There are children in the Lower Mainland who take hugging a tree to the next level; in fact, they get to play in an old growth cedar’s root ball.
The felled giant is part of a play structure in a daycare designed as one of the most earth-friendly, stimulating environments in the world.
“Not only is it a demonstration of green building technology, it’s a Regio Emilia daycare,” said Dale Mikkelsen, director of development for the SFU Community Trust, the building’s creator.
Regio Emilia approaches learning as a partnership between the educator, the environment and the broader community, encouraging kids to learn through exploration.
And the building they have to explore, the new UniverCity Childcare site at Simon Fraser University, is likely to be one of the safest, most interesting buildings in the world.
UniverCity is chasing Living Building certification, an environmental rating to end all environmental ratings. The Living Building Challenge takes the concept of reducing environmental harm and flips it on its head, asking design teams to create buildings that have positive impact on their environment, rather than just reduce environmental footprint.
In this case, that’s going to mean a building with a German slide made of recycled steel running down the outside of the building from the second floor to the first. Despite valiant efforts to source slides locally, it turns out the basic toy just isn’t manufactured using non-toxic materials (those not considered red listed in the Living Building criteria) in North America.
Another stumbling block for the designers was the building’s water system. While they’ve found a way to collect all of the water needed to run the building in rain cisterns and treat it with an ultraviolet filtration system, municipal bylaws are currently preventing them from using it for the drinking water.
Stumbling blocks are a topic of discussion with Living Buildings. Three projects have managed to achieve the exhaustive criteria for certification in the United States, but it takes a year-long audit of the building to do so, and a Western Canadian counterpart has yet to emerge.
Locally, Okanagan College is preparing to meet the challenge with a building in Penticton and there are two others in the Lower Mainland aspiring to the same; but the UniverCity Childcare Centre is aiming to be the first.
One of the building’s greatest triumphs is that it hasn’t cost any extra money. While the Living Buildings built to date generally cost 25-35 per cent more money, this daycare cost 15 per cent less than the top-of-the-line LEED requirements (previously the key environmental rating system) that the City of Vancouver now demands.
By the end of the one year audit, which begins in June, the designers should be able to prove it’s 70 per cent more energy efficient, easy and less costly to run than a traditional built environment.
Mikkelsen will be the keynote speaker for Transform, a fundraiser for Cascadia Green Building Council, to be held at Summerhill Pyramid Winery.
The evening will include the Julie Masi Band and a silent auction. Auction prizes include everything from a session with a business coach to a two-night stay at the Best Western to a summer grill package from Wild Ocean Fish.
The fundraiser runs Thursday, April 12. Tickets are $75 and include a tax receipt.
