Ribbon Cutting Tmrw: ResLife's Sustainable Community Center
New green building celebrated w carbon footprint cake, chili
Don’t forget about the Community Center Open House this Saturday, October 12th from 2-4PM. An awesome chili bar awaits you as a warm-up and study break! The Community Center is located directly across from the Walker Avenue parking garage if you haven’t been able to stop by yet. This center boasts amazing student space for your use!
There will also be a ribbon-cutting ceremony to welcome this new community space to the campus! There will also be a cake to celebrate its certification as a “green” building on campus with a reduced carbon footprint – way to be sustainable! Hope to see you there!
The Community Center aims to recieve a LEED Silver award for energy effeciency and sustainability, but it usually takes about a year to actually receive the certificate from the LEED Building Council. Some of the key features of the Community Center building that make it to the level of a LEED Silver building are:
·Green roof, having vegetation or special plants to absorb rain water runoff and also helps maintain cooler temperatures on the roof during summer months;
·Compact high tech Variable Air HVAC system yields greater energy efficiency to heat and cool the building versus more conventional systems;
·Exterior wall and roof systems are well-insulated for greater energy efficiency to heat/cool building;
·Windows are insulated with low-E and also have reflectance properties to minimize unwanted solar heat during summer months and still allow some desired solar heat during winter months;
·Programmable lighting controls also control the solar shades to position in ideal position for sun light conditions;
·Roof membrane is pure white to reflect sunlight versus absorb the sun’s energy;
·Daylight harvesting was designed to react to the sun’s light in the larger spaces, turning off certain fixtures automatically to utilize the sun’s light in lieu of power to light the space;
·Low off gas materials and products were used on the interior to minimize or eliminate extensive off gassing of synthetic chemicals found in conventional products;
·¼ of Lot 6 was reconstructed to be a pervious lot that allows water to drain through it and essentially helps clean the water and trap oils or grime from cars beneath he ground locally. Pervious lots do two things: they help maintain water runoff during rains and also help filter or trap particulates in the water runoff before it reaches outfalls that empty into creeks and rivers;
·Energy efficient vehicle parking spaces nearby the building;
·Building structure, skin and interior is largely made of materials that can be recycled at the end of the building’s life cycle;
·Occupancy sensors and dimming controls throughout to effectively minimize burning time of lamps when the spaces within the building are not in use;
·Efficient plumbing fixtures in bathrooms and kitchen area minimize water consumption and power;
·Building has smart metering for easy tracking and measuring building performance related to its energy consumption;
·Exterior skin of the building is designed to be sustainable for at least 50 years without requiring any form of major maintenance or restoration;
·Laundry utilizes high efficiency washers and dryers and is design to utilize 100% fresh outside air intake for dryers;
·Building is designed to have high efficiency supply of fresh outside air consistently throughout the building;
·Carpet is comprised of 70-90% recycled materials with little to no off gassing;
·An abundant of windows were designed to provide an abundant of light within the high use spaces;
·Renewable energy is being purchased by Residential Life to power the building that will help contribute and promote advancement of solar and wind power sources supplying the grid at locations throughout the US.
Posted: October 11, 2013, 5:45 PM