UC San Diego Gains Another LEED Platinum Certification

LA JOLLA, Calif. — The Marine Ecosystem Sensing, Observation and Modeling (MESOM) Laboratory at the University of California’s (UC San Diego) has received LEED Platinum certification.

Designed by THA Architecture of Portland, Ore., and constructed by Rudolph and Sletten, headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., the MESOM Laboratory joins the David Keeling Apartments as the second LEED Platinum building on the UC San Diego campus.

“The LEED Platinum recognition of this new UC San Diego laboratory building at Scripps Institution of Oceanography attests to the university’s active commitment to bringing the best green practices to this campus,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Kholsa, in a statement. “Obtaining this achievement further emphasizes our testament to sustainability in our housing, teaching and research laboratory buildings.”

Sustainable features of the building include natural ventilation and passive heating for all offices and workspaces; regionally sourced materials for the exposed concrete structure; exposed concrete structure to provide thermal mass; analyzed and reduced air flows in the laboratories; water-efficient landscaping focused on restoring native coastal plant species; use of FSC-certified wood at exterior siding and shade screens; and use of high solar reflectance index roofing materials.

“I’m extremely grateful to the leadership and building teams and all our supporters for making this laboratory building a reality in sustainability worthy of LEED Platinum status,” said Margaret Leinen, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and UC San Diego vice chancellor for marine sciences, in a statement. “This new building is already optimizing opportunities for multidisciplinary research for the benefit of society and the environment.”

The 19,000-square-foot MESOM Laboratory, completed in 2013, supports the university’s multidisciplinary research of marine ecosystem forecasting with formal and informal collaboration spaces. The building consolidated the research from separate buildings to a single facility in order to foster interdisciplinary interactions. It is one of only a handful of LEED Platinum laboratories in the U.S.

“It is extremely difficult to achieve LEED Platinum status on a laboratory building and the MESOM Laboratory is one of the few in the country to earn this rating,” said William Joel King, assistant vice chancellor and campus architect for facilities, design and construction at UC San Diego, in a statement. “This was an extraordinary accomplishment, and we are very proud of our team’s efforts on this project.”

This building supports UC San Diego’s key goals of delivering an education and overall experience that develops students who are capable of solving problems in a diverse and interconnected world, and nurturing a collaborative and interdisciplinary research culture that advances the frontiers of knowledge, according to the university.

“In less than a year, the MESOM laboratory has merited LEED Platinum status, a distinction that is extremely difficult for any facility to achieve and much more so for a working laboratory. This recognition underlines the high-quality design and planning—and commitment to the environment—that went into MESOM,” said Willie May, associate directory for Laboratory Programs, National Institute of Standards and Technology, in a statement. “NIST is very proud to have played a role in making this facility possible.”