Vale Inco Living with Lakes Centre

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The Vale Inco Living with Lakes Centre is being built at Laurentian University in Sudbury, at the heart of an industrial watershed and the centre of Canada’s massive Boreal Ecozone with its million lakes. This research centre will become the new home for the internationally renowned group of scientists – The Cooperative Freshwater Ecology Unit (Co-op Unit).

The Sudbury story is a beacon of environmental hope with an equally compelling water and watershed restoration story to tell to the world. But there is much more work to be done to ensure an environmentally sustainable future. New streams of research to be undertaken at the Living with Lakes Centre will lead to new and more effective strategies to speed the recovery process of industrially damaged ecosystems and provide lessons of hope to future generations.

The perfect home for an ecosystem restoration centre, the Living with Lakes Centre is being constructed to meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum standards. It will have access to an abundance of freshwater lakes and be equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories. A dynamic model for living sustainably within a watershed, it will foster a culture of international innovation and inquiry, and inspire the next generation of environmental scientists seeking solutions to complex environmental challenges.

On October 16, 2008, the Living with Lakes Centre design took home the Bronze Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction for the North American Region, a prize valued at $25,000 US. The prestigious award was presented in Montreal, QC to project principal Dr. John Gunn and the architects, Peter Busby and Jeff Laberge.

The building is designed to go beyond LEED Platinum standards and address global warming by planning for adaptation to a 2050 climate. The primary strategy to address this goal was to use geothermal heat, a renewable, carbon neutral energy source for the heating and cooling system that relies on a closed loop ground source heat pump combined with in-floor radiant heating/cooling (and a Heat Recovery Ventilation unit).This system depends on a balance of heat coming into and out of the ground. Since Sudbury’s current climate is winter heating dominated with a smaller percentage of energy use devoted to summer cooling, an imbalance in the geothermal field is created. To mitigate this, a boiler is used during the winter to meet peak heating demands and a radiator is used during the summer to pump heat back into the ground. Over time however, as temperatures increase due to global warming, the building will rely less and less on the boiler until the ground source heat pump is the sole source of heating and cooling, increasing the efficiency of the building over time and moving towards a completely renewable supply of energy.

Rain, run-off and grey water is filtered through a bioswale before being collected in an existing wetland. This wetland will serve as the cistern, taking advantage of the site’s topology and creating a direct link between the functions of the natural and built environments. Both buildings will then draw water from the wetland for flushing toilets, cleaning boats, vehicles & gear and irrigation reducing potable water use by almost 80%.

The main building takes advantage of an east-west orientation, reducing excessive solar gains in the summer, allowing south facing spaces to receive passive solar gains in the winter, and increasing natural daylight throughout the building. Natural ventilation is aided by south-west winds in the summer while the building shelters the entrance and courtyard from prevailing winds in the winter.

Both buildings will make use of the insulative properties of green roofs. These roofs will utilize native blueberry ground cover, acting as an extension of the existing landscape and blurring the boundaries between the built and natural environment.

The Living with Lakes Centre has spearheaded LU’s drive to become the “greenest” campus in Canada. Through the use of passive systems and renewable energy available today, the Centre has detached itself from the economic burdens of skyrocketing fossil fuel prices. Eventually, with the incorporation of new technologies the building will become a carbon neutral, net energy producer. Dollars saved in annual operating costs will be re-invested in equipment and scholarships to attract the best scientists from across the globe.

GreenSudbury Map
updated 03/2012 by GreenSudbury