Seminar II: Higher Education New Construction

Description

The campus of The Evergreen State College is 1,000 acres of second growth forest, with higher than average precipitation each year. The main objective of the project was to create an education environment that optimized student learning by leveraging the facility’s connection to the environment through sustainable building features that created ‘outdoor classrooms’. Also, due to the higher than average national rainfall inherent in the site (51 inches per year), stormwater management and other measures to protect the site and create learning opportunities through sustainable design became paramount on this project.

Strategy

Given the heavy focus on mitigating stormwater and integrating classrooms with the surrounding environment, the primary strategy centered around dividing what was initially planned to be one, large flat building into a series of smaller, finger-like buildings emanating from a central spine. This approach allowed for passage through the outdoor environment between classrooms and community spaces. ‘Celebrate Rain’ became the sustainability theme of the design, and rain gardens were created between buildings both to capture stormwater run-off, and to create visual interest between the building perimeter meeting and corridor spaces. Additionally, a green roof became central to the stormwater strategy, and the roof is now 40% green roof. Other key sustainable features include 80% natural ventilation cooling, extensive use of recycled content and sustainable and low/no VOC materials, delivering a resource efficient building with high indoor air quality. First cost, as well as running costs are lower than conventional construction.

Results

The result is an artful, sustainable building that integrates carefully selected sustainable design features to create a supportive and collaborative learning opportunity, and minimize environmental impact by:

• Achieving 25% potable water savings
• Incorporating 98% native species landscaping
• Reducing energy cost by 40% against baseline design
• Diverting 79% construction waste from landfills
• Using 63% locally manufactured materials