CTBUH 2023 Americas Conference Summary Report

 

CTBUH Board Chair Steve Watts welcomes over 130 attendees to the inaugural CTBUH Americas Conference.

At the inaugural CTBUH 2023 Americas Conference, “Green(er) Capital: Investing in a Sustainable Urban Future” held in Seattle at the Lotte Hotel from 11-12 May, there was a consensus on the importance of looking beyond the word “sustainable” as a catch-all. Instead, the emphasis was on how the intertwined industries of development, engineering, design, and policy can come together to work towards and creatively achieve a more resilient future for vertical urbanism. 

Travel from as far away as Costa Rica, more than 130 attendees from 20 cities in six countries throughout the Americas joined CTBUH for thought-provoking presentations, stimulating conversation, astounding off-site tours, and networking opportunities. The conference brought together thought leaders, experts, policymakers, and industry representatives, forming a tapestry of voices representing various sectors and interests across the Americas region. Common themes arose, such as how to decarbonize and get closer to net-zero, the fiscal challenges in achieving these goals, and the integral communication needed between all industries to achieve innovation.

The presentations and discussions taking place throughout the day on Thursday, 11 May are detailed further in this summary report below, along with a summary of the site tours on Friday, 12 May which gave tangible examples of how some of the discussed topics were being implemented.

We’d like to thank the CTBUH Seattle Chapter and the sponsors who made this a successful event.

Platinum
Hines
Skanska

Gold
Cary Kopczynski & Company

Silver
Associated General Contractors of America, GC Washington Chapter
Bosa Properties
Carrier Johnson + Culture
DCI Engineers
GeoEngineers
Harmon
Magnusson Klemencic Associates
MG2
Valley Electric


Summary of the CTBUH 2023 Americas Conference 

 

Thursday 11 May, 2023, Morning Sessions (8:30 a.m. to 12:05 p.m.)

 

Kicking off the conference, CTBUH Seattle Chapter President Sean Canady thanked all for attending and welcomed those from other cities to his home base.  CTBUH Board Chair Steve Watts gave a brief introduction of the organization, highlighting ongoing initiatives, followed by CTBUH CEO Javier Quintana de Uña who expressed his excitement for the new CTBUH Regional Hubs, before introducing the opening keynote speaker, David Gottfried, Chief Global Impact Officer, Blue Planet Systems.   

That's our job here, as designers, as architects, as builders and developers...not just to create a gorgeous tall building, but that tall building that allows us to regenerate, to survive. And this is why we're really here—to create this life of cause, of purpose, of effect, and pulling that through into our careers.

– David Gottfried, Chief Global Impact Officer, Blue Planet Systems: Opening keynote Building a Movement to Regenerate and Prosper

Opening the conference, Gottfried  enthusiastically  emphasized how each person can pave a path to building more sustainably.

 

Setting the tone to start the conference with an inspirational muse, Gottfried, who founded the US Green Building Council in 1993 and the World Green Building Council in 1998, laid out a passionate and compelling pathway for each individual person to further best practices in building and creating a more human(e) urbanism. In his talk, Gottfried walked the audience through seven steps in building a movement, which he developed for his book Explosion Green.

Using examples of his work in developing the Green Building Council, establishing the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system, and overcoming real-world obstacles (like economics) that can stall a project, he stated that the real challenge is for each person to persevere and to support others. He emphasized that it is possible to prevail in reducing operational energy or embodied carbon, despite setbacks, and that these goals can be achieved if a collective effort is made. 

 

The first panel session spoke about development and capital in green building. From left to right: Steve Watts, Jordan Selig, A-P Hurd, and Mark Wishnie.

Next followed the first session of the day with short presentations and a panel discussion on “Greener Capital: ESG's and Low-Carbon Portfolios.”  The panel consisted of speakers A-P Hurd, President, SkipStone; Jordan Selig, Executive Vice President, Martin Selig Real Estate; Mark Wishnie, Chief Sustainability Officer, BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group (TIG); and CTBUH Board Chair Steve Watts as moderator.  

Between the panelists, a common thread was the role of getting a building “to pencil” or getting the development to produce enough revenue to pay back loans and returns to investors and give a reasonable return on investment (ROI) on buildings focused on ESG performance and low carbon.  

