The Dow Research and Development Buildings and Central Services Building unveiled its LEED-Gold plaque on February 26. The celebration marks the Lake Jackson, Texas Dow campus as the only Dow campus with all buildings LEED-certified, with five projects having earned LEED certification. The project also ranks highest among all Texas Lab projects with 17 points earned in the Energy and Atmosphere Category.
The new Herbert H Dow R & D Building, named for the founder of Dow, houses 56 lab modules. Site selection was critical because of the extensive wetlands on the campus. Working with the City of Lake Jackson, a new bus stop was located at the site entrance. Unusual for a lab building is the amount of natural light, with daylight even in the lab spaces.
Over 20% of the building materials were regional materials. (within 500 miles) The project was able to achieve 38% energy reduction despite the large number of fume hoods (525 fumes hoods) by using a heat exchanger in the central plant and heat recovery on all lab exhausts. The labs are plug and play modules to allow for flexibility.
Offices are just outside the labs and have sit/stand desks. A green building display is in the lobby along with specific sustainability strategies being highlighted throughout the project. For innovation credits, a green housekeeping policy is in place along with low impact insect control measures.
These projects consolidated the research teams, formerly spread in 20 different building across the region. Collaboration is part of the new culture. Also, the new warehouse consolidated eleven previous warehouses and their chemical inventory has been cut in half.
Dow feels that LEED represents the Dow brand. There are only about a dozen lab certified in the US and most are academic, not heavy labs. Paul DuPree, WorkPlace Services Program Management Office and Expertise Center, The Dow Chemical Company, stated that LEED is “good business and good design.” Kirksey is the architect and CORE Real estate is the developer. The Lake Jackson facility is being used as an example for DOW facilities throughout the world.
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