%0 Edited Book %K Energy efficiency %K Building design %K Building %K China %K Sustainability %K Shenzhen IBR %A Richard C Diamond %A Wei Feng %C Berkeley, CA %D 2014 %I Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory %T Sustainability by Design: How One Building in China Could Change the World %8 12/2014 %X

Since the new millennium, the Shenzhen Institute of Building Research (IBR) has been committed to promoting sustainable building design and urban development in China. When the Institute decided to build its new headquarters, they wanted the building to be a living laboratory that could showcase green technology. Today, the Shenzhen IBR Building is steadily gaining recognition as a showcase of sustainable design. The building is open to anyone interested in green building technologies — and to date, it has received more than 30,000 visitors.

On closer inspection, this pioneering building reveals an abundance of carefully designed features that are making it a model for green architecture not just in China, but throughout the world as well. These features include:

Unlike green showcases that achieved low-energy performance at a high-cost premium, the Shenzhen IBR Building was built at a lower cost than that of new commercial structures in Shenzhen. The architects kept the total per-square-meter construction cost in 2009 to RMB 4300 Yuan/m2 ($70/ft2), which is a remarkably low number considering all of the sustainable measures included in the project. Part of the reason for this low cost of construction was that the design team pursued a strategy of integrated design, finding the optimal combination of systems that could reduce construction costs. The IBR managed the entire building's design, construction, and operation stages through this integrated approach.