For 17 years, Studio 804 has pioneered new technologies and advanced construction techniques to produce one building per year, including four LEED Platinum projects completed to date and two additional projects pending LEED Platinum certification. The studio operates out of the School of Architecture, Design, and Planning’s 67,000-sq.-ft. East Hills shop and fabrication facility, just outside Lawrence. The facility allows for much of the design to be prefabricated, an asset to each project’s intense schedule. It is through the support of organizations and individuals committed to environmental stewardship that Studio 804 is able to continue its service to the community and educate the general public through the use of innovative technologies.
Everybody loves the idea of creating a clean, green world and passing that world on to future generations. People recycle competitively, monitor energy usage dashboards, and approach LEED certification with gusto. Security, on the other hand, is reactive. Most individuals don’t really consider it until an event brings safety to the forefront. Yet both must co-exist on today’s college campuses even though they may be at odds.
Increasing demands for high-performance and sustainable designs are challenging laboratories and research facilities to consider their energy and water usage. Laboratory design is constantly evolving and outdating previous methods due to new building and energy codes, and lab designers are seeking game-changing ideas. This makes innovative design solutions more imperative than ever.
So, why have smart campuses found sustainability such an attractive value proposition? In short, because our customers are demanding sustainability, because it saves money, and because higher education’s ethical license to operate is at risk if we don’t respond to a society beset with myriad unsustainable ailments.
Regardless of the factors driving the continued market focus on environmentally sustainable construction strategies, we have noted some recurring trends that continue to be popular. The following sections will briefly note each of these trends and some of the unique opportunities of their implementation.
Here's how Cedar Rapids Community School District and its team produced a $44.5 million, sustainable headquarters, capable of a 50 percent energy savings, on schedule and below budget.
The $5.6M Gaillard Hall restoration/rehabilitation marks the final project in a $69.85M, two-phase public/private venture that included six additional new structures and a cadet formation plaza, all designed by LAS. Gaillard Hall and two of the new residential buildings — Patriot Hall and Liberty Hall — are organized around the formation plaza to create a military education precinct in the heart of the campus of what is now the University of North Georgia. Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the University is one of only six senior military colleges in the U.S.
Schools that opt to rely upon plans that have been purchased rather than those that have been properly developed to fit local risks, realities and resources are at serious risk for plan failure and are significantly exposed to civil liability. Often refer
If you want to clean for health and do it well instead of winging it and hoping for the best, there's a lot of help available. No person, whether a student, but especially an employee such as a teacher or administrator, deserves a 30-year career in a clean environment.
Less work, good prices and higher-quality goods and services -- sounds great, but it doesn't always work great. While purchasing cooperatives will reduce your workload, there is still plenty of work to do. You have to select the right cooperative
Two successful managers share their advice for taking your custodial services from better to best in terms of getting the job done and keeping the customer satisfied.
Many smaller liberal arts institutions don’t even have secondary server rooms as backups. If an earthquake or flood destroys the single primary server room on campus, an institution won’t be able to issue paychecks or deposit tuition payments. New students won’t be able to register. All of the data stored in the learning management system will be inaccessible to students as well as professors. School may well be over for the year. Because the results can be so dire, more and more schools are building secondary server rooms for disaster backup.
Creating schools that are the center of our communities is one of the key factors in creating 21st century schools. As an amenity for all ages, performing arts facilities are able to actively engage the larger community and accordingly, good planning and design will help ensure that the school and community both can reap the benefits of their investment in these facilities.
Traditional schools were designed when the primary mode of teaching was distributive; teachers provided information and students were responsible for memorizing and repeating the information. All classrooms were identical marching down each side of identical corridors.
Increasing numbers of colleges and universities, however, are adopting more of a change-agent, upstart mentality. Schools such as the University of Rochester, Duke University, and Case Western Reserve University are prime examples of institutions that are finding ways to circumvent the go-slow approach that long has characterized American higher education. The processes and technologies that these institutions develop find their ways into the marketplace as business ventures. And the creation of these technologies leads universities to beef up their own hiring.
As large university systems face tightening budgets, they are restructuring their purchasing operations by consolidating them and leveraging their spending to lower costs. While some university systems such as Indiana University have moved to a complete centralization of purchasing, others have developed other models that allow individual campuses some autonomy over spending decisions.
Old dogs are learning new tricks as adult students return to colleges to enhance their careers or springboard into new ones. However, to attract these dedicated, engaged scholars, there's one question you should definitely not ask.
A Building Automation System (BAS) is what makes an intelligent building intelligent in terms of energy usage. From basic to sophisticated, there's clearly a lot that administrators can do to take advantage of building intelligence to transform their environment.
Whatever the grade level or supplier, safety for budding dancers' joints and durability is paramount. Add affordability and versatility -- that is, a system that accommodates a range of movements, routines and dance genres -- and the right floor.
Why the AV industry and not one of the other building systems trades, such as HVAC or electrical integrators? For one reason, AV professionals are widely recognized as early adopters of new technologies. In recent years, there has been a considerable emphasis on ease-of-use and ease-of-operation. In response, AV programmers, consultants, and integrators have developed unique skills for creating intuitive, user-friendly tools and control interfaces. What users and building managers often do not see is that behind the scenes, to create those seamless interfaces, AV professionals must often corral complex systems that don’t normally communicate with one another — and that’s the crux of the challenge when it comes to integrating disparate building systems.
Armstrong Atlantic State University's lab facility gets high marks for a VAV remedy, which provided much-needed quiet and significant energy savings.