Green Scene

BY PHIL HAGEN

University of Idaho's Integrated Design Lab

You'll be happy to know that there's a little laboratory out West where somebody is doing something about the climate. This particular "climate" has more to do with the prevailing attitudes in the design world than global warming.

"Energy is getting more and more efficient," says Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, director of the University of Idaho's Integrated Design Lab in Boise, "but it's still a low priority in the scheme of things in the built environment."

Any 2030 novice knows that is the environment where it counts most. What Professor Van Den Wymelenberg, two full-time researchers and four student assistants are doing for the cause is providing educational services to regional projects that have green aspirations. Rather than giant steps for mankind, these are small ones toward designing "great spaces for people to live and work," he says. "It's always about keeping spatial quality high and then taking energy efficiency along with it. We think that's the pathway with architects."

The trick of the lab's outreach trade is plugging holes in communication and knowledge during the design process. Besides their own expertise, professors draw from what Van Den Wymelenberg calls "a tight network" of integrated design labs — University of Washington, University of Oregon, Washington State, Montana State — connected by the nonprofit Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA). "We're talking all the time, learning new ideas and trying to keep up with the game," he says. "This is a fast-moving ship, this whole green movement. Obviously we want to keep being the prow."

Van Den Wymelenberg has consulted on more than 400 projects through the network since 2000. He opened the Boise lab in 2004, and since then his University of Idaho team has helped green about 50 projects a year.

One particular goal has been better daylighting and lighting integration, as the latter source can consume up to 40 percent of a building's energy, he says. "How we can get daylighting and electrical lighting to talk to each other so predicted energy savings becomes realized energy savings, that's something we're constantly working on."

The lab helped bridge such a gap in Boise's LEED-Platinum Banner Bank building by putting together a lighting system using "on-the-market stuff" — an Encillium energy control system, light fixtures, photo cells, occupancy sensors — but in a "pretty slick" way that's "plug and play."

Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg.

Daylighting is Van Den Wymelenberg's forte, and his lab's technical assistance in that area helped the Eaglewood office building in Meridian, Idaho, get down to nearly 20 percent reliance on electric lights. The building also achieved an energy savings 35 percent above code, thanks in part to the lab's help on the "night flush" system and its ability to work closely with engineers on energy predictions.

Speaking of which, there was "very little" energy modeling going on in the area before the Boise lab opened. "Now there are four or five firms doing it," Van Den Wymelenberg says, "and we had something to do with preparing the market for that by way of training and educating. … That's a good role for the university."

The integrated design lab has developed into a "nimble" operation, he says. Sometimes it shares ideas before the RFP phase; sometimes it's involved in post-occupancy evaluation. Most often it's collaborating on the schematic phase of a project, serving as "a research entity to track down ideas that may be cutting edge."

The lab added an extra dimension after landing an EPA grant last summer. The $100,000 went toward a design-strategy project that Van Den Wymelenberg's team had proposed for the new Pacific Northwest Carbon Neutral Building Initiative. Tentatively called the Climate Response Design Web Tool, it's based on detailed climate analysis of 10 cities in EPA Region 10 — Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Alaska — and when unveiled in late August, it will enable architects and engineers "to make a little more sense of their local climates and think about those relative to schematic designs."

Users will be able to see graphic depictions of everything from orientation to passive cooling. In Boise, for example, you'll see the "area of the year" when cooling is needed. "Then you'll be able to click on various buttons and apply certain strategies," Van Den Wymelenberg says. Apply a night flush system and watch the area shrink. Add evaporative cooling and see if you'll need air conditioning at all.

"The idea," he says, "is to make some early design decisions and get projects moving in the right direction."

The little lab is all about forward motion. All it needs to sustain momentum are people "willing to collaborate and be a little vulnerable and try to find a solution that they haven't found before," Van Den Wymelenberg says.

"Hopefully they're seeing the value statement as more than just energy efficiency, but as more holistic. Daylighting is a good example: It's the wild of light, the connections back to nature, the connections back to origins, and remembering why we're doing this sort of stuff in the first place."

For more information, visit www.uidaho.edu/idl.