Power from renewable resources and by-product waste steam provide all the building's energy. Water use is reduced 32 percent by use of efficient fixtures, including waterless urinals and dual-flush toilets. An electronic management system enables the building to respond to external conditions to control air flow and natural and artificial light levels.

More than half of all materials at Genzyme Center contain recycled content; more than 90 percent of construction waste was recycled. It was located less than two blocks from public transportation and was built on a former "brownfield" site, all factors influencing its LEED rating.

"What was especially important about Genzyme was the degree of integration of the vendors," Myers says. "In the past 12 to 24 months, all the major U.S. design houses have gotten their arms around electric lighting and daylighting control, but the architectural community, in general, still is very much in the dark with regard to the integration of what, until very recently, have been viewed as separate systems. This is new ground.

The concept of bringing control of the office environment closer to the individual, via, say, internet-activated, space-age, window shades−that also is new territory," he says.

As office tasks change, Myers says, optimal dimming systems integrate control of electric lights and daylight. Shading, lighting and controls now work either automatically, or remotely. State-of-the art systems are a hybrid of both.

State-of-the-art centralized lighting control systems now can accommodate up to 32 linked processors governing up to 16,000 lighting zones, 6,000 wallstations and 2,000 power panels for seamless integration of dimming, switching, window shading and daylighting to create incredibly sophisticated and comprehensive lighting control systems.

With the new tools, office workers can monitor and operate lighting and related systems from any computer with internet access and adjust fluorescent lighting levels with a mouse click. Facilities managers can log onto home computers to check and adjust security lighting.

"Daylighting, and daylighting controls, are the starting points for every sustainable project I can think of," says Myers. "The task, now, is to control that light. Sophisticated systems now attempt to bring control of the environment as close to the occupant as possible.

In the area of lighting control, we have moved light years beyond occupancy sensors. Dimming fluorescent ballasts are two-to-three-times as effective as they were just five years ago.