The Road Map to a Zero-Carbon Lab

Laboratory and life science facilities present unique challenges in efforts to eliminate operational and embodied carbon from the built environment. It’s even harder when you’re converting an existing building. An integrated design team worked the issues to explore what is possible.

The stock of underutilized existing buildings around the country provides an opportunity for life science companies looking to quickly and efficiently develop new facilities, without the expense and timeline of new construction.

But can you make a lab adaptive-reuse project net-zero carbon?

For building owners, there are clear benefits to a zero-carbon facility. Beyond meeting sustainability goals, they are typically easier and less expensive to operate and maintain over the lifetime of the building, especially as energy costs continue to rise. A well-designed low-carbon-impact laboratory facility is also healthier, more adaptable and requires fewer costly overhauls over its life cycle.

But laboratory adaptive-reuse projects present an array of specific challenges, given the nature of the life-saving work. From high energy and water demands to strict vibration criteria for structures, the requirements are nonnegotiable.

LPA Director of Laboratory Planning Isabel Mandujano recently brought together a team of engineers, designers, landscape architects and researchers to tackle the challenge and explore options that, when analyzed together, can provide a route to developing a net-zero-carbon office-to-lab conversion.

That means offsetting operational carbon emissions — the greenhouse gas emissions produced from the energy required to operate the facility — as well as capitalizing on the embodied carbon, the locked-in greenhouse gas emissions associated with the materials and construction processes when the facility was built.

Their specific goal was to analyze the “what if” — what if all the disciplines could come together as a unit to work toward the zero-carbon mission? As a starting point, it was understood that every discipline would need to find significant reductions if the project was going to reach its goal.

“As a lab designer I only own a piece of the puzzle,” Mandujano says. “We wanted to take a holistic approach and bring a multidisciplinary approach to look at every piece from diverse perspectives and explore how close to net-zero carbon we could get.”

The Obstacles

While there are many opportunities to reduce the embodied carbon in ground-up facilities, reusing even a portion of an existing building is undoubtedly the best opportunity to reduce carbon emissions when compared to new construction. Structural systems and envelope — contributing 50% or more of the building’s embodied carbon at the time of construction — are already in place. The challenge grows more complex when trying to convert a facility for laboratory use, due to the retrofits necessary for a functional space that supports the science. Choices may be limited for placing photovoltaic panels or similar energy-producing technologies on site, without new construction. Preserving and reusing existing facilities, decreasing the need for new materials, is a core goal in negating a project’s carbon impact.

For the Forward Thinking exercise, a real facility was chosen as a case study— a 96,500-square-foot, two-story commercial office space outside Dallas, which LPA recently converted into office and lab space for a large genetics and anatomical pathology testing company.

To push the boundary and maximize net-zero-carbon potential, some assumptions were made. For the purpose of the model, lab support spaces with the most stringent energy demands would be interior, and open labs would be placed against the exterior wall, maximizing connections to natural light and views for lab workers. Switching the use from a call center to lab would require less parking than the previous office, freeing up land for carbon-sequestering environmental restoration.

Discussions were lively, with many issues to explore. The Texas site presented unique opportunities and challenges. Could geothermal systems help provide additional energy efficiency? Is it possible to reduce the energy load in the hot and humid Texas climate? Could biodiesel be used to substitute for the standard fossil-fuel-powered backup generator?

To minimize new embodied-carbon emissions, the decision was made to reuse most of the existing load-bearing structure, and limit the envelope changes to high-impact areas, such as improving insulation in exterior walls and roof and replacing the low-performing glazing with new material. The reductions to the parking surface and addition of landscape strategies would play a key role in reducing the project’s long-term carbon footprint and flatten the curve for the rest of the building’s life cycle.

Addressing operational carbon meant committing to using only fossil-fuel-free energy in facility operations — implementing an all-electric design. Ventilation, occupant usage and equipment loads were considered for the specific lab and office uses, as well as likely operating schedules. Technologies were analyzed that allow occupants to measure and monitor environments, such as demand-based ventilation systems, which right-size the energy use of exhaust systems, while ensuring lab users’ safety.

“We can create the ability to fine-tune to exactly what the space needs, instead of a blanket approach,” says LPA Director of MEP Engineering Chris Tindall. “We can identify the different types of labs and optimize the lighting and heating loads to support each use.”

LPA’s Sustainability + Applied Research team analyzed different strategies to quantify each approach’s effect on short- and long-term building performance and help guide decision making. Pathfinder, the CARE tool and Open Studio were used to model the different strategies and their impact on the building’s carbon emissions and energy use. Details made a difference. Every tweak moved the numbers and brought the team closer to the goal.

The Results

At the end of the process, the disciplines came together to create a pathway to a zero-carbon-emission facility. Not every response will work for every project, but the potential strategies offered by each discipline work together to create a healthy, resilient lab-office complex.

“When you design the entire building with a single mindset and ambitious goals, you can make a real difference in the performance,” Mandujano says.

The design includes several big moves. An atrium was cut into the building to bring daylight into the floors and create more opportunities for connection between floors. Operable windows in the atrium improve air flow and reduce the need
for conditioned space.

“The first step in the analysis is to explore passive design strategies,” Mandujano says. “Before implementing complex technologies, we start by knowing where the sun, wind and views are, and use the gifts of the site in the best way we can.”

Throughout the facility, designers focused on keeping new material use to a minimum and finding high-performance options that require less or no carbon in their production. For the curtain wall, an innovative hybrid timber system was suggested by the structural team as an alternative to traditional aluminum or steel. Triple-glazed windows with wood mullions helped cut exposure to the harsh Texas summer climate, while preserving the original tilt-up envelope. The available rooftop area was filled with photovoltaic panels, and the assembly was bolstered by fiberglass insulation to increase the envelope’s efficiency.

Landscape architects contributed one of the most dramatic additions — a “carbon garden” of dense, carefully selected native plantings that can sequester carbon and provide a net-positive impact on the building’s carbon performance. On-site crushed recycled concrete would replace carbon-intensive concrete in paths and large portions of the parking. The greenbelt would also include a mass timber deck and a reclaimed-wood amphitheater.

“The carbon garden is designed to draw carbon out of the air through natural processes, helping offset the facility’s overall embodied carbon, while creating restorative people spaces,” says LPA landscape architect Andrew Wickham. “Once it’s established, the garden is virtually maintenance free, providing a resilient amenity for the facility.”

Interior materials were selected for flexibility and life span, as well as low-carbon ratings. Polished concrete floors, minimal ceilings, demountable partitions, and cabinets made of renewable materials all contributed to create low-carbon spaces that can be easily reconfigured for different uses.

Individually each intervention makes a difference, as illustrated by the data analysis. Together, the strategies are able to meet the goal in the near future, within the realities of budget and readily available technology. For building owners, the data provides a basis for informed decisions that can help extend the life of a building and
add value for years.

“The sum of the results is greater than its parts,” Mandujano says. For her, the project was a success. The life cycle calculations show significant differences in the carbon emissions of the existing building when nothing is done, versus a reduction of more than 80% over the life of the building with the proposed deep renovation and energy retrofits. The comparison between the adaptive reuse case study and a high-performing new build shows a reduction in carbon emissions by more than half, providing proof for the case for pursuing zero carbon in an adaptive reuse.

“The collaboration and information that each person brought to the conversation has been enriching to me,” Mandujano says. “I look forward to taking that experience into my next project and bringing data-backed innovative strategies to our clients.”