Watts posed the question of "What are the hurdles for using mass timber in a project?" Mark Wishnie addressed forest management and common misperceptions, as well as the mass timber market and its relatively small overall share of the building market, which is gradually increasing. A-P Hurd expressed the economic hurdles of building with mass timber and enlightened the audience on the process of bids. She discussed how mass timber construction is not common practice, and how a contractor bidding on a mass timber project will not provide “tight” pricing because of the uncertainties they have. It is key, based on her experience, to conduct a more detailed design development phase than is typical, to produce more information that results in tighter pricing that is more easily comparable with a traditional build. It was agreed by the panelists that as time goes on and more projects are built using mass timber, the accuracy of a pricing exercise for something like a cross-laminated timber (CLT) project will get easier.

Jordan Selig commented that there are very few special funding mechanisms for greener buildings. One potential source she identified was Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy and Resilience (C-PACER) financing available in Washington State; she cautioned that there are still hurdles of getting senior lenders to sign off on it even if the funding is received, because of its uniqueness. Selig added that her Living Building development at 400 Westlake (and CTBUH site tour on 12 May) was possible because Martin Selig Real Estate did not have lending partners and are long-term holders. They did not have to identify a breakeven date to justify the project to others, which helped make the project feasible.

All panelists agreed that defining what it means to be a green building depends on several factors, including the region it is in and how it compares to surrounding buildings. This comes from the perspective that the tenants and government agencies that identify aggressive ESG goals for themselves (for example Seattle has strict energy codes) forms the baseline of expectations for creating a green development portfolio in any urban area.   

 

"It’s absolutely about the bottom line to make it work but it's also about the triple bottom line—the health and well-being of our entire community, of the industry, and of the planet."

– Andrew Himes, Director of Collective Impact at the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington. 

 

After a short break, the second morning session, “Environmental Policy Reform – Government Initiatives” took place with presentations by Andrew Himes, Director of Collective Impact at the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington; Duane Jonlin, Energy Code & Energy Conservation Advisor, City of Seattle; Jessyn Farrell, Director, Office of Sustainability & Environment, City of Seattle; and Rep. Davina Duerr, Washington State Representative, 1st District. While speakers were localized to Seattle, the ideas of how to inform policies to decarbonize buildings, push and support these innovations in building, and scale these to the regional and national levels formed an important thread.  

Andrew Himes presented on how policy is a critical tool to meeting the urgency of reducing embodied carbon. He referenced the recent United States Federal Inflation Reduction Act that provides incentives to fund research and promote new technologies, for example the creation of national data sets of embodied carbon. He shared an embodied carbon policy toolkit map on the Carbon Leadership Forum website, providing links to the multiple policies referenced in his presentation, saying "Data drives decision making, and the more you have, localized areas like states and cities can push stricter building regulations in building and energy codes to further decarbonization goals." 

Rep. Davina Duerr focused on the policy space of environment and buildings. At the state level, Rep. Duerr sees a bigger picture as the move to a new green economy continues, on that encompasses how the state can support the workforce in both the energy and manufacturing sectors. In the plan for resiliency around climate change, she talked about how the buying power of the state can push innovations towards lower embodied carbon at multiple levels of the supply chain. Using pilot projects, such as the Interdisciplinary Engineering Buildings at the University of Washington in Seattle, the hope is that the procurement process and commerce surrounding low-carbon construction would create a model specification and provide educational resources.  Additionally, support could be built for small manufacturers to innovate, enabling environmental performance for buildings from another angle. 

Sharing the City of Seattle’s zero-greenhouse-gas 2030 goal, and getting to net zero in big, existing commercial buildings by 2050, Jessyn Farrell presented her role in shaping a new policy she is looking to launch in the near future for building emissions performance standards.  Her emphasis is on advancing environmental justice and healthy sustainable communities for every single person in the city, a key element that shapes the policy and aspires to provide a model for other cities. Having different paths to achieve the goals and standards helps ensure flexibility for different types of buildings and to be able to provide financial and technical support to get there. "This is not a 'you must electrify standard,' it is a 'you need to decarbonize' and hit these carbon reduction standards over time condition," she said.

