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Five Keys to Sustainable Lab DesignEnergy, water, lab space, lighting and operating costs all figure into more sustainable labs.by Tim Studt
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Motorized sun shades (left) and a large roof-fed water cistern (right) create sustainable research lab features at the Center for Urban Waters. Erlab’s GreenFumeHood (center) eliminates the costly air handling required for conventional fume hoods. All CUW photos: Benjamin Benschneider | Ask several researchers how sustainable their lab and lab operations are and you're likely to get several different answers. Sustainable lab design has no exact definition or design criteria—it means different things to different researchers, depending upon their discipline, work environment, and interests. For some, it's “green” technologies that are safer for the environment than conventional technologies; for others it's designing to be LEED-certified (LEED is the EPA's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program); and for others still it's reducing overall costs to meet continuing cost restrictions and limits.
According to a recent reader survey by the editors of Laboratory Equipment, safety and security was the top lab sustainability characteristic, receiving 50 percent of the survey responses. In most surveys, safety and security are always the top vote, even outside of the sustainability venue—the prime prerequisite for all labs is to maintain the safety and security of its personnel. Following safety and security in order of importance in this particular survey were energy efficiency, advanced instrumentation, space utilization, operating costs, fume hoods, water conservation, materials recycling, daylighting, and a number of lesser items.
So what are the top five sustainability areas that researchers should take control over with regard to their research labs? What five design features will make the biggest impact on how researchers work in their labs? In no particular order, energy efficiency, water conservation, efficient space utilization, lighting (all types) and operating costs are five general and interrelated categories that meet these criteria and include a number of overlapping lesser items as well.
Starting from scratch
Architects, lab managers and lab planners take a particularly detailed look at the inter-related sustainability and LEED criteria when planning a new or renovated lab facility. The general guidelines for sustainable design and operation, however, are actually taking a stronger, more specific role in lab design, according to Devin Kleiner, a project designer for Perkins+Will Architects.
“LEED criteria have low benchmarks because they were designed to be achievable—they were created with the lowest common denominator,” says Kleiner. “We must, and are, looking beyond LEED for sustainable labs. One of the areas we look at is websites like 2030.org that go beyond local, state and federal codes and LEED guidelines. We're putting more weight on different aspects to make the labs more sustainable.”
1. Energy efficiency is one of the more pervasive sustainability features that goes across the entire research facility. Three of these features include benchmarking and load analysis to right size lab equipment and demand; elimination or minimization of overcooling and reheat; and appropriate air change rates that balance energy use and safety, according to David Bendet, an associate principal in the Science + Technology sector of Perkins+Will.
The heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) requirements for commercial structures, including research labs, is often the most costly feature of the facility from both an installation standpoint and an ongoing operating standpoint. Numerous options are available to support sustainable designs in this area. These include the installation of heat transfer wheels in the air handling systems that capture heat and/or cooling energy before being exhausted to the ambient environment. These systems are relatively simple to install and maintain, and have very predictable performance characteristics throughout the seasons, thus allowing reliable operating characteristics.
In the past, many HVAC systems were sized for possible extreme conditions, but these conditions usually never occurred. The cost impact of these designs was often considerable and inefficient. Lab planners and engineers are now taking a much more realistic approach to “right-size” these very expensive equipment systems.
Chilled beam cooling systems are also a sustainable alternative to conventional forced air convection cooling systems. These designs have seen very successful implementation in European labs but are not being strongly considered in U.S. lab designs.
The last of these items–balancing energy use and safety–addresses the largest energy “hog” in the research lab: fume hoods. Most conventional fume hoods use as much energy as 3.5 conventional homes on an annual basis. The first step in limiting this energy use and making the lab more sustainable was to install smart controls on the hood to automatically close the sashes when not in use or to actually shut it down after a predetermined amount of non-use time. The second phase of this program was to reduce the face velocity at the opening of the fume hood from 100 to 60 ft/min. Variations that included combinations of these designs were also implemented. The third and current step in this design and development evolution was the creation and successful implementation of large-scale ductless fume hoods.
“Incremental progress in the reduction of energy use by fume hoods has been achieved,” says Karl Aveard, VP at Erlab, manufacturer of the GreenFumehood ductless fume hood system. Aveard states that the single largest impact on reducing energy consumption and environmental pollution has been the ductless filtration fume hoods.
Ductless fume hood technology is an evolving science, says Aveard.
Sustainable Case Study: The Center for Urban Waters, Tacoma, Washington
• The building will use 36% less energy and 46% less water than comparable buildings.
• 95% of the building is lit via day lighting.
