The Bullitt Center Experience: Building Enclosure Design in an Integrated High Performance Building

The Bullitt Center is a 50,000 square-foot (4645 square-meter), 6-story, speculative office building recently completed in Seattle. The Center is on track to be certified through the Living Building Challenge (LBC). This case study gives an overview of the project, describing the design process and results. It then delves into the details of how design decisions and technologies used in the building enclosure helped achieve these high performance goals, and in turn, how the envelope design decisions, technologies and performance were influenced by the project requirements. The energy goals were met with contributions from a building enclosure that exceeded Seattle's already stringent energy code by 40%. A highly-effective daylighting design was also required, and window operability was needed to reduce energy use and ensure occupant satisfaction.

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