Mahlum Architects completed the design of their offices with the prestigious LBC Certification in Portland, Oregon.

As a certification program, Living Building Challenge (LBC) is hailed as the most rigorous sustainable building program in the world. It defines the most advanced measure of sustainability—providing a framework for design, construction and the symbiotic relationship between people and all aspects of the built environment.

When designing their new Portland studio, architects at Mahlum made the choice to pursue LBC certification, and lead with their values in hopes of transforming both the firm’s practice and place– and in doing, create a path for others to follow.

The resulting studio is now Portland, Oregon’s first LBC certified project, along with being the 48th in the United States, and 57th in the world. Specifically, the studio received Petal certification. Petal certification requires meeting the guidelines of the Materials Petal, widely acknowledged to be the most difficult LBC Petal given the realities of the construction industry and the traditional design process. Mahlum is a tireless advocate for material transparency, as an active member of the Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC), UW Carbon Leadership Forum (UW CLF), the Embodied Carbon 2 Network (ECN), the Seattle Healthy Materials Collaborative, and the Portland Materials Transparency Collaboratives.

In addition, the studio project also met the guidelines for the Place, Equity and Beauty Petals, while also fulfilling imperatives from the Health & Happiness Petal.

Design: Mahlum Architects

Photography: Lincoln Barbour

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