Thought Leadership: Arch Nexus and Community Rebuilds Team Up
Leading the region in sustainable design, Architectural Nexus is pleased to be partnering with Community Rebuilds, a non-profit general contractor for energy efficient homes. Together, the organizations will be creating homes for low and very-low income households that aim to be the first Certified Living Buildings in the State of Utah.
The International Living Future Institute defines a living building as one that functions as a part of the natural eco system. To do this, they must employ several regenerative features. Some of the features included in the Community Rebuilds Living Buildings are:
- passive solar design
- highly insulative straw bale wall construction
- heavy focus on salvaged material
- materials with low embodied carbon footprint
- composting toilet systems
- rainwater collected and stored for toilet flushing and irrigation
- greywater reuse for agriculture
- permaculture landscape design
- earthen plaster finishes throughout the interior including adobe floors
- Lime plastered exterior walls
- Solar PV array that will offset all annual energy use
With the unique experience of designing, owning and operating the first Certified Living Building in the State of California, Arch Nexus president, Kenner Kingston is eager to bring this level of sustainability to Utah. “Community Rebuilds is an inspiring organization that is tackling climate and housing challenges in the communities they serve. It is inspiring that they would advance their already high-performance, zero energy model into the realm of Regenerative Design by pursuing the Living Building Challenge. These desert homes will produce more energy than they consume and will store more than enough rainwater to flush toilets and irrigate on-site urban agriculture over the course of a year.”
The construction phase for this project is scheduled for July 2019 to July 2020. For more information, please visit https://www.communityrebuilds.org/project-vision, or contact Brian Cassil at bcassil@archnexus.com, or Rikki Epperson at rikki@communityrebuilds.com.