Arch Nexus is pleased to announce plans to transform our corporate headquarters in Salt Lake City to Utah’s first commercial Living Certified Building. The official announcement took place on Wednesday, with the release of Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building. Regarding the exciting news, Arch Nexus President, Kenner Kingston stated:

When we embarked on the Arch Nexus SAC project, one of our many goals was to harvest regenerative design philosophy and knowledge and bring it to the Intermountain West. Today we are pleased to announce that we are ready to realize our goal– Arch Nexus SLC, our 30,000 square foot headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah is pursuing Living Building Challenge 4.0 certification! With bidding complete and permitting in progress, please wish us luck as we take this meaningful journey for a second time.

Ecotone Publishing has announced the release of the seventh book in the Living Building Challenge Series titled Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building, researched and written by Juliet Grable.

Regenerative Retrofit details the journey of the renowned architecture firm, Architectural Nexus, and its experiences designing, constructing, owning, and operating California’s very first Certified Living Building. The Arch Nexus Sacramento (SAC) building, a 1950s-era warehouse located in Sacramento’s bustling R Street Corridor, produces more energy than it consumes, is capable of running solely on captured rainwater, and exemplifies resilient design that connects people to nature and the human community.

Regenerative Retrofit chronicles a design process rooted in biophilic relationships to place and the collaboration among a stellar team of architects, engineers, builders, and artists who together created a remarkably resilient, low-carbon solution to today’s critical climate challenges. It also highlights the key role of “high-performance occupants” who, as stewards of one of the greenest buildings in the world, can make a significant impact to optimize building performance.

Beautifully illustrated and enlivened with the many voices of those who contributed to the project, Regenerative Retrofit provides inspiration for teams embarking on their Living Building projects, as well as a roadmap for how we can preserve and regenerate our legacy buildings for future generations.

Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building is available online and can be ordered through architecture and building bookstores throughout North America and at the Living Future store.

The 2020 AIA Utah Conference will be held in digital format, hosted with Zoom, and provided for free to all AIA Utah members and Utah members of affiliated student and professional groups. Two architects from Arch Nexus will be presenting on September 15^th during the 12:00-1:30 PM Connections Lunch and Link.

Meagan Recher, Regenerative Design Specialist at Arch Nexus will present on Resilient Design, the first steps to understanding what resilience is and how to apply our knowledge to projects.

Michelle Howard, Arch Nexus Associate and Associate instructor at the University of Utah will share insights about the psychology of color in architectural design and visual communication.

Community engagement is often a requirement in the process of a new design, but frequently it becomes a box to check while engaging in little meaningful dialogue. Effective and equitable examples that architects and planners can look to, are outlined in the latest publication of Architectural Record, Continuing Education: Community Engagement.

Community meetings that resulted in successful engagement are exemplified in Bayview-Hunters Point, a waterfront park on San Francisco’s south eastern shoreline and in Rockaway, a peninsula in the New York borough of Queens, as well as the Stockton Library in Stockton, California.

From the article: There are, of course, other means to elicit useful information. Jeff Davis, senior principal with Architectural Nexus, recommends seeking out community members at events such as children’s soccer matches or town fairs. “Go to them, find their networks, and you’ll get better feedback,” he says.

By relying on this method for a combined library and recreation center about to start construction in Stockton, California, Arch Nexus learned that community members wanted a building that allowed access to the outdoors, fostered collaboration, and included a technology center. They discovered that the surrounding neighborhood was a food desert, and the idea of including a demonstration kitchen for cooking classes came about. An edible garden and an area for a farmers market are also planned.

Arch Nexus draws on the Social Eco­nomic Environmental Design (SEED) Evaluator, a nonprofit that aims to use architecture to make positive change in underserved communities. The Evaluator is a framework for documentation and measurement based on five principles, including advocating for those who have a limited voice in public life, promoting an inclusive design process, and conserving resources and reducing waste.

One AIA learning unit (LU), can be earned by reading the original article from Architectural Record.

Architectural Nexus is pleased to be listed among global design leaders in ENR’s Top 100 Green Design Firms. The interest in sustainable and regenerative design and construction can be seen in the results of the 2020 ENR Top Green survey. As a group, the Top 100 Green Design Firms generated $7.28 billion in 2019 design revenue from projects registered with and actively seeking certification from third-party rating groups under sustainable-design standards such as the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge (LBC). This represents a 7.5% increase from $6.77 billion in 2018.

In some ways, the pandemic is changing the conversation around green. For many, the relationship between buildings and environmental health has been seen as indirect, benefitting future generations. Now, green design is evolving from an approach to aid in preserving the environment to a more fundamental concern over environmental and human health.

Regarding the recognition, company president Kenner Kingston says: We are gratified and encouraged to be making our first appearance on this list. Architectural Nexus looks forward to moving up over time thanks to our clients who are understanding more and more how important it is that we provide comprehensive regenerative design solutions in our work. By creating real connections to place, treating stormwater as a resource rather than a nuisance, delivering on the promise of electrification, and ensuring that only healthy building materials get into our projects, we are leveraging state-of-the-shelf technology to make better places for people.

