making the building a catalyst for change across the region that helps reshape thinking of our built environment.

The Kendeda Building’s story started 15 years ago when Diane Ives, fund advisor for The Kendeda Fund’s People, Place and Planet program, was seeking promising ideas that could accelerate green-building innovation. The nation’s most popular sustainable building program, U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED, was not a good fit. LEED was — and still is — a market-based program. While it enhances standards as green materials and techniques improve, it focuses on broad adoption in the conventional design and construction communities. For The Kendeda Fund’s purposes, LEED was too incremental. They were looking for something that was the next leap.

Through their nonprofit network, Diana was introduced to Jason McLennan who sought to take green-building certification in a very different direction. He argued that buildings should be “regenerative.” In other words, the building industry should aim “not just to do less harm, but actually to figure out what good looks like.” He envisioned a standard that would require each building to produce at least as much energy and water as its occupants consumed, and that would bar the use of any materials on a toxic “Red List.” Those expectations went further than even LEED Platinum, which is the highest standard in the LEED system. And unlike LEED, which allows certification upon the building’s completion, a Living Building would only be certified after a full year of data showing energy and water performance.

The language of the Living Building Challenge (LBC) was designed to inspire. Sure, it would be the world’s most stringent green-building system. But the ultimate aim was to provoke the building industry, to tap into architects’ creativity, and engineers’ ingenuity.

In 2013, the Buillitt Center in Seattle attained full LBC certification. Diana Blank, The Kendeda Fund’s founder, and Diane Ives were given a tour of the Center. It was an impressive achievement — a six-story Class A office building that thoroughly vetted for toxic “Red List” materials, collected its own water, and produced more electricity than it used. It demonstrated that leading architects and builders were up to the “challenge” of a creating a Living Building on a large scale.

During that tour, Diana Blank turned to Diane Ives and said, “We need to build something like this in Atlanta.” LBC was making inroads in the West, the Northeast, and the Midwest — even internationally. But few Living Buildings were underway in the South. None were yet certified. The Kendeda Fund saw a LBC project in Atlanta as an opportunity to bring this innovation to a part of the country where it had not yet been embraced. With the idea that if it can be done in the South, it could be done anywhere. The only question was how to make that happen.

The Kendeda Fund team assembled a “kitchen cabinet” to help them work through the various issues related to designing, constructing, and operating a fully certified Living Building in the South. This group of advisors emphasized that the eventual owner of the building, as well as the kind of building constructed would be crucial in determining whether the project could be leveraged to transform design and construction across the region.

The Kendeda Fund then began the process of finding its partner — an owner who understood the challenge of creating a Living Building, as well as the opportunity the project presented to improve building practices. Among the possibilities were major universities and civic organizations. Most, but not all, the locations were in Atlanta.

Among the group was Georgia Tech. There were plenty of reasons to approach us with the idea. In addition to our schools of architecture and building construction, the university’s engineering departments are heavily involved in research on leading-edge technologies, ranging from structural materials and HVAC systems to photovoltaics and flooring systems that generate electricity from footsteps. Our network of alumni — many of whom are design and construction leaders across the South — comprised a natural network with whom to leverage the Living Building message. And the institution’s familiarity with building science carries over to the university’s facilities planners, which included more than 20 LEED-certified buildings.

Our lead architect gave Kendeda Fund staff members a presentation on Georgia Tech’s Campus Master Plan, which emphasizes sustainability, walkability and “high-performance” facilities. In March 2015, Diana Blank was shown a location that we though would be appropriate — nestled in an ongoing landscape restoration project called the “EcoCommons.” They capped off the visit by meeting school President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, along with Executive Vice President for Administration and Finance Steve Swant.

Enthusiasm for the project swelled among campus leadership. It was an opportunity for us to focus on best practices and state-of-the-art technology to create a building in a collaborative fashion. We saw it as an opportunity to change the profession, the practice, the process, the way our campus and region do business. In short, we thought it could change the way we live.

After the parties decided to partner on this bold vision, they finalized the agreement in September 2015. The Kendeda Fund would be a unique funder for our university. They wanted to be deeply involved in design and construction to ensure that the gift has maximum impact on building practices elsewhere. And this project would be unique for our region, because nothing like it had ever been done here before.

