The PAE Living Building Office, Portland

The PAE Living Building, designed to meet the world’s most rigorous sustainability standards, is the first developer-driven and largest commercial urban Living Building in the world. Designed and engineered to last 500 years, the building marries the scale and feel of a historic neighborhood with the highest possible energy performance and sustainability standards necessary for the future. It uses less energy, water, and material than comparable buildings while delivering superior levels of occupant comfort and productivity. Critically, the PAE Living Building demonstrates how the built environment can achieve the deep and immediate carbon emission reductions required to mitigate the most severe impacts of climate change. It shows the world what a regenerative future can look like while providing the roadmap for how to get there.

The dream of a Living Building as a corporate headquarters for PAE began in 2016. The engineering firm’s leadership sought an office that would not only embody their values but allow PAE employees to work in a healthy environment that improves the urban fabric of Portland. Just six years after selecting the building site location on First and Pine in the historic Old Town/Skidmore district, The PAE Living Building is doing just that. It demonstrates how Portland buildings can achieve the city’s 2050 target of 100 percent renewable energy nearly 30 years ahead of schedule – all while contributing to the revitalization and complementing the tradition of the existing neighborhood. The façade of the PAE Living Building is, at first glance, designed to reinforce the national historic district. On closer inspection, the façade achieves the seamless integration of many more responsibilities. Meeting the criteria of the seven LBC Petals—Place, Water, Energy, Health and happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty—which are then subdivided into 20 Imperatives, each focused on a specific sphere of influence, required every element in the building to serve multiple purposes.

All of the PAE Living Building’s needs are met via onsite water capture and onsite and offsite solar arrays. The building uses rainwater capture, greywater treatment, nutrient recovery, and a five-story vacuum flush composting system. Onsite and dedicated offsite solar generate 110% of the energy needed to run the building. A connection to the city grid enables the net positive energy structure to give back. It’s one of the first buildings in Portland to install a PV-powered battery storage system, allowing two-way power connection to the city’s utility network and electrical grid. Due to historic district guidelines that dictate PV cannot be visible, the team was forced to get creative with a community-based approach to offsite solar to meet the project’s energy needs. The team funded an offsite array on a project nearby—the Renaissance Commons affordable housing project –saving the affordable housing group approximately $20,000 per year via donated electricity and supporting a valuable local asset.