• Motorized exterior solar shades automatically adjust to daylight and heat during the day.
• Electrical infrastructure is built to be solar power ready and includes electric car charging stations.
• 12,000 ft2 green roof treats and reduces stormwater run-off.
• Two 36,000 gal water storage cisterns capture rain water and rejected lab clean water.
• 75-ft dock accommodates water-monitoring vessels.
• Targeted for USGBC LEED Platinum Certification.
| “With the release of the current version of the GreenFumehood, we recognize that there remain some limitations using molecular adsorption. Opportunities for ongoing product development still exists and our engineers are working on the next generation of filtered fume hoods, which involves a completely different approach to the removal of toxic impurities from the airstream.”
2. Water conservation is another key factor in making research labs more sustainable. From waterless urinals to creative storage designs for landscaping applications, water conservation is increasingly important, especially as water shortages in many parts of the country become more acute. For example, the 36,000 gal cisterns installed in The Center for Urban Waters in Tacoma, Wash., capture rain and clean water rejected from labs and process it for reuse in landscape irrigation and gray water (toilets). A 12,000-ft2 green roof on the same facility will help treat and reduce stormwater runoff, reducing one of the largest pollution problems in the Puget Sound region.
LEED certification criteria have an entire section dedicated to water conservation designs and implementations, and, as such, many lab design teams have created elaborate water retention systems, low flow faucets, and water saver public facilities.
Green roofs are also more often being installed as a way to conserve water (used for irrigation or gray applications), while at the same time decreasing the amount of heating or cooling required because of the green roof’s insulative values.
Discussing his company’s green roof design in the Center for Urban Waters, Perkins+Will’s Devin Kleiner notes that sustainable research buildings are now often used as an experiment. The CUW’s green roof, for example, also contains a rooftop research and weather station with on-site flow rate and water quality testing. The CUW is the first “living laboratory” in the country and is paving the future of healthy green building design. In addition to the green roof, the CUW also has a high-efficiency geoexchange loop (ground-source heat pump) with 84 bore holes, some of which go as deep as 282 ft. It also has radiant floor heating, and a ground-level rain garden irrigated by collected stormwater runoff from the roof.
3. Efficient space utilization encompasses the development of new or renovated research labs that are appropriate for the current planned research projects and, at the same time, are flexible enough to quickly be changed to accommodate unplanned research projects. This duality of purpose for a research lab minimizes the number of new labs that need to be constructed and the amount of resources needed to create and maintain these labs. Flexible labs often take advantage of movable casework systems that can be rearranged overnight for different projects, principle investigators or disciplines. In many situations, more than half of the labs in a new or renovated research facility are now designed with movable casework systems.
These flexible lab configurations need to be thought of ahead of time so utilities and services can accommodate this flexible environment. Drop-down utilities from an overhead grid system with easy and safe connects and disconnects is one method being utilized to solve this situation. Safety and security concerns also need to be handled appropriately so researcher safety is not compromised.
The reality of having a flexible lab is such that it also encourages research teams to alter their dedicated lab spaces to meet their individual research needs—and become more efficient and sustainable in the process. Often a flexible lab configuration is created to support team-based research where researchers share lab space, equipment, bench space, and support staff.
4. Lighting of research lab spaces has seen a complete design turnaround over the past decade from one that focused on utilizing highly designed artificial lighting systems to properly illuminate the lab benches to one that now focuses on utilizing sophisticated daylighting systems to offset the high operating costs of the artificial lighting systems (which are still needed during non-daylight hours and cloudy/overcast days). Daylighting has the alternative negative aspect of often allowing in too much light and its accompanying heat. To correct this situation, fixed and automatically adjustable shading systems have been developed to create the more sustainable solution.
The first commercial success of fluorescent replacements for incandescent light, and now, the quickly transitioning LED replacements for incandescent light, have also created a very sustainable solution to the artificial lighting issue with a 10:1 operating cost solution.
5. Operating costs need to be minimized in the sustainable lab to minimize waste products, create a “profitable” work environment and reduce the overhead costs attributable to the development of a new product or process. Successful implementation of the other sustainability features, such as energy efficiency, water conservation and space utilization go a long way toward meeting the operating cost goals.
Lowering and maintaining operating costs is often a structural issue that addresses how labs are run, more than what specific equipment is purchased and installed. Examining individual environmental set points can have a much more substantial effect on operating costs than what vendor is chosen for a new instrument. Similarly, examining purchasing programs for research lab consumables and supplies and chosing a creative approach to these purchases can have a similar positive effect on operating costs.
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