by Steve Erwin, AIA LEED AP, and Tom Kearns, AIA LEED AP

Eco-Friendly Campuses as Teaching Tools

It’s not just recycling bins anymore. Steve Erwin and Tom Kearns talk about the increasing importance of sustainable design and operations for colleges and universities in the Fall 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Higher Education.

The Brody Learning Commons at Johns Hopkins University, which has been packed since its doors opened last August, has something big to celebrate this week: LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council. It’s the first new construction on the school’s Homewood campus to earn this distinction.

The Learning Commons’ sustainable strategies include:

Managing solar gain: Heat gain and loss from the glass curtain wall system was combated by high-performance glass, automated interior shades, and perimeter (hydronic) heating and cooling.
Energy efficiency: While the under-floor air distribution system ...[more]

Shepley Bulfinch’s design of the Anderson University Center at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota has won a Facilities Design Award from the Association of College Unions International (ACUI), it was announced at ACUI’s annual conference last week.

“This award honors more than the design of the Anderson Center,” said Shepley Bulfinch project designer Luke Voiland. “It recognizes the value of a design and planning process that brought everyone to the table.”

Since it opened last fall, the Carol Young Anderson and Dennis L. Anderson Center has become the heart of ...[more]

The transformation of a former Amherst College fraternity house near the main campus into a 44-bed residence hall is now underway, with plans to open in the 2013-2014 academic year.

The 21,000 square foot renovation and expansion of Seligman House, which was built in 1921, preserves the character of the original building and adds a three-story wing that complements it aesthetically. The wood rafters of the original structure are preserved, as are the hewn beams of the living room, along with its wood-burning fireplace.  A patio is nestled in the new ...[more]

Shortly after the buzz around the first anniversary of the opening of the Harvard Innovation Lab, Interior Design magazine announced more good news: a 2012 Best of Year (BOY) Merit Award for the Innovation Lab’s design in the Education category.

Since it opened in late 2011, the i-lab has quickly become a hub for entrepreneurs from across the campus. Ambitions for it are unbounded, as noted in an editorial in the Boston Globe in November 2012, “Success of Harvard’s i-lab could buoy the entire region.”

The Innovation Lab is the second ...[more]