SCS Complex Information and Blog

The project will be converting many surface parking lots into greenspaces. The building itself will be at least LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certified.

Greenspace

The surface parking lots in front of Newell Simon Hall (NSH) and down at the bottom of the valley will all be removed. All together about 150 surface spaces will be removed and replaced with about 150 underground parking spaces. The following greenspaces will be created:

The space in front of NSH will be converted into green space. It will effectively be a new quad on campus, or perhaps more accurately called a tri — you figure it out. A service drive for emergency vehicles needs to remain.

To the South of the Gates Center the top of the garage will be planted with grass. Furthermore the forest coming down from the cut will be maintained and extended West over some of the space that is currently surface parking.

A “winter garden” will be created between the Gates Center and the Donor-X building and surrounded by classroom spaces The plants will be selected so they bloom in late winter so that it is at its best when students are still around.

A “lawn” will be created between Forbes Avenue and the Donor-X building. This will be visible as you drive along Forbes.

“Green roofs” will be created on top of the Donor-x building and on top of parts of the Gates building. No this does not mean a green painted hip roofs in the Hornbostel Style. It means flat roofscovered with plants.

Many of these spaces are illustrated in the following computer rendering.

Overall the amount of green space on West campus will be greatly increased.

LEED Certification

In regards to other sustainability issues the Gates Center will be at least LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certified. LEED is a national and widely accepted standard based on a broad set of criteria. Basically a project can get points in many categories and can receive either a base rating, a silver rating, a gold rating, or a platinum rating. Currently only about 20 buildings in the State are certified Silver or better, including three on our campus. It is our hope that we will actually achieve Gold rating. This would go beyond any building on our campus. Features that will help give the project the rating include:

reuse of materials generated during demolition

enthalpy wheels in the Heating/Air Coniditioning system

reuse of gray water (e.g. using rain runoff for toilets)

CO2 sensors to control air flow volume in individual spaces

plenty of natural light to reduce the need for electrical lights

replacement of surface lots with greenspace

“green” roofs (i.e. plantings on the roofs, not green paint)

Is this everything we can do? Probably not and the project will continue exploring ways to make the building more environmentally friendly within the bounds of the budget. Suggestions are welcome.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 17th, 2006 at 12:16 am and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.