By Phil wirdzek
Monday, December 12, 2011
In 2011, the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) continued to enrich and expand the Laboratories for the 21st Century (Labs21) Annual Conference, made possible through its co-sponsorship agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. The 13th Labs21 Annual Conference was held Sept. 20-22 in Providence, R.I., where 700 attendees from around the world gathered to discuss laboratory and other high-tech facility sustainability.
This year's conference showcased the significant accomplishments and experiences of the
laboratory industry by again offering a variety of parallel technical tracks and symposia. The
Labs21 community of engineers, architects, planners, operators, and owners shared some of its most successful and cutting-edge strategies and challenges to building and maintaining
energy-efficient and environmentally-sustainable laboratories. Along with Laboratory Design and its parent publication, R&D Magazine, I am pleased to provide the following selected and expanded abstracts from the Labs21 2011 Annual Conference. In these abstracts you will read about topics from practical applications of building information modeling to planning carbon neutral laboratories to case studies of unique facilities from around the globe:
- "BIM: Practical Uses for a Better Lab," by Daniel Joseph, McCarthy Building Cos. Inc., and Gary Bloom, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- "Reducing Campus ACH Safely: An Authority Having Jurisdiction and EHS Approach," by
Shannon Horn and Timothy Lockhart, Univ. of Colorado-Boulder
- "Passive-Aggressive: A Practical Approach to Natural Ventilation in Lab Buildings," by Christopher Baylow, Payette, and Jacob Knowles, Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers LLC
- "Net-Zero: The Univ. of California-Merced's Science and Engineering Building II," by
Irene Monis, SmithGroup, and John Elliott, Univ. of California-Merced
- "Green Net Zero Energy Life Style Science Park Prototype Design," by Bruce Haxton, Bruce
McLean Haxton Architect; Rick Cantwell, Odell International LLC; John Andary, Integral Group; Tom Kubala, The Kubala Washatko Architects Inc., and Michael Perciali, Michael Perciali Architects.
- "BIM Can Illuminate Financial Income and Expenses for Lab Buildings," by Terence Alcorn, Stantec
- "Australian Project Translates Research Into Relevant Solutions for Everyday Health Problems," by Mark Kelly, Woods Bagot
- "Energy-Efficiency Upgrades Benefit Research 1 Building at Univ. of Colorado-Denver Anschutz Medical Campus," by Sean Convery, Cator, Ruma & Associates, and Kenneth Neeper, Univ. of Colorado-Boulder
- "High-Performance Environmental Sciences Lab Fosters Link Between Education, Research," by Thomas Kirk, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, and Joseph DelPozzo, WSP Flack + Kurtz
- "BIM: Opportunity Knocking," by Galen Lif, PGAV Architects
- "A Conversation Over Drinks: The Impact of Platinum at the Univ. of California-Davis WBF Facility," by Stevens Williams, Flad and Associates
If you weren't able to attend the conference, please visit our Website to learn more about it, including downloadable versions of the presentations and a full agenda: www.i2sl.org/labs21/conference/conference2011.html. I also encourage you to visit I2SL's E-library at www.i2sl.org/elibrary/index.html to review more technical papers
on varying topics in laboratory sustainability.
I2SL is delighted to share this information with you and will, upon review, accept papers and articles submitted at any time to the E-Library. Please consider using the
E-Library to share your information with thousands of readers in this industry. And please consider attending the Labs21 2012 Annual Conference, to be held in San Jose, Calif., Oct. 2-4, 2012, where we;ll continue to explore new ways of creating and operating sustainable laboratories.
Phil Wirdzek is president and executive director of I2SL, the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories.
