For a building to “live,” it requires both an active effort from the occupants and clever design and construction. The Brooks headquarter at Stone34 in Seattle has both covered.

Now one year into Seattle’s Deep Green Pilot Program (originally dubbed the Living Building Pilot Program), a three-year trail period where Stone34 must show it curbs water usage by 75 percent compared to a typical Seattle office building, harvest and reuse 50 percent of stormwater onsite, achieve LEED CS Platinum certification and more, Stone34 has the help of Brooks employees in achieving the goals.

The Brooks headquarters was developed in 2014—the building was originally built by Skanska USA in 2011, but LMN Architects, Skanksa, Brooks and McKinstry all reshaped the project under the lead of owners Laird Norton Properties and Unico Properties—and helps employees move toward sustainability with near real-time performance monitoring on each floor, collecting energy and water use information that gets pushed to a monitor in the lobby and another in the building’s café. A kinetic art fixture dubbed “Fissure” in the lobby responds to the building’s energy usage by blooming when power is low and wilting when it is high. And from a design perspective, the grand stairwell with energy efficient glass and reclaimed wood was placed prominently to promote the use of stairs over the elevator.

At the culmination of the 12-month performance period, Stone34 exceeded energy, water and stormwater reuse requirements outlined in the Seattle program. For energy use, Stone34 was 78.9 percent better than average with 3,674,682 kBtu with the help of a mechanical system that integrates chilled beams, air and water heat recovery systems, a thermal storage tank and highly insulated thermalenvelope. Stone34 was 81.7 percent better than average by using only 696,098 gallons of water and Brooks and Stone34 reused 352,990 gallons of stormwater with the help of a 65,000-gallon rainwater cistern.

The City of Seattle’s land use policy allowed for an additional 15 percent in buildable area at Stone34 under the Deep Green Pilot Project, but only if the developer made deeper investments in energy and water conservation technologies, and if the anchor tenant, owner and mechanical and plumbing partner delivered the required building performance metrics. There was a risk of financial penalty to each of the partners if the project fell short of the program’s requirements.

”Stone34 was Skanska’s development entry point into the Seattle market, and as a self-financed company we were able to take risks beyond what a normal developer would, because we knew it was the right thing to do,” says Lisa Picard, executive vice president for Skanska USA Commercial Development. “We couldn’t be prouder that Brooks Running, who also took huge risks, crossed the finished line at levels beyond our wildest dreams. Building design and innovation can only take you so far in creating sustainable buildings. These must be complemented by high-performance operations and top-notch occupant behavior.”

Located at 3400 Stone Way North on the popular Burke-Gilman Trail, Brooks made a commitment to the location as not only a world headquarters, but also a flagship retail store, helping promote running with community space adjacent to the trail. To meet the pilot project goals, Brooks needed to be on board with the effort. Employees were encouraged to compost, shorten showers with the help of smart timers and manually adjust window treatments to maintain a comfortable building temperature, among other behaviors.

“We’re excited and honored to celebrate this important milestone for the city of Seattle. When we moved Brooks’ global headquarters to Seattle, our goal was to find a building that connected us to the heart of the running community, inspired our employees and reaffirmed our dedication to the environment,” says Jim Weber, CEO, Brooks Running Company. “Stone34 isn’t just another address, it’s a thought-leading example of how businesses can live and thrive in deep-green buildings in the heart of a city.”

Other key Stone34 partners include Fremont Dock Company; DCI Engineers as the project’s structural engineers; Swift Company as the landscape architect; WSP Flack & Kurtz, which provided mechanical/plumbing design during development; KPFF Consulting Engineers which handled the civil engineering; and Cochran which performed the electrical work.

The other retail tenant at Stone34 is MiiR, whose flagship store features craft beer, coffee and retail that goes to support the development of water and transportation in less developed areas of the world.

Follow Tim Newcomb on Twitter at @tdnewcomb.