Planning for the New Sciences: Environment and Energy Research
James V. Blount
Abstract:
With rising concerns for the health of the global environment and limited natural resources for future
sources of energy, new scientific research focused on improving our ecosystem and finding clean energy
is creating an ever increasing level of interdisciplinary activity in our laboratory facilities. These
unpredictable scientific interactions and collaborations are spawning new classes of laboratories,
imposing higher levels of flexibility and forever changing the complexion of our buildings for science.
Coupled with the scientific and programmatic challenges is the task of planning these complex science
buildings to be highly sustainable and energy efficient. These challenges come at a point in time when
research funding and construction budgets are tighter than ever before and energy costs continue to
rise; raising the bar for creating high performance and highly flexible laboratory environments capable
of supporting a wider variety of research.
Our presentation will include four case-study projects, each designed to achieve LEED Gold certification
with a variety of solutions to critical planning issues such as enhanced day lighting and natural
ventilation, “classes” of labs, levels of flexibility, end-user adaptability, the impact of highly specialized
laboratories, innovative site strategies for storm water management, and the importance of space to
enable interdisciplinary scientific collaborations. These case study projects include;
Harvard University
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Cabot Science Center - Nocera Laboratory
Projected LEED Gold
SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry
College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Academic Research Building
Syracuse, NY
Projected LEED Gold
University of Vermont
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Jeffords Hall Plant Sciences Building
Burlington, Vermont
LEED GOLD Certified
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Laboratory for Ocean Sensors and Observing Systems (LOSOS)
Woods Hole, Massachusetts
LEED GOLD Certified
Our clients are faced with increasingly difficult challenges as they contemplate their new facility
requirements in support of interdisciplinary science. Buildings for interdisciplinary research require
heretofore unachieved levels of flexibility to allow the owner to nimbly assign and reassign lab space as
research funding changes and research group sizes increase or decrease; laboratory and casework
systems require a higher degree of “user-friendly” adaptability to enable quick adjustments to
accommodate the varied types of multidisciplinary research; and throughout the lab building, there
needs to be a flexible and varied approach to the planning for highly specialized research. Lastly,
owners are often faced with the challenge of trying to justify the need for social interaction spaces; as
research becomes even more multidisciplinary and specialized, the need for these types of soft-spaces is
even more critical.
Bio:
James Blount
Jim Blount, AIA, LEED AP, is a laboratory programming and planning architect, is one of the leaders
behind Ellenzweig's innovative sustainable design practice devoted to architecture for the sciences; he
has been involved in the programming, planning, and design of over two million square feet of space for
science research and teaching. A particular area of interest and expertise is the exploration and
development of innovative sustainable design solutions for research facilities. In acknowledgment of
that expertise, he has participated in green lab design workshops, laboratory safety committees,
contributed to the development of laboratory planning and safety standards and served as an invited
speaker at many national and international forums addressing laboratory and sustainable design.