It’s hard to find a more emblematic project for the contemporary sustainability movement than the Oregon Sustainability Center. Now in the final stages of a feasibility study, this highly sustainable high rise in Portland, Ore., combines the efforts of the nonprofit, education, business, and public sectors to create a building that adheres to the most stringent sustainability certification standard that exists, and uses several distinct design languages and systems to get there. It takes the sustainability conversation out of the design lab and into classrooms, civil servant offices, business board rooms, and nonprofit outreach centers. The center will serve many functions: offices for nonprofits and businesses, university classrooms, a place for building performance research. Its designers and tenants hope it will emerge as a literal icon of sustainable urbanism for one of the nation’s most progressively green states and cities. 
Developed by Gerding Edlen and Designed by both GBD Architects (Designers of The 20 on Hawthorne) and SERA Architects, this building will be entered into the Living Building Challenge. Any building that wins the Living Building title must perform at net-zero energy, water, and waste. Essentially, the challenge requires buildings to be nearly as environmentally unobtrusive as a tree. No one has yet succeeded in meeting the Living Building Challenge.
http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0619/0619d_oregon.cfm