A resilient new headquarters is helping ensure the Oregon State Treasury can remain operational in the face of an earthquake, ice storm, wildfire or other potential disaster event. By targeting net-zero energy use, it also shows how resilient design, renewable energy and energy efficiency go hand in hand.

The Oregon State Resiliency Building is the first US Resiliency Council (USRC) Platinum-rated building in Oregon and the first USRC-rated seismically isolated building in the United States. Its base isolators can reduce earthquake shake by as much as 75%. And its low energy use combined with a large solar array, backup storage system and generator allow the building to go into full “island mode” for extended periods of time if and when needed.

Focusing on a resilient, net-zero design, the project team received energy modeling and technical support from Energy Trust of Oregon’s Path to Net Zero offering.

“Sometimes when we set priorities, it comes back to money and we have to make sacrifices. But we started to see that there was a natural meshing of the resiliency priorities with the net-zero energy priorities. And a key factor in all of this was our partnership with Energy Trust of Oregon,” said Zach Stevens, associate for the project’s energy modeler, WSP.