Last week Arch Nexus president Kenner Kingston was a panelist for a session at the Living Future Conference titled “The Business Case for Corporate Transparency and JUST”. The session focused the numerous advantages of transparency on all aspects of business operations, such as improved respect for employees and clients, greater brand awareness, and improved client loyalty. The session spurred enthusiastic participation and was very well attended.

The JUST program, which is administered by the Living Future Institute, is a voluntary disclosure program and tool for all types and sizes of organizations. The program provides an innovative transparency platform for organizations to reveal much about their operations and acts somewhat as a nutrition label for socially just and equitable organizations. To see the Arch Nexus JUST label please click here.

On Earth Day, 14 schools in the Sacramento Unified School District competed in an energy audit competition called Project Green. The competition brings together campuses from across the district to form student “green teams” supported by parents and staff to conduct “green audits” of their facilities. The teams work with district and local professionals to draft recommendations for improvements ranging from the installation of solar tubes to increase daylighting in classrooms to installing water-wise plumbing fixtures. Students present their recommendations to a panel of experts representing local non-profits that focus on creating healthy sustainable learning environments on Earth Day. Judges then evaluate each submission based on their audit, presentation and written report. Schools displaying the highest performance in these areas are awarded funding for their projects.

Two of the judges for Project Green were our very own Patty Karapinar and Heather Olson of the Arch Nexus Sacramento office. Patty commented that “Project Green has a lasting effect on students because they dive into sustainability in a very real way.  The District actually funds the winning team’s project,  so their school get to see their brainchild become reality and reap its benefits.  The students were bundles of energy and excitement on presentation day!”

Project Green allows participants to play a vital role in the development, design, and implementation of projects that will transform the site for the benefit of the environment, staff, stakeholders, community, and especially for the students. Project Green allows students to learn, develop, and implement designs that not only support, but also improve resource conservation, environmental sustainability, and cleaner and healthier student life.

We would like to extend a special thanks to Rachel King and Sacramento Unified School District for allowing us to be a part of this fantastic program!

For more information on project green please visit www.scusd.edu/project-green-programs

We value both our partnership with KUED and the education and insight they provide through their national and local programming. Arch Nexus is committed to our beautiful homes in Utah and California. We are fortunate to have five national parks in Utah and ten national parks in California to enjoy and allow us to expand our wonder at the restorative power of nature in our lives.

Join our non-profit community partner KUED as they celebrate 100 years of National Parks. “The Year of the Parks” series will feature three documentaries highlighting the National Parks, their creation and the value they provide to all of us.  Bask in the land we are fortunate enough to call home.

For programming schedule please visit www.kued.org/whatson/year-the-parks

Recently, Arch Nexus president Kenner Kingston had the opportunity to present an overview of the Living Building Challenge at the Intermountain Sustainability Summit. The summit, held annually at Weber State University, brings together over 40 speakers to inspire, inform, and show how businesses, policy makers, nonprofits, and community members are making a positive difference for our environment.

The Living Building Challenge is a building certification program, advocacy tool and philosophy that defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment and acts to rapidly diminish the gap between current limits and the positive solutions we seek.

You can learn more about the Living Building Challenge by watching Kenner’s presentation here.

On April 15 we had the pleasure of hosting a showcase of five emerging photographers. Stephanie Espinoza, Alexis Hansen, Mary Santistevan, Rebekah O’Driscoll, and Sam Trefaller, all of the University of Utah Art Department, displayed some of their amazing art at a reception held in our Salt Lake Office as a part of the Gallery Stroll. Architectural Nexus is proud to support the arts and local artists. Everyone involved had a wonderful time.

Demolition and Construction has recently begun on the building at 930 R Street for our Sacramento Office! We remain committed to our ambitious goal of making this a certified Living Building which includes net positive energy, net positive water, no water discharge and no harmful chemicals. If these goals are achieved, Arch Nexus SAC will be a place where the water and energy crises will be challenged by water-reuse, energy conservation and generation methods to become a springboard for creating new strategies for respecting our natural resources.

As we enter this next phase of the project we are excited to be teamed with passionate and talented professionals such as:

2020 Engineering – Water Re-Use Consultant
Warren Consulting – Civil Engineering
Miyamoto International – Structural Engineering
Glumac – Integrated MEP Engineering + Lighting Design
Capital Engineering – Commissioning Agent
Market One Builders – General Contractor
Sustain3 – Occupant Engagement

Architectural Nexus is proud to sponsor KUED and the series “10 Towns that Changed America”. On Tuesday, April 19th at 7:00 p.m. the series will spotlight Salt Lake City and the special way that this city has changed the way Americans live, work, and play.

The series illustrates how our built environment came to be and how our homes, towns, and parks reflect our nations history, values, ingenuity, and hopes for the future. Towns that Changed America focuses on ten “experimental” towns that did not evolve organically over time, but instead were designed (or redesigned) from the ground up by visionary architects, corporations, and citizens, who sought to change the lives of residents using architecture, design, and urban planning. Some of these visionaries were driven by an ideology, others were trying to serve their own financial interests, but all had one thing in common: they believed in the power of our built environment to change the way we live. This episode inspires viewers to reconsider where they live, and how their towns and cities affect every aspect of their lives.

For more information about this series please visit: KUED

Arch Nexus president Kenner Kingston will be interviewed on the KRCL 90.9 program RadioActive to talk about architecture, sustainable design and our new Sacramento office building which is pursuing the Living Building Challenge. RadioActive is a community affairs program for the local and global community builder and airs weeknights at 6 p.m. The interview with Kenner will be on Wednesday, March 9th at 6:40 p.m.

For more information about RadioActive click here.
For more information about Arch | Nexus SAC and the Living Building Challenge click here.

Rich Arave has recently joined Arch Nexus where he brings the benefit of 15 plus years of sports design project experience. Rich knows NCAA criteria and the specialty elements associated with sports facilities and has designed trend-setting athletic facilities for Baylor, UTEP, Sam Houston State and Lamar University. He has talent for working with athletic programs to design facilities that put universities in a competitive position within their conferences and reinforces value to donors and aid in student-athlete recruitment. Rich is adept at applying his broad knowledge of collegiate athletics to the unique requirements of each individual program.

In addition to collegiate sports design experience Rich has professional level sports design experience. He managed the design contract for NRG stadium (formerly Reliant Stadium) in Houston, Texas – host of Super Bowl XXXVIII.  He consulted and coordinated on stadium operations issues with the owner, stadium operator and stadium tenants, this gave him exposure to daily operations issues associated with professional sports facilities. He understands the specialty elements associated with a sports facility design such as playing field design, sports medicine, branding, and way–finding.  Rich has a proven record of being able to use his knowledge to coordinate and mentor design and construction teams at all levels of understanding.  Rich is looking forward for the opportunity to apply his expertise in the intermountain area to meet the objectives of university athletics and to exceed their expectations.

On January 21st Arch Nexus President Kenner Kingston along with Kevin Emerson from Utah Clean Energy presented an overview of The Living Building Challenge to members of the Urban Land Institute of Utah. The Living Building Challenge is the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard for energy, water, waste, and other metrics related to building construction and operation. During the presentation, a financial and operational case study was provided for the Bulitt Center, a six story, 52,000 square foot commercial office in Seattle and a certified Living Building. In addition to the environmental benefits a Living Building provides, this rigorous performance standard also benefits developers and owners through niche lease rates, reduced operating costs, increased resiliency, and more satisfied and engaged tenants.