The official blog of the International Living Future Institute, Trim Tab, shares a unique look at the how retrofitting working-class buildings can sequester carbon and fight climate change. Michael D. Berrisford, Editor-in-Chief of Ecotone Publishing, discusses what makes the subject of their latest release, Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building, so special.

The Arch Nexus SAC regenerative retrofit is so much more than a shiny solar-powered, high-performance brick and mortar landmark adorned to garner “oohs” and “ahhs.” Nor is Arch Nexus SAC a green technology showcase trimmed out with futuristic tech, instantly iconic for its statuesque architecture and stately skyline posture. While it does have numerous verdant features such as the biophilic-inspired daylighting plan and living wall, robust solar capability, composting toilets, and right-sized cisterns, in actuality, Arch Nexus SAC’s shine comes from its undeniable success as a smart, practical, fully-functioning Living Building that has been bootstrapped from its humble industrial origins as a 1950s-era warehouse. 

Further, the building and its owner/occupants are notable for meeting timely objectives linked to the proliferation of crises facing California. Through this building, and pretty much every action they take these days, they are responding positively to the consequences of climate change such as recurrent droughts, intense wildfires, increasing extreme temperatures, and power grid insecurity–all the while connecting to the social fabric of their local community. 

The Arch Nexus office in Sacramento is a people-driven, thoughtfully designed building transformed from traditional building stock to an architectural gem that impressively reduces its carbon footprint. It generates energy and collects water like one of nature’s systems and provides a healthy and engaging physical workplace environment for its knowledgeable and creative occupants. Working-class building retrofits like the Arch Nexus SAC office transformation represent a viable–and now proven–opportunity for addressing climate change.

See the full article here.

Architectural Nexus is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building.

Regenerative Retrofit tells the story of the Arch Nexus Sacramento building, a 1950s-era warehouse that has been transformed into California’s first certified Living Building. Located in Sacramento’s bustling R Street Corridor, Arch Nexus SAC produces more energy than it consumes, relies solely on captured rainwater, and exemplifies resilient design that connects people to nature and the human community.

Regenerative Retrofit chronicles a design process rooted in biophilic relationships to place and the collaboration among a stellar team of architects, engineers, builders, and artists who together created a resilient low-carbon solution to today’s climate challenges. It also highlights the critical role of “high-performance occupants” who, as stewards of Living Buildings, can make a significant impact on how the building performs.

Written by author Juliet Grable and published through Ecotone Publishing, you can now pre-order your copy of Regenerative Retrofit: California’s First Living Building, at The Living Future Institute today.

Are you interested in the field of architecture, but never pursued the idea? Do you know someone with a flair for design? Is a young person in your life trying to decide on a field of study? A pandemic proves the perfect opportunity to stay home and learn. Because Arch Nexus knows that a sustainable future will be designed by current and future architects, we’re sharing opportunities to broaden your horizons and shape future designers.

edX is a massive open online course provider created by Harvard and MIT. With more than fifty courses in Architecture, edX is a great fit or both industry professionals looking to sharpen their knowledge in specific areas and for those just dipping their toes in the field. The most popular course available through edX is The Architectural Imagination. Study some of history’s most important buildings to learn the fundamental principles of architecture.

Another massive open online course provider is Coursera, founded by two professors at Stanford University in 2012. The platform has grown to collaborate with over 200 leading businesses and universities. A simple search of “Architecture” results in over 644 learning opportunities on the topic. The Age of Sustainable Development from Columbia University is a recommended course.

LinkedIn Learning via Lynda also offers free learning tools so a beginner can grasp the techniques used to design sustainable sites and buildings such as drafting, rendering, and modeling. This platform is also excellent for an industry professional looking to learn new software and for those interested in Interior Design.

In the four corners region, a panorama of iconic mountain silhouettes set the backdrop of Bluff, Utah. The native community has been the location of an academic design build program through The University of Utah, where grad students venture out on a semester-long cultural exchange to design and build new construction. Since the programs onset, dozens of employees from Arch Nexus have participated in Design Build Bluff.

PBS Utah recently aired a documentary on the 2019 experience which included two students from Arch Nexus; Rachel Sittler and Aimee Kyed. Watch their experience here.

Since the programs onset, dozens from Arch Nexus have participated in Design Build Bluff. Nexus Architect, Stephanie Kooyman was among the first group to participate in the program. She says of the experience: It was the first time I had ever designed something and then built it. It changed how I looked at design, construction and even how I viewed the other students at school. We became a group working together and solving problems as a team. The collaboration with everyone in the studio and seeing something we all built with our hands were the best parts.

GC Magazine has published a list naming Arch Nexus among the top church Architects in the nation. From the website generalcontractors.org:

Architectural Nexus is known for connecting with its clients, new technology, creative design ideas, and better ways of speeding up the design and construction process, living up to its name. The Nexus portfolio includes projects like the Payson LDS Temple. Located in a valley setting, it has landscaped walks and water features leading up to the structure made of precast concrete exterior and an interior adorned with marble and intricate finishes.

Over the years, the firm has received numerous awards, such as the AIA Utah Honor Award, the AIA Utah Merit Award and the Utah Design and Sustainability Award. Alongside such honors, the firm has also been featured in ENR, New York Business Journal, Architect Magazine, Los Angeles Times and Deseret News.

Click here to read the full list of top church architects.