Sustainable Research

As the world's first large-scale positive energy commercial building, a new workplace for 1,200 people outside Paris is getting attention. Designed by Ion Enescu of Atelier 2M Architectes as a project for real estate developer Bouygues Immobilier, it puts emerging ideas and theories about energy management to work and illustrates a new generation of commercial office buildings.

Catherine was able to position users at the forefront of planning for this positive energy building as part of a 10-company coalition, the Positive Energy Consortium. It brought together the research and best thinking of experts from a range of leading companies including Intel, Siemens, Philips and other leading global and French companies that specialize in aspects of office building design and operations.

Relying on renewable sources, positive energy buildings produce more energy than they consume. Achieving this status requires a delicate balance: tightly controlling the amount of energy used to operate the building and increasing its capacity to produce energy while minimizing carbon emissions. It's also about balancing architecture, automation and human behavior – i.e., recognizing that a building can't do it alone.

"The consortium was a unique opportunity to contribute Steelcase's user-centered research and insights. We were also able to share and learn about emerging opportunities at the boundaries of our industry and understand what it really takes to create a positive energy building."

Steelcase's front-end involvement was especially important, says Catherine, because occupant behaviors impact 30% of energy use. "People are critically important to achieving optimal building performance." A change management approach is necessary to create user buyin and sustain new behaviors over time.

"The right design can drive the right behaviors. For example, shrinking space without giving users control of their comfort is counterproductive. Or, completely automating energy consumption without giving occupants control of their environment will not deliver a positive building performance."

With today's buildings accounting for more than 40% of total energy consumption, new standards and regulations for energyefficient buildings are on the horizon throughout the world.

"Positive energy buildings will be on everyone's agenda very soon. To help customers hit their future targets, it really takes systemic thinking and collaboration between industry professionals, academic researchers and end-users to study the issue from a 360-degree perspective." ■