Elements of a Sustainable Building Reflections from SCARP Faculty Solicited and compiled by Amanda Procter for feasibility study workshop #3 Winter 2011

“ It ’ s one hell of a lot more than just a green building … and it should as much as possible put into practice what we envisage as better ways to go in living more sustainability on the planet. ” (1) Think beyond green… …Capitalize on UBC experience (2) “ I would really urge you as people who are doing engagement to find out what ’ s wrong with … new buildings on campus and try and avoid those mistakes. If we just do that, avoid mistakes, we will be so much better ahead. ” &

It will be a green building. Low utility consumption (energy and water) Reclaimed materials Low maintenance Embed behaviour change by occupants Teach occupants how their new building functions “ To start with some basic stuff from ourselves, to demonstrate both high technology but also the way you use them at the same time.”

It will be built in response to its surroundings. Interaction with neighbouring buildings Campus as a unit of analysis Accumulated green building experience on campus “ Here ’ s the real key to sustainability: if your project does not reduce in absolute terms the energy and material consumption of the campus, then it ’ s unsustainable. ”

“ We should be greener than the CIRS. They ’ ve gone a very high-tech route, while something like the passive house takes a very low-tech route and still achieves enormously high level of performance, so which route should UBC follow? Should they be going for high-tech approaches or fairly low-tech approaches that have a lower throughput in the first instance? The only way to answer that question it seems to me would be to have a multi-year, controlled, comparative experiment between the CIRS building and our new building. ”

It will welcome all people. Human scale Accessible Welcoming to other communities Welcoming to other cultures “ We need to be open to the world, in our interest in engagement and democratization. How would that impinge on the design of our space? How do we facilitate drawing people in who are not SCARPies to this space? ” “ Socially, make a space that ’ s useable for students, that makes students from different backgrounds welcome here. ”

“ The First Nations youth I work with up North, they aspire to come to university. You want them when they come here to have that sense of welcome and inclusion and a lot of that ’ s to do with visual cues, so a building that really reflects the present of First Nations culture as well as immigrant cultures, that speaks to that, seems pretty central to what we ’ re doing as a school. ” “ It should work in a way that really integrates the public into the building, a space that ’ s welcoming. An inclusive space in the sense that it ’ s not intimidating for a non- university person to walk into … That ’ s to do with the artwork on the walls, what cultures it reflects, the height of benches and physically accessibility stuff, the elements of comfort, an invitation to come in and hang out and look around … Spaces that have a community feel to them. ”

It will be a building where people want to be. Comfortable Used 24 hours a day Safe and secure at all hours

It will generate a legacy of ideas. “ Technology, you put it there today. Twenty years later, no matter how hard you try, there will be better technology in twenty years time, but this place should be where you generate that technology, generate those ideas, generate those concepts … People attach those concepts with the building and that gives the building life. ” Innovation Exchange Dissemination

It will support self-governance. “ How do you design a space that is conducive to a group of people governing themselves in a sustainable way, which is a learning community? Go back into history, the Greek and the Romans actually built spaces for civil purposes and such. Well, how would we carry that thinking forward into our idea of a building and that relates to how we all come together to do what kind of things together in these spaces and how does the space support it, encourage it? ” Collectivity Decision-making

“ There are similar questions to be asked about what kind of space we want as a school to interact as a whole. The nature of that space and how we can use it is hugely conducive to the productivity, pleasure and enjoyment and how we thrive in coming together as a whole. ” It will bring us together. “ Collective consciousness within the building needs to be created so it ’ s not all just everybody doing their independent things [but] there ’ s a certain amount of common energy in common space …”

Elements of a sustainable building: It will be a green building. It will be built in response to its surroundings. It will welcome all people. It will be a building where people want to be. It will generate a legacy of ideas. It will support self-governance. It will bring us together.