September
10, 2004
Two
MHC Buildings Garner LEED Award for Green Design
Photo
by Jim Gipe
Blanchard
atrium |
The
Mount Holyoke College Science Center, a new facility that reflects
the latest and best thinking in teaching and research, and Blanchard
Campus Center, an expanded and renovated building that blends
the historic with the contemporary, have both been recognized
by the United States Green Building Council for their environmentally
responsible designs.
Both Blanchard and the Science Center have been awarded certification under the
USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building
Rating System, which was established in 1999 to accelerate the development and
implementation of green building practices. The USGBC is the nation’s foremost
coalition of leaders from across the building industry working to promote buildings
that are environmentally responsible, profitable, and healthy places in which
to live and work.
“The LEED program was a natural fit for the College, given our longstanding
commitment to environmental stewardship and the aspirations we articulated in
The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2010,” said President Joanne V. Creighton, referring
to the College’s seven-year planning document. “We could not have
earned this important recognition without the sustained focus and hard work of
facilities management as well as many others around campus. I’m truly proud
of what we accomplished, and I hope other institutions will follow our lead in
incorporating environmentally sound practices for the common good.”
The Science Center, completed in the fall of 2003 at a cost of $34.5 million,
is one of the nation’s first LEED-certified science centers. In fact, the
Science Center and Blanchard, a turn-of-the-century building that reopened in
September 2003 after an $18.7-million, 15-month reconstruction and renovation
project, were among the first nine projects registered for LEED certification;
today, there are 126 certified building projects worldwide, with another 1,453
registered with the USGBC.
“We are on the cutting edge,” said John Bryant, the College’s
director of facilities management. Bryant noted that the Science Center’s
certification is particularly impressive because it is difficult for a building
of that size, physical complexity, and intensive energy requirements to meet
the LEED specifications. “If you get LEED certification for a building
like that, that’s quite an accomplishment,” he said. “Every
effort was made to create a Science Center that has as little impact on the environment
as possible. We at the College are committed to being good stewards of the environment.”
Photo
by Jim Gipe
Kendade
atrium |
Bryant congratulated Cutler Associates, the general contractor for the Science
Center, and Shawmut Design and Construction, the general contractor for Blanchard,
for rising to meet the many challenges both projects
presented.
The LEED rating system allocates points in a range of categories including
water and energy conservation, recycled building material content, and use
of local materials. The system was developed primarily to standardize criteria
for green building and land use and to encourage and showcase environmentally
sound practices. As Bryant explained, “Five years ago, if you went to a ‘green’ conference,
people could be talking about any number of things—water use, solar power,
land use, recycling. There was only a general understanding that environmentally
sound building practices were involved.”
Proof of compliance with LEED standards is extremely rigorous. For example,
Bryant explained that to earn points for environmentally responsible disposal
of demolition materials, the construction supervisor “had to sort those materials by
kind and document every Dumpsterful.” Another LEED guideline required
that a portion of the building materials be manufactured within a 50-mile radius
of the site to minimize the environmental impact of truck exhaust fumes. Structural
steel for the Science Center project contained 90 percent recycled
content.
Architect Andy Domian of Einhorn Yaffee Prescott, an architecture and engineering
firm based in Albany, New York, was instrumental in the Science Center project,
the firm’s first LEED certification. He commended the MHC staff for their
great interest in and help in the project. “The College should be proud
to have two certified buildings,” he said. “It shows a real commitment
to the ideals of sustainable design and improving not only the environment for
the College’s population as well as the world environment as a whole.”
“Mount Holyoke College’s interest in pursuing LEED certification
for the Blanchard Campus Center project set the tone for the design of the campus
center, and presented a design challenge that MDS was eager to embrace,” said
architect Will Spears of Miller Dyer Spears Inc. of Boston. “LEED certification
for a building renovation and addition such as this was an unusual situation
because, at the time the building was designed, the LEED certification process
was still
relatively new and untested for existing buildings.” The added value that
sustainable design measures incorporated in the design “will manifest itself
in appreciation by the students and employees of
Mount Holyoke College for the College’s responsible stewardship of
its campus, and for a healthier environment,” Spears said.
The Science Center, completed in the fall of 2003, was designed to foster greater
interaction between departments, encouraging new opportunities for collaborative
research, pedagogical innovation, and curricular planning. The new science
facility offers adjacent labs and offices and shared equipment for students
and faculty with overlapping research interests and common spaces for students
and faculty. The center, which contains 116,000 square feet of newly constructed
and renovated science and laboratory space, includes a new hub, Kendade Hall,
that connects three existing science buildings. A $10-million donation in support
of Kendade’s
construction, the largest single gift in the College’s history, was made
with the stipulation that Kendade be a green building. The Science Center brings
together the departments of astronomy, biological sciences, chemistry, computer
science, earth and environment, mathematics and statistics, and physics, and
MHC’s programs in biochemistry and in neuroscience and behavior.
Blanchard, opened in 1900 as the College’s gymnasium and converted to
a student center a half-century later, was gutted and expanded. The building
has a three-story atrium lit by a 60-foot skylight, a new, 6,000-square-foot
north wing that houses the Campus Store, and a 9,000-square-foot Great Room,
a combination dining and performance space with a curved glass wall looking
out over Lower Lake.
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