page_title: C. K. Choi Building
section_title: Sustainable Features
hierarchical_section_title: C. K. Choi Building / Sustainable Features
caption_attribution_description: English: CK Choi Building at University of British Columbia. Image of rear/west elevation
context_page_description: The C. K. Choi Building is an award-winning building known for its sustainable design features. It is the University of British Columbia's "flagship environmental building" in what it calls its 'living laboratory', the campus used to showcase "innovative approaches to conserving energy, water and materials, while striving to make positive impacts on the environment." Located in the northwest quadrant of the UBC campus, the building is named after Dr. Cheung-Kok Choi, a businessman and philanthropist in China, Hong Kong and Canada, and a major donor to UBC.
  The C.K. Choi Building was purpose-built as a university office building to house UBC's Institute of Asian Research's five research centres. These focus on China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and India and South Asia. The "daringly innovative architecture" integrates cultural expression, interior and exterior architectural presence, together with environmental features and functions.
context_section_description: From the project's start, it was intended to be "an embodiment of new standards for sustainable design, construction and operations."
  The building was designed with ambitious targets for minimizing energy usage but an evaluation conducted on the building's first ten years found that the performance exceeded expectations by a significant amount.  The building was completed before the US and Canadian Green Building Councils' LEED Rating Systems were developed, but the building's performance compares favourably with those more recent standards.
  * Site:  Impact on site development was minimized by building on an existing parking lot without disturbing the large existing trees, which also provide afternoon shading, reduced heat gain, and cooling requirement.
  * Building Form:  The narrow form of the three-storey building was derived from an early decision to minimize the site impact and to provide natural light and ventilation to each occupied space.
  * Recycled Content:  Approximately 50% of materials in the building are recycled or re-used, including brick cladding from early 20th century street pavers (brick "cobblestones"), approximately 65% of the heavy timber structural frame was salvaged from the Armories Building across the street, interior steel railings at stairs and balconies, sinks, toilet accessories, doors and frames, approximately 25% of the electrical conduit, as well as other components that used recycled materials in their fabrication.
  * Sanitary System:  When initially constructed, the building was not connected to the campus sanitary (sewage) system.  Instead the building washrooms were fitted with  composting toilets  that allowed waste to fall  down through a stainless steel chutes into composting bins located in the basement of the building.  Urine filtering through the compost medium forms a leachate, which initially was drained and combined with drainage from the lavatories and released into a linear bioswayle or "greywater trench", designed by the landscape architect and the mechanical engineer.  The concept was to enable the plants in the greywater trench to benefit from the nutrients contained in the leachate, and eventually allow the finished compost to be used within the landscaped areas surrounding the building.  However, samples collected of the leachate and finished compost in 2011 revealed these materials did not meet the provincial regulatory environmental and health & safety standards.  Consequently, the leachate is now being drained to sewer and the compost product is being disposed of to a sanitary landfill.  The university is currently considering options to either replace the composting system with a conventional plumbing and toilet system, or another alternate system such as a water reclamation and recycle process.
  * Stormwater System:  Stormwater is collected in an underground vault for landscape irrigation.
  * Energy Consumption:
  Some of the key energy savings features include: retaining the large trees along the western edge of the building to reduce cooling loads; building forms to enhance internal stack effects to provide air change through natural ventilation and only localized fans; building forms that enhance daylighting to reduce electric lighting and cooling loads; daylight sensors and occupancy sensors to minimize unnecessary use of lights; high efficiency luminaries with lower ambient lighting levels and task lights where appropriate; higher than mandated insulation for walls, roof, and glazing; careful attention to detailing and construction methodology to minimize heat loss through thermal breaks; utilizing waste heat from  existing adjacent steam vault.
  * Finishes:  The levels of interior finishes were reduced to minimum:  exposed, polished concrete floor slabs with no carpet or linoleum; exposed roof/floor deck with no suspended ceilings; exposed or galvanized steel and metal without paint wherever technically possible.
  * Indoor Air Quality:  Air pollutants were reduced through the sequencing of construction and material selection, such as eliminating carpet adhesives, usi
caption: West elevation and preserved stand of evergreen trees providing afternoon shade
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-ZS1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.2", "Image DateTime": "2010:10:17 13:16:49", "Image ExifOffset": "186", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "33/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:10:17 13:16:49", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:10:17 13:16:49", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "86/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "41/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "315", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "441", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "25", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard"}