UBC announces $3.5 million R&D program with China's Modern Green building developer Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/announces+million+program+with+China+Modern+Green+building+developer/4225644/story.html#ixzz1FeydCoiW

One of China's largest property developers is contributing at least $3.5 million to advance green building research by University of British Columbia.
UBC announced Friday that China's Modern Green Development has entered into a strategic partnership involving the university's Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), which is expected to be the greenest building in North America when it opens in fall 2011.
"This is Modern Green's first North American partnership on green building research and development," a UBC news release reported.
Modern Green has developed more than 10 million square feet of green buildings in China and Australia, using geothermal heating, energy-saving technologies and other sustainable building practices, according to the release.
UBC says the company's best-known project is Grand MOMA, an eight-building, 213,000-square-metre mixed-use residential, school and hotel development in Beijing which has grabbed global attention for innovation.
Grand MOMA received the American Institute of Architects' Award for Sustainable Development and was named an "architectural miracle" by U.S. magazines Popular Science and Time, the release said.
"Over the next 20 years, the world's urban population is projected to increase by two billion people, so it is crucial that we dramatically improve the sustainability of the buildings we work and live in," UBC president Stephen Toope said in the release. "This partnership helps place UBC and Modern Green at the forefront of these efforts, accelerating the development of sustainable urban infrastructure and green building practices."
UBC and Modern Green will conduct applied research in sustainability policies and processes, and the deal provides UBC with a partner to help test and deploy building technologies "in an effort to provide market-based solutions to global sustainability challenges."
UBC and Modern Green researchers will collaborate "worldwide" - including Modern Green's first North American development - a mixed-use green residential development planned in Wesbrook Village on UBC's south campus.
That development will include a sustainability research and development demonstration centre.
Construction is planned to begin this summer according to the UBC release.
"Modern Green, a leader in creating highly comfortable and energy-saving housing solutions, is looking forward to working with UBC researchers," Modern Green chairman Zhang Lei said in the release.
He added that the partnership will include opportunities for knowledge transfer, personnel and student exchanges and experiential learning and research. "In collaboration with CIRS, Modern Green's mixed-use residential building and demonstration centre at UBC will be a precedent-setting sustainable development for comfort and energy performance."
The release said the partnership emerged from UBC's participation in investment programs that took place during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games and the Shanghai World Expo.
"Bringing companies like Modern Green to Vancouver during the 2010 Games and showing them what we have to offer, was something we felt would pay off in the long run," Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said in the release.
""CIRS will be more than simply the greenest building in North America when it opens," UBC Sustainability Initiative executive director John Robinson said in the release."It will be an important hub for sustainability research and action, where scholars and partners work to find innovative solutions to the challenges of urban development faster and more effectively than ever before."

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/announces+million+program+with+China+Modern+Green+building+developer/4225644/story.html#ixzz1FeyZGEKD