Facility Design and Build,Green Design,BSL-3,Biocontainment

We must challenge the existing paradigms in both operation and design if we are to make significant impact on sustainability in laboratories.

There is a strong momentum in architecture and engineering to create more sustainable buildings to improve the impact on our environment from facilities. Facilities consume a significant percentage of non-renewable resources and contribute in many ways to the degradation of our environment. Laboratory facilities, in particular, are among the highest energy users of any facility type and thus represent a significant opportunity for changes in design and operation to reduce their impact.

It is important to remember that laboratories are designed for two major functions; 1) protecting the occupants, the community, and the environment from hazards used within the facility and 2) providing the appropriate research environment to produce valid and repeatable results. Laboratory design principles have grown from those two primary considerations and represent the development of best practices through time. It is critically important not to compromise on either the safety or the quality of research results. However, as a practitioner of laboratory design for over twenty five years, it is apparent to me that it is difficult to keep the pace of laboratory design in concert with the changes and advancements in science. Too many operational and design practices become either officially or unofficially codified as the norm even though the reasons for their existence have become moot as laboratory practices and technology advances.We must challenge the existing paradigms in both operation and design if we are to make significant impact on sustainability in laboratories.

In addition to the benefit on the environment, most sustainable design processes force a long term view of facility design and operations and thus produces many benefits for the owner of a facility. Some of these benefits may be realized in reduced operating costs, higher occupant comfort, reduced building related illness (not to be confused with laboratory acquired infections), and simpler maintenance.

A better environment for people may also be a better environment for science. For example, a design to reduce moisture infiltration and mold growth creates a cleaner lab space for culturing organisms. While some believe that sustainable design increases the initial cost of facilities, integrated approaches to design where more costly solutions are counteracted by system reductions have demonstrated that much can be achieved without increasing project budgets.

According to the U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) program, there are five major categories of facility related sustainable design goals:

1. Sustainable Sites; the selection and design of the site for a facility can have a major impact on the use of resources during the life of a facility.
2. Water Efficiency; in many parts of the U.S. and the world potable water is a limited resource. Facility design can minimize the waste of water.
3. Energy and Atmosphere; according to the Green Building Council, citing the Department of Energy, buildings consume approximately 38% of the energy and 68% of the electricity produced in the United States annually. As approximately three quarters of this energy is produced by the combustion of fossil fuels this energy use has a large impact on atmospheric emissions. Small changes in building energy performance can, in the aggregate, have a significant impact on the environment.
4. Materials and Resources; different building materials and the energy cost of their transport to a building site may have very different impact on facility sustainability. In addition the use of recycled materials may eliminate a significant amount of waste going to landfills.
5. Indoor Environmental Quality; indoor air pollutants can be much higher than those found outdoors. This can have a dramatic impact on occupant health and productivity.