Going greener than green

The University of British Columbia plans to build 'the most innovative and high-performance building in North America.

An environmentally-innovative $36-million building the University of B.C. wants to construct in east Vancouver doesn't have a small footprint, but its proponents hope it will teach the world how to step lightly on the land.

The first goal of the proposed Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability is to design a building that requires almost no off-site energy, water or wastewater systems to function.

Its backers want to put up the "greenest" building on Earth.

"The building basically lives within its own footprint," says John Robinson, a UBC geography professor who has been working on the project for five years.

A system of pipes under the building would cool and heat the three-storey, 6,000-square-metre building.

Almost all of the electricity consumed -- Robinson won't commit yet to a specific percentage -- would be generated by photovoltaic cells that harness the sun's rays.

Almost all of the air needed to ventilate the building is to come from the wind.

With the exception of drinking water, all the water would come from the rain that falls on the building.

And all the polluted water that runs down sinks and toilets would be treated on site. The aim is not to dump anything into the sewage system that eventually leads to the Strait of Georgia.

The basic shape of that building would be simple, comprising of two rectangular buildings linked by a central atrium.

But a posting on the UBC website aims high, boldly declaring the building "will be the most innovative and high performance building in North America, demonstrating leading edge research and sustainable design, products, systems and decision making."

There are many so-called "green buildings" that use recycled materials or energy-efficient designs to cut the emissions that hasten global warming. Last month, UBC's Design Centre for Sustainability published the Greater Vancouver Green Guide which highlighted more than 30 such buildings in this urban region.

But Robinson has set his sights on the four or five world-class buildings. One of the "greenest buildings" on Earth he noted is the CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre in Hyderabad, India, which opened two years ago. That building has been given a "platinum" rating -- the highest rating possible -- under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council.

"We want to build something that's beyond LEED platinum," said Robinson. "We want to build the most high-performance building, certainly in North America and, we hope, in the world."

That said, he dropped a qualifier: "We're not going to make a global claim until we've built it, it's operating and we can compare its performance."

Robinson, a professor at UBC's Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability who teaches environmental studies courses, traces the genesis of the proposal back to a 2001 meeting he had with Vancouver architect Peter Busby.

Busby, an Order of Canada recipient whose firm -- Busby, Perkins & Will -- has won awards for its green building designs, shared Robinson's passion for the environment.

"We spent a couple of hours dreaming what we'd like to spend the rest of our lives doing," Robinson said.

Since then, Robinson and other proponents have got a nod from the university's board of governors for a project with a $36.1-million budget.

Robinson doesn't have a big stash of cash in a bank account, but says he has about $32 million in funding commitments and he hopes to secure other unnamed partners by September for the $4-million balance.

He says the grant application process is maze of "incredible Byzantine complexity."

The promises started coming in 2004, when the federal government announced a $4.5-million grant from Canada Foundation for Innovation. Robinson expects that grant will be matched by the provincial government's B.C. Knowledge Development Fund, as those federal grants usually are. Some of the other big funding sources include a promised $5 million from BC Hydro and another $5 million from Terasen Utility Services, which is now called Corix Utilities.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada, another federal agency, has pledged $2.3 million. Busby's architectural firm and two other companies have offered $1.5 million in services. And UBC is contributing $9 million in debt financing -- which is to be repaid from building leases.

The UBC-owned building would be built on former industrial land on the new Great Northern Way Campus, a collaboration of UBC, the B.C. Institute of Technology, Simon Fraser University and the Emily Carr Institute of Art+Design.

If the City of Vancouver approves a building permit and all the financing needed for the building is secured, Robinson anticipates a construction start sometime between this November and next April. He's giving himself lots of wriggle room, because he had hoped to have the building finished last month and that didn't happen.

If and when the building is finished -- the projected construction completion date is now "mid-2008" -- work on the project's second goal begins. During the building's lifespan, conservatively estimated to be 150 years, everything in that building -- the furniture, the paints, the energy and water systems -- is to be part of a "research test bed" that looks for more building technologies that cause less harm to the environment.

Building features and systems are to be modular, allowing them to be replaced with newer and better plug-in technologies. Even its human occupants are to be part of the "living laboratory" that looks for ways to make them healthier and happier.

"We want the private sector to put their best technologies into the building, to test them with us," he said. "We're particularly interested in the problems that some green buildings have of behavioural sabotage" -- for example, people who prop open an exterior door in the quest for fresh air.

In that collaborative work environment, Robinson hopes researchers in academia will start connecting with the real world, producing new building technologies, policies and approaches as the world's urban population grows.

"A big part of what's required for sustainability is policy and market changes, but we know politicians can't act and markets can't sell if people don't accept the policy and buy the product," he said. "If we don't buy in, we won't get the policy changes we need."

(prepared by Glen Bohn/Vancouver Sun)

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WHO'S MOVING IN:

Some of the committed and potential tenants in a "living laboratory of sustainability," a proposed $36-million building in east Vancouver:

- The four post-secondary school partners at the Great Northern Way campus: B.C. Institute of Technology, Emily Carr Institute of Ar +Design, Simon Fraser University and the University of B.C.

- BC Hydro, Terasen Utility Services, Vancity Savings, Telus and Siemens.

- Natural Resources Canada, the Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation, City of Vancouver sustainability group and the David Suzuki Foundation.