British Columbia (UNBC) has a public mandate to be a leader in high-performing buildings and innovative wood projects. Working with UNBC, our design team at Stantec conceived the new Wood Innovation Research Laboratory (WIRL) as a research, testing and development ?facility for these products. The building allows faculty and students ?in the Master of Engineering program to conduct unique experiments, test theories and explore creative uses for wood in sustainable design.
The Wood Innovation Research Laboratory in Prince George at UNBC is the first North American university building to meet the Passive House standard.
In keeping with a sustainability mandate, we designed the WIRL ?as North America?s first certified Passive House higher education building. Passive House principles were followed in all phases of the project?through design, engineering and construction. Building ?to Passive House standards is challenging in any climate, but exception­ally so with the cold weather in Prince George. With its rigorous criteria, Passive House sets a stringent standard ?for building energy efficiency and occupant comfort. It was initiated ?to achieve design quality assurance in Europe in the 1990s, with certifica­tion pioneered through the Passive House Institute (PHI) in Darm­stadt, Germany. The standard now has international attention, with Passive House criteria impacting Canadian building codes. For ?example, the City of Vancouver accepts Passive House certification ?as one ...