The reason why this building exists in Atlanta is to show that if we can open a Living Building in the South, then anyone can construct a Living Building anywhere. Therefore, the immediate goal of the project was to design, construct, and operate a fully certified Living Building and for it to be the greenest building on any college campus.

Prior to the Kendeda Building, most fully certified Living Buildings were in the Pacific Northwest or the Northeast; parts of the world that have a substantially different climate than here in the South. As long as these regenerative buildings existed in other parts of the country, it was easy for the naysayers to say, "You know what? This regenerative building ethos, it works there. You can't do it here because..." And you can just fill in the blanks, for the reasons people came up with. The top reason of course, was “it's hot, it's humid.”

The best way to prove the naysayers wrong and take the, “it can't be done here argument off the table,” is by showing that it can be done. Then the conversation moves to, "How do we get more of this done here?" And that was the broader objective of the project: to leverage The Kendeda Building so that the region will be prepared for the increasing environmental challenges, and resulting equity impacts, facing the building sector. We wanted a Living Building in the South that can serve as a catalyst for change. A model, a Southern solution for the unique environment we have here in the South.

DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND CERTIFICATION

In October 2015, Georgia Tech put out a call for design teams and received 17 submissions. In December 2015, we invited three teams to move ahead into an “Ideas Competition,” which was built on the premise that sustainable, high-performance buildings benefit when their architecture is integrated from the beginning with engineering and landscape design. The ideas competition reordered the typical steps in the design of commercial buildings.

With conventional buildings, the engineering and landscape designs come after the design team is hired. The theory is that because they are unconstrained by other professionals, architects can efficiently hone a singular vision. The problem is that with high-performance buildings, it can be much more difficult to resolve engineering and site issues after the big design decisions are made.

The ideas competition sought to address this issue by requiring integrated planning. Georgia Tech asked the design teams to think about how this project can change the world, the region, the city, and the campus. Through that winter, the firms spent hundreds of professional hours evaluating various site options; researching cutting-edge materials, products, and techniques; and contriving schemes that had the potential to meet the Living Building Challenge’s exacting standards. Each team’s expense was partially offset by a stipend of $35,000.

In January and February 2016, the three finalist teams were asked to open their doors to observers at two all-day “touchpoint” work sessions. Even though only one team would be selected, the process resulted in three teams learning about how to design and build a Living Building in the South. This is knowledge that cannot be unlearned. So in this respect, one of the goals of the project was achieved before a team was even selected: the yet-to-be-designed building was serving as a catalyst for change in the region.

In March 2016, Georgia Tech selected Lord Aeck Sargent (LAS) and The Miller Hull Partnership as architects for the proposed Living Building. LAS, a local firm, would lead the design team. Seattle’s Miller Hull was well-known for its work on the Bullitt Center, LBC’s largest building to date. In August 2016, Skanska USA was named as builder after Georgia Tech chose the firm to manage construction. Among the building giant’s strengths: “their extensive experience in successfully delivering projects according to the stringent building requirements of the Living Building Challenge.”

Contributing teams on the project included Andropogon (landscape), PAE (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering), Newcomb & Boyd (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing), Biohabitats (greywater systems), Long Engineering (civil engineering), Uzun & Case (structural engineering).

In September 2016, schematic design began with the two design firms working on architectural drawings. But the architects did not work in isolation; the LBC process required early engagement with engineers, landscape architects, and the builder, as well as Georgia Tech and The Kendeda Fund. In January 2017, design development began as engineers and architects reviewed specific options for systems and materials to be incorporated in the design — a heavily analytical process in a building committed to net positive energy, net positive water and thorough vetting for toxic materials.

In August 2017, construction documents were prepared. Based on design, performance and price, the team locked in systems and materials. The documentation described these systems and materials in detail for the builder. In November 2017, with construction documents almost ready, Georgia Tech, The Kendeda Fund, and design partners celebrated by throwing wildflower seeds at a “launch” — rather than digging with shovels at a “groundbreaking.” They also made the building’s name official: The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design.

