By: Doug Hanna, Partner, M.Arch, MAA, SAA, MRAIC, LEED®AP

There is a wonderful quote from Jonas Salk that said: “If all of the insects were to disappear from the Earth, within 50 years all life on Earth would end.  If all human beings were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.”

Now from that one might conclude that if we let mosquitoes take over our city that all would be good.  Or maybe, there is something more creative that we can do to preserve our planet and live more sustainably in our cities.

We are dependent on our ecosystems and their functioning for our food, waste, and air.

There is now clear scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably, and that an unprecedented collective effort is needed to manage our use of natural resources to be used at a rate at which they can be replenished.

Most people love the natural environment and for many environmentalists there is an unspoken promise for the future in the wilderness.  But to just fight to protect the wilderness while ignoring our cities would be wrong.  No, the most important step for our environment is to fix the places that we live – and for most of us that is the City.

For me, as an Architect, “Greening our Cities” does not necessarily mean creating more park space and green roofs – though those are certainly viable strategies for greening our cities.  Rather I am interested in how we can find ways to create buildings that have a lighter ecological footprint.  After all, buildings have lifespan of 50-100 years, throughout which they continually consume energy, water, and natural resources and generate significant CO2 emissions – the biggest contributor to climate change.

And what better place to practice environmental stewardship than a University Laboratory Building?  Lab buildings generally use 5 times the energy of a typical office building – and environmental stewardship crosses the boundaries of architecture and science.

The sustainable approaches to this site started well before construction commenced when 4-5 homes that needed to be removed from the site were saved from demolition, donated to charitable neighborhood housing associations and relocated to infill sites within the West End community.   When the Winnipeg Roller Rink that stood on this site for nearly a century was demolished, the wood floor was carefully dismantled and stored to be used later as the feature wall of the atrium.

In the actual design of the building the green strategies focused primarily on natural daylighting, energy efficient lighting, and innovative lab systems and operations.

In order to maximize and control daylight, we used narrow floor plates to drive daylight deep into floor spaces and reduce the use of artificial lighting and lower energy use.  The central atrium skylights and upper clerestory bring daylight into the atrium and to internal labs and offices while creating a venue for collaboration. Solar gain is controlled with a transluscent white ceramic coating on the glass applied in a pattern that graphically represents the periodic table and celebrates the building’s role as an institution of scientific education and research.

Occupancy Sensors are used in combination with Energy Efficient Lighting throughout the building.  The occupancy sensors reduce energy consumption by automatically switching lights off when rooms are not occupied.  Light fixtures in the Atrium are automatically switched off by an array of daylight sensors when daylight levels are sufficient to light the space. And the complex is lit with energy efficient light sources such as indirect lighting, and T5 lamps.

The lab systems implement some unique technologies targeted at making this one of the most energy efficient lab buildings in North America.  These include:

• A heat wheel recovering 80% of the energy from lab exhaust air.
• Red, Yellow, Green light ventilation rates in labs based on occupancy and usage.
• High efficiency fumehoods and ventilated benches using 25% less air than traditional fumehoods. High Efficiency Boilers that minimize the amount of fossil fuel consumed and the amount of greenhouse gases produced.

But I think that the moment when I truly understood the importance and relevance of this building in Greening the City was when I was in Boston attending the Green Build Conference in 2008.  And ironically it was not a talk from an Architect or a Builder that created this ‘AHA’ moment, but rather a presentation from Paul Anastas from Yale University who is known as the “Father of Green Chemistry”.

He talked about how we have our hearts in right place but have been doing the right things wrong.  He cited how we have:

• Created Biofuels out of food crops
• Purified water with lethal chemicals
• Developed photovoltaics that contain rare toxic chemicals
• Made food crops more efficient with harmful pesticides

And that what we really need to do is to move toward doing the right things right and take into account that Energy, climate, water, toxens, and biodiversity are all inter-related.

It was then that I understood the big picture that this building represented and that it is not just a green building on its own that will change our cities.  But it is the combination of a lab building that sets an example of how to be more sustainable – with the scientific research and public policy research that will take place inside these walls – that will encourage real change and the Greening of our Cities.

Robert F. Kennedy said “Some see things as they are, and ask why. I see things as they should be and ask why not.”   Lloyd Axworthy and the University of Winnipeg asked “why not” and here we are today.