By Ben Markley
The Student Sustainability Committee is pushing a project to construct a new building unlike any other on campus.
Jay Antle, executive director of Sustainability, said that Galileo’s Pavilion, the tentative name of the building proposal, would be a product of Studio 804. Studio 804 is a graduate-level architecture problem at the University of Kansas. The capstone project for the Master’s program is to construct a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum building.
President Terry Calaway said the new building would not only provide more classrooms but be a student gathering place.
“When students look for a place to kind of gather together and meet with colleagues or fellow students, there aren’t a lot of those kinds of places to engage,” Calaway said. “[Galileo’s Pavilion] would be kind of the center of the campus and a place where students would get better connected to each other.”
Antle said with the free labor of KU graduate students, the building will cost about $700,000. He said that by lowering energy costs and increasing classes the building will pay for itself in three and a half years. A normal building’s capital return generally takes 10-12 years.
“You don’t get a chance to get a building like this at this cost very often,” he said.
Antle said the building, if approved, would be built by the end of May and open in time for Fall 2012 classes.
Calaway said the building would be constructed on the south side of campus where Galileo’s Garden is; however, he said the college would not lose any parking.
Kevin Clark, co-chair of the Student Sustainability Committee, said approving the building would be a smart decision for the college.
“[This building] really shows our college’s commitment to sustainability, and fiscally, it’s sound,” Clark said. “This is a building that generates 80 percent of its own energy, and with a $3.2 million electric bill, that’s something this school definitely needs.”
Calaway said that the combined student sustainability fund and energy enhancement funds would sufficiently cover the project’s cost without impacting the budget.
“We have the dollars in hand to do it,” he said. “Now it’s just a matter of where do we go from here.”
Antle said some of the buildings features would include solar panels, solar insulation and possibly a small wind turbine. He said the environment created by the building would be inspirational for students from any department.
“They wouldn’t be ordinary classrooms,” Antle said. “They would be classrooms that would be inspiring, that would lead students to question, ‘How does this building work?’”
Clark said the building would help students become more aware of methods of sustainability.
“We are in a culture that is over-consuming, and we are trying to gear toward a more sustainable approach, for both fiscal and ecological reasons,” Clark said. “It’s something that students need to be exposed to as a culture-shaping force.”
Galileo’s Pavilion would be the first LEED platinum building on campus. LEED platinum refers to a federal certification system that evaluates the energy efficiency of buildings. Platinum is the highest.
Antle said Galileo’s Pavilion was an excellent example of the college living up to its plan to be a learning lab.
“That’s what this campus building is: a living, learning lab,” Antle said.
The building proposal is currently going through board subcommittees. Antle said the Board of Trustees will decide on it within the next month.
Contact Ben Markley, news editor, at bmarkle2@stumail.jccc.edu.
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