Students and faculty at Perth campus have begun an ambitious, sustainable building project that will be the cornerstone of the campus’ applied research efforts.
The building, slated for completion in spring 2016, will be a 1600 square foot residential laboratory, equipped with sensors, new industry materials and green technologies. The goal is to for the lab to be carbon-neutral and to potentially put energy back on the grid.
Students from all Perth programs will use the space to collaborate on cutting edge applied research projects proposed by industry.
“Once that thing started getting built in August, the excitement level went through the roof,” said Kerry Milford, the project manager for the residential lab. “The students are showing up to work on this thing well before class starts.”
The advanced housing program students are now working on the building’s frame, which will be going up in the next month.
The design of the residential lab was done as a competition by the green architecture students who were given specific design elements they had to incorporate. GRC Architects, an Ottawa green building company, oversaw the competition.
The idea was to look at the whole project through a sustainability lens, from design and construction, to contracts with innovative companies and for applied research.
“Sustainability is generally misunderstood,” Milford explained. When the bottom line drives production, he added, it can seem like sustainability is just another thing that needs to be done.
“It’s just a new way of looking at how you’re doing things and seizing the opportunity,” Milford said. “And I think we’re going to be doing that here.”
Like the ACCE building at the Woodroffe campus, they will have sensors that will monitor environmental conditions — humidity, temperature, motion, light intensity — and track data that will allow them to give real-world feedback to industry.
One of the companies they are working with is Dupont, a Canadian engineering company. The students will be able to test the efficacy of a drywall that absorbs contaminants in the air and neutralizes them.
“They’re new, they’re elaborate, they’re innovative and we’re going to see how well they work,” said Milford.
“This, for the students, is a great selling point when they graduate and go out for work,” Milford said. “They can point to this.”