Focus on Sustainability: B.C.I.T.

The British Columbia Institute of Technology has taken many initiatives to become a more sustainable place of higher education. They have made use of technology to enhance their campuses to provide a smaller footprint on many levels.

From the "smart technology" that makes the downtown campus one of the most energy efficient buildings in downtown Vancouver to the green roof at the Burnaby campus there have been many examples of sustainability in action.

From the site describing the downtown campus:

"High-tech walls of aluminum, high-performance glass, and glass shading fins let light penetrate the building to create bright interior spaces. In each room, wall “light shelves” can adjust the natural light, reducing electrical lighting loads and costs.

The building’s “envelope” balances solar heat gain and natural daylighting. The glazing is high- performance , low-E, and clear to maximize daylight in winter. Cooling requirements are reduced using photocell-dimmed lighting, which reduces the light level and heat gain according to the daylight available.

The space is heated, cooled, and ventilated by a variable-air-volume system with variable speed drives and 100% outdoor air free cooling. Individual zone-control, variable-air-volume boxes link to each room’s lighting occupancy sensors through the computerized building management system."

There seems to be some serious domotics at work in the building which is interesting to see on such a large scale project. According to the site, one of the goals of the college is to become a "net energy producer" and it seems to be well on its way to achieving this milestone.



The building was completed in 1997 and designed by Architectura.ca (which now seems to be part of Stantec.) Much information about the architecture can be found here on a University of Waterloo case study about the building. (Image Credit Terri Meyer Boake B.E.S. B.Arch. M.Arch.)



Other key phrases:
Passive solar gain, renewable energy technologies, on-site co-generation of heat and power, distributed and networked systems, energy cascading and waste heat exchange, matching supply quality to need and other energy conservation measures, regular measurement, reduction of consumption, waste and emissions.