Construction Underway on America's First "Living Building"
Omega Center for Sustainable Living Slated to be First Green Building to Achieve Both LEED© Platinum and Living Building Challenge™ Certification
RHINEBECK, NY - Omega Institute today announced that construction of their much anticipated Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OCSL) is underway; Omega has laid the foundation for the building and will soon begin erecting its steel frame and flooring. Once completed, the OCSL is expected to be the first certified "Living Building" in the United States; in addition to being self-sustaining in terms of water and energy usage, the OCSL will raise the bar in green building by using the best and most comprehensive sustainable building practices available today.
The cutting edge technology of the OCSL brings together wastewater recycling, clean energy, green architecture, and other sustainability elements that can be replicated locally and globally. The center will also include a classroom and laboratory for educational programs.
"The OCSL represents Omega's 30+ year commitment to modeling an integrated way of looking at the world and our place in it," said Skip Backus, Executive Director at Omega Institute. "Each year more than 18,000 people visit Omega's Rhinebeck campus and many more thousands visit our website. As an environmental steward, Omega has a real opportunity to educate the public about sustainable living - from the food that we serve, to 100% of the campus electricity coming from wind and solar technology, to the OCSL itself," concluded Backus.
At the Greenbuild 2007 conference the OCSL was the sole winner of the Living Building Challenge™ "On the Boards Award" for a building in the design process which achieves the highest level of environmental performance. The OCSL was also a topic of panel discussion at the Greenbuild 2008 conference.
"Despite the huge growth of green building, we still have a long way to go to reduce the environmental impact of buildings and building operations," said Jason F. McLennan, CEO of Cascadia Region Green Building Council and founder of the Living Building Challenge. "The OCSL is a beautiful example of the transformation that needs to take place in architecture-good design coupled with a deep green philosophy. It gives me hope for the buildings of the future," stated McLennan. McLennan was a keynote speaker, along side Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Maude Barlow, and Dr. John Todd at Omega's recent Water of Life conference.