PPG Industries announced that Bullitt Center, Seattle, has become the third building constructed with PPG glass to meet the LIVING BUILDING CHALLENGE(TM) (LBC) standard, the world’s most rigorous green design and construction standard.

Touted as the “greenest commercial office building in the world,” the six-story, 52,000-square-foot structure features triple-glazed insulating glass units (IGUs) that incorporate two lites of SOLARBAN(R) 60 low-emissivity (low-e) glass to provide window system U-values as low as 0.17. The IGUs are part of an advanced curtain wall system, equipped with floor-to-ceiling windows, that enables Bullitt Center to draw 80 percent of its lighting needs from the sun. The center’s interior and exterior doors and laminated skylights also are fabricated from Solarban 60 glass.

STARPHIRE(R) ultra-clear glass by PPG frames the building’s signature design element, an “irresistible stairway” that invites occupants to climb steps instead of riding the elevator by providing panoramic views of downtown Seattle and Puget Sound. As the industry’s most transparent commercial architectural glass, Starphire glass can generate visible light transmittance of up to 91 percent in thicknesses from 3 to 19 millimeters. 

Jim Hanford, building performance specialist for The Miller Hull Partnership and the Bullitt Center design team, said Solarban 60 glass was chosen for its ability to facilitate the building’s energy and daylighting demands.

“We specified Solarban 60 [glass] because it provided the best balance of thermal performance, solar control and daylighting performance,” he explained. “To allow daylight deep into the floor plate, we knew we would need large glass areas with high visible light transmittance. To offset the heating load penalty of the large glass areas, we wanted to get the lowest possible heat rate loss, and that meant using a product such as Solarban 60 [glass] with argon-fill in the insulating glass units.

“Because we have a long history of using Solarban 60 [glass], on other projects, we knew we would be comfortable with how it looked on the building,” he added.

Bullitt Center is fortified with a rooftop photovoltaic array that generates 230,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, a ground-source geothermal heat exchange system and radiant floor heating and cooling systems. Together with a 56,000-gallon rainwater collection cistern, greywater reclamation, a green roof and dozens of other sustainable design strategies, the Bullitt Center renews or generates, on-site, more than 100 percent of the energy it needs to function.

PPG architectural glass products are included in two other certified living buildings: The Phipps Conservatory Center for Sustainable Landscapes in Pittsburgh and the Energy Lab at Hawaii Preparatory Academy in Kamuela. There are only seven certified living buildings in the world.

PPG is the first and only U.S. float glass manufacturer to earn recognition through the CRADLE TO CRADLE CERTIFIED(TM) program for its products, and it offers more architectural glasses certified through the program than does any other float glass manufacturer. To learn more about high-performance PPG glass, visit www.ppgideascapes.com or call 1-888-PPG-IDEA (774-4332).