Stanford building goes green with dual flushing toilets and light shelves
By Matt Jansen
Have a little? Flush a little. Have more? Flush more. Using what you need is the idea behind dual flushing toilets, which are standard faire in many parts of the world but a rarity in the United States. Stanford’s Environment and Energy building doesn’t stop there though, it also sports a light shelf on many of its windows and a host of other innovations.
A light shelf works by reflecting natural light through the upper portion of a window toward the ceiling inside. The idea is to use less energy while providing light from the source humans have used the longest: the sun.
On his How to Change the World blog, Guy Kawasaki describes a variety of other innovations, including:
- photo-voltaic solar panels on the roof
- specific windows tinted to reduce heat from the sun
- windows that automatically open if smoke is present
- many windows with a light shelf
- spaces designed to take advantage of natural light
- active-chilled beams that cool the building instead of air conditioning
- dual flushing toilets
Of course, if you’re really motivated to go green you could try a waterless toilet, also known as a composting toilet. There are even a couple of different composting toilets to choose from, “‘Self-contained’ composting toilets complete the composting ‘in-situ,’, while ‘central unit’ ones flush waste to a remote composting unit below the toilet. Vacuum-flush systems can flush horizontally or upward,” according to Wikipedia. Sounds intense.
With innovations like the dual toilet, the Environment and Energy building certainly cost more than traditional building, but the goal is to save money over the long term in energy efficiencies.
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