In February 2018, construction began with fencing, signs, and erosion control barriers installed. Dennis Taylor & Co. began removing and recycling onsite materials, and then began site preparation. The foundation and basement of the building were poured by Skanska and Greater Georgia Concrete in May 2018. To reduce the building’s carbon footprint, concrete was minimized and the concrete that was used was pumped with CarbonCure — an additive that reduces the net carbon emissions inherent in concrete.

Installation of the building’s complex heating, ventilation and air conditioning system began in July 2018 and continued into 2019. The mass timber beams arrived in September 2018. Finding the right vendor to fabricate the building’s glue-laminated posts and beams took longer than expected and created delays. Once the posts and beams, and nail-laminated floor panels that were assembled by a Skanska team were put in place, however, a crew from Florida-based Universal Timber assembled the building in just four months. The building structure was completed in December 2018 and work began on internal systems, fixtures, the solar canopy, and landscaping. Substantial completion was achieved in September 2019.

Georgia Tech began the 12-month performance period on December 1, 2019 and completed it on November 30, 2020. On Earth Day, April 22, 2021, Georgia Tech announced that the project had achieved its first goal. The Kendeda Building had earned Living Building Challenge version 3.1 certification thereby becoming the first Living Building in Georgia and 28th in the world!

LEVERAGING THE KENDEDA BUILDING Georgia Tech and The Kendeda Fund did not wait until LBC certification to embark on the second goal: inspire change on the Georgia Tech campus and across the region’s building industry.

The Kendeda Fund recognized that the journey towards a Living Building had to be chronicled in order to provide future teams with a complete understanding of our project. They tapped award-winning reporter Ken Edelstein to serve as Editor of the Living Building Chronicle: https://livingbuilding.kendedafund.org. Since October 2016, the Living Building Chronicle has covered not just the progress of our project, but also milestones in the global regenerative building industry. It is such an important tool for leveraging The Kendeda Building that it has provided much of the historical details contained in this case study.

The Ideas Competition was Georgia Tech’s way to leverage the mere idea of a Living Building in the South as a catalyst for expanding the knowledge base of local firms. Once we selected the design team, members spoke at numerous regional and national conferences. We started a robust tour program when the construction site consisted of a hole in the ground! Over 2,000 people toured the construction site as the building went from idea to an actual structure.

The partners always envisioned that the building would have a Director charged with, among other things, leveraging the building so it can be a catalyst for change. In July 2018, Georgia Tech selected Shan Arora, an Atlanta-based sustainability expert, as The Kendeda Building Director. In January 2019, Georgia Tech selected Marlon Ellis as the Area Maintenance Manager who oversees the operations and maintenance of The Kendeda Building. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Marlon was the Facilities Director for Atlanta Technical College. Because of his background as an instructor as well as his experience coaching and umpiring basketball, Georgia Tech felt that he would be best suited to both oversee facilities as well as interface with his colleagues on other campuses on how best to implement LBC operational principles.

In July 2019, Georgia Tech selected an operations and maintenance team charged with operating The Kendeda Building to the highest standards for the life of the building. But unlike other operations and maintenance teams, some members of this team had a specific charge to interface with their peers. For example, Steve Place (Horticulturist) brought deep knowledge of invasive species, native plants, and ecological practices. He has been spearheading our engagement with the region’s landscape, farming, and urban ecology communities since he began.

Between September to December 2019, we had a soft opening for the building. The Georgia Tech Global Change Program, Office of Campus Sustainability, and the building director were the first permanent occupants. During this period, we held symposiums on climate change, a training for members of Georgia media on climate science and reporting on climate issues, workshops on equity in the building environment, and a host of other student, staff, and community gatherings. In fact, during the soft opening the building hosted over 150 events and tours with over 5,000 attendees. This allowed us to leverage the building by showcasing its innovative features. It also allowed us to test how it behaves as various activities take place inside. This prepared us for the start of the performance period as well as Spring 2020 classes.

