Sites duke it out for Plum Island replacement Eighteen sites in 11 states are vying to host the new 520,000-ft2 National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility, a proposed replacement for the aging Plum Island (N.Y.) National Disease Lab. Closure of Plum Island, which includes BSL-3 but not BSL-4 capabilities, has not been formally confirmed but is widely assumed to be inevitable. The site’s research on high-
consequence biological threats would move to the new NBAF, under the aegis of the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate. Threats involving foreign animal, zoonotic, and human diseases would be studied at the new lab, which would have BSL-4 facilities. States with sites under consideration include California, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin. Short-listing among the candidate sites was scheduled for June 2007 but had not been announced as of press time. A final NHS decision is scheduled to be made in August 2008 after additional study, with project completion in the 2012-14 time frame. For more:www.dhs.gov/xres/labs/editorial_0762.shtm.
LEED energy requirements tightened The U.S. Green Building Council has toughened energy performance requirements within the LEED sustainability rating system. Under the new rule, all Certified projects must achieve at least two “Optimize Energy Performance” points, which will improve the performance of Certified-level buildings by 14% for new construction and 7% for existing buildings. A prescriptive compliance path is under development as an alternative to energy modeling.
The USGBC has also announced the addition of Innovation in Design LEED points for projects using the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) program. C2C assesses products on several criteria, including use of safe and healthy materials, design for material reuse/recycling, efficient use of resources throughout production, and strategies for social responsibility. The C2C program was developed by architect William McDonough and partner Michael Braungart, and the certification program is administered by their firm, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, Charlottesville, Va. For more:www.usgbc.org and www.mbdc.com.
Virginia Tech labs reopen after shootings Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall, scene of the horrific mass shooting of students and faculty on April 16, has reopened for research. Offices and labs are now accessible to faculty members, but the university has ruled out ever using the building again for general classroom instruction. The College of Engineering operates multiple labs in the facility that are not duplicated elsewhere on campus, and officials said the reopening was necessary for the work of the College to move forward.
A phased move-in will accommodate the work of the departments of engineering science and mechanics, and civil and environmental engineering. The former general-use classroom space will eventually be repurposed to create additional facilities for these two departments. For more:www.vtnews.vt.edu/story.php?relyear=2007&itemno=330.
ASHRAE continues IAQ push The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has passed the 2007 update to its standard 62.1, “Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality.” Changes build on improvements to the 2004 edition, including requirements for the separation of areas with environmental tobacco smoke from smoke-free areas; clarification of analysis of mechanical cooling systems to limit relative humidity; and several new occupancy categories with associated minimum outdoor air rates. The latter topic includes university and college labs for the first time, and specifies minimum outdoor air change rates “in the breathing zone” of 10 ft3/min (cfm) per person, or 0.18 cfm per ft2. For more:www.ashrae.org/pressroom/detail/16298.
ASHRAE is also collaborating with five other organizations to develop a book and professional development course describing an integrated process for achieving improved IAQ in all elements of a building. Cooperating organizations are the American Institute of Architects, the Building Owners and Managers Assn., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors, and the U.S. Green Building Council. For more:www.ashrae.org/pressroom/detail/16312.
Columbia land-use plan stirs controversy Columbia Univ., New York City, wants to create a new research-oriented campus in Upper Manhattan with an urban redevelopment plan. The four-block project would require demolition of century-old tenements and factories in the neighborhood known as Manhattanville. The plan, product of a collaboration between design architect Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Genoa, Italy, and urban planner Skidmore Owings & Merrill, New York City, would put multiple glass-clad towers on 17 acres of gritty real estate north of the existing Morningside campus. Davis Brody Bond Aedas, New York City, was recently selected as architect of record for Phase 1, in cooperation with the Harlem-based firm Body Lawson Associates. However, some residents and neighbors have protested that the character of the area would be needlessly destroyed by the current plan. Three warehouse owners say they won’t sell, raising the prospect of eminent domain for the project to move forward. Public hearings are scheduled this month. For more:http://neighbors.columbia.edu/pages/manplanning/.
Big names, big science museums The prominent London, U.K./New York City firm Grimshaw Architects has won a competition to design the new Miami (Fla.) Science Museum, a 200,000-ft2 exhibition and research building scheduled to open in 2011. The $275-million project, like the new California Academy of Science in San Francisco, will feature a vegetated roof. For more:www.miamisci.org/www/new_museum.php.
