BC’s Greenest Building – Coming Soon!

T building image

Any guesses what our greenest building is?  I bet you said the S Building.  The S Building is LEED Gold (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).  But as a science lab building it still uses a lot of energy.  The R building was not LEED rated when it was built, but uses the natural temperature of the earth for heating, groundsource, making it a more energy efficient building.

In the new “T” Health Science building that will begin construction in just six months we’ll get the best of both worlds.   The T building will be built to a LEED gold standard, scoring high in the areas of site, energy, water, indoor air quality and innovation and within striking distance of the top rating, Platinum.  It will use groundsource heating and cooling like the R building, but also natural ventilation in the office building, which reduces the need for mechanical fans and associated electric consumption.    The building will have windows and insulation to regulate heating and cooling, occupancy sensors, skylights, and daylight dimmers to reduce unnecessary energy consumption.  Overall energy efficiency exceeds the standard used in LEED (AHRAE 90.1) by 30%.

 The T building will introduce the first “green-roof” to Bellevue College, porous walkways and a series of rain gardens and detention to naturally absorb rainwater, reducing hazardous storm-water runoff, and won’t require ongoing irrigation through drought-tolerant landscaping.

Other green features include hydration stations for filling water bottles, new bike racks, and low VOC interior finishes.

The T building will be across Landerholm Circle from the S building, with three floors for a total of 70,515 gross square feet, including classrooms, health science specialty spaces, offices and a café.  It is scheduled to be complete in the first few months of 2015.

 

 

Last Updated December 3, 2013