Going forward, the Director has a multi-prong approach to leverage the building that consists of, among other things:

• in-person and virtual tours;
• strategic discussions with area building owners who have the ability / vision to move towards higher performing buildings;
• hosting events related to sustainability and equity in the built environment;
• having design team representatives speaking at conferences and seminars;
• a robust social media presence;
• a YouTube channel with informative videos;
• and an in-depth 3D Tour.

Members of the design team remain active in leveraging the building for greater impact on campus and across the region.

• September 2015 – The Kendeda Fund announces its largest single philanthropic investment ever. The $30 million grant will pay for a new Georgia Tech building that will seek certification under the Living Building Challenge. It’s the first project in Georgia to seek certification via the world’s most ambitious green-building standard.

• October 2015 – Georgia Tech puts out a call for design teams.

• December 2015 – Georgia Tech invites three teams to move ahead into an “Ideas Competition.”

• January and February 2016 – The three finalist teams open their doors to observers at two all-day “touchpoint” work sessions.

• March 2016 – Georgia Tech selects Lord Aeck Sargent (LAS) and The Miller Hull Partnership as architects for the Living Building.

• August 2016 – Skanska USA is named as builder after Georgia Tech chooses the firm to manage construction.

• September 2016 – Schematic design begins.

• January 2017 – Design development begins.

• August 2017 – Construction documents are prepared.

• November 2017 – The building name is announced.

• February 2018 – Construction begins.

• May 2018 – The foundation and basement of the building are poured.

• July 2018 – Georgia Tech selects Shan Arora as The Kendeda Building Director.

• September 2018 – The mass timber arrives.

• December 2018 – The building structure is completed.

• January 2019 – The building switches to permanent power. Installation begins on skylights and solar canopy to be installed. Cistern waterproofed and cured. Interior framing begins. Basement finishing begins.

• January 2019 – Georgia Tech selects Marlon Ellis as the Area Maintenance Manager who oversees the operations and maintenance of The Kendeda Building.

• February 2019 – Connection is made for campus hot water link and mechanical pipes. Radiant flooring and most HVAC equipment is connected and powered up. Composting toilet bins are installed in basement. Interior framing, roofing, curtain wall (including windows) and sheet metal work on roof completed. First blower door test takes place. Outside, excavation for gravel-infiltration beds and pipe systems.

• July 2019 – Georgia Tech selects an operations and maintenance team charged with operating The Kendeda Building to the highest standards for the life of the building.

• September 2019 – Substantial completion is achieved.

• September to December 2019 – Soft opening.

• September 24, 2019 – To celebrate all who worked tirelessly on The Kendeda Building, Georgia Tech hosted a Friends and Family Day, and welcomed more than 200 people through the building.

• October 24, 2019 – Georgia Tech dedicates the most sustainable building of its kind in the South.

• December 1, 2019 – Georgia Tech begins the 12-month performance period.

• January 2020 – Full occupancy. Georgia Tech students return for Spring 2020 classes.

• November 30, 2020 – Georgia Tech completes the 12-month performance period.

• December 2020 – Design team submits first tranche of documents to third-party auditor to review.

• February 2021 – Design team submits performance period data and final set of documents to third-party auditor to review.

• March 2021 – Design team receives notification that the building has achieved Living Building Challenge v. 3.1 certification.

• April 22, 2021 – Georgia Tech announces Living Building Challenge version 3.1 certification; the first Living Building in Georgia and 28th in the world.

The Kendeda Fund provided $25 million for 100% of the design and construction costs. They provided another $5 million to support programming activities. Four million dollars of this amount is in a Georgia Tech Foundation account. The interest earned will be distributed yearly to support The Kendeda Building’s leverage activities.

The most notable result of the project is that The Kendeda Building is the first Living Building in Georgia and the 28th in the world. Having such a high performing building in the South has garnered local, regional, national, and international attention. The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, a host of industry publications, and many more media outlets have covered the project thereby allowing us to amplify the building’s message.

TOURS AND SOCIAL MEDIA

The tour program has been a huge success. Seeing the building is truly believing that it can be done! Over 5,000 people have taken construction, self-guided, guided in-person, and guided virtual tours. We launched an immersive 3-D tour in 2020 that provides virtual guests with access that even an in-person tour cannot provide! The 3-D tour also allows us to give impactful virtual tours and lectures, to anyone, anywhere in the world. People can also take a virtual tour of The Kendeda Building inside Google Street View!

