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Integrated Sustainable Design for Research Laboratoriesby Joseph J. Ferraro, AIA, Bruce Haxton, AIA, and Robert Lord B.E. 5. Future Trends in Sustainable Research Facilities The building described in this paper represents state of the art sustainable research laboratory design at this time. However, there are several emerging trends in building design that promise even greater environmental benefit. The first is the trend towards even more sophisticated modeling of environmental conditions, which will allow mechanical systems to be further diminished in importance and passive systems to increase in importance. This can be seen in the design of recent buildings that (with the design assistance of Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD modeling) have been able to completely eliminate the need for mechanical systems. A second trend is the focus on “provision of service.” Just as the engineer is becoming tasked with “providing comfort” rather than equipment, all of the other building systems are valued for their utility rather then their commodity. Companies are now available who will provide fresh clean carpet for the life of the building, rather than simply sell it to you once. Provision-of-service contracts are now available for plumbing, lighting, wall coverings, furniture, and other aspects of what used to be capital expenditures. These higher efficiency, highly passive buildings are also starting a third trend, that of energy autonomy. Buildings are now built which are either “off the grid” in that they provide all of their own utilities and services, or they remain connected to urban infrastructure but use is primarily to sell services rather than purchase water and electricity. [4] Proceed to next section: 6. References Table of Contents Return to Publications
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