Green Building Goals

The value of leaving trees up. Building with the forces of nature in mind. Respecting the environment by building green. Moonshadow Ventures’ guiding standards are:

Life cycle assessment
Siting and structure design efficiency
Energy efficiency
Water efficiency
Materials efficiency
Indoor environmental quality enhancement
Operations and maintenance optimization
Waste reduction
Reduce impact to electricity network

ILFI: International Living Future Institute

The Living Building Challenge

Endurance Dwellings answer the Living Building Challenge (LBC) by providing a living product.

Living Products are informed by biomimicry and biophilia; manufactured by processes powered only by renewable energy and within the water balances of the places they are made.

Living Products improve our quality of life and bring joy through their beauty and functionality.

An Endurance Dwelling’s very existence builds soil, creates habitat, nourishes the human spirit and provides inspiration for personal, philosophical and economic change.

The LBC is a certification program engaging the building industry to solve problems.

An evocative guide, it asks, “What if every single act of design and construction made the worlds a better place?” It positions the ideal as the indicator of success and demonstrates that incremental change is no longer a viable option.
A call to action, with a goal to increase awareness, it tackles critical environmental, social and economic problems.
A unified tool that allows us to envision a future that is socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative.
A visionary path to an exciting, sustainable future.

ILFI promotes seven performance categories, or petals they’re called, for the LBC. Each petal is subdivided into a total of 20 imperatives, each focusing on a specific sphere of influence. Moonshadow Ventures are advocates and copycats of these well-studied systems and models. Want to know more? ILFI

Net Zero, an Energy Building Certification operated by ILFI, is also included in the LBC. Moonshadow Ventures adheres to it and the Built Green rating system by the Master Builders Association

Building green is also the practice of sustainable gardening techniques. Endurance Dwellings have space for gardens. The National Wildlife Federation sponsors the Wildlife Habitat Certification to recognize builders that provide the four habitat components: food, water, cover, places to raise the young.

LEED: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

Force. Form. Function.

LEED is the world’s most widely used green building rating system and Endurance Dwellings comply.

Form follows function is a maxim coined by Louis Sullivan (the father of skyscrapers) and used by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Guggenheim Museum.

Moonshadow Ventures has added force to this equation. A good example is the mansard roof – the drip-edge 10 feet from the exterior wall of an Endurance Dwelling. It has multiple functions:

Directs water from the drip edge to the footing drain.
Creates a covered arcade that acts as a promenade around the entire dwelling.
In winter the slope admits passive solar rays to heat the internal thermal mass.
In high summer the sunlight cannot penetrate to the interior because of the slope shadow.

Site forces give us logical forms that are dedicated to interacting with the function required. When defending the forest from the force of fire, side effects create a park-like setting where native species are dominant, keeping the biosphere content.

Using the forces in design mean that everything has a reason behind it. Some of the forces are:

Parking
View
Accessibility
Light pollution

Moonshadow Ventures’ use of force in sitecrafting and ergonomic design principles promotes sustainability and follows the LEED program’s five key areas of human and environmental health:

Sustainable Site Development: Moonshadow Ventures explores the inherent nature of local ecosystems using Wild Sitecrafting techniques. (link to wild sitecrafting page) This way we can reveal their latent personalities.
Water Savings: By best use methods we collect, distribute, characterize, expose and use rainwater with a system of Surface Water Retention Ponds (SWRPys).
Energy Efficiency: Our electrical / alternative energy systems analyst understands our needs and will connect with active solar and other appropriate systems tailored for our projects.
Materials Selection: All materials for every division will be chosen for the value they bring to the projects: Fundamental utility, green rating, cost, safety and sustainability.
Indoor Environmental Quality: Fresh air is part of a healthy home. With well-designed ventilation and careful selection of materials, our dwellings have dynamic and clean atmospheres. Air is like water – if it doesn’t move, it gets stale.