The University of British Columbia opened the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) in Vancouver in November of 2011. The $37 million facility is heralded as the most sustainable building in North America and will act as a living laboratory for research and innovation on global sustainability challenges. CIRS is one of only a handful of buildings worldwide that provide “net positive” benefits to the environment. It reduces UBC’s carbon emissions, powers itself and a neighboring building with renewable and waste energy, creates drinking water from rain, and treats wastewater onsite.
Built to exceed LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge standards, CIRS is one of the few commercial buildings constructed primarily of certified wood and beetle-killed wood (currently B.C.’s largest source of carbon emissions). Its wood structure locks in more than 500 tons of carbon, offsetting the GHG emissions that resulted from the use of other non-renewable construction materials in the building such as cement, steel, and aluminum.
Major features of the four-story, 60,000-sf facility include: the BC Hydro Theatre, which has advanced visualization and interaction technologies to engage audiences in sustainability and climate change scenarios; the 450-seat Modern Green Development Auditorium; indoor environmental quality and building simulation software labs; a building management system that shares building performance in real-time; and a café that uses no disposable packaging and serves local and organic food. Designed in collaboration with Perkins+Will Architects, CIRS will house more than 200 inhabitants from several academic disciplines, including applied science, psychology, geography, forestry, and business, and such operational units as the UBC Sustainability Initiative (USI), which works collaboratively to integrate the university’s academic and operational efforts on sustainability.
