Berkeley Lab opens 'world's most comprehensive building efficiency simulator'

Innovation is brewing in the Bay Area, and it’s not coming from another app development. FLEXLAB, a laboratory dedicated to studying energy efficiency, just opened up at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the hills above UC Berkeley.

The lab is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, and as of now, it is the only one of it’s kind in the world.

“It’s the first that tests system level technologies,” says Cynthia Regnier, FLEXLAB’s executive manager. “[FLEXLAB] provides a platform upon which we could test these systems and revalidate performance and improve it before it gets committed and built in the order of hundreds of thousands of square footage and millions of dollars of investment.”

According to local newspaper Contra Costa Times, startups, architects, designers, utilities and manufacturers in the Silicon Valley are invited to use FLEXLAB for fees adjusted to specific needs.

There are four separate labs to test-drive different technologies: Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, lighting, windows and the building envelope.

Find out more at FLEXLAB’s official website.

Silver Cross became one of the first hospitals to install patient tracking software so families know where a patient is at all times. New communication equipment supports wireless voice and data networks throughout the hospital, providing access to patients and their families while freeing clinicians to use phones and computers where needed instead of based on location.

| May 23, 2012

Summit Design+Build selected as GC for Chicago restaurant

Little Goat will truly be a multifunctional space. Construction plans include stripping the 10,000 sq. ft. building down to the bare structure everywhere, the installation of a new custom elevator and adding square footage at the second floor with an addition.