Lafayette College Receives Built Environment Plus Award

We are pleased to announce the Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center at Lafayette College is the recipient of a 2021 Green Building Showcase Category Leader Award in Carbon and Energy. 

The Carbon and Energy Award recognizes a project that drastically reduces its embodied and operational carbon through innovative solutions with high impact and high replicability. This award series is intended to spotlight projects that show exceptional leadership and innovation in one of the many priority areas of the sustainable and regenerative built environment movement.

Conceived as an “inside–out” building, the new Rockwell Integrated Sciences Center revolves around the building’s heart, a vibrant four-story gathering space that has a small footprint, but a large building impact.

Photo Credit: Robert Benson Photography

Replacing an old, inefficient biology building the project resulted in a 40% reduction in campus carbon emission. A multi-valent approach decoupling ventilation from conditioning, utilizing filter fume hoods, air quality monitoring, and a high-performance mechanical system with enthalpy heat recovery resulted in a 74% reduction in energy usage from a typical lab building. The energy load reduction, also contributed to a 56% reduction in water usage for the cooling tower, along with a 41% reduction in building water usage and 76% reduction in stormwater run-off from the pre-project conditions and providing vegetated areas for 30% of the building footprint.

Photo Credit: Robert Benson Photography

The project achieved a Bird Safety Avoidance Index of over 75 by limiting glazing to 24%, utilizing a custom frit and careful location of plantings. The envelope performance also focused on minimizing thermal bridging and was studied for passive survivability and interior conditions for 72 hours in the event of power loss. Occupant health and comfort was integrated throughout the design which selected healthier materials that minimized the usage of flame retardants, anti-microbials, highly fluorinated chemicals and vinyl, while incorporating natural ventilation in classrooms and offices and daylight throughout the building.

Photo Credit: Robert Benson Photography

Consciously subtle in its portrayal of sustainability, this LEED Platinum building is a confidently restrained, inviting, high performance building that has set the bar for sustainable building on campus, catapulting the College toward the President’s pledge of carbon neutrality by 2035.