The Living Building

Here's an idea, instead of just aiming to build sustainable buildings how about creating a city that not only generates its own energy but gives energy back to the grid, cleans the air, captures and treats water, and has negative emissions?

That seems to be the next step as architectural ingenuity is playing with many different concepts for “living building status” from buildings that contain microbes in the paint or finish that consume pollutants to buildings actually grown from trees.

The idea is certainly progressive but like the alternative energy push its going to lack the infrastructure for many years to come. However, it is encouraging to know that this kind of active progressive thinking is occurring during a time in which ethical business practice seems like a rarity.

The International Living Building Institute has been formed following in the footsteps of LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) to work on the standards for living building certifications as well as solutions towards implementing living building practices on a much larger scale.

Check out their website for more information http://ilbi.org/ .