Okanagan College Achieves LEED Platinum Certification

The new Okanagan College Trades Complex has achieved LEED Platinum certification, the highest level of the CaGBC LEED rating system. This is Okanagan College’s second LEED certified building, following the LEED Platinum certification of it’s Jim Pattison Centre of Excellence in 2015, situated on the Penticton campus. Okanagan College represents 2 out of 14 LEED Platinum post-secondary buildings in the whole of Canada. The renewal and expansion design incorporated a range of sustainability features for water usage, building materials, and energy consumption, earning the Trades Complex it’s LEED Platinum rating.

This $35-million project has provided much-needed revitalization and renewal for Okanagan College’s Kelowna campus, creating additional capacity for students and apprentices in a building that is a showcase for sustainability. Shops and classrooms have been fully renovated and retrofitted to modernize and better utilize the space. A two-storey addition has more than doubled the size of the complex, providing much needed student space and innovative classrooms for trades and technology programs specifically focused on skills development, training and upgrade. The project is the first of its kind in British Columbia to transform a complex of this age – originally constructed in the 1960s – size, and diversity into a modern learning space that is energy neutral.

Introba (formerly Integral Group) provided LEED Consulting, Living Building Challenge and Energy Modeling services for this project, realizing the College’s sustainable design goals to reduce energy consumption for both the renovation and new construction components, and decreasing maintenance by an estimate of $10 Million and operational costs by $220,000.