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Mark Yakren and David Callan  
One of the most compelling trends in facility design
and engineering today is sustainability. The issue is
acute in
energy-intensive laboratories, where sustainable design can
dramatically improve building performance and produce
significant
hard-cost savings. Still, the nature of laboratory engineering
presents unique challenges to the adoption of sustainable
design strategies. The Laboratories for the 21st Century
(Labs 21) Program, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental
Protection
Agency and the US Department of Energy, has begun developing
guidelines for laboratories based on the LEED® Green
Building Rating System. Syska Hennessy Group senior vice
president
and lab design specialist Mark Yakren and senior vice president
David Callan, a sustainability expert, believe that the
LEED® for
labs movement is an important step toward the acceptance
of provable new practices that will benefit all stakeholders.
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| What makes sustainability more difficult
to implement in laboratories than other building types?
Laboratory design tends to be anchored in past practices,
with good reason. The number one priority in laboratory design
is, and will remain, occupant safety. Virtually no designer
would suggest, for the sake of innovation, an unproven building
technology that could jeopardize safety, and no owner would
accept it. This zero-tolerance for untested methods instills
reluctance to change. For that reason, sustainable design
strategies may be slow to find acceptance in the industry.
The techniques themselves must be adjusted to the requirements
of a high-risk environment. That's why the Labs 21 movement
is so critical.
Is some of the resistance due to misconceptions
about sustainability?
Misconceptions about sustainable design abound. Chief among
them is that sustainable design is a defined entity, an extra
fixture that can be attached to a building as it is about
to be constructed. In reality, sustainable design is a process
of integrating ideas, objectives and priorities for building
systems by the players responsible for their creation. True
sustainability is not driven by complicated or unproven techniques,
but by sensible decisions made early-on in facility programming.
Another misconception about sustainable design
is that it necessarily costs more. The sustainable approach
may require a greater commitment of time and a focused effort,
but it frequently costs less to implement than a conventional
design. Moreover, a guiding concept of sustainability is to
evaluate efficiency using total lifecycle cost. By that measure,
initial capital costs pale in comparison to human costs, and
to the potential gains from even modest improvements in worker
productivity that sustainable treatments often support.
Are sustainable design strategies radically
new?
Not necessarily. Certain practices already common in conscientiously
engineered and outfitted laboratories are elements of sustainability,
such as using energy efficient equipment, rightsizing, and
selecting equipment and systems based on lifecycle-cost rather
than first-cost analysis. Yet applying sustainable principles
in a holistic way rather than component-by-component is innovative
and achieves far greater results. This is the approach that
we advocate, leading an integrated design process that teams
the building owner, designers, contractor, facility manager
and building occupants to derive the best strategies for each
project.
What are some of the design guidelines
suggested by the Labs 21 draft rating system?
Much of the document suggests a commonsense protocol that
can readily be followed to the betterment of the building,
its occupants and the surrounding community. Here are some
of the design considerations it promotes:
- Site selection. At a basic level, a sustainable site is
one which takes advantage of solar access, prevailing breezes
and programmatic adjacencies to produce more efficient lighting,
ventilation and temperature control. It may also be possible
to select your site with a view of proximity to public transportation
and minimizing impact on wildlife and the local natural
ecosystem.
- Water Efficiency. By their nature, laboratories use more
water than office buildings. In many locations, water is
readily available so few people have paid attention to reducing
usage or recycling. Yet efficiency methods are quite simple
and prudent, and include gray water collection and reuse;
rainwater recapture and reuse in irrigation; drought-tolerant
landscaping; and elimination of once-through water systems
for equipment cooling.
- Energy & Atmosphere. On average, laboratories use five
times more energy than other buildings, much of it in process
equipment. Selecting energy efficient and low-demand lab
equipment is thus one of the most effective and immediate
ways to reduce energy consumption. Energy, electrical and
ventilation systems can benefit from recapture and reuse
potentials. The use of daylighting, for instance, is often
overlooked. Shared lighting concepts and dimming controls
for non-work surface lighting may also be feasible.
- Materials & Resources. The selection of "green" materials
for building construction may seem a low priority to the
laboratory owner, yet many people don't realize that much
of the structural components already in use are comprised
of recycled content: structural steel, concrete and gypsum,
for example. By far the most critical objective to the laboratory
owner is building reuse. Unlike other building types which
may have an inherent 50-year lifespan, laboratories tend
toward obsolescence after a mere 10-12 years as programs
and research needs change. Designing built-in flexibility
or adaptability for future building reuse is critical to
sustainability.
- Indoor Environmental Quality. This is perhaps the most
important priority in any laboratory design, and the sustainable
approach only further assures that appropriate safety standards
are met. The design team must accurately assess risks and
provide proper air dilution rates. Hood alarms and room
pressurization monitoring are very important. Where appropriate,
containment areas should be provided to protect occupants
and minimize risks of cross-contamination. Proper placement
of air intakes and exhausts is critical; modeling and wind
tunnel tests should be employed to predict results.
- Innovation in Design Process. The guidelines propose to
credit a laboratory for demonstrating innovation in design
depending on the impact to the project. We believe that
appropriate innovation will be the natural byproduct of
the team approach to sustainable design in which all parties
share ideas and understand risks.
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