2021 Energy Roadmap Competition

The 2030 District Network represents a coalition of property owners, managers, developers, tenants, industry and community stakeholders, that ZGF has been actively involved with since its founding. The Seattle 2030 District works specifically to make the city and surrounding communities more sustainable while contributing to the region’s environmental resiliency, livability, and affordability.

When the organization launched the 2021 Energy Roadmap competition, ZGF, with our integrated team of Lease Crutcher Lewis, Stantec, and KPFF, saw an opportunity to demonstrate a path for an all-electric building and address embodied carbon with a realistic budget and schedule. While there were three buildings to choose from, we chose what is arguably the most challenging option for net zero energy building, the downtown tower located at 1111 Third Avenue, for our proposal “District Carbon.”

Currently managed by Unico Properties, the 34-story high rise was built in 1980 and presents an exciting opportunity to rethink the downtown district and the intersection of carbon, risk, mobility, housing, and investment. The proposed concept provides infrastructure upgrades, modernizes the envelope and structure, optimizes MEP systems, and retools the building program to meet the changing needs of downtown residents.

Importantly, any building owner or developer looking to transition to net-zero energy could consider the strategies proposed for District Carbon:

Infrastructure enhancements:

• Update power distribution systems and incorporate onsite renewables such as PV generation.
• Expand bike storage and EV charging.

Structure and envelope upgrades:

• Address both structural and thermal performance to significantly extend the building life and reduce embodied carbon.
• Decrease seismic loads by replacing precast concrete with a lightweight and thermally efficient envelope.
• Consider a prefabricated façade for easy installation, light weight, low infiltration, low thermal bridging, and low carbon footprint.

MEP systems:

• Optimize mechanical systems to save space, enhance efficiency and resiliency, and accommodate prospective residential conversion. District Carbon’s proposed mechanical design recaptures 60% of space from the existing all air system by upgrading equipment and relocating the electrical room to the garage, providing more usable and rentable area in the building.
• Utilize a wastewater heat recovery system for domestic hot water needs and a greywater recovery and treatment system for non-potable water demands within the building.
• Use smart building technology to integrate building performance with the human experience.

Perhaps most impressive, the proposed concept would reduce the 1111 Third Avenue Building’s overall carbon footprint by 75%—with transportation playing a key role. Given that Seattle’s electrical grid is already the greenest in the nation, we looked holistically at other sources. The District Carbon team leveraged the fact that downtown Seattle residents already have the lowest carbon footprint of any zip code in the region, with their higher rate of public transit, biking, and walking. By introducing residential in the building program mix, carbon emissions specifically from commuting to and from downtown for work and/or leisure could be reduced by nearly 78%.

All Roads Lead to Net Zero

In January 2022, the Seattle 2030 District announced that District Carbon had won the first-ever Energy Roadmap competition.

“The team presented a holistic solution that looked at ways to address their building’s impact on the climate, its occupants and even its community,” said one of the judges. “If we are going to equitably meet our climate targets, we need to address our existing building stock and ensure that we apply a similar set of investigations to come out with the right sustainable solutions.”

In the spirit of working together to build a more sustainable future, the full proposal is publicly available for download:

A recording of the Seattle 2030 District’s January education forum is also available here.

While we recognize and appreciate the special opportunity the Seattle 2030 District presented to explore these ideas in a “blue sky” scenario, we hope the Energy Roadmap competition and others like it will continue to inspire building owners, developers, city planners, architects, engineers, builders, and contractors to reimagine their own downtown districts. With a greater sense of urgency and a clearer path to net-zero energy (and net-zero carbon), we can – and must – move the needle further together.