Sustainability, Hawaiian Style


KAMUELA, Hawaii — The recently completed Hawaii Preparatory Academy Energy Research Laboratory is being billed as the first K-12 school facility in the world to meet the Living Building Challenge, an advanced measure of building sustainability established by the International Living Building Institute.
 
The 6,000-square-foot high school science lab is a net-zero energy building, meaning it uses no energy from the grid and produces zero carbon emissions.
 
Generating all its power from a photovoltaic system and wind turbines, the laboratory produced close to 7,000-kilowatt hours of electricity in its first 60 days in use. Using only about 30 percent of the energy it created, the balance was then net-metered back into the school’s campus grid.
 
With such a focused design approach to energy use, it’s small wonder that the lab is awaiting LEED Platinum certification.
 
Designed by Boston-based Flans-burgh Architects, and constructed by Quality Builders of Hilo, Hawaii, the energy lab regulates its interior climates, maintaining temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide levels via input from more than 250 sensors. The laboratory also captures and filters all of its own drinking and wastewater and generates hot water using solar thermal panels. The building is naturally ventilated and utilizes an experimental radiant cooling system instead of air conditioning.
 
To meet the Living Building Challenge, wood used on the project was either Forest Stewardship Council certified or from salvaged sources. The bulk of the materials came from no greater than 5,000 miles away, with heavy density building items transported from no more than 1,000 miles away.
 
The two-story building features open classroom areas, outdoor courtyards and decks, individual project rooms, a monitoring lab, a video-conferencing room, and a basement for storage. The central area is a collaborative flexible open space and the front of the lab is a workshop where all building and testing takes place.
 
"We designed the energy lab to have three zones that mimic the creative process that students experience when working on projects, from brainstorming, to design, to physical construction," says David Croteau, Flansburgh’s project architect. "Additionally, students are constantly surrounded by the systems they study at the HPA’s Energy Lab, which offers a continuous, sustainable teaching moment."