[Source: www.montrealgazette.com, February 27, 2010]
When it opens next year the $37-million UBC Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability will be the "greenest" building in North America.
How green?
Well, according to its advanced billing, it will:
- use solar and other energy and be net positive in energy production;
- all waste water and sewage will be treated on site and used for irrigation;
- rainwater will be treated to provide safe drinking water;
- it will be greenhouse gas positive;
- and there will be more carbon sequestered in the building's wooden structure than emitted during its building or demolition.
According to John Robinson, project director of the UBC Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) building, the structure will also be its own laboratory for research and development and practice in the art of sustainability.
Construction began last September and it is due to open in the summer of 2011 on Sustainability Street at the UBC campus.
"In terms of sustainability, we can't find anything being built anywhere in the world right now to match it. But these things are a bit of a moving target and we will have to wait and see when it opens," said Robinson when asked to rank his building with other green buildings in the world.
He said the aim is to build a sustainable building for the same cost as a conventional building in order to remove any excuse the construction industry might have for not building more of them.
"Any building that goes up that's not sustainable will be a 100-year mistake because we will have missed an opportunity. Sure, it can be retrofitted, but that is expensive and a waste. We have to get to the point when all buildings will be built like this," he said.
The building will capture heat that is today being vented from the roof of the Earth and Ocean Sciences Building next door and convert it using heat pumps to provide heat for the CIRS building. Then, most of it — equivalent to 300 megawatt hours a year — will be returned to the Earth and Ocean Sciences Building to help heat it.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/building+will+world+greenest/2619519/story.html#ixzz0hzouocjL
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