Duane Jonlin presented the process of re-evaluating the city codes every three years and the realities behind how code shapes potential development, and the challenges for new codes to push buildings towards the goal of carbon neutral by 2050.  He talked about the building envelope, and having buildings generate renewable energy on-site they can use or potentially gift to the market to affordable housing projects, referencing a “renewable energy investment fund” that is in the national code, and would need coordination city and state levels to be implemented. Jonlin remarked that, for new tall buildings in Seattle designed using the past code cycle, the energy use index (EUI) is 36. He said he believed that the EUI level would continue to reduce over time, and through code requirements, and would eventually hit net zero.  

 

Policy makers discuss the City of Seattle and Washington States carbon goals as an example for other cities.  From left to right: Duane Jonlin, Jessyn Farrell, Rep. Davina Duerr, and Andrew Himes. 

Following the points made in each of their presentations, the speakers answered questions from the audience. The consensus from the policymakers was that there are more doors open in the United States for direct and indirect incentives to decarbonize and build more sustainably, but that this conversation needs to continue to make it happen. "It’s about the bottom line to make it work but it's also about the triple bottom line—the health and well-being of our entire community, of the industry, and of the planet," stated Andrew Himes. 

 

Afternoon Sessions (1:05 p.m. to 5 p.m.)

 

Afternoon keynote speaker, Kate Simonen, urges attendees to look at the carbon impact and whole life cycle of buildings.

 

Bringing the energy back into the room to start the afternoon, keynote speaker Kate Simonen, Founding Director of the Carbon Leadership Forum and Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington, gave a narrative of where we are today and are going in the next 30 years. In view of the Paris Climate Agreement that calls for nations to halve emissions by 2030, and get to zero emissions by 2050, she addressed the current understanding of the data and methods for the material carbon footprint and a total life carbon assessment. She showed international studies that made connections between design decisions, ranging from height, to type of construction, to structural system choices, and urban form. She said she saw radical changes of understanding in how these factors impact a building design in the decarbonizing and expects it only to improve over the next five years. 

Simonen laid out three main steps to optimize the carbon impact of buildings.

"The first is optimizing the project," she said, "Do you have to make a smaller building? Do you reuse a building? The second is optimizing the systems and taking a whole life approach to what materials you use.  And then the third is optimizing procurement."

Making the case in a call for action, Simonen urged examining the whole life cycle of a building and the industrial supply chain of materials, in order to decarbonize and meet emissions goals. Near the end of the presentation, Simonen asked a provocative question about turning carbon dioxide into building materials: “Can we capture carbon and not put it into storage, but carbon capture and utilize?” Her thinking is that there are still new materials and technologies to be found in constructing buildings that will hit carbon and sustainability goals. 

 

 

Lloyd Sigal presented the adaptive reuse project One Madison Avenue in New York City which will open to tenants in July 2023.

 

The session that followed, “Second Life of a Building – Adaptive Reuse” looked at the reuse of buildings and practices for reducing material waste and carbon emissions. Presentations showcased successful building case studies in Mexico City, New York City and San Francisco, demonstrating best practices and scalable models for future development projects in the Americas region. 

Lloyd Sigal, Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, presented One Madison Avenue, a renovation and addition to a historic office building in New York City. Situated next to Madison Square Park, above the Flatiron District, and near Gramercy Park in Midtown, the site and the building had evolved over the last 100-plus years, and the emphasis was to make the current space more useable. The original podium was renovated with research into sourcing the original Alabama limestone used on the façade. Work was undertaken to stabilize the building, meet the new lateral-force-resistance building codes, and build new foundations under the building to transfer the loads of the new tower. Facing the park, the design incorporated an open courtyard and amenity space on top of the original podium, connecting the old with the new and providing a visual connection to nature.     

Brent Van Gunten, Principal, Gensler, presented 633 Folsom in San Francisco, a 1966 commercial office building that was renovated to stem its decline. The intial question was if the building could be saved and adapted. 

One of the golden rules of environmentalism is that the greenest building material was one you don’t use, and maybe the second greenest is the one you’re reusing.