In April 2020, we launched on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. With thousands of followers, the building is on its way to becoming a social media influencer! In September, The Kendeda Building’s YouTube Channel went live and now has over 40 videos. We premiered two short movies in December. And a pipeline of videos are going to deploy throughout 2021.

SEMINARS, MEDIA, AND CASE STUDIES

In 2020, The Kendeda Building Team (Georgia Tech staff, architects, builders, engineers, and consultants on the project) spoke at 25 panel discussions, lectures, and seminars with an audience of over 2,500 people. We spoken at over one dozen so far this year. Many are available online and have therefore received hundreds of additional views.

In 2020, The Kendeda Building Team was featured in over 50 media reports and across multiple channels including a collaboration between Skanska and the BBC, which yielded this wonderful “BBC StoryWorks” video. Lord Aeck Sargent, Miller Hull Partnership, and Skanska helped prepare a video for Autodesk University entitled Reimagine Sustainability: The Kendeda Story. Here are other highlights from 2020:

• Environment Georgia: Renewable Energy 101 • Manage This podcast: Creating a Living Building – The Kendeda Building at Georgia Tech • GBES Live Case Study Review: Living Building at Georgia Tech • Atlanta Magazine: A structure that produces more energy than it uses? In the deep south? Welcome to the Kendeda building. • Tradeline: Mass Timber Moves Mainstream • Southface: The Regenerative Economy: Sustaining Society’s Future by Design

Media coverage ramped up again for the certification announcement. The most prominent was an Associated Press article + video. The article was picked up by at least 57 media outlets including The Washington Post, ABC News, Toronto Star, Miami Herald, AJC, and The Seattle Times. There were 339 total hits (e.g., on-air, in-print, online) for The Kendeda Building story with an estimated reach of 287,709,256 people as far away as Taiwan!

CERTIFICATES AND AWARDS

We have achieved additional certifications. Georgia Tech and our partners have received many honors. Each certification and award is an opportunity to further amplify what we have done. The more people who know about the project, the greater the likelihood that the project will inspire change. Below are some examples.

In 2020, the Georgia Native Plant Society designated the building as a Gold Certified Native Plant Habitat. The Metro Atlanta Chamber recognized the building as one of the region’s most innovative projects at the intersection of sustainability and commerce. Other awards from across the nation include:

• RecycleMania: Race to Zero Waste • Chicago Athenaeum: American Architecture Award • Metal Architecture Magazine: Grand Award Winner • AIA Seattle 2020 Awards: Energy in Design Award & Merit Award • Engineering News-Record Southeast: Best Green Project • Autodesk Architecture, Engineering and Construction Excellence Awards: Sustainability Innovation Award • Construction Management Association of America (South Atlantic Chapter) 2020 Awards: 3 including Project Of The Year

In 2021, the building became the second project in the state to achieve LEED v4 Platinum designation. It also achieved Georgia Audubon Certified Wildlife Sanctuary. This program recognizes and encourages property owners to enhance their land for birds and other wildlife. We are the first university / college campus building in Georgia that has achieved this certification.

We received the American Institute of Architects COTE Top Ten Award for 2021. The COTE Top Ten Awards is the architecture industry’s best-known awards program for sustainable design excellence. Each year, ten innovative projects earn the prize for setting the standard in design and sustainability. To be selected, projects must meet the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) rigorous criteria for social, economic, and ecological value.

INSTITUTE-WIDE INFLUENCE

While we are currently having conversations with peer institutions and area businesses on how to replicate LBC ethos in the region, we are also focusing on our campus. We understand that for The Kendeda Building to inspire the broader building industry, Georgia Tech has to lead by example. As we crafted our new strategic plan, our Kendeda Building experience motivated us to include, as one of our top strategic themes, the idea of leading by example—to be an example of efficiency, sustainability, ethics, equity, and inclusion in everything we do. If we are to change the hearts and minds of generations of students, our buildings, our operations, need to be part of that transformative experience.

