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GreenFab understands that sustainable development is difficult to define.  With respect to the great work done by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system and Cascadia’s Living Building Challenge, we have defined our own meaning of sustainable development as: development that makes strides towards creating functional sustainable design systems. 

Our projects will make every effort to follow the certified criteria outlined by the fore-mentioned organizations.  In addition to these criteria, GreenFab will be operating under a set of nine sustainable design systems that we have created internally to further inform and direct our development process. 

You will notice many basic similarities between our sustainable design systems and the prerequisites mentioned in the Living Building Challenge.  Our intent is to informally supplement these prerequisites with our own systems to ensure that we have integrated our specific mission and values into every project we start. 

Our nine sustainable design systems are: affordability, transportation, walkability, site, energy, materials, water, indoor quality, and beauty and inspiration.  Six of our nine systems including; site, energy, materials, water, indoor quality, and beauty and inspiration, are roughly based on the six “petals” of Cascadia’s Living Building Challenge. 

Click on the icons below to learn more about how we use each sustainable design system to measure relative project success. 

A Case Study Approach
In addition to our own projects, GreenFab will be using our sustainable design systems to highlight other development projects throughout the Seattle area that incorporate “sustainable” elements.

GreenFab will be researching and evaluating new construction of multi-family housing projects.  For each project, we will be walking the neighborhood streets to research public transportation opportunities and safe pedestrian walkways.  In addition, we will interview designers, developers and residences to understand design intent, construction constraints, and homeowner satisfaction.  This process will help us determine if design intent does successfully translate into a sustainable living experience. 

You can find these case studies in our “Hello Seattle” blog category.  Stay in the loop by subscribing to our RSS feed.