University of British Columbia Earth Sciences Building

unknown

The building includes a five-storey atrium and a showstopping wood staircase. The facility provides learning spaces for more than 7,000 students, including three lecture theatres ranging in size from 70 to 350 seats, leading-edge wet laboratories, clean room laboratories, and high headroom laboratories with two- and five-tonne overhead cranes for large-scale experiments. The wet labs were constructed using a flexible lab system design that incorporated a ceiling track system for all mechanical, electrical, and gas services, allowing the lab benches and work stations to be reconfigured for future expansion. Bird’s experience with complex, large-scale projects was utilized from the start of the highly integrated design process. The project is LEED® Gold certified, and among the measures implemented were extensive solar shading and systems that reclaim waste heat from the labs. Bird also worked with the consultants to design a near-zero thermal energy waste heating and cooling system to add to the building’s energy cost savings.

High