The University of British Columbia

Overview

The CIRS vision is to be an internationally recognized leader in accelerating the adoption of sustainable building and urban development practices.

Building Description

The CIRS building is a world-class showcase of green construction that celebrates its location and setting, has minimal impact on the environment and maximizes every inch of interior space to create functional and inspiring spaces for teaching, learning, research and community building.

History

At UBC, CIRS was conceived in 2000 by Professor John Robinson, who approached UBC's Campus and Community Planning office with an idea for a new kind of building - a structure that would perform at the frontier of sustainability.

Facilities

CIRS is a multi-use space with facilities designed to encourage human interaction, explore new approaches and advance globally-significant sustainability research.

Booking a room

We welcome the UBC community and external groups to hold meetings and events at CIRS.

Building Rating System

CIRS' certification comes through two of the world's foremost third-party green building certification programs: LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System^(TM) and The Living Building Challenge(LBC).

Building Manual

The CIRS Technical Manual is a ‘living’ document of the lessons learned from the design, construction and operation of the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) on the UBC Vancouver campus.

More Sustainable Buildings

UBC's efforts to advance sustainability include research on other buidlings. This section will highlight some of those buidilngs both on and off campus.