The tree forts that Brian Heather built as a boy never truly left him.
As he grew up, Heather couldn’t shake the idea of building nature and design into structures.
Now, his Seattle-based company, Solterra, is changing the way we think about apartment living and other building systems.
Founded in 2008, Solterra doesn’t just build green. Green building construction, says Heather, “… has a tendency to be functional boxes and resemble prisons.” Solterra endeavors to take that functional model and make it beautiful, even sexy, Heather said.
Complex patented systems are designed into Solterra’s buildings from the beginning so that they integrate in an appealing way that supports Heather’s dream of bringing nature to green building construction.
Emotional appeal is critical to engagement, says Heather, so much so that they are incorporating nature into every aspect of design well beyond traditional planter boxes and a rooftop decks.
“Complex technological devices and systems have to be understood by everyone on the design team,” he explains. Baking these systems into the design from the ground up is how they avoid taking a box and making nature feel bolted on.
These systems include such things as screen siding systems that can protect a building from the elements, reusable rooftops that filter water and allow residents to interact with greenscapes, and living walls which include rainwater catchment systems that re-purpose water back into the walls.
These elements of a Solterra project are just as sensible as windows and kitchens, he explains in a 2014 TEDx Talk in Seattle.
One of his earliest projects in Portland, Oregon, delivered all of this and met the highest green building certification, LEED platinum, at half the cost of a traditional building, a pattern that continues on other projects.
Solterra buildings have health benefits, too. Their website notes more than 50 studies that suggest naturalistic settings reduce pain, reduce stress, and decrease dependency on medication.
For Heather, though, it’s the sexiness of nature that is vital to life. He imagines someone walking down an urban street past one of his buildings and for a split second that person takes a deep breath, smile and react.
Bringing nature next to, onto, and into the building itself helps us keep our important relationship with nature even if we live in the core of a city.
But it must create a reaction, Heather explains.
He actually sees the linkage as vital to human life, “We’re bringing nature to the urban landscape because we’re not supposed to be separated from nature in the first place.”
Tom Hoban is CEO of The Coast Group of Companies. Contact him at 425-339-3638 or tomhoban@coastmgt.com or visit www.coastmgt.com. Twitter: @Tom_P_Hoban.
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