from the ground up - The Tyee

uilding. So we’re reducing their steam use by 600,which reduces natural gas burning by 860 at the steamplant -- that’s 150 times a year. So the net affect ofadding this building is to reduce natural gas burningat UBC.”Robinson hopes building symbiosis models such asthis will not only inspire future construction to rely onexisting systems and improve them, but will inspireothers to think of sustainability as being about morethan just one building.“Sustainability is not a building scale phenomenon,it’s an actual neighbourhood or community scale,” hesays.Water, water everywhereFew places in the country get as much rain as Vancouver,so it seemed unnecessary to the Sustainability Initiativethat all the water for CIRS had to be pumped infrom the city reservoir when less than five per cent ofthe building’s water had to be drinkable.Instead, CIRS will act as a water treatment plant, collectingand storing rainwater, treating it to grey waterstandards, and using it for the building’s non-potablewater needs, like toilets, urinals, and irrigation.“This location we get around 1,200-1,300 millimeteresof rain per year, and we have a catchment areaof around 500-600 square metres, so there’s a lot ofwater we can harvest during the year,” says Cayuela.“We have a 100 cubic metre system essentially thatwill be our main repository for rainwater harvesting,and we’re going to treat water on demand.”The treatment process will be aerobic: pumping oxygeninto the water to encourage bacteria to eat wastematter and turn it into carbon dioxide. It’s a moreenergy intensive process than anaerobic treatment,which doesn’t require oxygen but produces methanegas, making it a potentially more dangerous methodof water treatment.During slower periods of the year, such as the summerand Christmas break, CIRS will treat sewage waterfrom other buildings, thereby reducing the amount ofwastewater they produce. Excess water or storm runoff will be treated and redirected into a well drilledinto the aquifer, not only improving the quality ofwater returned to earth, but preventing the erosion ofnearby cliffs.“The runoff from every building on campus rightnow goes down through the soil, hits the clay layer,and goes off through the cliffs and erodes the cliffs,”Robinson told The Tyee.“Our water discharge will go down the well andrecharge the aquifer. So it won’t contribute to the clifferosion.”Inhabitants vs. occupants“We think the new sustainability agenda is about makingpeoples lives better, not just environments’ lifebetter,” says Robinson.“We define an occupant as a passive recipient ofbuilding systems: you go in, you can maybe turn onyour lights, you can maybe open your window, andthat’s it. Everything else, you don’t know about, youcan’t control. Can we instead create a building wherepeople are inhabitants, where they have a sense ofplace and engagement with their actual building andwith the spaces where they work.”Robinson aims to do that by having each of the building’sinhabitants sign a sustainability charter, committingthemselves to achieving CIRS goal of benefittingthe environment. But Robinson doesn’t expect peopleto work towards a new level of sustainability out ofthe goodness of their own hearts. Instead, he’s offeringinhabitants five benefits: high air quality, accessto daylight everywhere, individual control of yourworkstation’s atmosphere, real time feedback on howthe building is doing, and the ability to vote on thebuilding’s control systems.With the exception of the 450 seat auditorium -- thelargest lecture hall on campus and the only one lit byskylights -- Robinson and Cayuela like to boast thatevery horizontal surface in CIRS is covered in windows,not only allowing in natural light, but givingpeople control over the air quality by using windowsthat open manually.“We’re putting a sensor in each window -- the reason70