Trent University has a goal to store more carbon in the building materials of their new Forensics Facility than was emitted in making the materials. In order to offset the inevitable emissions from harvesting and manufacturing materials it is necessary to use biogenic...
The Trent Forensics Zero Carbon project requires a net zero energy and carbon performance in order to be certified by the International Living Future Institute’s Zero Carbon Certification program. For a large institutional facility to reach that goal we needed...
In order for the Trent Forensics Facility to meet its Zero Carbon goals, choosing low-carbon foundation materials was important. Foundations are typically the most carbon-intensive portion of a building because the typical materials are all high emitters. Concrete and...
When Trent University set out to design a Forensics Crime Scene facility, the building would be the first of its kind on a Canadian university campus. But the innovation didn’t stop there: the building would also be the first certified Zero Carbon building in...
In an Endeavour post about a year ago, I examined the concept of embodied energy in buildings. You can see that post here. To quote the summary of that article: “Choosing high EE materials is willfully neglectful, and in my experience the choice is often due to...
We set out with some pretty lofty goals for our Canada’s Greenest Home project. The idea was to use only the healthiest, most ecologically friendly building materials and use them to create a home with outstanding energy performance. And we wanted to do it in a...