Regnier plans to take FLEXLAB's findings into the marketplace. "I am hopeful we can come up with off-the-shelf solutions for integrated designs," she says.

For that goal, the Berkeley lab has an agreement with ">PROSPECT Silicon Valley, which finds places to beta-test new technology. "There is no place like FLEXLAB, where you can test any number of building environments in one place," says Doug Davenport, PROSPECT SV's executive director.

FLEXLAB is a mix of new and retrofitted space. New construction consists of the rotating test bed and three static test beds, which contain 4,844 sq ft. The three single-story sheds are 40 ft x 30 ft in plan, plus a bump-out for mechanical and electrical closets. A high-bay shed has a 50-ft x 25-ft plan.

FLEXLAB also has two "living labs," occupied by Berkeley lab staff, in retrofitted space in an adjacent building. One 3,274-sq-ft room is for lighting and plug load tests. The other, a 379-sq-ft "smart" room, is for exploring virtual design and construction. The existing building also contains FLEXLAB's control rooms.

Stand-alone test beds have interchangeable parts, including cladding materials, windows, sunscreens, lighting, and heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. Users can adjust floor and ceiling elevations, remove partitions and, for ventilation studies, open windows. Researchers also can test most HVAC distribution systems, including underfloor air, radiant slab, displaced ventilation and chilled beams.

It will take a half day to two weeks to reconfigure a test bed, depending on the study. For comparative experiments, test beds can be divided into mirror-image cells. Wall insulation will prevent thermal transfer.

Initial fit-outs of the new test beds will match different eras of construction, from the 1980s forward, and be compliant with different energy codes. One cell will mock up a net-zero annual energy-use building.

FLEXLAB is outfitted with about 1,000 sensors for data collection, with potential for thousands more. Cameras record internal sun patterns for daylighting studies, while meters measure power, thermal loads, airflow, lighting and glare. The lab even has a weather station.

For vendors concerned about trade secrets, FLEXLAB's $1-million data-acquisition (DAQ) system is set up so that performance data from different vendors participating in a single test is not shared.

Selkowitz, who has been studying window materials, facade systems and daylighting at the Berkeley lab for 36 years, has long pushed for a rotational test bed. In the 1980s, he built a lab on a trailer chassis and rotated it either 180˚ or 90˚ by hitching it to a truck cab.

Orienting a test facade to different solar exposures enables direct, simultaneous comparison of identical strategies and technologies facing different directions, says Selkowitz. The building also can be oriented for natural ventilation studies, either toward prevailing winds or non-ideal wind orientations. Rotation also can simulate some seasonal solar conditions.