|
Volume CXXXI, Number 23 |
 |
BOC green building
STACY VYNNE
STAFF WRITER
After several years of planning and months of construction, the new Outdoor
Leadership Center (OLC), home to the Bowdoin Outing Club, is expected
to open in June.
 |
| The new environmentally friendly BOC building. (Nicole Stiffle, Bowdoin Orient) |
Several environmentally-friendly features have been incorporated into
its design and construction process, although a number of features were
eliminated due to financial cutbacks. It is hoped, though, that the experience
with this building process will be useful in setting goals for future
project designs on campus.
The architect for the OLC, Richard Renner from Van Dam & Renner,
said that the strongest environmental aspects of Bowdoin's newest building
are site use, lack of air conditioning, natural ventilation, use of day
lighting, and radiant-floor heating.
The original design for the OLC called for 15,000 to 18,000 square feet
but was cut down to a little over 5000 square feet. As Renner said, "The
greenest thing is what you don't build!"
The site was also chosen very carefully to preserve trees and the natural
surroundings by constructing the building close to the road and over an
old faculty parking lot.
Radiant-floor heating will offer energy savings as well as improved indoor
air quality. It works by turning the floor into a large-area, low-temperature
radiator. The high windows and the heat-exchange ventilation system, in
which the warm air inside the building helps to heat the cold air as it
enters, are also energy-efficient designs that will help to reduce heat
loss.
One of the most sustainable materials being used in the building is Trex,
a recycled plastic that replaces lumber normally used for decks.
The building also receives the highest rating in the Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for having over 90 percent
of the building's interior spaces lit by daylight. The kitchen, offices,
meeting rooms, and storerooms will have little need for artificial lighting,
which will assist in reducing the amount of energy used in the building.
The United States Green Building Council has developed LEED to guide
designers and contractors through the "green building" process,
which has three major goals: (1) to minimize energy use and maximize longevity,
(2) to preserve the natural site and ecosystem, and (3) to reduce the
overall impact by using recycled and low impact materials.
Over the past three years, approximately thirty universities and colleges
around the country, including Emory, Mount Holyoke, Cornell, MIT, Oberlin
and Swarthmore, have registered new campus buildings as LEED certified.
Dartmouth requires that all new buildings be LEED certified.
While green building can have higher up-front costs when compared to "non-green"
projects, the operating costs associated with the building remain significantly
lower throughout the building's life span.
Although Bowdoin has yet to use the LEED rating system in the building
process, the College has made vast improvements in becoming a more sustainable
campus in recent years. Some of these modifications include:
-Installation of fluorescent light bulbs
-Continual replacement of exit signs with LEDs (light-emitting diodes)
-Motion sensors in selective bathrooms and libraries
-Recycling stations in dorms and throughout buildings
-Sensitivity to building placement
One of the greatest impacts that humans have on the earth is construction,
maintenance, and occupancy of space. The environmental impacts of buildings,
as listed by the U.S. Green Building Council, include:
-65.2% of U.S. electricity consumption
-greater than 36% of total U.S. primary energy use
-30% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions
-136 million tons of construction and demolition waste in the U.S.
-12% of potable water in the U.S.
-40% of raw materials used globally