Bullitt Center Tour

June 5th, 2013

The Bullitt Center has gotten its fair share of press, Google it and you’ll see that seemingly every major news organization in the country has run a story on “the greenest building in the world”. I have no idea if that is in the fact the case but I was impressed by a few things when I toured it today.

It’s only a five story building, yet even in a building of this size, the first thing we have all come to expect to see in an entrance lobby is a bank of elevators. Typically if anybody ever wants to take the stairs, they have to find the emergency exit stairwell. The developers of the this building smartly reversed the order at the Bullitt Center, the stairs are prominently featured. Elevators use a lot of electricity and I never even saw the elevator at the Bullitt Center.

I was also impressed by how well the windows were designed. They’re largely floor-to-ceiling windows, enabling residents to use and enjoy natural light instead of conventional lights.

My tour guide was a resident in the building and in spite of the no parking requirement for such a green building, he was lamenting this. I don’t have an answer here, but I do know it isn’t as easy simply not allowing parking.

If you don’t get the chance to get a tour of the building I’d encourage you to spend some time looking at the press it’s received; the designers deserve some kudos in my opinion for creative thinking.