Welcome to cirs

The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) is dedicated to research, collaboration and outreach that lead us to workable solutions for the challenges of urban sustainability. When it opens in 2011, CIRS will be among the most innovative and high performance sustainable buildings in North America, demonstrating leading edge research and partnerships on sustainable design practices, products, systems and policies.

CIRS building exterior rendering by Busby Perkins + Will

A new pathway to sustainability

The CIRS facility will push the frontiers of sustainable construction materials and building techniques - radically reducing emissions, materials consumption, energy use and water use. A key goal is to live within the building footprint as much as possible: much of the building's elecricity, lighting, heating, and all of the water supply, liquid waste treatment, ventilation and cooling will come from the sun, wind and ground that shines on, blows through, or lies underneath the site. Aditionally, all of the building systems in CIRS, as well as the behaviour of its inhabitants will be the subject of extensive and ongoing research.

CIRS will be located on the main campus of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver but the multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral research team will include research partners from Simon Fraser University (SFU), the Emily Carr University of Art+Design (EC), and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). Together with private, public and NGO partners, the CIRS team will work to create a research program intended to demonstrate sustainable practice and contribute to the commercialization of sustainability.

CIRS exists to accelerate sustainability -- to find solutions to the challenges of urban development faster and more effectively than ever before.

On September 24th, 2009 the UBC Board of Governors released $32 million for CIRS.  Construction has begun, and building occupancy is expected in spring 2011.

The new Sustainability Academic Strategy proposed for UBC (www.sas.ubc.ca) has proposed that the CIRS building should be the home of a new University Sustainability Initiative, intended to integrate academic and operational sustainability at UBC. This would represent a significant new role for CIRS!

Thanks to all the CIRS supporters for their interest and involvement with CIRS over the last ten years.

Please watch our photo log which will chronicle the building process. 

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