Page 245 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

A HIGH-PERFORMANCE LABORATORY PROJECT 221

they’re each 16 feet in diameter. They take up a lot of space and have a lot of associ-
ated ductwork. Architects, generally speaking, don’t like to incorporate them in their
buildings because they take up so much room. The architect, Perkins+Will, did a great
job, making circular windows, like portholes, on two sides of the building so you can
actually look through the windows and see the wheels rotating. Also there is a graphic
display next to the window that shows how much energy is being saved real-time.
Because all of the air coming in and all of the air going out has to go through the sys-
tem, it’s got to be in a fairly central location unless you want miles of ductwork. The
engineer has to work very closely with the architect to make sure you can locate them
somewhere central in the building. It’s perhaps 80 percent engineering and 20 percent
architecture involved in getting these integrated correctly into the building.

A High-Performance Laboratory Project

Let’s look at another challenging LEED Platinum project, a high-altitude [6300 feet
(1910 meters)] laboratory, a joint venture project between Sierra Nevada College, the
University of California, Davis, the Desert Research Institute, and the University of
Nevada, Reno. The Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences is a 45,000-square-feet
lab and classroom building. Todd Lankenau was the principal in charge and project
architect for the architectural firm, Collaborative Design Studio and Peter Rumsey was
principal in charge and design engineer for the mechanical engineers, Rumsey
Engineers.* Todd Lankenau talked about how they began:

The client’s original goal was to achieve LEED Silver. We started the project by going
through a detailed interview process with various consultants to find the most appropri-
ate people to include on the design team. We selected consultants for their technical and
creative abilities as well as their commitments to be very personally involved with the
project. Our goal was to create a very hands-on team of highly motivated, communica-
tive, and personable individuals to foster excellence in the design process, which was of
particular importance due to the large number of stakeholders from different institutions
and the complex nature of the building and regulatory environment. As the project pro-
gressed, it became evident how important those initial choices were, since the success of
this as well as any project is a result of the collective enthusiasm of the participants, and
their ability to be leaders and champion the cause of designing an exceptional project.
We developed a detailed project program with the owners and user groups and put
into writing a very specific room-by-room requirement. This was critical as a refer-
ence throughout the design process to be sure all of the owners’ requirements were
met. We were very fortunate to have owners who were very committed to and regu-
larly involved in the design process, as well as being highly knowledgeable in the
building type and sustainable design practices.

*Interview with Todd Lankenau, Collaborative Design Studio, February 2008, and with Peter Rumsey, Rumsey
Engineers, April 2008.