Sustainable Facilities
& Infrastructure Lab
Myers-Lawson School of Construction • Virginia Tech
At the SFI Lab, our PROJECTS focus on the innovative strategies, processes, and technologies that can be used to make the built environment more sustainable, and the people and organizations that create, install, operate, and use them.
Yes, that is a toilet on a golf course - click on the tabs to the left to learn more about our current and past work involving duelie toilets and other cool green technologies! You can also learn about upcoming project opportunities to become involved as part of our team, either as a student, a faculty partner, or an external stakeholder with a problem we can help you solve.
Working with Dr. Marc Edwards and his research team in Civil & Environmental Engineering and the U.S. Green Building Council, members of the SFI Lab are surveying green buildings around the U.S. that have employed cutting-edge water conservation technologies as part of their facilities. After decades of attempting to make our facilities more efficient, anecdotal evidence suggests that there may be unanticipated consequences of designing for maximum efficiency, including increased pathogen growth in hot water heating systems, bacterial contamination and taste problems in water that
Featured Project:
Unanticipated Consequences in Sustainable Water Systems
doesn’t move through supply lines quickly enough, and degradation of system components due to physiochemical reactions within water systems. This study, sponsored by the Water Research Foundation, will inventory the current population of green buildings to find out what water-related innovations work, what doesn’t work, and why. More...
