INNOVATION July-August 2012

unbelievable for me… I have deep full breaths and renewed energy.” Because CIRS is considered a living lab, research will be ongoing. The building is just the starting point in what’s being called “a visionary experiment that will lead to massive strides in advancing sustainability.” v

wastewater from other buildings on campus: one more net positive benefit. Another feature that contributes to the building’s longevity, and therefore its sustainability, is changeable floor plans in the building’s wings. The modular office partitions can be re-jigged as often as required. “All the power and data for these work stations comes from the floor,” explains Cayuela, standing in his second floor office. “There are no wires going through any of these walls. They can be turned into whatever we need, like classrooms or meeting rooms. We can simply bring the guy with the toolbox and reconfigure this whole space in a matter of hours.” The Cost of Sustainability So what does a building this innovative cost? Roughly $36 million, says Cayuela, about 25% more than a comparable building at UBC built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold standards. But after about 20 years of operation, it’s expected that the cost of this greener building (designed to meet LEED Platinum certifi- cation) will actually work out to be comparable to that of the reference LEED Gold building. (One of the first research projects at CIRS was a Dynamic Lifecycle Costing Assessment, which evaluated costs in all phases of the life of the building, from cradle to grave, and compared the financial performance of CIRS to an equivalent building. The study was finished last October but the final outcomes are not yet available.) As well as designing and building CIRS to LEED

The design of the CIRS building was instrumental in keeping energy demand as low as possible.

Platinum specifications, the CIRS team aimed for recognition by the Living Building Challenge. It’s one of the most advanced green rating systems in the world, requiring buildings to be net-zero on environmental impacts and also address more nebulous matters, such as beauty, equity and health. Some of the research underway at CIRS speaks to those very things. Professors John Robinson and Ray Cole are principal investigators in pre- and post-occupancy research that looks at the people who work at CIRS (ie, the CIRS inhabitants) and creates a baseline to measure their productivity, health and happiness over time. Debra Dolan, Professor Robinson’s executive assistant, says she’s already seen her health improve since starting to work in the building. Dolan has a respiratory condition that forced her to take a day off work in the middle of every week when she worked at other buildings on campus. Since moving into the CIRS building, she no longer needs to. “I can breathe,” she says. “It’s

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