With the success of The Kendeda Building’s energy systems, engineers on campus have been considering more closely how we can scale these systems as part of future Carbon Action and holistic Campus Master planning efforts. The Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory team is currently using The Kendeda Building to study demand response techniques and is seeking a Department of Energy research grant that could fund future heat pump installation on campus in an effort to study the thermodynamic and hydraulic complexities inherent in such scaling.

Concerning procurement, our experience with constructing the building expanded our thinking about equity in the built environment. A key member of the design team is working on an initiative to expand access to Georgia Tech procurement contracts so that smaller firms have the ability to provide their goods and services to our institute.

The latest edition of the Georgia Tech campus design guidelines, known as the Yellow Book, codifies the experience we gained with healthy materials via designing The Kendeda Building. The Yellow Book now lists chemicals of concern for the most commonly used product types. For each product type, the Yellow Book provides one of two methods for selection. For product types where products are limited and there is little information in the industry, the Yellow Book provides a “basis of design” to which other products can be compared for appropriateness. For product types where transparency is more common, the Yellow Books contains a matrix defining good / better / best criteria for that type and provides examples of products that meet each one of those classifications.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

Beyond the Yellow Book, The Kendeda Building and the Living Building Challenge experience has forced discussions on many projects. Regardless of whether elements of the Living Building Challenge end up in the project, we firmly believe that there is value in the conversations. Having regenerative ethos discussions across various projects reminds Georgia Tech project and construction managers of our goal to “lead by example.”

We know from our experience with The Kendeda Building that some of its systems are suited for district-wide developments. We have partnered with a district energy think-tank called Elementa, as well as Perkins + Will, to create a district energy strategy for the south by southwest areas of campus that could yield a scalable, net zero energy consumption solution that can be phased over time. This exciting strategy relies on ambient temperature hydronic loops, where by heat/energy is pushed pulled via heat pumps across the district. This system is similar to The Kendeda Building’s radiant flooring, but scaled to cover an entire district of campus to provide heating and cooling simultaneously.

Georgia Tech is currently planning Tech Square Phase 3, a new development in the heart of Atlanta's Midtown community. We have strategically partnered with a diverse consultant team lead by Lord Aeck Sargent (LAS), who brings to this new project the expertise and lessons learned from The Kendeda Building. LAS has provided Georgia Tech with their preliminary goals for the project, many of which are influenced by Living Building Challenge version 4.0 Energy, Material, Beauty, and Equity Imperatives, as well as by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Perhaps the most exciting new development is our partnership with the municipality of Shenzhen, Tianjin University, and the Chinese Ministry of Education to develop a new 3,000-student campus called Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute, Tianjin University (GTSI). Several Tianjin University professors and staff were visiting scholars at our Atlanta campus and noticed the climate similarities between Atlanta and Shenzhen. They were also impressed with, and studied The Kendeda Building. That is what sparked in them the idea to include the LBC program in the GTSI campus planning.

Georgia Tech’s planning staff, in collaboration with GT International Initiatives, have been developing recommendations for an International Design Competition Brief, similar to The Kendeda Building Ideas Competition, to select design and construction professionals for the new campus. The campus buildings will target LBC, LEED, Well, and several Green Building Programs in China. For the LBC component, the GTSI team envisions a 3,500 square meter academic and research building that has an auditorium, meeting space, green building demonstration laboratory, and support spaces. For reference, this is similar to the size of The Kendeda Building.

CAMPUS WASTE MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS AND CATERING

Since the inception of The Kendeda Building as a strategic idea, the Office of Campus Sustainability, as well as Facilities partners positioned the building to set an example of sustainable operations for the rest of campus. Many programs related to materials management, procurement, and food standards were developed and incorporated into The Kendeda Building’s design and operational structures as fundamental initiatives that could be scaled across campus.

