The limestone and glass walls of MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex (BCSC) glint white and silver in the sun. But actually, the complex, also known as Building 46, is green.
The world’s largest center for neuroscience research, BCSC opened in 2005. Its high-performance building envelope, gray water reuse, exhaust-fan heat recovery, and daylight-balanced lighting have earned it a coveted ranking by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), making it one of the greenest buildings on the MIT campus.
“Sustainable buildings pay for themselves. Sustainable buildings please their occupants,” says Leon R. Glicksman, professor of building technology and mechanical engineering and co-chair of the Campus Energy Task Force of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). “We are working hard to make them more widespread at MIT and use this as an example to other organizations.”
Almost a century after architect William W. Bosworth applied cutting-edge European concepts of efficiency to MIT’s Cambridge campus, environmental imperatives such as global warming are spurring a renewed interest in sustainable architecture. MIT is increasingly applying its own architectural and engineering expertise, such as virtual building design and energy-saving technologies, to its own infrastructure, making the Institute an emerging leader in green campus buildings.
In 2001, MIT’s Green Building Task Force (GBTF) set Institute-wide goals and standards aimed at conserving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “MIT was an early adopter of a green building policy and goals, and our expertise has evolved and strengthened over time,” says Steven M. Lanou, deputy director for environmental sustainability and a member of the Campus Energy Task Force. “Our newest buildings—the MIT Sloan School of Management, NW35 [the new Ashdown House], and the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research—are expected to be the greenest to date.”
An architectural model of the new Ashdown House, a series of connected buildings situated around two courtyards that serve as private outdoor gardens for the residents. The recently opened building includes many green features and is expected to receive a gold or silver LEED designation. Photo courtesy/William Rawn Associates, Architects, Inc.
“There has been impressive collaboration among faculty, students, and staff in developing features to improve energy efficiency in our project planning,” says MIT Executive Vice President and Treasurer Theresa M. Stone, who is co-chair of the MITEI Campus Energy Task Force.
“In the case of the Koch building, for example, Professors Leon Glicksman and Leslie Norford [professor of building technology] worked with the MIT Department of Facilities’ engineering and project management teams, as well as experts from the Environment, Health, and Safety Office, to refine the Institute’s approach to fume hood standards to improve energy usage while assuring proper safety standards,” explains Stone.
Walter E. Henry, director of Facilities’ Systems Engineering Group, and others modeled and tested airflow in laboratory fume hoods, which suck out noxious chemical fumes, to determine whether a drop in the velocity of the air entering the hoods would maintain their effectiveness. They found that a 20 percent reduction would keep the fume hoods safe while drastically reducing their energy use.
Another significant marker of change is MIT’s commitment to hold all its new construction and renovation up to scrutiny by the USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building Rating System. LEED certifications of platinum, gold, and silver aim to encourage and accelerate global adoption of sustainable green building and have become a benchmark for green building design and construction.
It is a little-known fact that all new construction and major renovations undertaken by MIT after 2001 are expected to meet or exceed the LEED silver standard, Lanou says.
Through use of targeted technology and a system called integrated design, MIT’s newest buildings could end up using a third less energy than their conventional counterparts do. And because buildings are responsible for more than a third of our national energy consumption, says Glicksman, that is a significant number.
The MIT Sloan project is unlike any building project MIT has undertaken. From the start, a high level of green design was set as a goal; and in order to achieve that goal, the team adopted a version of the integrated design process, according to Henry. In the typical design process, work is linear, so that the different disciplines work one after the other. The integrated process includes all of the architects and engineers from the beginning so they can more effectively work as a team. From this new process, the designers for the MIT Sloan project were able to develop what is probably the greenest building at MIT.
The design team of the Koch Institute, under construction on Main Street, also incorporated aspects of integrated design. In addition to the low-flow fume hoods, the building will filter its stormwater en route to the Charles River, use reflective roof material, recover heat in the HVAC system, and recycle or salvage at least 75 percent of construction waste. In addition to these features, shared by the MIT Sloan building, the landscaping around Building E56 was saved before it was demolished and then moved to a new park next to Building E33.
Among the features of NW35, the new graduate student housing at Pacific and Albany streets, are a stormwater management system, use of recycled materials, a reflective roof with provisions for future solar panels, and low-VOC paints and adhesives. MIT Sloan, the Koch Institute, and the graduate dorm are expected to receive gold or silver LEED designations.
Green building was still largely a novelty when MIT alumnus Marc Rosenbaum founded the New Hampshire-based sustainable building company Energy-smiths in 1979. While green practices have become more common in the industry, Rosenbaum told participants at a recent sustainable real estate symposium at MIT that perceived barriers, such as cost, time, and risk, still prevent green building from becoming standard practice. It is important for building professionals to learn about green building, he noted, and for consumers to demand it.
“As an institute built around innovation,” says Lanou, “MIT has an obligation to demand and uphold the highest standards in environmentally friendly infrastructure.”
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on February 25, 2009 (download PDF).