Meanwhile, the Dallas Museum of Nature and Science has short-listed four firms in a competition to design its new $150 million, 150,000- to 200,000-ft2 exhibition and research building. Competing for the award are Polshek Partnership, New York City; Morphosis, Los Angeles; Shigeru Ban, Tokyo; and Snøhetta, Oslo, Norway. The complexity of the program for the facility reflects the formation of the museum through the 2006 merger of the Dallas Museum of Natural History, the Science Place, and the Dallas Children’s Museum. For more:www.natureandscience.org/information/press/architect_finalists.asp.
Partnerships forged to promote “green” Collaboration appears to be a hallmark of burgeoning efforts to make buildings more sustainable. Recent announcements include a partnership between the U.S. Green Building Council and the International Code Council, which have inked an agreement to cooperate in educational, business, and policy initiatives. The initial focus will be improved education for code officials, and publications on the relationship of building codes and sustainability.
In related news, the USGBC has made a $1 million commitment to green building research, focusing on areas such as energy and water security, global climate change prevention, indoor environmental quality, and passive survivability in the face of natural and man-made disasters. Further details about the research funding and application process are scheduled for release later this summer, to be followed this fall by a national green building research agenda from the council’s Research Committee. For more:www.usgbc.org.
ASHRAE, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, has signed a pact with the United Nations Environment Programme Div. of Technology, Industry, and Economics. The agreement specifies future cooperation in several technical issues centered on emissions reduction, including problems remaining with chlorofluorocarbon-based chillers. The organizations also say they will work together to promote energy-efficient systems and building design. For more:www.ashrae.org.
Hot science in a cold climate The Univ. of Alaska-Fairbanks is the site of a major research construction initiative—part of the school’s Strategic Plan 2010. Priorities include animal care facilities, space for computational sciences, biosciences research, biosciences teaching, and a state virology lab. The initial facility, the 60,460-ft2 West Research Building, opened in 2004, accommodating biomedical, native health, supercomputing, earth and planetary science, and geographic information programs. It was followed last year by the opening of the Biological Research and Development Facility, a 42,000-ft2 building concentrating on animal research and related administrative, support, and waste handling space. Ground was broken in June for the $32 million Alaska State Public Health Virology Laboratory, slated for completion in 2009. The 29,000-ft2 building will support study and diagnosis of viral diseases such as HIV, hepatitis, rabies, herpes, and influenza. The final component, BIOS, will be a $105 million, 110,000-ft2 biological sciences research building supporting work in biomedicine, wildlife biology, physiology, ecosystem and global-change science, evolutionary biology, and population genetics. A target completion date of 2012 has been set, pending capital funding. For more: www.uaf.edu/bios/.
Biosphere 2 gets reprieve The Biosphere 2 complex, threatened by residential development (see September 2006, page 2), has been leased to the Univ. of Arizona-Tucson as an environmental research facility. The Phileocology Foundation, set up by the project’s original founder, philanthropist Ed Bass of Fort Worth, Texas, is funding the initial three-year lease of the 34.5-acre campus. Additional gifts and grants are anticipated. Two new UA institutes, B2 Earthscience and B2 Institute, will focus on global environmental change and interdisciplinary “grand challenge” science projects, respectively. Residential development will continue elsewhere on the desert site near Tucson; CDO Ranching & Development LP has purchased the entire 1,658-acre property. (A previous development deal with Fairfield Homes was called off by mutual agreement.) For more:www.b2science.org and http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/30/wa/SRStoryDetails?ArticleID=13994.
New facility to boost biofuels The federal Dept. of Energy will make a $125 million investment in a new Bioenergy Research Center, focused on developing methods of processing plants into biofuels. The research effort will be headquartered in a new 34,000-ft2 lab and office building on the campus of the Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratory. The $11.6 million facility, named the UT/ORNL Joint Institute for Biological Sciences, is scheduled for initial occupancy this fall; it will be paid for by the state of Tennessee and owned by the Univ. of Tennessee. Partner research agencies with ORNL include the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colo.; the Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville; Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.; the Univ. of Georgia, Athens; Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta; and the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, Okla. Also involved are private firms ArborGen, Summerville, S.C; Diversa (now Verenium Corp.), San Diego; and Mascoma, Cambridge, Mass. Seven individual researchers are also on the team, with ORNL’s Martin Keller serving as director. For more:www.bioenergycenter.org.
