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Addition to University’s Architecture Design Building on Track for LEED Gold Certification

Words: Ben ArringtonWith water-saving and energy-optimizing features and facilities that encourage students to use bicycles rather than cars, a $4 million addition to the Architecture Design Building that serves students of architecture at Southern Polytechnic State University (SPSU) is on track to earn LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council when it opens in January 2011.

“We are very happy to be completing work on this much-anticipated facility,” said Dr. Wilson Barnes, dean of SPSU’s School of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Construction Management. “It’s going to be a great addition to the campus.”

SPSU opened a number of other buildings this past fall — residence halls, special-interest housing and a new dining hall — and all of them are in line for LEED Silver or better certification. A total of nine projects at five institutions in the University System of Georgia have earned LEED certification to date, and at least six more projects are in the process of being certified, including SPSU’s new student housing and dining hall.

The addition, dubbed Design 2, adds 14,500 square feet to Design 1, which originally comprised approximately 28,350 square feet. Six large studio spaces in the addition are each designed to accommodate 16 second-year students of the Architecture Design Foundation Program. Rounding out the new facility is a 286-seat auditorium/lecture hall capable of accommodating all first- and second-year architecture students.

Architect Cooper Carry designed Design 2 — which is really a separate building connected to Design 1 — with low-flow plumbing fixtures that reduce water usage by 42.5 percent, compared to standard plumbing. The building’s design has also achieved an energy cost savings of 28 percent through the creation of an improved thermal envelope, high-efficiency glazing, occupancy sensors, economizers and high-efficiency rooftop HVAC units. In addition to water-efficient landscaping, the new structure will encourage energy conservation by providing secure bike storage and changing/shower facilities for architecture students who choose to bike to class.

DPR Construction was the contractor for the project.
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