To prevent the death of endangered salmon in Lake Washington from toxic stormwater pollution, the Data 1 mixed office and retail building in Fremont Seattle, WA will divert water from the Aurora Bridge on State Route 99 into a series of bioretention cells in their landscaping. This helped win Salmon Safe certification and a Master Use permit in 2016.
The Bullitt Center aspires to be the “greenest commercial building in the world” by pursuing the Living Building Challenge which includes a net-zero energy goal to produce all the energy the building uses. The Northwest’s variable amount and intensity of daylight affects solar production values, so scaling the system to meet the needs of a six-story building required a 244 kW array with 575 solar panels, which installed cover an area larger than the footprint of the building, creating a solar canopy overhanging the sidewalk 6 stories below. Normally this would not be allowed, but a land use interpretation helped them gain approval.