It’s official: The Port’s new headquarters building at Portland International Airport has received LEED® Platinum certification. Established by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute, LEED is the nation’s preeminent program for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.
For Port staff working in the building over the past year, the award reconfirms what we experience everyday: that green buildings are great places to work. Port executive director Bill Wyatt, who occupies an open workspace the same size as the employees he oversees, said, “The LEED platinum certification affirms the goal we set out at the beginning of the project: that the building reflect this region’s commitment to sustainability.”
The 205,000-square foot office building incorporates many state-of-the-art green technologies, but the one we are asked about the most is the Living Machine® system, an on-site ecological wastewater treatment alternative that treats 100 percent of the building’s wastewater for reuse in the building’s toilets and cooling tower. If you’ve ever visited the Port building, you’ve walked right by it: it’s the innocuous-looking planter in the first-floor lobby.
Underneath the building, more than 200 pipes provide ground source heating and cooling in a closed loop system, serving the passive radiant ceiling panel heating and cooling inside. This is the first coupling of these heating and cooling systems in the United States, and the result is a comfortable temperature year-round.
Other green features—daylighting, window glazing, exterior shading, water-efficient fixtures, and two green roofs—are detailed on the Port’s HQ website, where you can take a virtual tour!
