{"id":30656,"date":"2026-08-27T12:09:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T16:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/?p=30656"},"modified":"2026-08-27T12:09:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T16:09:35","slug":"duan-family-center-for-computing-data-sciences-is-third-party-zero-energy-verified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/2026\/08\/27\/duan-family-center-for-computing-data-sciences-is-third-party-zero-energy-verified\/","title":{"rendered":"Duan Family Center for Computing &#038; Data Sciences is Third-Party Zero Energy Verified"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Boston University\u2019s Duan Family Center for Computing &amp; Data Sciences is now third-party net-zero energy verified by the New Building Institute (NBI) in its <a href=\"https:\/\/newbuildings.org\/resource\/getting-to-zero-database\/\">Getting to Zero Building Database<\/a>. NBI is a mission-driven nonprofit organization working to advance scalable and practical approaches that equitably eliminate emissions from the built environment. The Duan Family Center is the third-largest verified project and the largest higher education building in the NBI database. It is also the largest building registered to have LEED Certification.<\/p>\n<p>Completed in 2023, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/projects\/center-for-computing-data-sciences\/\">Duan Family Center<\/a> is a nearly 350,000-square-foot net-zero and fossil-fuel-free tower, the largest teaching center built at Boston University in half a century. This iconic tower, designed like a stack of books, is a focal point of the University\u2019s Charles River Campus, bringing together interdisciplinary studies centered on data sciences and their intersections across all academic disciplines.<\/p>\n<p>The building uses 31 closed-loop geothermal boreholes to supply 90% of its heating and the majority of the cooling. The all-electric tower also incorporates several other energy-efficiency features, including triple-pane windows, exterior louvers designed as sun shades, and hundreds of sensors throughout the building that optimize energy performance and a healthy environment for occupants.<\/p>\n<p>To date, the Duan Family Center remains one of the largest geothermal buildings in a dense urban setting in the United States. The project was completed by Suffolk Construction and designed by the architects at KPMB. The lead engineers behind the net-zero and fossil fuel-free designs were BR+A, who played a pivotal role in Boston University receiving this recognition through NBI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston University\u2019s Duan Family Center for Computing &amp; Data Sciences is now third-party net-zero energy verified by the New Building Institute (NBI) in its Getting to Zero Building Database. NBI is a mission-driven nonprofit organization working to advance scalable and practical approaches that equitably eliminate emissions from the built environment. The Duan Family Center is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21414,"featured_media":27749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[115],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30656"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30658,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30656\/revisions\/30658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}