- Brent Van Gunten, Principal, Gensler 

The design ultimately added five new floors to the existing seven-story building, using construction techniques like shotcrete to strengthen the columns to meet seismic requirements, the design also strategically addressed daylighting with a thoughtful approach to window coverings and energy performance. The daylight and covering studies resulted in reduced operational energy for the building, and created newly desirable spaces for tenants. 

Moving geographically south, Yoram Cimet, Projects Director, CIMET Arquitectos presented the Glorieta Cibeles Tower in Mexico City, an 18-story building, built in the late 1970s and damaged during the 1985 earthquake. Largely abandoned for decades, if the building had been torn down, restrictions in the city would have limited new construction to a low-rise, and the existing vertical density would be lost. The renovation involved adding to the existing foundation, straightening the building, and adding seismic structural components that became an element in the final design. With the building achieving LEED Platinum, Cimet states that it was not just important to make the building structurally sound, but also to improve its energy performance.  

 

The last session of the day featured a riveting panel discussion on how design can impact decarbonization goals and the bigger picture of achiveing this in the building industry.  Left to right: Shelley Finnigan, Peter Alspach, Kjell Anderson, Tomas Mendez Echenagucia, and Lisa Podesto.

The last session and panel discussion of the day, “Decarbonizing Design – Material and Technical Advancements” featured panelists Kjell Anderson, Principal, Director of Sustainable Design, LMN Architects; Lisa Podesto, Senior Business Development Manager, Design Build Americas, Lendlease; Peter Alspach, Principal, Director of Design Performance, NBBJ; Tomás Méndez Echenagucia, Assistant Professor, University of Washington; and Shelley Finnigan, CTBUH Americas Director as moderator.  

Determined to look forward, the panel steered away from focusing too much on specific materials and instead focused the conversation on the higher-order challenges that the building industry is facing on the road to decarbonization. Tomás Méndez Echenagucia pointed out that because of the notoriously slow pace of innovation in the building industry, every little bit of gain should be celebrated, as opposed to dwelling too much on how far we still have to go.  

Lisa Podesto outlined the aggressive goals that Lendlease has established for reducing carbon, getting to net zero by 2040 with carbon offsets. While her focus is on mass timber, all types of materials such as steel, concrete, etc. are being measured. Kjell Anderson further commented that the mass timber project Founders Hall (CTBUH off-site tour on 12 May) also has concrete and steel, and the conversation turned to a question of how to design to reduce the steel and concrete by a certain percentage. He further commented, "It is a progression... maybe last year it couldn’t be done, but next year it’s possible." 

The panelists talked further about looking at buildings from a total carbon point of view and evaluating the contribution of investments in innovation for a broader urban ecosystem. Peter Alspach talked about using modular construction that reduced carbon materially, but that the overall energy consumed in both production and shipping was not being accounted for. Deriving a total carbon number would mean more complexity. The panelists discussed the variables, citing examples such as considering using excess waste from a carpet factory in interior remodels that happen every five years, and having policy flexibility that supports saving a building from demolition even if the renovation does not entirely meet the most current operational energy codes. Panelists advised asking whether the grid has clean energy and a milder climate, in comparison to a city that is still dependent on coal- and gas-based in their energy generation, or that has extreme weather conditions that require more energy usage to heat and cool buildings.  

The overall discussion looked at the holistic environment of the industry and the pace of material technologies and innovation, concluding that, if thoughtfully reviewed, carbon emissions today can be reduced (via building reuse, material selection), and operational carbon can be reduced as an investment in the future (via clean energy and technology advancements in the next 5-10 years).

I think throughout your entire life, you're learning with craftspeople, you're learning with clients, and you're learning with buildings, so every time you design and are just repeating the same thing, you're really not pushing the envelope. I like to call it a practice. And I think practice means you're always reaching for something new.

- Tom Kundig, Founder and Principal of Olson Kundig, in the closing keynote Designed to Last: Rational Architecture and Adaptive Reuse

Tom Kundig in conversation with Rico Quirindongo discuss adaptive reuse in buildings and to continually find new ways to look at a space.

