Bend has two of the planet’s most ambitious sustainable and regenerative homes, owned by people willing to push green building to its absolute limit and imagined by an architectural designer who could help them achieve their vision.

Both homes achieved Living Certification, requiring them to emulate a regenerative ecosystem: generating their own energy, managing their own water and functioning within the natural limits of their site. While the better-known LEED certification focuses on efficiency and sustainability, the Living Building Challenge is the “Mount Everest” of green building, describes Bend’s Al Tozer, who designed both residences with colleagues Cecile Cuddihy and Jacob Fritz.

Worldwide, only six residential properties have achieved full Living Certification, the highest level from the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). Reaching this level demands rigor and commitment “far beyond a typical residence,” according to vice president Andrea Cooper.

Living Certified Homes in Bend, Oregon: Desert Rain and River Sol

In 2016, Desert Rain, a residential compound near Bend’s historic downtown, became the first home in the world to meet all Living Certification requirements. Developed by Barbara Scott and Thomas Elliott, the project has a 35,000-gallon cistern to supply water to its three buildings. “We gauged how much water we’d need and built a roofline to capture rain,” Scott said. “We’ve never run out of water.”

In 2025, a second Bend residence, River Sol, reached the same milestone. Conceived and owned by Lisa and Scott May, the residence achieved full Living Certification using a similarly self-contained water system. Rainwater is collected in a large underground cistern, then filtered for all household uses.

Net-Zero Water Systems: Sustainable Building in Central Oregon’s High Desert

In Central Oregon, the toughest hurdle is the water challenge, one of 20 performance-based “Imperatives.”  The net-zero water requirement mandates that 100% of a home’s supply come from captured precipitation—a requirement hard to achieve in a region that averages 12 inches of annual rainfall.

“In the high desert, we design these homes to operate like cacti,” Tozer said, “storing excess water when it’s available and [relying] on that stored water when it’s not.” He added that the whole intent is to have the right building for the land it will occupy and to honor and respect the habitat’s carrying capacity.

Healthy Building Materials and the Living Building Challenge Red List

Another difficult imperative was the avoidance of “red list” building materials—a catalog of “worst-in-class” chemicals commonly found in building products that are harmful to human health and the environment, such as formaldehyde, toxic heavy metals and certain solvents and wood treatments.

Net-Positive Energy: How Solar Power Supports Regenerative Homes

Energy performance has proven to be less restrictive. A solar array sized at roughly 25,000 watts allows River Sol to generate more energy than it consumes. In its first year, the system produced 118% of the home’s energy needs, with excess electricity returned to the grid.

“We didn’t want to limit our use of luxury lifestyle items such as our infrared sauna and hot tub,” Lisa said. “Instead, we made sure we had enough solar capacity to navigate that energy use.

“The home is engineered so there wouldn’t be lifestyle changes,” she said. “We live in it as anyone would live in a normal home. The clear benefit is that we live free of costs for water, energy and gasoline. Our daily-use vehicle is an EV, charged by solar at our home. We can have a beautiful home with luxury features and be regenerative at the same time.”

Regenerative Architecture: Designing Homes That Work With Nature

Living Future’s mission aligns closely with Tozer’s background in biology and ecology, influencing his systems-based approach to architecture. After opening his firm in 1996, he designed and built his own home on Federal Street with healthy building materials, solar panels and Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood floors—the gold standard for ethical lumber sourcing.
“As my own client, I pushed it as far as I could, becoming among Bend’s most environmentally responsible residences at the time,” he said.

Two decades later, and after leading Desert Rain through its certification process, Tozer took a brief 18-month hiatus from his architecture practice to work in Seattle at ILFI. “My goal was to help other teams create regenerative buildings. A living building has to respond to its local environment, and project teams must think about every system—from top to bottom, side to side. It’s an intense holistic approach.”

The Future of Sustainable Home Design in Central Oregon

Is the process for everyone? Perhaps not, but Tozer believes it demonstrates what’s possible in the built environment. “It’s an inspiration for anyone building a home with the planet in mind. People may not be able to achieve Living Certification, but it provides a blueprint for regenerative design and demonstrates what’s possible when buildings honor the places where they stand.”

Imagine moving into your new home only to see it catch fire soon afterward. It would be a nightmare for anyone. But for Scott and Lisa May’s Living Certified residence, the fire proved worthy of the years of discipline, endurance and investment they poured into it.

Turns out, these green homes don’t burn like typical homes. Sparked by an electrical malfunction in the fireplace wall, the fire was quickly contained. The building’s airtight envelope slowed the spread of flames and protected occupants, giving firefighters time to put out the blaze, said Al Tozer.

The fire started in 12-inch walls tightly packed with cellulose insulation that prevented heat from spreading from one side of the wall to the other and rising high enough to ignite structural and framing members in the ceiling rafters and roof. “It had a hard time spreading, which is fantastic,” Tozer said. “The fire marshal told the Mays that in any other home, they may not have had a chance to save the structure.”

In addition to the home’s airtightness, which limited oxygen to fuel the fire, it was built with nontoxic materials and furnishings. As a result, no toxins were released into the surrounding area, and none posed health risks to firefighters or neighbors. “With climate change leading to more wildfires in Central Oregon, resilience in architecture is a major benefit,” Tozer said.

Architectural design: Tozer Design | Builders: Timberline Construction (Desert Rain), James Fagan Construction (River Sol) | Interior design: Tozer Design (Desert Rain), Legum Design (River Sol)