Decarbonizing NYC Labs: New FDNY Compliance Pathway for Optimized Ventilation

Join the AIANY Science and Research Facilities Committee for a program exploring ventilation strategies at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Belfer Research Building, designed by Ennead Architects with Jaros, Baum & Bolles Consulting Engineers.

Opened in 2014, the research center was designed to attract and retain the most accomplished principal investigators and research teams from around the world. A high-performance, state-of-the-art, humanistic research machine, the project serves as a new for the urban vertical laboratory. The building provides 13 floors of flexible wet bench laboratories and research support, focusing on bench-to-bedside translational research. Certified as only the second LEED Gold laboratory facility in New York City, Belfer was forward-thinking in its building systems design and infrastructure, but a lot has changed in the decade since the building opened.

With the passage of Local Law 97 in in 2019, Weill Cornell has shifted its focus from energy usage and setbacks on air change rates based on occupancy to monitoring airflow through the implementation of an Aircuity air quality system. The fit-out of the eighth floor—scheduled for completion and occupancy in September, 2023—provides an important a model for the use of Aircuity to significantly reduce an institution’s carbon usage and serves as an unprecedented pathway for FDNY approval. This model is set to change the way laboratory facilities are designed in the future, allowing institutions to meet the regulatory mandates imposed by the City of New York.

Speakers:
Walter King, Managing Director, Aircuity
Lois Mate, Associate Principal, Ennead Architects
Angela Mu, Associate Director, Office of Energy and Sustainability, Weill Cornell Medicine
Ellyn Plappert, Associate, Jaros Baum & Bolles

About the Speakers:
Walter King has 15+ years of experience delivering energy efficiency, automation, and proptech solutions to the built environment. He leads Aircuity’s Thrive Buildings team, providing turnkey decarbonization projects to hospital, higher education, life science, and other critical environments. Through the portfolio-wide deployment of Aircuity’s platform at over 50 university and pharma clients, including Weill Cornell, Columbia University, Takeda, and Merck, King’s projects are saving well over $200 million in annual energy use and cutting over 500,000 metric tons annually in carbon emissions. Prior to Aircuity, King was a Partner at Blue Hill, a boutique venture capital firm with an investment thesis built around sensor and software systems that optimize existing buildings. He holds a BA and BS from Carnegie Mellon University.

Lois Mate, an Associate Principal at Ennead Architects, has applied her vast knowledge of academic, laboratory, and healthcare projects to the planning and programming efforts upon which their success depends. She brings specific experience in programming and planning academic laboratories with undefined user groups, multiple stakeholders, complex programmatic requirements, and site constraints. Her recent projects include the University of Oregon Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact Building 1, NYU Langone Health Science Building, Weill Cornell Medicine Belfer Research Building, New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute, University of Michigan Biomedical Science Research Building, and UC Santa Cruz Interdisciplinary and Instructional Research Building. Mate is co-chair of the AIANY Science and Research Facilities Committee and co-leader of Ennead’s Laboratory Center of Excellence, focusing on metrics, trends, and innovation in both institutional and private-sector research building and master planning projects.

Angela Mu oversees energy management and sustainability at WCM’s campus, approximately 2.5 million square feet of medical research, educational, and clinical space. She works with an energy team to implement energy conservation projects, identify opportunities for operating existing equipment more efficiently, and manage reporting and compliance with NYC regulations around energy usage. Prior to her work at WCM, Mu was a Project Manager at NYSERDA, focusing on commercial and industrial energy efficiency. She graduated with a degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ellyn Plappert has a sustained career focus on the design of large-scale and complicated projects in New York City, with an emphasis on and subject-matter expertise in commercial office and redevelopment projects such as 30 Hudson Yards, 270 Park Avenue, and the commercial  redevelopment of Moynihan Train Hall in the historic James A. Farley Building. She is also involved in the life science sector and is currently working on projects at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Belfer Research Building. Plappert leads the Direct Outside Air System (DOAS) task force, one of the internal technical initiatives at JB&B, supporting and driving some of the latest technology for point-of-use ventilation and energy savings. She is a member of CREW New York and ACEC New York and serves on the Board of Governors for ASHRAE New York. She is the active Chair of the JB&B Women’s Initiative as well as active Chair of the NY Women in ASHRAE committee.

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