We take a look back at the successes of the New Orleans Bioinnovation Center over its ten year history. Designed to foster biotech startups in a region that has historically neglected them, the building is its own small ecosystem: where independent researchers, lab technicians, donors, patent lawyers, and others can come together in furthering the scientific entrepreneurial community of New Orleans.
In support, the architectural team looked to design a building that would maximize this human potential, with daylight, views to nature, and places for reflection and collaboration. The building takes this a step further, elevating its own performance, weaving classic New Orleans architecture with sustainable systems and technologies, proving just how far lab energy use can be reduced even in a hot-humid climate.
The result? A project that uses less energy per square foot than 89% of the buildings in the Labs21 Benchmarking Tool database, and a proud EUI of 120. A savings of 223kBtu/square foot (compared to the median EUI for labs) is like making a net-zero building of almost any other building type.
Equally important is its impact on the community. By one report, in its first five years of operation the building had already launched eighty startups, and created hundreds and hundreds of jobs.
