Labs2Zero
Diamond Sponsors
Platinum Labs2Zero/
Conference Sponsor
Connect with Us
2012 Go Beyond Awards
A unique awards program honoring organizations, individuals, products, and projects that are advancing sustainable, high-performance facilities.
Labs21 2012 Annual Conference Go Beyond Award Winners
I2SL, in partnership with R&D Magazine, is pleased to acknowledge the winners of the fifth-annual Go Beyond Awards. Go Beyond Award winners show their commitment to the goals of to excellence in sustainability in laboratory and other high technology facility projects by going beyond the facility itself to consider shared resources, infrastructure and services, and neighboring communities, and contribute to increased use of energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable designs, systems and products.
The 2012 Go Beyond Awards were presented during the Labs21 Luncheon on Thursday, October 4. The awards recognize the outstanding commitments by the following winners:
Individual Award:
Organizational Awards:
New Construction Project Awards:
Individual Award
John Weale, Integral Group
 |
|
John Weale accepts the Individual Award in recognition of his work. |
John Weale is an innovative designer with more than a decade of experience in highly efficient mechanical systems for critical environments, including data centers and laboratories with specialized cooling, ventilation, exhaust, and pressurization control requirements. Through his integrated design approach, four of Mr. Weale's critical environment projects have achieved LEED® Platinum certification and five have earned LEED Gold certification. Mr. Weale is a lead designer and engineer for the St. Croix Marine Research and Education Center (MREC) project, a laboratory and residential space in the U.S. Virgin Islands that will be fully off the power, water, and sewer grids. Incorporating rainwater and wastewater harvesting as well as onsite renewable energy generation, the project will serve as a model of regionally appropriate sustainable design and construction for building occupants, the island residents, visitors, and the broader professional community.
Mr. Weale has worked on important benchmarking studies for data centers and cleanrooms and coauthored several best practices guidelines for critical environments, published in collaboration with National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Mr. Weale has lectured at and been involved with numerous sessions at the annual Labs21 Annual Conference, including 2012 lectures in the Energy Reduction session and Carbon Neutral Symposium.
Organizational Award
The Center for Energy Efficient Design at the Leonard A. Gereau Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration
 |
|
| A classroom within the CEED building. |
The Center for Energy Efficient Design (CEED) aims to enable students and community members to explore various energy efficiency techniques and make intelligent decisions about energy use in buildings. Born from an idea to construct an educational building that creates more energy than it uses, the CEED building is a learning laboratory where students can investigate green technology and building design through problembased learning. The CEED staff has presented at several conferences and other venues. To further awareness and the educational aspects of the project, the CEED team developed an Energy Engineering Career Exploration Module curriculum and conducted an outreach program for fifth grade science students. The curriculum for CEED has been written by certified science teachers and increases students' knowledge of solar and wind power technologies, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and sustainable building materials through observation. CEED also educates students on career paths associated with these technologies, inspiring their educational choices.
Organizational Award
Johnson County, Kansas
 |
|
| Chad Foster (left) stands with Phil Wirdzek (right) to accept the award on behalf of Johnson County. |
Johnson County,
Kansas, established its
first staff sustainability
committee in 2004.
Since then, the county
has constructed five
LEED Platinum and Gold certified buildings, expanded
its fleet of alternative fuel vehicles, and begun working
toward ambitious waste reduction goals. The Johnson
County government has also engaged all 4,000+ county
employees and many of its residents, business owners,
and community leaders in undertaking the countywide
effort to become more sustainable. The county's first
LEED Gold certified building, the Sunset Drive Office
Building, has hosted more than 10,000 visitors who
have come to learn how buildings can be designed,
constructed, maintained, and operated in a way that
reduces environmental impacts and economic costs.
Johnson County's latest green building endeavor is the
new Criminalistics Laboratory, which has been designed
to Labs21 Environmental Performance Criteria and LEED
Platinum certification guidelines. After conducting
a greenhouse gas inventory for a base year of 2005,
Johnson County pledged to reduce the greenhouse gases
produced from its government operations by one-third
by 2020. In addition, the county has set a communitywide
goal of reducing 80 percent of emissions associated
with all human activity in Johnson County by 2050.
