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Bullitt Center

Bullitt Center. Image: Helen Pineo, 2019

The Bullitt Center office building in Seattle, USA pioneered deep green design methods that pushed the boundaries of sustainable architecture. Owned and operated by the Bullitt Foundation, the building is described by Robert Peña and colleagues as catalysing ‘a shift in outlook from the notion of buildings as machines for living to that of buildings as living systems’ (1). Collaborating with the city and a local university, the Bullitt Center project led to a new Living Building Pilot Programme in Seattle and detailed post-occupancy evaluation data to continually improve the functioning of the building for people and the planet.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(2)

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Barton Park

Pond and new housing at Barton Park. Image: Helen Pineo 2021.

Providing 885 new homes and community services, the Barton Park development is an extension to Barton, a neighbourhood of around 1,500 homes three miles from Oxford city centre. An important goal for Barton Park, one of the NHS Healthy New Towns demonstrator sites, was to integrate the new and existing communities through the provision of shared social infrastructure and amenities. The population of the Barton and nearby Sandhills wards faces significant health inequalities resulting from high deprivation. The project aims to provide equal opportunities to all Barton residents to achieve good physical and mental health outcomes.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(1)

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Vila Viva

After intervention. Image: URBEL

Vila Viva is a large-scale urban renewal programme across 12 informal settlements in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Using participatory governance models, the city has delivered vast urban renewal initiatives, land regularisation and community development activities that have benefitted residents’ health in numerous ways. Evaluations of the programme demonstrate success through multiple indicators, including reduced homicides and improved connectivity to infrastructure and community services.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(1)

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Park 20|20

Park 20|20. Image: Delta Development 4

Park 20|20 is the first Cradle-to-Cradle ® (C2C) urban development project in the Netherlands, trailblazing design approaches that minimise resource consumption and support human health. The C2C approach is manifest in Park 20|20 through circular design, material health, and design for disassembly. The site includes an office tower, high density offices, hotel tower, athletic facilities, childcare facilities, greenhouses, and 9 hectares of public open space. The design is intended to create a closed-loop system where waste, energy and water are modelled after natural ecosystems.

As the first full-service C2C office park in the world, the development has pioneered business and legal models to support the transition from linear to circular economies. Known as a circular economy business model (CEBM), this approach seeks to ‘reduce resource use and waste within production, but also to extend product life cycles and employ strategies that allow the consumer to do more than buy, use and dispose.’(1) The project has also demonstrated the financial value of sustainable and healthy building design.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case study was written by Elizabeth Cooper and Helen Pineo.

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Grow Community

Shared spaces encourage social interaction at Grow Community. Image: Helen Pineo, 2019.

Grow Community is a planned residential community of 142 homes on an 8-acre site on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, USA. The investors pushed for high sustainability credentials and a range of affordable property types. This push, alongside early engagement with local residents, led the project team to design the development using the One Planet Living Framework, a guide to reduce the community’s ecological footprint and facilitate health and happiness. The masterplan outlined a compact community with shared gardens and greenspaces, energy efficient buildings, and reduced water use. In addition to housing, the development includes a community centre, early childhood centre, and approximately 2 acres of open space and community gardens.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case study was written by Elizabeth Cooper and Helen Pineo.

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Nightingale Housing

Nightingale Anstey. Image: Kate Longley, Nightingale Housing

Nightingale 1 is a ‘social experiment’. The apartment building in an inner-city suburb of Melbourne is the first completed example of the replicable, triple bottom line housing typology of Nightingale Housing. The building proved the concept for the Nightingale model, which aims to develop housing projects that are financially, socially and environmentally sustainable, disrupting the status quo of Australian residential development.(1)

The core mission of Nightingale Housing social enterprise is to create a housing system that supports human wellbeing, as well as economic, social and ecological sustainability. These aspirations are materialised in the housing typology and development model exemplified in the Nightingale 1 building, now being replicated on other projects in Melbourne and elsewhere in Australia. This case study describes details about Nightingale 1 and the wider model that is being used on other Nightingale Housing projects.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(2)

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Stone34

Outdoor eating at Brooks Sports Headquarters Building (Stone34). Image credit: LMN Architects

Stone34 is a five-storey, mixed-use commercial building in Seattle, USA on Stone Way between 34th and 35th streets in the Fremont neighbourhood. The building was designed according to the City of Seattle’s Deep Green Program (now Living Building Pilot Program) which is aligned with the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). Stone34 is certified LEED Platinum. The building uses around 75 percent less energy and water than similar projects. It was envisaged to act as an urban “trailhead” to Seattle’s popular Burke-Gilman, a 43 km cycling and walking trail. The project’s goals to support both physical activity and sustainability across the building and site were further strengthened when the main tenant, Brooks Sports, a company that makes running shoes and attire, was secured.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case study was written by Elizabeth Cooper.

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