Toronto college first retrofit to earn zero-carbon certification
by sadia_badhon | June 13, 2019 10:20 am
[1]Photo courtesy CaGBC
The Building NX retrofit at Humber College, Toronto, has been awarded the Zero Carbon Building—Design certification by the Canada Green Building Council[2] (CaGBC). It is the first retrofit in the country to achieve this certification.
The original building envelope, built in 1989, consisted of aluminum curtain walls and spandrel panels, as well as a glass vestibule. The retrofits required a new envelope to achieve the thermal energy performance requirements of CaGBC. The college was able to achieve a design that will see Building NX use 70 per cent less energy than before, making it the college’s most energy-efficient building.
Work on the 4484-m2 (48,269-sf) five-storey building includes the installation of new triple-pane windows. Energy-efficient upgrades to the lighting, heating and cooling systems, and a new 25kW solar photovoltaic (PV) system were also completed.
“One of the biggest challenges to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada is finding ways to heat buildings at a reasonable cost without burning fossil fuels,” said Spencer Wood, Humber College’s director of facilities management. “Humber wanted to be an example to the Canadian design and construction industries on how a deep energy retrofit can contribute positively to our country’s climate.”
Renovations to the building, which were designed by B+H Architects[3] and Morrison Hershfield[4] and constructed by Bird Construction[5], began in May 2018 and are scheduled for completion this summer.
- [Image]: https://www.constructioncanada.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Opener-4.jpg
- Canada Green Building Council: https://www.cagbc.org/
- B+H Architects: https://bharchitects.com/en/
- Morrison Hershfield: https://morrisonhershfield.com/
- Bird Construction: http://www.bird.ca/
Source URL: https://www.constructioncanada.net/toronto-college-first-retrofit-to-earn-zero-carbon-certification/