After a year of building operations, positive experiences at The Kendeda Building aided in several campus-wide operational changes, particularly with waste management. The AWARE Program (Actively Working to Achieve Resource Efficiency) places the responsibility on employees to sort and empty their waste into larger bins located within the building. Some departments and building managers were hesitant to adopt AWARE for their office spaces out of concern about occupant compliance. To assuage these concerns, Facilities personnel highlighted The Kendeda Building, which does not have desk-side containers and has had no issues with waste management.

Facilities personnel rolled out AWARE across campus late last year. This will save Georgia Tech $750,000 annually in staff hours and increase the waste diversion rate of participating spaces by 60 percent. AWARE will also reduce purchases of trash bag liners, an item that Georgia Tech purchased over 1.4 million of last in 2020.

The Kendeda Building’s success with compost has allowed Facilities personnel to pursue a campus-wide contract for compost pick-up services in order to expand access across the campus. The Request for Proposal is currently being developed. But even without a campus-wide compost provider, the positive experience from The Kendeda Building has facilitated expanded composting infrastructure and service in GT Housing, with plans on implementing a composting program in the new campus center complex after it opens.

The Kendeda Building has also served as an example for "hard to recycle" items such as plastic film/bags, styrofoam, and glass. Students and staff use this “drop off” service at The Kendeda Building and Facilities personnel are looking at how best to expand this service across campus. In fact, the success of plastic film/bag recycling at The Kendeda Building resulted in an additional permanent drop-off location at the Expo Hall Post Office. Paper cup recycling at The Kendeda Building has also led to exploration of expansion and continued partnership with our recycling vendors.

The Kendeda Building catering guidelines request, to the greatest extent possible, that food served in the building follow Principles of Healthy, Sustainable Menus established by the Menus of Change Initiative of the Culinary Institute of America and the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The Kendeda Building has been such a popular location for events, many of which are catered, that the Office of Campus Sustainability will use the catering guidelines and food procurement standards developed for The Kendeda Building to inform best practices within a new self-operational GT Dining organization for Fiscal Year 2022.

AREA 6 MAINTENANCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

The Kendeda Building is in Area 6, which also includes the Dalney Building, the Dalney Deck, the Campus Safety Building, and the EcoCommons. This is the only Area on campus that almost exclusively uses battery-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers, which are charged at The Kendeda Building effectively making the equipment solar-powered. In fact, we have used less than a gallon of gasoline in Area 6 for landscaping purposes. Gasoline powered landscape equipment emit particulate pollution that can pose a health hazard. In Area 6, we have showcased that battery-powered equipment is viable and hope to expand their use in other Areas across campus.

Campus yard trimmings and leaves are currently landfilled. At The Kendeda Building, we collect and compost yard trimmings onsite in an open-air containment area. This approach takes over one year to convert the trimmings into compost. Therefore, we are going to purchase a composter to reduce that timeline to 30 days. We will collect yard trimmings from the EcoCommons and Kendeda Building sites, covert it into compost, and then spread that nutrient rich top soil onsite. We will monitor the labor impacts and compost generated with the hopes of expanding the practice across campus.

We are also replacing pine straw with mulched leaves gathered across the campus in the fall. This reuses otherwise discarded material, as well as eliminates costs, i.e., purchase of pine straw and transportation of leaves off campus. If successful, our goal is to replicate this practice across campus. We are also using leftover slate tile used in the construction of the building as edging for erosion control, which showcases yet another was to save on costs while reusing construction and demolition materials. We want to normalize this type of reuse mindset across campus.

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

Whenever possible, we engage students to further aspects of The Kendeda Building across campus. For example, we are working with Scouting at Georgia Tech to rid the forest fragment opposite the EcoCommons and Kendeda Building on Ferst Drive of invasive vegetation. This effort engages student volunteers to further the building’s ethos of promoting native habitat. The students learn about invasive species and the negative impact they have on native eco-systems. This bolsters their appreciation of the value of native species. Once restored, the forest fragment will join the adjacent Kendeda Building and EcoCommons landscape as wildlife habitat. We plan to continue this effort to remove invasive plants on other parts of campus with the assistance of student volunteers.

