| |
A "Green" Design for Princeton's New Chemistry
Building: A Whole-Building Approach to Low-Energy, High-Performance
Design
Eileen Zerba, Ph.D., and Tim
Cheston, Princeton University
University Chemistry laboratories offer three challenges
to sustainable design: their fume-hood intensive nature, strict
safety requirements, and high-performance research needs. These
demands require a unique approach to sustainable design.
In relocating the Princeton University Chemistry laboratory,
the Princeton Environmental Institute, led by Dr. Eileen Zerba and
a team of undergraduates, has created a design to minimize environmental
impacts, reduce emissions, and improve health and safety conditions
while optimizing "whole-building" energy efficiency and
functionality. By assessing current energy use, benchmarking energy
use of similar laboratories and establishing guidelines and goals
for the new building, the study has found it is no longer about
high performance research versus low-energy design, but the two
goals increasingly overlap.
The overall goal of the proposal was to build a larger
building without a net energy increase from the current chemistry
building energy use. The study also examined the ways to maximize
the gains of one's environmental stewardship beyond the energy savings
of the building itself, through educating others, becoming green
certified, creating media attention, and capitalizing on all local,
state, and federal rebates. In the end, the study proves invaluable
to any university or research chemistry laboratory to recognize
the specific needs of the laboratory, but also shows how universities
and their undergraduates can serve in green design to work with
on- and off-campus partners in creating green designs. In essence,
the relocation study demonstrates how universities can move onto
the path of building green, by analyzing the unique challenges and
opportunities offered by universities today.
Labs21 Connection:
The chemistry relocation proposal adopts Labs21 Approach principles
throughout the study with three overall foci: a whole buildings
approach, life-cycle cost assessments, and modular design. The study
itself was inspired by attendance at the 2004 Labs21 Conference
and highlights all elements of the Labs21 Approach specific to a
mid-atlantic chemistry laboratory, from cutting-edge fume hoods
to green materials to paperless laboratories. The design also aims
to incorporate renewable energy sources, using full wall-height
windows, a four story atrium, dimmable lighting systems, a green
roof, geothermal heat pumps, water collection systems, and explores
possible PV and wind technologies.
One especially noteworthy finding of the study is the ability to
split the building into fume hood intensive and non-fume hood intensive
wings to minimize duct sizes and to capitalize on right-sizing and
pressurization techniques. The study also takes a noteworthy approach
to analyzing the specific needs of universities from the desires
for student/faculty interaction and the particular financing options
for green design. Finally, the study takes a unique approach to
integrating the resources and perspectives of undergraduates into
green design.
Biographies:
Eileen Zerba, Ph.D., received her B.A. and M.S. in Biology
at Occidental College, and Ph.D. in Zoology at Arizona State University.
Her doctoral work focused on the effects of temperature on energy
metabolism and skeletal muscle function in birds. Following her
doctoral studies, she joined the Department of Physiology and Institute
of Gerontology at The University of Michigan as a postdoctoral fellow.
Her postdoctoral research addressed the effects of aging and temperature
on contraction-induced skeletal muscle injury and recovery in mammals.
At the University of Michigan, she also taught Introductory Biology
laboratories and conducted research in Physiological Ecology in
the Department of Biology. Eileen then joined the Department of
Biology at Colgate University as a faculty member, where she taught
courses in Ecology, Environmental Physiology, Environmental Studies,
Vertebrate Zoology, and mentored undergraduate student research.
Her research program at Colgate centered on the physiological and
behavioral responses of animals to variation in thermal microclimates
and global climate change. In 2000, Eileen joined the Princeton
Environmental Institute (PEI) at Princeton University as an Instructor
and Director of PEI Environmental Studies laboratories. In 2004,
Eileen launched a new and distinctive teaching model, "The
Living Laboratory Teaching Model." In this model, inquiry-based
laboratories and summer undergraduate research focus on interdisciplinary
project-oriented studies of local environmental problems that are
applicable to state, regional, and global environmental issues.
This educational model is also based on values of stewardship to
enrich and reinforce academic learning at all levels through community
collaborations, both within and outside Princeton University. In
keeping with this goal, Eileen is also committed to outreach programs
and the Community-Based Learning Initiative Program at Princeton
University.
Tim Cheston is an undergraduate
at Princeton University, class of 2008, pursuing a Bachelors of
Arts by majoring in the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International
Affairs. Before entering Princeton, he grew up in Falls Church,
Virginia, just outside Washington D.C., where the extreme humidity
almost forced his interest in environmental issues of climate change
and sustainability. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School
for Science and Technology. At Princeton, he spends his time as
President of Oxfam Princeton, and is involved with the Student Trade
Justice Campaign. He has also been at the forefront of the campus
movement toward sustainable practices, especially in terms of sustainable
building practices. He has helped write the Chemistry Relocation
Study which looks at implementing a whole building approach to sustainable
building for the new Chemistry building on campus.
Back to the Poster Session
|
