Win the Gold for Green

Is your company investigating or already involved in sustainable building and design? Then consider entering the Lifecycle Building Challenge. The competition seeks designs that reuse materials and minimize waste. The Environmental Protection Agency and its partners are calling on the nation's builders, architects, students, architects, engineers, product designers, and environmental advocates to apply for the web-based competition (in the spirit of conservation, they will only accept electronic submissions).

Co-sponsored by the Building Materials Reuse Association, the American Institute of Architects and West Coast Green – the purpose of the Lifecycle Building Challenge is to change how people think about, design, construct and deconstruct buildings.

“I think that the aesthetic value of the buildings is not of tremendous concern,” says Margot Perez, a spokesperson for the EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region in San Francisco. “It’s what is going to be built with, and if it’s using green design principles. But I do think people would like to see homes that look like their own homes.”

Lifecycle building maximizes material recovery to reverse the trend of disposing of large amounts of construction and demolition waste in landfills.Use of renewable components also reduces the energy and greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing and transporting materials.

"Lifecycle building innovations are about improving the efficiency of our resource utilization and heading towards a more sustainable environment." said Wayne Nastri, administrator for the EPA's Pacific Southwest."This challenge raises the standard for both green building and environmental protection."

Open to both built and conceptual work, the challenge has three main categories:

Building—an entire building from foundation to roof

Component—a single building assembly, system, or connector

Service—a tool, method, or other idea

Designs and ideas must be submitted by May 15. Outstanding entries in each category will be recognized and publicized, and top student designs will receive cash awards.All winners will be honored at the West Coast Green Conference in San Francisco in September.For more information or to enter the competition, visit http://www.lifecyclebuilding.org.