Five reasons why the Innovation Center is the office of the future

This story was originally published in RMI’s Solutions Journal here

Halfway through a year-long commissioning process, we are already learning significant lessons about the importance of integrated project delivery, passive integrative design, energy monitoring and data collection, and the role occupants play in achieving some of the most ambitious building performance goals in the country. Behind the numbers are more anecdotal, and arguably more powerful, stories of how this building allows RMI to take our work to the next level, and that showcase how net-zero energy buildings can be better for owners, occupants, and the environment.

The Innovation Center serves as a living lab to demonstrate how high-performance buildings are designed, constructed, and occupied. This building of the future is also supporting the most critical work of our future.

Here are five reasons we believe the Innovation Center is so, well, innovative.

1. It increases staff productivity, satisfaction, and collaboration

Our goals not only focused on energy efficiency, but also included creating a healthy, productive, and aesthetically pleasing office space and world-class convening center. Not coincidentally, the same design principles achieve both goals. Staff benefit from an entirely day-lit, open office plan, which minimizes the energy needed to maintain healthy airflow through spaces. High ceilings and giant windows on the south side maximize views of mountains, aspen trees, and the Roaring Fork River, keeping staff healthier and happier on a day-to-day basis.

2. It gives people control over their personal comfort

Traditional office buildings use a large HVAC system to maintain a set room temperature, which uses a lot of energy and has little to do with how comfortable a person feels. The Innovation Center focuses on the six factors that influence individual comfort (e.g., humidity, air velocity, clothing, etc.) and uses integrative design and technology that eschews a one-size-fits-all approach and allows individuals to control their own comfort. For example, on the coldest winter days, staff can warm up with electric floor mats that provide targeted radiant heat.

3. It achieves unprecedented levels of integration, automation, and control

When most of us think “office building of the future,” we envision cutting-edge technologies and gadgets. The Innovation Center does feature impressive new technologies (like personal heating and cooling chairs), but how technologies, building materials, and systems work together is what’s cutting-edge. The building’s automation system uses sensors and set points, plus predictive weather controls, to activate various building features that maintain temperature, lighting levels, and ventilation. To ensure the building operates as it was designed requires a careful balance of automation and manual controls. For example, certain windows open and close automatically to control temperature and air movement, while other windows can be manually operated.

4. It is as productive for the electricity grid as it is for our staff

The Innovation Center produces enough solar energy on-site to supply the energy needs of the building plus six electric vehicles, thanks in part to an 83.08 kW solar photovoltaic (PV) system. A lithium-ion 30 kW battery storage system helps keep the building’s peak energy demand below 50 kW (keeping us in a financially beneficial small-commercial rate class). An energy dashboard in the lobby and available online provides live data on PV production, energy consumption, and the amount of clean energy being stored in the battery versus sent to the electricity grid so we can make thoughtful adjustments to our energy management strategy.

5. It harnesses the power of convening

Collaboration was the mantra behind the Innovation Center from the get-go. The very idea of the Innovation Center brought together a powerful network of RMI supporters whose philanthropic leadership brought the building from vision to reality. Convening was the driving force behind the integrated project delivery process we used to guide design and construction, which involved collaboration across disciplines, common goals, and shared risks and rewards. Finally, the White Steyer Impact Studio, which accommodates 80 people in a lecture or workshop-type setting, is where diverse leaders and partners from across the global energy landscape can gather to tackle our greatest energy challenges.