To close the conference, architect Tom Kundig, Founder and Principal of Olson Kundig gave an inspirational presentation on his work, that featured multiple adaptable reuse projects re-envisioning a space, as well as the new construction 15-story Shingsegae International that won a CTBUH 2016 Best Tall Building Asia & Australasia Award of Excellence.  

Rico Quirindongo, Acting Director, Office of Planning and Community Development, City of Seattle, sat down with Kundig to have a conversation on his inspirations, and the ideas behind rational architecture and adaptive reuse. They talked about the use of gizmos and Kundig expressed that a design should be rational and adaptable for the future, including building parking garages of today that could one day be redeveloped into other spatial uses. The conference ended with Kundig stating that rational is beautiful.

 

 

Attendees at the networking reception came together to meet, have drinks and discuss the day's events all with gorgeous weather and views of Seattle.

 

Following the end of the conference was a networking reception on the 19th floor of the 2+U Building with views over the city and the nearby Puget Sound and mountain ranges.  

View more images from Thursday, 11 May here

 

Friday 12 May, 2023, Off-Site Tours

 

400 Westlake Tour.
400 Westlake Tour. Image by Philip Brown
400 Westlake Tour.
400 Westlake Tour. Image by Philip Brown
400 Westlake Tour. Image by Philip Brown
400 Westlake Tour.
400 Westlake Tour.
400 Westlake Tour.
400 Westlake Tour.
400 Westlake Tour.
400 Westlake Tour. Image by Philip Brown
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Philip Brown
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Javier Quintana de Una
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Javier Quintana de Una
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Javier Quintana de Una
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Philip Brown
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Philip Brown
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Philip Brown
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Philip Brown
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour. Image by Philip Brown
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Founders Hall at the University of Washington tour.
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour
Northlake Commons Tour

 

400 Westlake Tour
The tour was led by representatives from architecture firm Perkins & Will. Nearing completion, 400 Westlake is a transformative redevelopment of the two-story Seattle landmark Firestone Tire Building that is poised to make a new kind of history as one of the most sustainable buildings of its size in the world. The new building generates more energy than it consumes, processes water and waste on-site, and uses non-toxic materials. A new addition of a 13-story office tower above the historic structure, along with two levels of underground parking below bring new life and activity to the ground floor, which also offers 14,000 square feet (1,300 square meters) of retail space

 

Founders Hall at University of Washington Tour
The recently completed Founders Hall is an 85,000 square foot (7,897 square-meter) building for the Foster School of Business at UW which includes offices, classrooms, informal learning, and event spaces designed to support community and team-based learning.  This project used a progressive design-build model to deliver UW’s most sustainable building and its first full mass timber building.  This tour included a discussion of the integrated design process and the approach to mass timber with James Mahoney, Senior Associate at Magnusson Klemencic Associates and Robert Smith, Principal at LMN Architects.

 

Northlake Commons Tour 
Currently under construction, Northlake Commons is a new 5-story mass timber commercial office and lab-ready building that is taking shape at the foot of the Latona neighborhood. While paying homage to the Dunn family’s historic connection to the site, this innovative project will bring new energy to the area with an improved park space along the Burke Gilman bike trail and an expansive public plaza looking out over Lake Union. The project features nearly 160,000 square feet (14,864 square meters) of office/lab ready space, 9,500 square feet (883 square meters) of retail, and a 27,000 square foot (2,508 square-meter) warehouse below.  


Seattle Waterfront Development Tour
The Seattle Waterfront Program is a large-scale initiative aimed at revitalizing the city's waterfront area. This ambitious project seeks to transform the downtown waterfront into a vibrant public space that can be enjoyed by locals and visitors alike. With a focus on sustainability and community engagement, the Seattle Waterfront Program is poised to become a model for urban waterfront redevelopment. In this tour, attendees explored the key components of the program, discussed construction progress, and understood its potential impact on the city of Seattle. Additionally, the new Seattle Aquarium Ocean Pavilion in coordination with the Main Corridor and Overlook Walk were highlighted. The tour concluded at historic Pier 56, which was renovated into a high-performance workplace in 2000, and then refreshed in 2021, pursuing the Living Building Challenge 3.0 Materials Petal.