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A building designed by ZGF Architects recently received a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. The award was given one year after the Health Sciences Biomedical Research Facility II at the University of California at San Diego was completed.

The wait was due in part because of the design’s complexity and because energy savings needed to be quantified, ZGF principal Chris Flint Chatto said.

A research lab is always more complicated than other types of buildings to design, Chatto said. Plus, this one had to account for UC San Diego using two central campus-wide plants for all heating and cooling, he said.

鈥淲e went way beyond what USGBC requires for (individual) plants,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e also set up a prototype for central plants and are also giving guidance they’re testing for other projects. Our expectation is that more and more campuses will use more of these district energy systems.鈥�

The $113 million, 196,000-square-foot building opened in 2014 and houses a diverse array of programs, according to ZGF. Those include bioinformatics, genomic medicine, pathology, immunology, psychiatry, neurosciences, glycobiology, infectious diseases and gastrointestinal medicine.

ZGF has completed about 60 LEED-rated buildings 鈥� 11 platinum. The UC San Diego research lab is the second one designed by ZGF to receive LEED platinum status, Chatto said. The first was the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, California.

鈥淏ecause they are very energy-intensive, there are just a handful of LEED platinum labs (in the U.S.) 鈥� probably 10 or 20,鈥� he said.

Plus, few labs use an operable exterior shading system like the one at UC San Diego, Chatto said.

鈥淲e used motorized, exterior venetian blinds that are programmed and have sensors so they deploy when there’s sun on that side of the building,鈥� he said.

The building was designed from the ground up with LEED platinum in mind, according to a ZGF statement. Among the features are: collection of water generated by the cooling system and from non-potable sources that is recycled to provide irrigation for the lawn, low-flow plumbing, specialized systems to measure and optimize energy use in the lab and building materials selected for 鈥渓ow emission of volatile organic compounds鈥� (much from recycled and local sources).