Boulder Commons

Integral Group provided MEP engineering and sustainable design consulting services on the new campus design for Boulder Commons in Boulder, Colorado. This developer-led project comprises two 50,000 ft² speculative office buildings and includes amenity retail and restaurant spaces. The project was designed to achieve Net Zero Energy (NZE) with the additional goal of proving the financial viability of NZE for commercial buildings.

The buildings are designed with appropriate bioclimatic and passive design strategies to minimize energy use while maximizing outdoor comfort and connection. Some of those strategies include daylight harvesting, aggressive exterior solar shading, automated interior blinds, natural ventilation, a highly insulated and air-tight envelope, and the use of thermal mass to regulate internal temperatures. A high-efficiency variable refrigerant cooling, heating, and ventilation system are utilized to maximize free heat recovery for the buildings while providing a simple, flexible, and low-energy HVAC solution that can be easily reconfigured to serve all types of future tenants, small to large.

The large photovoltaic (PV) array is sized to offset all the energy the campus uses for a year to achieve the Net Zero Energy goal. In addition to covering the roofs with PV, this project is one of the first to achieve NZE utilizing vertically mounted PV as part of the exterior façade of the buildings.

The campus also incorporates numerous strategies from the Well Building Standard to enhance the indoor environmental quality of each building and occupant wellness campus-wide.