They all have come to see what could be the future. In 2020, Georgia Tech opened the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design. It’s a “living building,” which means it produces more energy and water than it consumes.
There are just 34 such buildings worldwide, but environmental advocates dream of a day when the living-building standard overtakes the 25-year-old LEED certification as the mark of excellence for green construction. While LEED buildings mitigate a building’s eco-damage, living buildings contribute to restoration, says Shan Arora, director of the building. “We’re not talking about buildings that are less bad. We’re talking about buildings that are actively good.”
Atlanta philanthropist Diana Blank is trying to advance that dream. Inspired a decade ago by a visit to the Bullitt Center, a living building in cool, rainy, and eco-progressive Seattle, she set out to prove that such an engineering feat was possible in the Southeast — despite its hot, humid, and not-so-eco-friendly political climate.
Blank’s foundation, the Kendeda Fund, donated $25 million to Georgia Tech for the building. That’s the biggest grant in Kendeda’s decade-long spend-down, which should be complete by the end of the year. Importantly, Kendeda added $5 million to support a program to tell the building’s story, inspire others, and help launch similar projects.
“We decided if we were going to spend $25 million to create something, it would be pennywise and pound foolish not to spend a little bit more to make sure we told the story right,” says David Brotherton, a Kendeda Fund adviser.
Arora leads that effort, helping all comers to study the building’s design. Thousands of people have toured the building since it opened in 2019; last year alone, 3,000 came through its doors. They all may not aim to put up a living building, but they are taking away ideas for water management, renewable energy, construction with chemical-free and recycled materials, and more.
Leaders of the Roswell Community Majid, a mosque in the Atlanta suburbs, made several visits and drilled into the specifics of the Georgia Tech project. “We’ve always had the mind-set of doing the innovative and responsible and sustainable thing,” says Maher Budeir, an environmental engineer and one of the leaders of the mosque’s project. The last visit, with the imam, “sealed the deal,” Budeir says. “We never looked back.”
The mosque will break ground later this year on a $13 million, three-building campus, including what should be the first house of worship to receive the living-building certification. Its leaders — including a number of mosque members who work in architecture and engineering — are leaning on the Kendeda-funded staff at Georgia Tech for help. “We have this big brother in Georgia Tech and a group of people who are so helpful and supportive and who have gone through the experience already,” Budeir says.
Vertical River
Buildings With Purpose
The Kendeda Building is perhaps the biggest example of Blank’s approach to capital projects over her 30 years in philanthropy. She typically funds them only in service of sustainability and other goals.
Blank’s interest in green buildings dates back at least a quarter century. When Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympics, Blank and her youngest daughter, Danielle, then a college student, toured a demonstration energy-efficient home built by Southface Institute, an Atlanta sustainability organization. A long-term relationship developed, with Kendeda making annual six-figure gifts to the organization.
“I don’t want to put words in her mouth,” says Southface co-founder Dennis Creech, who joined Kendeda as an adviser six years ago, “but I don’t think she would have ever thought buildings was something that she was excited about funding.” The relationship with Southface, however, helped changed her thinking.
In the mid-2010s, Kendeda and Southface combined on a program that helped spur the makeover of 1 million square feet of Atlanta commercial space for energy efficiency. That won Atlanta top prize in a federal competition, with the city beating out expected environmental champions like Seattle and Portland.
Southface also leads an effort in which Kendeda gives nonprofits $50,000 in matching funds for energy-efficiency office upgrades — window and insulation replacement, new heating and cooling systems, and the like. Kendeda research indicates the retooling nets a 22 percent rate of return for organizations. The effort, now 16 years old, started with Atlanta organizations and has been embraced by networks like Feeding America and the Salvation Army. The U.S. Department of Energy last month introduced a similar program for nonprofits nationwide.
900 Solar Panels
The Kendeda Building has lots to offer as a model for a new approach to green capital projects. Construction of the 58,800-square-foot Kendeda Building used low-carbon and salvaged building materials. To eliminate the construction’s carbon footprint, crews recycled nearly all of the waste and purchased a one-time carbon offset that funded solar projects in India.
The roof serves multiple purposes: It houses more than 900 solar panels, extends beyond the building’s walls to provide cooling shade, and collects a half-million gallons of rainwater a year. Inside, water from shower drains, sink drains, and water fountains that does not contain organic matter is pumped to a purpose-built wetland. Outside rain gardens and permeable surfaces absorb hundreds of thousands of gallons of rainwater a year.
Jonathan Hillyer
The International Living Future Institute, which developed the living-building rating, certified the Kendeda Building after its review of a year’s data. Over four years since it opened, the building’s 917 solar panels have cumulatively produced more than 200 percent of the building’s energy needs — twice the level needed for certification.
Georgia Tech students are in the building constantly, as it houses classrooms and labs. Like the visitors who tour it, officials hope they come away thinking differently about buildings.
“Each of the students is a seed,” Arora says. “Not every seed germinates. But our job is to keep on watering the seeds.”
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