Image courtesy Troy White, Edward Wood, Jaime Gonsalves, and Ivan Fernandes

The Seneca student team's office building won for integrated sustainable building design, a category that encourages collaboration between engineering and architecture students.

A team from Toronto's Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology earned top honours in the 2009 American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Student Design Competition. Troy White, Edward Wood, Jaime Gonsalves, and Ivan Fernandes won first place in the competition's integrated sustainable building design (ISBD) category, with their redesigned office building fit for the local climate.

With an ultimate goal of creating a zero-energy project, the team's winning design included:
• five per cent recycled materials from abandoned buildings on the construction site;
• a solar wall, curtain windows, and chilled beams for heating and cooling;
• an open-concept atrium that acts as a solar chimney, reducing ductwork and saving energy; and
• greywater collection in a green roof for use in sinks, toilets, and landscape irrigation.

Other first-place winners included a team from California Polytechnic State University for HVAC system design, and one from Kansas State University for HVAC system selection.

Team representatives will receive their awards next year at ASHRAE's winter conference in Orlando, Fla.