Aside from volunteer opportunities led by Kendeda Building staff, the building itself is used by many professors for classes that focus on the Living Building Challenge Petals. In Spring 2020, Serve-Learn-Sustain, together with the Office of Campus Sustainability and the Global Change Program, piloted The Kendeda Building Teaching Fellows Program. This pilot program brought together faculty members to share and learn from each other, in ways that enhance their teaching, research, and action. All Fellows taught in The Kendeda Building, and came together to develop a community of practice in which they shared and learned from each other about how to integrate the seven Living Building Challenge performance areas and The Kendeda Building itself into their teaching. They also explored how to engage themselves and their students in enacting behavior change aligned with the building’s principles. Because the 2020 program was a pilot engagement program, the sponsors will use the experience as a foundation for developing a training and engagement program for faculty who will teach in the building in the future.

On March 4, 2021, the Kendeda Building hosted a student-led symposium entitled Climate Change and the Design of the Built Environment: Enterprising Approaches for Industry, Government, and Community. It is a component of the course by the same name taught by Michael Gamble. As an extension of the symposium, students are developing multiple, one-hour podcasts with leading thinkers through discussions on design and equity, justice, ethics, and of course, climate change.

Students also use the building for research. Two Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) teams either focus on, or leveraging the building: Building for Equity and Sustainability Living Building Science

The Building for Equity and Sustainability team is comprised of approximately 15 undergraduate students from liberal arts, computing, and design. They are researching how to push the envelope on equity as a core component of a sustainable built environment. This group is developing recommendations for expanding and deepening LBC equity work moving forward. The Living Building Science team is engaged in exciting research. This team of over 30 undergraduate science, engineering, and computing majors is exploring how the building's systems function and how they can be improved upon. Projects include nitrification of liquid waste for use as fertilizer, constructed wetland greywater treatment, air quality monitoring, and computational and technological solutions for the study of urban agriculture and wildlife.

Kendeda Building staff, in cooperation with the University of Georgia Extension Service (Extension Service), have also piloted a Georgia Urban Naturalist Certificate course for college students in the state. The Certificate course explored the unique associations between the natural world, the built environment, and our role as humans within both. Each session covered a specific topic that was tied together through the ethos of regenerative ecology, which is exemplified by The Kendeda Building.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Kendeda Building’s journey has only begun. It will continue to challenge our staff to innovative and transform our campus into a place that gives back more to people and the planet. Certification is an important milestone. However, it is just one point in time. Inspiring change on the Georgia Tech campus and across the region's building industry will be an ongoing and exciting process.

Through our experience, we can confirm the adage that once you learn Living Building principles, you cannot unlearn them. Georgia Tech staff who worked on The Kendeda Building are the metaphorical pebbles that create ripples in the pond. Through our multi-year process of designing, building, and operating The Kendeda Building, we have had personnel from many departments and units work on the project. These personnel have taken the knowledge they gained back to their department and unit.

However, none of it can happen without executive buy-in. The process is long and leadership has to be on board; not just for the design and construction portion of the project, but also the operational portion. If you want to make your Living Building a change agent on your campus and beyond, then you definitely need executive support.

But we know that leadership on campuses change. Therefore, it is important to have a document that memorializes the intent so in the event that there is new leadership, they will understand the commitment that had been made by a prior administration. This can be a memorandum of understanding between the different departments / units that will have to cooperate with explicit commitments being made by each party to the agreement. In our case, we had the Gift and Disbursement Agreements between The Kendeda Fund and Georgia Tech.

Another lesson learned is that if you want the building to be a change agent, set aside funds for ongoing leverage activities. Also, as soon as possible, identify one individual charged with planning and coordinating all leverage activities. Ideally this individual would be part of the design team.

We have learned that it is important to have an individual with deep facilities / building operations knowledge on the design team. Architects and builders can design amazing systems but years of knowledge from a facilities expert can inform the team on whether the solution is practical from an operations perspective.

Finally, know that if your school embarks on a Living Building project with the determination that it will get built, then it will be a beacon for your community from day 1. So share your journey with the world. Build a following of cheerleaders who are invested in your success and will amply your building’s message. Celebrate the small victories. And hang on for one of the, if not the most rewarding professional experience of your career!

• Shan Arora - Director, Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design | Georgia Institute of Technology

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