Sustainable Science
Yale School of Medicine brings LEED into the lab

by Zach Mortice
Assistant Editor

How do you . . . adapt LEED commercial interior standards for use in a university laboratory?

Summary: The C-3 wing of Sterling Hall at the Yale School of Medicine is the first LEED® certified laboratory in the nation. Svigals + Partners adapted LEED Commercial Interior standards to apply to the lab and redesigned it to maximize bright, open spaces that are generically flexible. Though laboratories are difficult to make more energy efficient, the building met LEED Gold standards through the use of sustainable materials.

The newly renovated third floor of the Yale School of Medicine’s Sterling Hall is the first entry into two environmental firsts. It’s the first in a series of planned green renovations of the School of Medicine’s laboratories. It’s also the first LEED accredited lab anywhere.

Designed by Svigals + Partners of New Haven, the C-3 wing (as it is typically called) is a neurobiology lab that was completed in the late spring of 2006 and made to meet the LEED Silver certification level. No specific LEED standards exist for laboratory designers, but this ambiguity did not hinder Svigals + Partners success. They adapted the LEED Commercial Interiors standards for application to the lab, and recently surpassed their original goal and gained LEED Gold certification.

Out of the darkness
Originally constructed in the 1920s and previously renovated in the ‘50s and ’70s, Sterling Hall had gradually grown and mutated into a dark and isolated maze-like series of tunnels and corridors, as each lab and office took on very specific and inflexible functions. “C-3 looked really tired,” says Virginia Chapman, director of the Yale School of Medicine’s Facilities Construction and Renovation in a press release. “The laboratory spaces were organized in an idiosyncratic way with many small rooms installed for specific uses over the years. [It] was a typical older laboratory space that needed an upgrade.” The medical school wanted this to be wiped clean and replaced with open and bright generically versatile labs. With this direction in mind, Svigals + Partners met with school representatives and the project’s contractors to establish goals and budgets, and presented their adaptation of the LEED commercial interiors standards to the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). The expansive retrofit that followed gutted the exterior walls, going all the way back to the columns, improved the building envelope, and added windows.

Now, 75 percent of the building has access to outside views and 85 percent is lighted naturally. Recycled blue jeans are used for cotton insulation in the wing’s 16,439 square feet, and 22 percent of the project’s materials, like wheat board cabinetry panels, are rapidly renewable (i.e., renewable in one year). More than 80 percent of all construction debris was kept out of landfills, and the campus’ urban location (walkable and near public transportation) also scored points for the project.

The energy efficiency side of the LEED balance sheet was more difficult for Svigals + Partners to complete. “Compared to a typical office building, laboratories consume tremendous quantities of energy in the form of water and electricity,” says Svigals Associate Robert Skolozdra, AIA. To create a stable environment for neurobiology experiments (like the study of cancer cells in adult brains), the lab’s need for constant and exacting temperature control, continual air exhaustion from the building, and heavy water use makes the building’s physical siting and construction materials a more logical place to start looking for LEED credits than its level of energy efficiency.

What green is worth
Despite the groundbreaking nature of the project, Skolozdra’s plan was well-organized from the beginning. He says the commercial interior standards required little revision and were easy to apply to scientific laboratories. “Most everything that we submitted we ended up getting [credit for],” he says.

The result is an open, light-filled space conducive to collaboration and communication that will serve as a benchmark for sustainable laboratory design across the nation. “Green labs also attract and retain top talent because researchers find them far more desirable than the typical cold, sterile laboratory where people are segregated into tiny cubicles and the overall space is drab and claustrophobic,” says Jay Brotman, AIA, of Svigals + Partners.

This idea is something many Connecticut biotechnology firms have understood and enlisted Svigals + Partners to help with. The firm has designed biotechnology labs for the University of Connecticut, Protometrix, Inc., Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, and others. Because of the high visibility of the biotech industry and extremely competitive labor market it draws from, biotech developers are quite willing to use high-minded and sustainable design to gain an upper hand over competitors.

With this wealth of biotechnology lab design experience, Skolozdra says he would be pleased to see his firm’s LEED standards adaptations officially codified by the USGBC. As part of the Yale School of Medicine’s initiative to green all their lab spaces, Svigals + Partners recently completed the first floor of Sterling Hall, which they hope will qualify for LEED Gold certification, as well as two floors of an OBGYN lab on the campus. But, Skolozdra says his firm’s environmental focus truly goes further than a LEED checklist, no matter if they’re creating such standards.

“We’re constantly looking for ways to make projects more sustainable whether they fit into LEED standards or not.”