Enter Yuffies - Center for Urban Agriculture

Seattle-based Mithun wins with urban farm building

In today’s urban housing market, the draw of parking, views, and walk-in closets can be matched—if not outdone—by sustainable building features like living roofs, bamboo flooring, and solar-powered appliances. Now, as the Seattle-based firm Mithun has shown, it could be time to expand the marketability of green living by yet another item: chicken coops.

    In October, Mithun’s proposal for a 23-story, 318-unit apartment building in downtown Seattle won best in show at this year’s Living Building Challenge, an annual competition sponsored by the Cascadia Regional Green Building Council. Squeezed onto a triangular .72-acre site, the design includes 34,000 square feet of south-facing solar panels, over an acre of flora, fauna, and vegetable gardens— and, yes, a terrace entirely devoted to raising chickens.

    Mithun named their live/farm project the Center for Urban Agriculture to highlight the building’s ability to produce enough food for 450 people. In sync with local farming movements, Mithun hopes to reduce the number of food miles consumed by urbanites. “About 40 percent of each person’s carbon footprint comes from food production and transport,” said Debra Guenther, a senior associate with Mithun. “The idea here is to link eating and lifestyle to closed-loop resource flows.”

    More common acts of conserving materials and energy also figure into the proposal, which, for now, remains conceptual. Mithun used recycled shipping containers for the apartment modules, while an underground hydrogen gas storage and conversion system provides both the power and water needed to run the entire building. Julie Kim