New Construction Award
Blackfeet Community College Math/Science Building
 |
|
| Dr. Billie Jo Kipp (left), president of Blackfeet Community College, and Terry Tatsey (right), also of Blackfeet Community College, receive the award. |
Located in the high plains of Browning, Montana, the math and science building at Blackfeet Community College is the first LEED Platinum building on tribal land in the United States. The building exhibits high performance in water efficiency, green power, and energy optimization, achieving a 49.5 percent improvement over the energy baseline and a 51 percent reduction in water demand. In line with tribal traditions, the building's orientation maximizes energy efficiency by blocking the prevailing winds during the winter and capturing as much sun as possible. Other energy efficiency technologies include high-performance, low-emissivity windows; occupancy sensors; and a 230-watt photovoltaic panel system mounted on the roof that supplies nearly 15 percent of the building's total energy use. The building's teaching and research laboratories are state-of-the art and equipped with energy-efficient fume hoods and ENERGYSTAR® labeled equipment. The laboratories also utilize an air quality sampling and control system that reduces the number of air changes required based on particulate or containment levels. Designed to incorporate the history and culture of the Blackfeet Nation, the math and science building at Blackfeet Community College demonstrates the interplay possible between native principles and high-performance design and technology.
New Construction Award
The Center for Energy Efficient Design at The Leonard A. Gereau Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration
 |
|
| Exterior view of the CEED laboratory. |
The Center for Energy Efficient Design (CEED) is a net-zero energy laboratory and the first school building in the nation to be constructed to the PassivHaus standard. The building itself is the primary teaching tool in this learning laboratory. CEED allows students to observe energy engineering firsthand and to design and execute their own energy-related experiments. Techniques and technologies include earth berming, solar water heating, high thermal mass, daylight harvesting, rainwater catchments, energy-efficient appliances, and an energy recovery ventilation system. The laboratory provides all of its energy through a combination of geothermal energy, photovoltaic panels, and wind turbines. Since all data for the building's processes are accessible through CEED's website, students can examine the renewable energy technologies in real-time and analyze their performances as part of their laboratory activities.
New Construction Award
Johnson County Sheriff's Office Criminalistics Laboratory
 |
|
| View of the Johnson County Sheriff's Office of Criminalistics Laboratory. |
Johnson County's new state-of-the-art, twostory Criminalistics Laboratory features nine specialized laboratories, each designed with its own needs-based criteria. The building is able to achieve a 48-percent improvement over the energy baseline by utilizing a ground source and heat pump system, a heat recovery wheel, demand-based ventilation, occupancy sensors, and low-flow fume hoods and other efficient laboratory equipment. Photovoltaic panels supply a portion of the total energy for the facility. By providing point-of-use water in every laboratory space, the building design reduces the potable water requirements. Each of the nine laboratories has its own minimum ventilation standards based upon its purpose, which are adjusted based on occupancy level through air sampling and testing. The laboratory spaces also include exhaust manifolds and VAV hoods with sash controls and notifications to further improve indoor air quality efficiency. The Criminalistics Laboratory has been designed to Labs21 Environmental Performance Criteria guidelines and is aiming for LEED Platinum certification.
New Construction Award
Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences
 |
|
| Joe Collins, ZGF Architects, (left) and Jim Sokol, Affiliated Engineers (right) receive the New Construction Award on behalf of the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. |
The University of California, Berkeley, Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences is a 200,000-square-foot science building that houses a vivarium, brain imaging center, teaching laboratory, 300-seat auditorium, conference rooms, interaction areas, and offices. The center was built to Labs21 Environmental Performance Criteria guidelines and attained LEED Gold certification. Its sustainable features include a high-performance envelope, advanced daylighting and controls, reduced air changes in laboratory spaces, low-pressure-drop filters, night purge ventilation, and variable frequency drives on all motors. More than 450 researchers will be able to utilize this sustainable space, with its flexible, open laboratories that can be shared by multiple investigators to facilitate collaboration.
Back to Go Beyond Awards Index