L’Oreal Research and Innovation Center

The transformation of L’Oreal’s North American Research and Innovation Center marries ambitious sustainability goals with data driven design. Atelier Ten led the sustainability scope for this LEED Platinum project that dramatically cuts energy, carbon, and water use and reflects L’Oreal’s commitment to a low-carbon future.

Unifying both processes and people, the project provides updated research labs, product evaluation areas, and open flexible work settings as well as numerous employee amenities. To maximize employee comfort, the addition and renovation optimizes daylight throughout all regularly occupied areas. Atelier Ten’s daylight simulation informed the clerestory and skylight design to provide usable daylight throughout the deep floor plates and reduce electrical lighting load.

Energy performance was central to the design strategy, as laboratory buildings are notoriously energy and carbon intensive. Atelier Ten’s energy analysis resulted in a comprehensive package of efficiency measures across the building envelope, HVAC systems, lighting, and renewables. The building incorporates highly insulated roofs, a high performance façade, and efficient mechanical systems to reduce lower heating, cooling, and humidification energy use. Eliminating cooling towers through air cooled heat pumps dramatically reduced heat rejection energy. Overall, the building achieves a 57.3% reduction in site energy and a 45.8% annual energy cost savings over the ASHRAE Baseline.

Atelier Ten also evaluated microgrids, advanced façade systems, and emerging low carbon technologies to strengthen the project’s long term value and resilience. The project integrates a microgrid and a 10,000 photo voltaic panel array. Onsite PV on building roof and parking, as well as off-site PV account for 100% offset of electric use.