Boston, MA – The recently completed Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Research Laboratory will be the first K-12 school facility in the world to meet the Living Building Challenge.
Designed by Boston-based Flansburgh Architects, the 6,112sf high school science laboratory functions as a zero-net-energy, fully sustainable building, generating all its power from photovoltaic and windmill sources. In addition, the facility captures and filters all of its own drinking and wastewater, and generates hot water from solar thermal panels. The entire building is naturally ventilated and utilizes an experimental radiant cooling system as an alternative to air conditioning.
The Energy Lab self-regulates its interior climate, maintaining temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide levels in all spaces at all time, via input from more than 250 sensors to the custom-designed automation system. It has generated nearly 7,000 kW hours of electricity in its first 60-plus days of use, exceeding the annual performance estimated during the design phase. The Energy Lab presently uses only 30 percent of the energy it produces, the balance is net-metered back into the HPA campus grid.
Construction on the Energy Lab was completed in January of this year. To meet the Living Building Challenge (LBC), formaldehyde, PVC, halogenated flame retardants, chlorines, and bromides were not used in the project. In addition, all wood used in the project was Forest Stewardship Council certified or from salvaged sources. Furthermore, the LBC established transportation distance requirements for all building materials. Heavy density materials had to be transported from a distance no greater than 1,000 miles, medium density materials no greater than 3,000 miles, and light density materials no greater than 5,000 miles. Because of Hawaii’s remote location, it was a challenge to achieve these criteria.
The Energy Lab was conceived as a high school science building dedicated to the study of alternative energy; students work in teams to research, design, and develop new and existing renewable energy technologies. As an educational model for the 21st Century, the Energy Lab is designed to be a working example of the benefits of sustainable design and global responsibility. To that end, HPA has entered into a partnership with Global Footprint Network, and established relationships with schools abroad as well as associations with University of Hawaii’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Stanford University, and Cornell University.
“We designed the Energy Lab to have three zones that mimic the creative process that students experience when working on projects, from brainstorming, to design, to physical construction,” says Flansburgh’s David Croteau, Project Architect. The two-story building features include open classroom areas outdoor courtyards and decks, individual project rooms, the monitoring lab, a video-conference room, and basement for storage. The central structure is a collaborative flexible open space. The front section is workshop where all building and testing takes place.