Catalyst Demonstrates Zero Carbon and Zero Energy at Zero Premium in Spokane, Washington

A Bold Step in Transforming Our Built Environment.

McKinstry recognizes that our world faces a climate crisis, much of which is attributable to our current built environment. Radical innovation must be applied to solve it. That’s why we developed, designed and delivered the zero-carbon and zero-energy Catalyst building in Spokane, Washington.

Zero Energy Makes a Better Asset

The best zero energy and zero carbon buildings intentionally use their high-performance elements to provide a better building. This is how Catalyst does it:

• Cross-laminated timber is low carbon and quite beautiful, biophilic and warm
• Thoughtful daylighting improves views out of the building
• Air sealing substantially improves the durability of the building, providing a much higher degree of envelope weather resistive barrier quality control/inspection and limiting condensing moisture
• The outstanding envelope and daylighting mean that the building remains functional without power

Physically, due to solar gain, the building cannot drop below temperatures in the 50 degrees even with very cold outside air. A small amount of battery backup enables operations of core systems.

Driving Out Waste

The development of Catalyst provided a testbed for three key innovations identified by McKinstry for reducing waste in construction:

• Sharing of heating/cooling systems across a campus, enabling thermal waste transfer and economy of scale, substantially increasing efficiency while reducing cost
• Use of timber for structure and decking, instead of heavier steel/concrete construction
• Mass assembly and alignment of disparate interior mechanical, electrical, fire, low voltage and IT systems

These three innovations make a better building while enabling Catalyst to achieve its zero carbon, zero energy and zero premium targets.